Life Wisdom – By Words of Taoism
- Episodes
- 117
- Released
- several times a week
- Latest episode
- Nov 14, 2026
About the podcast
Life Wisdom is a podcast inspired by Taoist teachings, offering guidance on mindfulness and inner peace. Each episode features meditative storytelling, simple practices, and deep reflections to help you reconnect with the present moment. Brought to you by Substack bestseller author Chen Li, from the blog Words of Taoism.
Episodes 117
Making Peace with Anger - Taoism
Anger usually arrives in a few seconds, with a door slammed a little too hard or a sentence we regret before we have even finished saying it.More resources:Free resources, books and more on …
Show notes
Anger usually arrives in a few seconds, with a door slammed a little too hard or a sentence we regret before we have even finished saying it.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Your Body Knows Your Limits - Taoism
The body is where limits become concrete, and it is usually the first to know when you are tiring.More resources:Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/ My …
Show notes
The body is where limits become concrete, and it is usually the first to know when you are tiring.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Finding Your Own Pace - Life Wisdom #68
This episode is about that habit of haste, which settles so deeply into the body that we stop noticing it, and about the possibility of finding again a pace that belongs to us.More resources:Free resources …
Show notes
This episode is about that habit of haste, which settles so deeply into the body that we stop noticing it, and about the possibility of finding again a pace that belongs to us.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Enjoying Your Own Company - Daily Wisdom #69
Someone who has learned to enjoy their own company comes to others with less hunger, without needing them to fill every silence, reassure every doubt or entertain every evening.More resources:Free resources …
Show notes
Someone who has learned to enjoy their own company comes to others with less hunger, without needing them to fill every silence, reassure every doubt or entertain every evening.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
You Are Worth Hearing - Life Wisdom #67
You can feel invisible in an empty flat, and you can feel it far more sharply at a crowded family table, among the very people who are supposed to know you best.This episode is about that second kind of …
Show notes
You can feel invisible in an empty flat, and you can feel it far more sharply at a crowded family table, among the very people who are supposed to know you best.
This episode is about that second kind of invisibility, which settles into long marriages, old friendships and families.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Loving People as They Are - Daily Wisdom #68
Change can happen in a relationship, by a road that starts on our own side of it.More resources:Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/ My Substack Blog: …
Show notes
Change can happen in a relationship, by a road that starts on our own side of it.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Be patient with Life - Life Wisdom #66
Impatience has become so ordinary in this way of living that we hardly recognise it any more, and it passes for the normal speed of life.More resources:Free resources, books and more on …
Show notes
Impatience has become so ordinary in this way of living that we hardly recognise it any more, and it passes for the normal speed of life.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
The Way to Inner Peace - Daily Wisdom #67
Inner peace is not an external calm that must be achieved by eliminating storms. It is like water that settles on its own when we stop stirring it. The wise show us what stirs it, and how that agitation can …
Show notes
Inner peace is not an external calm that must be achieved by eliminating storms. It is like water that settles on its own when we stop stirring it. The wise show us what stirs it, and how that agitation can subside.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Living With Grief - Life Wisdom #65
This episode is about grief, about what it does to us and how we can make our way through it, and also about how we can stand beside those who are living through it.More resources:Free resources, books and more …
Show notes
This episode is about grief, about what it does to us and how we can make our way through it, and also about how we can stand beside those who are living through it.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Worrying Less About Tomorrow - Daily Wisdom #66
When we dread the future, we assume that the sky might fall, and we also assume that we know what would be good for us and what would be bad.More resources:Free resources, books and more on …
Show notes
When we dread the future, we assume that the sky might fall, and we also assume that we know what would be good for us and what would be bad.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
You Are More Than Useful - Life Wisdom #64 - Taoism
When two people meet for the first time, the first thing they exchange is a name, and the second, almost always, is a question: so, what do you do?More resources:Free resources, books and more on …
Show notes
When two people meet for the first time, the first thing they exchange is a name, and the second, almost always, is a question: so, what do you do?
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Living in the Present Moment - Life Wisdom #63
Zhuangzi tells the story of a man who was so troubled by his own shadow, and by the sound of his own footsteps, that he decided to get away from them for good.More resources:Free resources, books and more on …
Show notes
Zhuangzi tells the story of a man who was so troubled by his own shadow, and by the sound of his own footsteps, that he decided to get away from them for good.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
The path to a simpler life - Life Wisdom #62
A life left to itself grows the way an unpruned tree grows, in every direction at once, and it is rarely anyone's fault.More resources:Free resources, books and more on …
Show notes
A life left to itself grows the way an unpruned tree grows, in every direction at once, and it is rarely anyone's fault.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
On Feeling Grateful - Daily Wisdom #65
We are very good at giving thanks and surprisingly bad at feeling grateful, and that gap is worth sitting with, because we tend to assume that the words and the feeling are the same thing at two different …
Show notes
We are very good at giving thanks and surprisingly bad at feeling grateful, and that gap is worth sitting with, because we tend to assume that the words and the feeling are the same thing at two different volumes, when they turn out to be different kinds of thing altogether.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
It's Okay to Spend Time Alone - Taoism - Life Wisdom #61
"Alone" is a word we use every day that has changed its meaning under us, and I would like to spend some time with it, because the change explains a great deal about why so many of us feel the way we feel.More …
Show notes
"Alone" is a word we use every day that has changed its meaning under us, and I would like to spend some time with it, because the change explains a great deal about why so many of us feel the way we feel.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
The Right Timing - Daily Wisdom #64 - Taoism
Today I want to talk about timing. About the sense, which some people seem to have and most of us feel we lack, of when to act and when to wait, when to speak and when to hold back, when a thing is ready and …
Show notes
Today I want to talk about timing. About the sense, which some people seem to have and most of us feel we lack, of when to act and when to wait, when to speak and when to hold back, when a thing is ready and when it needs more time.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
The Need To Be Understood - Life Wisdom #60 - Taoism
Being understood is one of the ways we feel close to another person. There is a particular ease in knowing someone can see the intention behind an awkward sentence, or recognise tiredness in a silence that …
Show notes
Being understood is one of the ways we feel close to another person. There is a particular ease in knowing someone can see the intention behind an awkward sentence, or recognise tiredness in a silence that might otherwise look cold.
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Let a Good Moment be Enough - Daily Wisdom #63
Watch what the mind does with happiness. It rarely just takes it.I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to describe all that as a failure of presence and leave you feeling you have been doing joy …
Show notes
Watch what the mind does with happiness. It rarely just takes it.
I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to describe all that as a failure of presence and leave you feeling you have been doing joy incorrectly. That is not what is happening.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Not Everything Is Meant to Stay - Life Wisdom #59 - Taoism
I want to talk about the story we tell ourselves when something ends. And about the fact that almost all of us have only one story available, and it is a story about failure.More resources:Free resources, books …
Show notes
I want to talk about the story we tell ourselves when something ends. And about the fact that almost all of us have only one story available, and it is a story about failure.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
The Beginner's Mind - Life Wisdom #62
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.More resources:Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/ My Substack …
Show notes
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Making Room For Your Self - Life Wisdom #58 - Taoism
Most of us have promised ourselves, at some point, that we would live more simply.More resources:Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/ My Substack Blog: …
Show notes
Most of us have promised ourselves, at some point, that we would live more simply.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Why Do I Need to Be Liked? - Daily Wisdom #61
Today I'd like to talk with you about something almost everyone treats as a weakness, and which I think has been badly misunderstood: the fact that we care, often a great deal, about what other people think of …
Show notes
Today I'd like to talk with you about something almost everyone treats as a weakness, and which I think has been badly misunderstood: the fact that we care, often a great deal, about what other people think of us.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Why Receiving Feels So Hard - Life Wisdom #57
Somewhere along the way, most of us start keeping score of what passes between us and other people. And in that accounting, a gift or a compliment shows up as a debt. Debts are uncomfortable, so we settle them …
Show notes
Somewhere along the way, most of us start keeping score of what passes between us and other people. And in that accounting, a gift or a compliment shows up as a debt. Debts are uncomfortable, so we settle them fast.
Welcome back to Daily Wisdom.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Alan Watts and the Backwards Law - Daily Wisdom #60
Today, we're going to look at a reversal at the heart of how effort works: the fact that some things retreat from us precisely because we are reaching for them.More resources:Free resources, books and more on …
Show notes
Today, we're going to look at a reversal at the heart of how effort works: the fact that some things retreat from us precisely because we are reaching for them.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Making Peace With Regret - Life Wisdom #56
The question I would like us to sit with is a simple one, and I suspect it has visited almost everyone listening. Why does the life we did not live always seem to have gone better than the one we are …
Show notes
The question I would like us to sit with is a simple one, and I suspect it has visited almost everyone listening. Why does the life we did not live always seem to have gone better than the one we are living?
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
How to become more patient ? - Daily Wisdom #59
Today we're going to sit with a frustration that lives underneath a great many abandoned projects and unfinished changes, the frustration of things that simply take time to ripen.More resources:Free resources …
Show notes
Today we're going to sit with a frustration that lives underneath a great many abandoned projects and unfinished changes, the frustration of things that simply take time to ripen.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Three Taoist Treasures for an Ordinary Day - Life Wisdom #55
What do you reach for when things get difficult?We all have our tools and we carry them everywhere. But most of us have never once asked whether they actually work, because we are usually too busy using them to …
Show notes
What do you reach for when things get difficult?
We all have our tools and we carry them everywhere. But most of us have never once asked whether they actually work, because we are usually too busy using them to evaluate them.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
How do I truly connect with myself and the world ? - Daily Wisdom #58
All week we have been pulling the plug on the things that keep us scattered and half-present. Today we finally turn to what all that unplugging was for, to the body, the world, and the people it was meant to …
Show notes
All week we have been pulling the plug on the things that keep us scattered and half-present. Today we finally turn to what all that unplugging was for, to the body, the world, and the people it was meant to hand back to us, and to how we actually find our way home to them.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Why Am I Lonely When Surrounded? - Daily Wisdom
Never in human history have we been this connected, able to reach almost anyone, instantly, at any hour, and loneliness has climbed steadily right alongside all that connection.More resources:Free resources …
Show notes
Never in human history have we been this connected, able to reach almost anyone, instantly, at any hour, and loneliness has climbed steadily right alongside all that connection.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
Who Owns My Attention? - Daily Wisdom
Your attention is not only wandering off on its own. It is being taken. There is now an entire economy built on capturing it, staffed by some of the most talented people alive, and its whole purpose is to …
Show notes
Your attention is not only wandering off on its own. It is being taken. There is now an entire economy built on capturing it, staffed by some of the most talented people alive, and its whole purpose is to fragment your focus and hold it, because your attention is the product being bought and sold.
More resources:
- Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
- My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
- Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
These are the latest 40 of 117 episodes. You’ll find older episodes in the podcast’s feed.
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