Living with Heart: From Birth to Death

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    The Pitfalls are descending steps, one connects to the other with predictable effects.    Some leaders have referred to the descent as a “chain reaction.”    This descent can be stopped at any time, with an intervention from others who the leader listens and healthily responds to, or a cry out from the leader in descent who is heard and responded to by others.    The Five Pitfalls: Work becomes confused with one's worth. Performance begins to be valued more than one's presence. People become things.  To be an example to others, the true self is isolated. Secrets sap one's passion and purpose.    These pitfalls can destroy careers, friendships, reputations, marriages and families—unless one is freed from them.    Pitfall #2: Performance Begins to be Valued More than One's Presence: When a leader's primary personal value is associated with performance, they become someone they are not—"human doings.”    To be present means to be able to present the truth of our inner selves as human beings to others.  Presence is the ability to speak the feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hopes of one's own heart.    People who are actively present can be “in need” and be led.    Performers develop contempt for their neediness. They also eventually develop secret contempt and fear towards the needs of others because they see others as the ones who demand that they perform.    The “ease” of being one's true self is lost in the “dis-ease” or stress of believing that one is only valuable for their performance.   People who are performers can be driven by anxiety A leader who believes that their performance matters more than their personal presence is actually driven by anxiety, more than they are compelled by inspiration or mission/calling.   These performers: compete and compare, more than they are called and compelled tragically believe that they are only measured by their last mistake, or the mistakes they haven't made yet have pride and arrogance, rooted in toxic shame, can drive the leader away from being in need   A leader is expected to be effective and productive  A leader is expected to perform and meet the needs of those they are on mission to help, which is good. However, every leader needs a place to go where they can honestly share their own needs, without toxic shame, and where others can do the same.    Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Leaders Have a Need for Help: Everyone, believe it or not, is created to lead. Everyone who cares about something and is investing themselves in what they care about is leading. Leaders find much fulfillment in serving others.  Whether it's serving as a CEO or a parent, the most significant moments for leaders come when they are giving their gifts, abilities, passion, and creativity.  Leaders who pour out great energy doing what is fulfilling also need to refill.   *Leaders need to be able to receive restoration and replenishment so they can continue to serve well. They refill by being humble enough to know their limits, to recognize their needs, and to ask for help.    I have worked with leaders for more than thirty-five years. I have recognized five common pitfalls that block leaders from receiving the replenishment that is essential to lead well. These pitfalls can stymie a leader's passion and purpose. As a result, the people the leader wishes to help ultimately do not receive what they need.   Pitfalls of Leadership Life is full of struggle, and the struggle is not preventable. Samuel Beckett wrote, “You are on earth. There is no cure for that.” Life's struggles are inevitable, but the Pitfalls of Leadership are preventable.   The Five Pitfalls: Work becomes confused with one's worth. Performance begins to be valued more than one's presence. People become things. To be an example to others, the true self is isolated. Secrets sap one's passion and purpose.   These pitfalls can destroy careers, friendships, reputations, marriages and families—unless one is freed from them.    Everyone always wonders, “What happened to them? How did this self-destruction happen?”   These episodes on the “Pitfalls” are about preventing those questions from being asked. Whether you are a parent, a pastor, a plumber, or a pulmonologist, these episodes are for you.   These episodes are also about what to do when you find yourself in the “Pitfalls” or when the consequences have already impacted your life.   Hope in spite of the Pitfalls: The beauty of life and the beauty of God in our lives gives us the hope of: redemption recovery restoration   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.  God has created “woman” with extraordinary gifts. These gifts that need to be encouraged and  expanded. Women have for centuries been minimized and diminished, sometimes mistakenly using God as the “reason” and “right” to do so.   A man has a responsibility to honor his spouse with encouragement, and with the security that  supports the expansion of her gifts.   Conclusive Main Points of “Understanding a Woman's Heart,” Episodes #63-#69 before sharing the importance of the Hebrew word Ezer, which is used to refer to  women in the Bible  The Need to Listen:  A great sadness in many marriages is that the man actually doesn't truly listen. So often, he is so  “busy” attempting to “prove” himself, “earn” love through performance, and mistakenly  equating being respected with actually being controlling, that he ends up being responsible FOR her rather than response-able TO her.  Episodes #32 and Episode #43.    The man often believes that:  If she has feelings, he has to fix them, rather than listen to them.  If she is in a “mood” or thinking “negatively,” he has to change it, rather than be curious  about her.  If she is behaving in ways that he doesn't understand, he has to stop it, rather than  question her to find out more.  If he is going to be emotionally connected to her and get his own needs met, he must  “read her mind,” which discounts actually listening to what she is saying, rather than  simply being humble enough to believe what she is saying.  Suppression of Expression = Depressing the Heart  If the man doesn't learn the “art” of listening to the woman (Episode #68 and Episode #69) he will be participating in suppressing the person that God created to be fully alive. The “fruit” produced by a woman who is fully alive, will be diminished.  “You are on earth. There is no cure for that.” Samuel Beckett:  Regardless of the mistakes that all humans make in relationship, we are inevitably and  inextricably created for relationship and its benefits. Mistakes and pain in relationship are  always going to be part and parcel of marriage. Each person must be able to relate to suffering and what it is like to be a human being on this earth. Each person must develop great tolerance  for being imperfect. This side of heaven, there is no perfect.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Origins of Understanding a Woman's Heart In this podcast series we have been discussing the dynamics of a woman's heart in relation to a man's heart. The content we have discussed has come from education and research; Scriptural foundations; and even more, from the 1000s of individuals and couples whom I have worked with in a therapeutic setting.   Relationships are a matter of the heart, as much and more than they are an experience of the brain: A woman experiences herself as chosen through the security the man creates for her by being a Redeemer, Protector, and Provider, in that order. She can offer her dependency to the man in an authentic way if he brings these qualities. A man experiences himself as appreciated because he has brought his whole heart to the relationship, allowing vulnerability, availability, and gentleness to lead the internal life of the relationship.  In this way, the foundational needs of belonging and mattering are met through relationship.   The connected couple can build on the foundation of security and appreciation.    This couple will experience the future together, come what may, because their connection and commitment are based in the “pain tolerance” of the heart, not the “pain intolerance” of the brain. The brain seeks pleasure; the heart tolerates the pain of love.   Super Practical “Response-Abilities” After creating a foundation for understanding the emotional and spiritual needs of the relationship, the following reality needs to be grasped: A man's primary job is “customer service”! A man is created to serve others, especially his family.    A man serves best when he does the following three actions consistently: TCB: A man needs to “take care of business.” He needs to pay the bills before the frills. He needs to attend to the place they live, and oversee the management of property and vocation. Stay on Mission: A man needs to stay focused on whatever calling, role, or position he has been assigned to fulfill. In this way, he reinforces his own self-respect and shows himself to be dependable and trustworthy. Do Not Overly Need a Woman: A man does not need to overly need a woman. He must not pressure his spouse to be his constant emotional support. He knows he needs to get his needs met from peers who have the same experiences that all true men risk experiencing. He knows what the woman cannot do for him. Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Origins of Understanding a Woman's Heart In this podcast series we have been discussing the dynamics of a woman's heart in relation to a man's heart. The content we have discussed has come from education and research; Scriptural foundations; and even more, from the 1000s of individuals and couples whom I have worked with in a therapeutic setting.   Relationships are a matter of the heart, as much and more than they are an experience of the brain: A woman experiences herself as chosen through the security the man creates for her by being a Redeemer, Protector, and Provider, in that order. She can offer her dependency to the man in an authentic way if he brings these qualities. A man experiences himself as appreciated because he has brought his whole heart to the relationship, allowing vulnerability, availability, and gentleness to lead the internal life of the relationship.  In this way, the foundational needs of belonging and mattering are met through relationship.   The connected couple can build on the foundation of security and appreciation.    This couple will experience the future together, come what may, because their connection and commitment are based in the “pain tolerance” of the heart, not the “pain intolerance” of the brain. The brain seeks pleasure; the heart tolerates the pain of love.   Super Practical “Response-Abilities” After creating a foundation for understanding the emotional and spiritual needs of the relationship, the following reality needs to be grasped: A man's primary job is “customer service”! A man is created to serve others, especially his family.    A man serves best when he does the following three actions consistently: TCB: A man needs to “take care of business.” He needs to pay the bills before the frills. He needs to attend to the place they live, and oversee the management of property and vocation. Stay on Mission: A man needs to stay focused on whatever calling, role, or position he has been assigned to fulfill. In this way, he reinforces his own self-respect and shows himself to be dependable and trustworthy. Do Not Overly Need a Woman: A man does not need to overly need a woman. He must not pressure his spouse to be his constant emotional support. He knows he needs to get his needs met from peers who have the same experiences that all true men risk experiencing. He knows what the woman cannot do for him.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click hear to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    In Pensées, Blaise Pascal said, “the heart has its reasons which reason knows not.” Healthy love relationships work in ways that we must yield to, rather than attempt to change. After we yield to the ways of love, we still need to learn them.   So much that we miss in life has to do with our hearts not being available to be “touched”: We are often not present enough in heart to be receptive to change or admit need for change.  The vulnerability that moves us to yield to help is mostly associated with negative rather than positive outcomes.  Jesus, however, clearly supports us yielding our hearts so that we can be a part of a yield or bountiful harvest.  Having the vulnerability to change and grow can create an opportunity for great benefits.    In Matthew 13, Jesus shared the story of the “Parable of the Sower” that speaks to us about the power of yielding or being vulnerable, which produces benefits. All relationships of consequence can benefit greatly from our willingness to face, feel, and deal with our hearts so that we can give and receive the love we need and others need.    Jesus also shared the “Parable of the Sower.” “Then he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.'” “The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?'”  “He replied, ‘Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables:'” Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    How We are Created We are created as emotional and spiritual creatures; we are created to do one thing in this life—live fully. But we cannot live fully unless we do so in relationship with ourselves, others, and God.   * That statement means that we must bring our hearts to daily relational life and involve ourselves emotionally and spiritually with others.    Many of us have not learned or have refused to allow ourselves to be vulnerable with how we are created. We tend to “run” from how we are created as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, and hoping people.    Surrender is Good To live fully we have to admit that we are powerless over how we are created. We do not need to run from ourselves; instead, we need to surrender to how God made us.    Surrender actually means to “render over,” as in give something back.    The goodness of surrender is that it returns us to how we are created. It also returns us to needing others and God, who created us to find fulfillment in relationship.    Surrender paradoxically allows us to reclaim our “anger” for life as we face that we are desiring, longing, hoping, wishing, wanting, yearning, hungering and thirsting people. Read my book, The Voice of the Heart and listen to Episodes #19 - Episode #20.   For a woman, to surrender is to know that she hungers to belong and matter through experiencing herself as secure.   For a man, to surrender is to know that he hungers to belong and matter through experiencing himself as appreciated.   Being Chosen A woman's security requires that she experience herself as chosen, as discussed in Episode 65.  She is not chosen on the basis of her appearance only, but on the content of her heart and character. She is chosen for “her.” She is chosen for how God made her. If a woman experiences herself as truly chosen by a man she desires to be with, she will have a strong tendency to appreciate the man who has chosen her.    Security leads a woman to be Appreciative.   Men Must Be Man Enough to Create Security If a woman experiences the relationship as a secure place to bring her vulnerabilities, joys, desires, needs, and struggles, she will experience “heart security;” she will have the experience of being chosen consistently reinforced.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Primary Need to Belong and Matter A woman and a man each have the same need to belong and matter.  Each person is equally responsible for affirming the need to belong and matter of the other person.   Belonging and Mattering differ for a Woman and a Man  Their need to belong and matter is met in different ways. A woman's need to belong and matter is primarily met through security. A man's need to belong and matter is primarily met through appreciation.   A Woman Needs to Feel Secure in order to Appreciate a Man While each person is equally responsible, the man's initiation of security is crucial to create a healthy relationship. For the man to experience appreciation, the woman must first experience security.   Feeling Chosen Creates Security in a Woman The woman's primary security need is met through knowing, feeling, and having faith in experiencing herself as chosen. She is chosen above all other women.  She has confidence in knowing it, feeling it, and having faith in the future related to it.  To be chosen is to know that she has: A Redeemer: a man who can relate to her, grasp her needs, desire the full expression of how God created her, and treat her with gentleness, availability, and vulnerability. Episode #64   A Protector: a man who can create a place of safety and stability that is based on her trust in his integrity, allowing her to focus on being able to love without fear or demand.  A Provider: a man who can provide for her the necessities that quell the fear of her essential needs not being attended to.   This order is very important: It establishes a foundation of what a woman needs most.   It expresses a man's trustworthiness, his capability of relational intimacy, and his integrity. He is known as one who “says what he means and means what he says,” with an inner-focus on bringing his best to who he loves. He has a sense of his own dignity and self-respect.   This description is not about perfection; it is about growth and focus for a man. He cannot be more than perfectly imperfect. He can, though, live inspired to be the man God created him to be, by remaining dependent on God, and by relying on “growth-aid” from other men.    Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    We just concluded a podcast series called, “The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life.”   Although the series applies equally to women, I focused on men for three reasons: Men have a history of losing their focus as leaders, and not recognizing their importance to each other, their marriages, families, and society. There is a great need for men to be “response able” with their power, to avoid forms of being controlling and demanding and/or quitting when things become stressful. There is a need for men to continue to develop the capacities to live with integrity and passion, because society inherently depends upon the character of men to be vibrant.   Good men are essential and crucial to marriages, families, community and society. If good men don't rise, bad men multiply and societies crumble.    “The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life,” also presented a picture of the man that a woman needs and hopes will come into her life.    Every woman (who wishes to be with a man) seeks to: Be cared for by a man who can care. Be rendered secure by a man who is secure. Be protected by a man who will advocate for what is right. Be understood as a feeling creature, as a man knows himself as a feeling creature. Know that a man will give himself to a cause greater than her, without neglecting her.   Women and Men have to face certain realities in life: We are all works in progress. “Clumsy” or imperfect is as good as we will ever become. We are all like giraffes running on ice, as parents, spouses, children, leaders, etc. We have to live life on life's terms. We will have to learn how to struggle, deal with feelings, be in need, face loss and in spite of everything, love! We have to face that everything in life is about practice. Medical doctors are referred to as “practicing medicine,” just as lawyers practice law. We are all practicing daily, as parents, spouses, and people in general. We have to face that it really does take a lifetime to learn how to live. We never arrive at a place while we are living to say, “I know longer have to struggle with being human in an imperfect world.” Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    A man will step into the future, often armed with nothing more than his own vision, because he trusts that the future is where God lives. He steps into the mystery of the future with hope, fear, and faith.   Hope is the inextinguishable flame of life in all of us.   Fear is the feeling that lets us seek out and ask for help with life's struggles and questions.   Faith is the connection to God; and trust that our hope is not foolish, and our fear will be heard. Faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1 NIV)   Movement #1, “The Order of Love,” is the foundation for the other 11 movements. Episode 50    Movement #1 places the man in need of God, who created him and loves him. He is second, and he draws his strength, courage, and caregiving from God. One cannot give what he/she does not have. A man is created to deliver love to others, starting with his spouse and children (if he has them).   A man who trusts God will step into the future with hope, fear, and faith because he trusts that God wants to “grow” or develop him into all that he is created to become. He has also witnessed the experiences of God's presence in his life.   Movement 12 can take us in many directions; however, we will focus only on two: The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10) show us the growth process of God. A process called Johari's Window show us what we need in order to grow.   The Beatitudes present us with a series of growth processes. Each “step” evolves into the next growth experience.    I wrote the book The Perfect Loss: A Different Kind of Happiness about the growth processes given to us in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5:3-10.   Two remarkable things about the paradox of the Beatitudes:   Jesus says that “Blessed” are those who surrender to and submit to a painful growth process.  The gift of the first Beatitude and the gift of the last one is the same gift, implying that a person has grown, much like an acorn grows into an oak tree.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    To download my Free Resources, go to chipdodd.com. Download The Discipline of Restoring, and more, to continue the journey of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well. A leader needs inner strength and inner resources. I offer these resources to help people succeed.   A Man Knows He is God's Masterpiece: Every man is created to lead and needs inner-strength to do so; he needs to know how to get the strength he needs to fulfill his leadership responsibilities. Every man needs God and others to succeed. For his own personal fulfillment, every man needs to attend to his tasks, mission, and/or callings—all synonyms. A “job well-done” is gratifying. Every man (and woman) is created to live fully, love deeply, and lead well lives that others can benefit from long after the man has finished his career. The greatest treasure of a man's life is the value he leaves behind. Every man needs to recognize his importance and dependency upon the God who created him. A man has inherent God-created worth, and he is created to be in need.   What stops a leader from succeeding? Usually, he does not know his value, and he does not know his neediness; therefore, he doesn't develop the inner strength and inner resources to “stay the course” of his mission.    We are God-created; we need to depend upon Him and how he created us.    God created us to live with heart.    God created us as emotional and spiritual creatures, created to live fully through relationship with ourselves, others, and Him, as talked about in The Voice of the Heart and Needs of the Heart, by Chip Dodd.   Addiction takes us away from the heart of how we are created, because addiction is all about “avoiding” and “silencing” the heart.    Four powerful scriptures speak to our worth, our dependency on God who created us, and the importance of the heart: Ephesians 2:10. Psalm 139:13-16. Proverbs 4:23. Psalm 8.   Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) says, “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”   The word “workmanship” testifies to God creating us specifically.    The DNA of the human being is 99.9% identical to all other human beings. We are created 99.9% the same emotionally and spiritually, as well as biologically and physiologically. We have also been gifted with a .01% uniqueness.   Click here to continue to read the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    For a man to lead any organization, family, mission, or task, he needs to trust what he knows. In addition, he needs to be aware of what he doesn't know so that he can grow into becoming all he is created to be.    This man seeks out the abilities of others so that he can accomplish his responsibilities.    No one knows everything, and therefore, we all need others' abilities.   Four Categories of Practicing Appropriate Authority: Every man is a leader if he loves someone, and/or has a goal or mission in life. Therefore, he has authority, which is more about a responsibility than a form of power. A leader definitely needs certain skills to accomplish his responsibilities; just as important, a leader needs to be a competent human being. A leader truly needs to know what he doesn't do well and know his limitations, so that he can reach out to others who have the abilities he needs in order to fulfill his responsibilities. A leader needs to be responsible with the power that is inherent in leadership. The power of delegation. The power of truth-telling. The power of delivering consequences.   Authority comes from the word author, which means that you have been given the ability and responsibility to communicate your assigned “mission.”   There are two kinds of authority Healthy authority is invitational. It grows trust and confidence in the “followers” because they know two things about their leader. They believe he desires their good or benefit, and they know that he is as much a servant of the “mission” as they themselves are. For example, the president of the United States' mission is to serve the Constitution. The truest leader knows that he is serving God as the top authority. Healthy authority invites the full participation of heart, mind, and abilities of a person. Unhealthy authority is subordinating. It is about exercising power over someone. It is inherently threatening because it focuses on “lock-step” obedience even more than the development of a team that can accomplish a mission. Unhealthy authority focuses on “obedient” performance over the full of investment of a person's presence of heart, mind, and abilities. Heart doesn't matter too much in an unhealthy authority system, only abilities.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 

Click here to read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    A man knows what is worth dying for, because he knows what is worth living for.  He can give and offer his life to what matters to him because he knows what he is living for.  He consistently offers his competence and care to the love, the cause, and the mission he is living for. He desires to offer himself as a source of love to the people he loves. He lives with passion, which is a willingness to be in pain for something that matters more than pain.   Because a man has entrusted himself to God's order (as discussed in episode #50, Movement #1), he draws his strength and courage from God. He has a passion that is purposed, and he forms plans of fulfillment accordingly.   Passion >>> Purpose >>> Plan >>>   In reference to Plans, they are as big as the Passion. This means that a man continues to rely on God, because just as his passion is “bigger” than he is, so are the plans that he makes to fulfill the passion. For example, a father, in his old age, wants to see his children living fulfilling and purposeful lives; however, if his children live into old age and live a fulfilled life, he will certainly pass away without seeing the fulfillment of his plans.   Olympians are good examples of expressions of passion with a purpose. They give themselves to something worth being in pain over. Olympians are not a special breed, though very often they are uniquely gifted with certain specific giftings that they multiply with passion and purpose. In other words, we are all meant to be Olympians. We are all meant to give ourselves to something worth being in pain over.   We are all created to give ourselves to something greater than ourselves; this is an expression of being fully alive: producing, creating, shaping, planting, growing, and pursuing.   The man who grasps what is worth dying for invests in so much more than just his name being remembered. He invests in what outlasts him, without the focus on just his name being remembered or honored.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Reminder: “The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life” are not simply steps or a list. They are movements that we live in for the rest of our lives, continuing to grow and learn as we do so. We never finish; hopefully, we grow and learn until we die.   In order for all 12 of the movements to work, it is essential that a man orders his life, as we talked about in episode #50. Man must place God first in his life and himself second. Without connection to God, he will eventually wear out and/or burn-out.   Movement #6 - A man identifies himself with mercy: He knows that but for the grace and mercy of God, he would not be “where he is.” He would not be able to identify himself with The Twelve Movements, and he would not be able to implement them.  Because he identifies his own need for mercy, having received it himself, he tends to be merciful and gentle without being weak. The need for mercy assumes that the man has known/knows feelings and needs, and that he has the humility to admit having feelings and needs. This man knows pain, and he doesn't run from it.   Pain comes from the Greek word pathos, which means feelings.  From our willingness to feel, we develop three other important characteristics that come from pathos:  We develop passion, which is a willingness to be in pain (have feelings) for something that matters more than the pain.  We also develop patience, which means the capacity to wait on our hopes to be realized.  With patience, we can delay gratification.  With passion, we can remain in pursuit of the results we seek.   People who run from pathos become pathological, which means sick. Feelings don't harm us, but running from them does.   The great achievements of life in art, literature, science, medicine, in society in general, have their origin in passion and patience.   Love itself relates to our willingness to have pathos.   Luke 10:25-37 tells the story of The Good Samaritan, a man who identifies with mercy.  The Good Samaritan had empathy, which means he had experienced pain; therefore, he could identify with the another's pain. Since he could relate to pain, he could have compassion for another who was in pain.    Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Movement #5 is a matter of the heart, like every movement of The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life.    When a man walks in the dirt daily: He faces that he does not have control of life, and he cannot see the future; even so, he bravely walks into doing his duty/calling one day at a time.  If he has a vision of love and care for the people he offers himself to, he will go face the daily struggles of not having control; he knows that he is in charge of dealing with life on life's terms.  He maintains and sustains an attitude of courage that requires humility, or healthy shame. He must need others and God.   Philosophy meets real life in tangible ways: Care and Courage: For a man to “walk daily in the dirt,” he must bring care and courage to daily life and expresses what matters to him.  Tangible Action: His philosophy, character, ideas and ideals must have tangible action to be real and true.  Consistently Does: He consistently does what he claims matters to him.   Basically and practically, he takes care of business one step at a time: He gets sweaty and tired, through action of output. He grasps that passion means a willingness to be in pain for what matters. He knows that if he pours out, he must re-fill and replenish, to keep going. He takes responsibility for his self-care, to be able to continue to care.   Without passion, a person cannot truly be successful. It is essential. It means that you are able to feel, care, and ask for help.   Healthy Shame means that you show up daily to do your duty/calling. This requires the help of others. Every man needs the support, wisdom, care, and encouragement of other men. And, of course, a man needs God. We have Healthy Shame when we become aware that we don't have all the answers and need the help of others. Humility is an outcome of Healthy Shame. (Episodes #19 and Episode #20). Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    A man grows in faith:  He matures over a lifetime to live with a “heart” of certainty about God. He knows in his heart that God is always faithful to His promises and is always present in the man's life  He grows in his faith starting with fear, which God gave us to: recognize our need for help hope for an outcome that “saves” me speak our needs face our powerlessness over life express our hopes   By using fear as God intended it to be used (Episodes # 19 and Episode #20), we actually grow our faith, from an infancy to a maturity.    By using our fear to reach out to God with our feelings, needs, desire, longings and hope, we begin to develop a trust in God's presence and action in our lives.   Fear can initiate this equation:  Fear Expresses Hope + Expression of Desire + Risk of Action = Outcomes that Develop Faith   A man needs to grow in:  dependence upon God how God created us how one is uniquely created   As a man (or woman) practices the equation, he finds that “infant” faith grows. In other words, infant faith begins to become “memories” of God's presence in his life.    Through practice over time, a man (or woman) develops a more mature faith that we can call “certainty.”   Infant faith is Hope + Expression of Desire + Risk of Action = Outcomes that Develop Faith.   Maturing faith is having memory of God's presence in the past.   Mature faith is certainty of God's presence even in the most difficult times.   When we feed the roots of the heart (feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope), we grow the fruits of: living fully loving deeply leading well.    The roots of how God created us are expressed at birth. The APGAR (Episode #2 and Episode #3) speaks to how we come into life with rudimentary faith. We naturally reach for connection, safety, and fulfillment with a desire to grow.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights. 

Click Here to Read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Endurance and Perseverance are different: Endurance is the ability to “take the blows” that life delivers. Perseverance is that and more; it is the ability to fight back.   We are created to persevere, but we need to learn how, and we need help to know how. We have to practice asking for help.   A Man Remembers How He is Made:   A man needs to admit every day, with deep awareness, that he is not God, and is created by God. He did not create himself. He was created.   An inspired man, versus just one who is ambitious, knows that he is in service of something greater than himself, a mission that his heart is “called” to.   A man humbly faces his need of God, and he does not attempt to take credit for what he did not create.   Therefore, a man serves a higher authority and a higher purpose than himself, and he orders his life accordingly as was discussed in Episode #52.   In serving a higher authority and purpose, a man contends with three areas of struggle, as part of the purpose of living with passion, intimacy, and integrity. He brings full hearted presence into a society and “world” that often lacks the heart leadership. He brings advocacy; he speaks up for issues and people who suffer in silence or suppression. He brings order into chaos or destructive influences.   No man succeeds alone. He needs the help of others; he needs their encouragement, wisdom, and strength. He also needs God's encouragement, wisdom, and strength to keep him inspired to persevere in his purpose.   Surrender is vital for a man to succeed and persevere. Surrender does not mean defeat. The word means to “render over,” or “give back.”    Much of our society teaches self-reliance and self-sufficiency, when actually a man needs to hand himself over to God, as in surrender himself to God, to be the strength and courage that he needs to live his purpose.   A man who attempts to live self-sufficiently or with self-reliance only needs to surrender to God who can do so much more with His strength in a man than the man can ever do on his own.   The “Living with Heart” podcast series on Codependency is vital to grasping the difference between self-reliance and God-reliance. Episodes #32 - # 44. Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    A man faces and struggles with being a work in progress by admitting and struggling to accept that “clumsy is as good as we are ever going to become.”    Though we carry eternity in our hearts and the picture of perfection in our hearts, we cannot achieve it.    A man faces four realities and perseveres in the midst of them and in spite of them:  Mistakes are inevitable and yet a man continues to pursue living fully, loving deeply, and leading well so that he leaves a positive legacy. We all have to live life on life's terms. Life is tragic and God is faithful. We have to struggle with that conflict, without becoming resigned or giving up. Everything in life is practice. We never get to stop needing to ask questions and learning how to live. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live. Remember that the movements are not a “twelve steps list.” They don't work as an ordinal ranking, checking one off and then going to the next, and then assuming that you are done.   The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life: offer a “path” not a “pill.”  offer a process of how to live so that a man offers his best to who he loves and what he loves.  require that a man submits to the reality of how life works. No one “beats” life or changes how it works.  Samuel Beckett said, “We are on earth, and there is no cure for that.” However, the courageous struggle to succeed in the midst of life's realities; therefore, the twelve movements are not about perfection, but about living with passion, intimacy, and integrity.   A man will leave a positive legacy when he is:  living fully loving deeply leading well This man will exhibit: passion intimacy integrity  A man must bring these three characteristics to each movement.   Remember that God controls the process of life. Listen to Episodes 23 and 24, “Trust the Process” Parts 1 & 2 for a better understanding.   A man or woman, who lives with passion, intimacy, and integrity is a competent person; therefore, a successful person.    Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to see the episode highlight.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life are about a way of living with daily routines over a lifetime. They are about bringing your heart, head, hands, and habits to your relationships and life. We build a lasting legacy one day at a time and one step at a time.    The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life focuses on the invitations, “response abilities,” and opportunities for men to see who they are created to be, so they can do what they are created to do.    A Reminder: We are all created to live fully love deeply lead well.    Both men and women are created with the desire to live with: passion intimacy integrity   Questions to ask yourself about living fully: Am I courageous? Do I bring my “full-hearted” participation to what I am doing? Am I curious? Do I ask questions so that I may learn more? Am I teachable? Am I compassionate? Do I have enough awareness of my own feelings and needs to identify and relate to others? The desire to answer, “Yes” to all three questions means you desire to be a competent human being.    Courage + Curiosity + Compassion = Competence   Men are called to:  “stand-up” to bring order into chaos “speak up” when no one is speaking up for what is just or merciful. “show up” to fill the void or absence of what is good or right. The Twelve Movements of a Man's Life: Movement #1  A Man orders his life following love's code God has directed us, allows us, and moves us to live life with these priorities. The Man's Life The Woman's Life God God The Man (Self) The Woman (Self) Spouse Children Children Spouse Friends Friends Mission Mission If a person is going to love anyone or any place, then they must be willing to suffer and feel all the feelings that come with love.    They also have to ultimately recognize that they are powerless over life. We have choice-making powers, but we don't have power over all the outcomes.   Love is worth it, and it is a contract of a willingness to be in pain.    Love hurts. Think of raising a child—all the concerns, fears, heartaches, joys, struggles, worries, sadness, celebrations, daily difficulties, hopes, and dreams.    A man is given opportunity and a calling to  live fully love deeply lead well   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    The preface to Twelve Movements of a Man's Life is vital because the movements are not just a list of twelve things to accomplish. They are twelve movements that are about a man's whole life. They are processes that interlock and “circles” that join and move a man into wholeness and love and legacy.    The 12 Movements are about a man's character of heart and having actions that match his character in order that he leaves behind a positive legacy.   Men are created to become someone who practices a lifestyle of: Living fully Loving deeply Leading well a life that is worth treasuring by others   These three territories integrated create a positive legacy.   It is vital for a man to practice healthy anger as part of the lifestyle that we will be discussing in the following episodes.    For greater clarity about healthy anger, listen to “Living With Heart” Podcast  episode #19 and episode #20.    Also, read The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd   Healthy anger is a feeling that moves a person to live with passion. Passion is the gift we receive when we live our lives expressing healthy anger.    Passion is a willingness to be in pain for something that is greater than comfort or pain. It communicates that a person values the heart and cares about something greater than his own self-protection, and vulnerability.   Healthy anger moves us to care, hunger, thirst, hope, want, and desire. It moves us to deal with and express the truths of the heart. It expresses our willingness to be vulnerable enough to care about something.    “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)   A man is created to live with passion, even in a world that belittles it and mocks it.   A man who has passion is going to be on mission to accomplish that which he is moved from within to do.    A man is created to be capable of intimacy, or “into-me-see.” In other words, he is capable of sharing the truths of his heart.  He will accept his needs for the sake of mission.  He will accept that he will need help to accomplish his desires.  He will need other men in his life to help stay strong to care for his family.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    This new podcast series, “Twelve Movements of a Man's Life,” is not going to be exclusively for men. We want women to learn and have confidence in seeing and expecting men to be who they are created to be.    I created these twelve movements over 15 years ago when I was in my early 50s. I knew that I was not old enough to present them with assurance, because I had not witnessed them as a “lived experience” yet—even though I knew they were true.    I am now more of a witness to how extraordinarily true and vital they are for our society, for families, for marriages, for mission, for men in community with other men, and for a man with God.    I learned these truths and concepts from the thousands of men, couples, and families that I have worked with while running my treatment center and in my own  consulting/mentoring practice that I started in 2019. This material is the culmination of work that began in 1988, if not before!   These twelve movements are not a list that a person checks off, completes the next step, and then gets his diploma. These movements are actually real processes, or interlocking circles that expand over a lifetime. They are never completed. They only end when the man's life ends.   This episode lays the foundation for the twelve movements to follow:   We are all feeling creatures. We feel, need, desire, long and hope; and we imagine our lives being fully lived related to our feelings. We are all emotionally and spiritually created to do one thing in this life, to live fully (all purpose in life begins from the desire to live fully). We are literally born to find full life in relationship with ourselves (our own hearts and heads connected), with others, and with God. We are not created to “do” life alone. Neuroscience has “caught up” enough to verify and validate what has always been true. We are connection seeking creatures. We come out of the womb looking for who is looking for us. We find fulfillment through connection. Unlike all other mammals, we as human beings can attempt to run from or deny how we are created. We can attempt to use our “heads” to deny our heart's makeup—to avoid vulnerability. We can use our minds to avoid engagement with the feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hopes of the heart. When we do so, we isolate ourselves from each other, our own makeup, and God. We all look to connect in three ways: (a) we all need to belong and matter; (b) we all seek safety and care; (c) we all crave the experience of being fully alive.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Welcome back and Happy New Year's Eve!   We are talking about the real meaning of resolution, what many us set our minds to focus on in the first of every year. We often fail not too long after we commit ourselves to some New Year's resolution. There is a reason we often give up on our promises and commitments to ourselves.    We deal with that today: What sets us up to fail, and how do we actually succeed.   New Year's Day is often a marker day, one in which we look towards the future and ask significant questions: What do I want to happen? What do I want to achieve? What do I imagine? What do I desire?   Out of the answers to the questions, we set up markers and set our sights on getting to the goal lines of our hopes and dreams.    We often fail, not because we lack desire or good intentions. We fail because we attempt to achieve certain things with tools that do not work, starting with a mistaken understanding of what a resolution is.   We have been trained to think that a resolution means that I need to become hyper-focused, and that I need to become bound and determined through will power to achieve the goal. The mistaken teaching actually sets us up to fail.    Failure occurs in the following way: The phrase “bound and determined” literally means to be “tied up” or “bound,” by being constricted, or not free.  I actually become deterred (discouraged) by the very determination I think will bring success.  Being bound means to be tied up, and determined becomes deterred, or stalled, from the very success I have resolved to achieve.  Being tied and deterred is not the way to success.   By going back to the word resolution and grasping its real meaning, we can start down a path of accomplishing what we seek.   Resolution actually means: To re-solve, literally to untie what has become a knot.  Resolve means to re-decide, to untie myself from something that binds me or stops me from having the life I seek.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    “Living with Heart: From Birth to Death” podcast has been downloaded in 49 states and 68 countries. Thank you to all of our listeners. We are very grateful to you and also grateful that so many of you have shared this podcast with family and friends. We hope for many more listeners in the coming year because we deeply believe in what we are offering and how it can do for people.   I have never tired of or even thought I knew all the depths of The Spiritual Root System, even after all the years that I have been talking and teaching about it. We truly are created as emotional and spiritual creatures, created to find fulfillment in relationship. What seems so basic now, to almost everyone, sounded foreign to many, many people in 1991 when I began to communicate the power of surrendering to how we are created.   About 15 years ago, neuroscience research began to validate the material I have been talking about. The material I talk about is ancient, has always been true from the beginning, and is amazingly Biblical.    It is a reliable scientific material, and yet even more, it is faith-based proof of the existence and goodness of God.   We are “heart” people who have the addition of intellect that develops over time after birth.    We are born as “heart” people, and we are all created the same way.    This fact sets the stage for the actions of a loving and moral people. When I look at you, I am looking at myself, in terms of being a feeling, needing, desiring, longing, and hoping creation.    This factor allows me to recognize the benefit of practicing the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12). As our sameness allows us to develop conscience, we can bless each other.    The more we deny our sameness, the more we harm each other. Of course, no matter what, we are going to still need to seek forgiveness; we are going to harm each other.    We have truly entered a new era, one of the heart.    Click here to continue reading episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Click here to read the episode highlights.   Now Available at Amazon The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, & Families is a 24-day devotional that prepares us for the birth of Jesus. It is offered as a free eBook at chipdodd.com, and it can be purchased from Amazon. The Jesse Tree includes daily devotions that start with creation and end with the birth of Jesus.  Each day has a list of ideas for extending the day's “study” and opportunity for fellowship with your family, friends, and God. Your Jesse Tree will be covered in Bible-themed ornaments that will be a daily reminder of the stories you have read and the promise of the coming Messiah. Order now, the devotional begins December 1st.   There are three books that listeners may wish to go to about gratitude:   One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp which I mentioned in the last episode. This wonderful book deals a lot with gratitude that can come from loss and grief.    Gratitude Works and Little Book of Gratitude by Robert Emmons. These two very practical books were written by Emmons, a researcher who has studied the benefits of gratitude, how to develop it, and sustain it.   When we experience life as a gift, then we, as the receivers of the gifts in life, naturally have gratitude. Emmons and others have shown that having gratitude benefits our emotional and spiritual lives, as well as our physical well-being and our prosperity. Gratitude multiplies itself with its impact. When we yield to being in need of others and God, and experience the effect of needing, we receive a yield, or a harvest of benefits.   Not only do we have an expectation of good things in our lives, we also are able to recall good things in times of trouble. For example, recalling or remembering times when we received something good can help us persevere in troubled times. We can hang on to hope because of remembering.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Episode highlights:   Now Available at Amazon The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, & Families is a 24-day devotional that prepares us for the birth of Jesus. It is offered as a free eBook at chipdodd.com, and it can be purchased from Amazon. The Jesse Tree includes daily devotions that start with creation and end with the birth of Jesus.  Each day has a list of ideas for extending the day's “study” and opportunity with fellowship with your family, friends, and God. Your Jesse Tree will be covered in Bible-themed ornaments that will be a daily reminder of the stories you have read and the promise of the coming Messiah. Order now, the devotional begins December 1st.   This is the first of two episodes on gratitude.   The final episode of the year will drop November 26. In this final episode, we will look back over our first year of “Living with Heart: From Birth to Death.”   We will start the new season December 31 with a new episode that focuses on New Year's Resolutions.   What is gratitude and how do we experience it?  Three factors play a part in experiencing gratitude.   Gratitude begins with our needs. God created us with an abundance of needs.    Whether we like it or not, we are “needy” creations of God.   Having our needs addressed and fulfilled is how gratitude occurs.     Our needs cannot be fulfilled without being in need of God and others.   Gratitude is experienced through relationship.   Needs are covered in great detail in: Needs of the Heart by Chip Dodd “Living with Heart: From Birth to Death” podcast, episodes 2-16    The 3 factors that summarize our essential needs are: We all desire to belong and matter. We all seek safety and care. We all crave to experience a full life.   Being in need or being “needy” is not a bad thing or a weakness. It is a human experience over which we are actually powerless.   We are created in ways that we cannot change. We can run from how we are made, but that does not change how we are created.    Many of us are trained to believe that having needs means you are weak.   Most people see having needs as: a weakness. putting yourself in danger of being rejected. a negative experience that can keep them from belonging and mattering. a negative experience that can keep them from being safe and cared for. an experience that will keep them from having a full life.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Congratulations to the 5 Winners of the Chip Dodd Book Bundles! Thank you to all of you who submitted a review of this podcast.   2 helpful, FREE Resources at chipdodd.com: 14 Symptoms of Codependency: A Personal Inventory Return to Being Human: 6 Freedoms from Birth   The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd   Now Available at Amazon The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, & Families is a 24-day devotional that prepares us for the birth of Jesus. It is offered as a free eBook at chipdodd.com, and it can be purchased from Amazon. The Jesse Tree includes daily devotions that start with creation and end with the birth of Jesus.  Each day has a list of ideas for extending the day's “study” and opportunity with fellowship with your family, friends, and God. Your Jesse Tree will be covered in Bible-themed ornaments that will be a daily reminder of the stories you have read and the promise of the coming Messiah. Order now, the devotional begins December 1st.   The reason for this podcast is because for people to have more life, more fulfillment. The things  talked about here, and the materials referred to, are about knowing the language and content of your heart, and what that can do for you. It won't stop pain, but helps you know what to do about it. It certainly doesn't promise perfection or even happiness. But knowing the language and content of the heart helps people develop the ability to live life on life's terms, with all of its heartbreak and heartache that conflicts with our craving for life without tragedy.     Our goal is for people to experience time in this life as Kairos, which means to experience your life emotionally and spiritually, fully participating in living, rather than Chronos, which means just getting life over with, letting the clock run down.   If we don't allow ourselves to live emotionally and spiritually connected, then we have to find an escape or addiction.    Without living in Kairos, we are simply on a race to the grave. Codependency recovery moves us into Kairos.    Because there has been so much misunderstanding about the proper use of feelings, there is a rising backlash against the importance of facing, feeling, and dealing with life by being able to be “response-able” with feelings.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    BOOK BUNDLE GIVEAWAY! We are giving away 5 FREE Chip Dodd Book Bundles! Write a review of this podcast. Submit the review. Take of screenshot of the review. Send the screenshot to bryan@vothcenter.com.     Reviews and emails must be submitted by October 31st. 5 names will be drawn and winners will be announced in November.   The book bundles include: A Signed Copy of The Voice of the Heart The Voice of the Heart Companion Study The Boy and The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, and Families *Bonus: A Set of Ornaments   Dr. Dodd will be leading 1 more seminar this fall:   How to Love a Woman's Heart November 8, 2024 9:00-12:00   For more information or to register for these seminars go to chipdodd.com/seminar   2 new FREE Resources at chipdodd.com: 14 Symptoms of Codependency: A Personal Inventory Return to Being Human: 6 Freedoms from Birth   We offer free resources not to promote, as much as to attract people to come get something that will benefit individuals, couples, families, friendships and society itself. Now Available at Amazon   The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, & Families is a 24-day devotional that prepare us for the birth of Jesus. It is offered as a free eBook at chipdodd.com and it also can be purchased from Amazon. The Jesse Tree includes daily devotionals that start with creation and end with the birth of Jesus.  Each day has a list of ideas for extending the day's “study” and opportunity for fellowship with your family, friends, and God. Order now, the devotional begins December 1st.   The reason I do this podcast is because we want people to have more life, more fulfillment. The things we talk about here and the materials we refer to are about what knowing your heart can do for you. It won't stop pain, but helps you know what to do about it. It certainly doesn't promise perfection or even happiness, but helps people develop the ability to live life on life's terms with all of its heartbreak and heartache that conflicts with our craving for life without tragedy.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    BOOK BUNDLE GIVEAWAY! We are giving away 5 FREE Chip Dodd Book Bundles! Write a review of this podcast. Submit the review. Take of screenshot of the review. Send the screenshot to bryan@vothcenter.com.     Reviews and emails must be submitted by October 31st. 5 names will be drawn and winners will be announced in November.   The book bundles include: A Signed Copy of The Voice of the Heart The Voice of the Heart Companion Study The Boy and The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, and Families *Bonus: A Set of Ornaments   Dr. Dodd will be leading 2 seminars this fall:   Leading With Heart: When Intellect, Willpower, and Goals Aren't Enough October 24, 2024 9:00 to 12:00   How to Love a Woman's Heart November 8, 2024 9:00-12:00   For more information or to register for these seminars go to chipdodd.com/seminar   2 new FREE Resources at chipdodd.com: 14 Symptoms of Codependency: A Personal Inventory Return to Being Human: 6 Freedoms from Birth   We offer free resources not to promote, as much as to attract people to come get something that will benefit individuals, couples, families, friendships and society itself. Now Available at Amazon   The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, & Families is a 24-day devotional that prepare us for the birth of Jesus. It is offered as a free eBook at chipdodd.com and it also can be purchased from Amazon. The Jesse Tree includes daily devotionals that start with creation and end with the birth of Jesus.  Each day has a list of ideas for extending the day's “study” and opportunity for fellowship with your family, friends, and God. Order now, the devotional begins December 1st.   In today's episode we are continuing to discuss how to find recovery from codependency.   Last episode we focused on the equation: H.O.W. + G.O.D. > E.G.O Honesty, Openness, and Willingness + Good, Orderly Direction allow us to reduce the ego or the Easing God Out experience of our lives. It also allows us to rediscover our true self and how to live out of it. The ego is the mask we wear to cover up our vulnerability and neediness, and our boundaries.   This episode particularly focuses on the path of recovery, returning to how you are created and to the God who created you.    Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    BOOK BUNDLE GIVEAWAY! We are giving away 5 FREE Chip Dodd Book Bundles! Write a review of this podcast. Submit the review. Take of screenshot of the review. Send the screenshot to bryan@vothcenter.com.     Reviews and emails must be submitted by October 31st. 5 names will be drawn and winners will be announced in November.   The book bundles include: A Signed Copy of The Voice of the Heart The Voice of the Heart Companion Study The Boy and The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, and Families *Bonus: A Set of Ornaments   Dr. Dodd will be leading 2 seminars this fall:   Leading With Heart: When Intellect, Willpower, and Goals Aren't Enough October 24, 2024 9:00 to 12:00   How to Love a Woman's Heart November 8, 2024 9:00-12:00   For more information or to register for these seminars go to chipdodd.com/seminar   2 new FREE Resources at chipdodd.com: 14 Symptoms of Codependency: A Personal Inventory Return to Being Human: 6 Freedoms from Birth   We offer free resources not to promote, as much as to attract people to come get something that will benefit individuals, couples, families, friendships and society itself.   Episode Highlights:   The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd   Real freedom awaits us in codependency recovery—if we take the risk of hoping and then trusting that a better way of living is on the other side of the risk. We have to admit that we are actually powerless over the symptoms we have talked about. We must admit that we need an emotional and spiritual “makeover.”   We must face that codependency is not a habit, one that we can just change by conscious action only, or mindfulness. It actually fits into the criteria of an illness, a disease.   Medical Definition of Disease: A morbid process (meaning destructive to health), with a characteristic chain of symptoms, of known or unknown origin, that are chronic, progressive, and can be fatal.   The disease of codependency is driven by stress. Many physicians have reported to me that the causes of most of the illnesses that are presented to them are stress-based sicknesses of not knowing how to live. In other words, the patient does not know what to do with or how to process feelings.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    BOOK BUNDLE GIVEAWAY! We are giving away 5 FREE Chip Dodd Book Bundles! Write a review of this podcast. Submit the review. Take of screenshot of the review. Send the screenshot to bryan@vothcenter.com.     Reviews and emails must be submitted by October 31st. 5 names will be drawn and winners will be announced in November.   The book bundles include: A Signed Copy of The Voice of the Heart The Voice of the Heart Companion Study The Boy and The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional for Individuals, Couples, and Families *Bonus: A Set of Ornaments   Dr. Dodd will be leading 2 seminars this fall:   Leading With Heart: When Intellect, Willpower, and Goals Aren't Enough October 24, 2024 9:00 to 12:00   How to Love a Woman's Heart November 8, 2024 9:00-12:00   For more information or to register for these seminars go to chipdodd.com/seminar   2 new FREE Resources at chipdodd.com: 14 Symptoms of Codependency: A Personal Inventory Return to Being Human: 6 Freedoms from Birth   We offer free resources not to promote, as much as to attract people to come get something that will benefit individuals, couples, families, friendships and society itself.   Episode Highlights:   Today we're talking about the last two symptoms of the 14 symptoms of Codependency.   We will close our series on codependency with several episodes about the solutions and treatments for codependency.   Once we see we have a problem with codependency, we need to: admit the need for help. see that there isn't a “pill” to solve the problem, but rather a path and a process. There isn't a quick, easy “fix” for overcoming codependency. The reality of having to take a path, rather than have a “pill fix,” is sad. The reality is that it takes a lifetime to learn how to live.   Codependency recovery is a great path to move us from surviving to thriving.  The question is, “How are we going to live?”   Symptom #13  Restricted Emotional Development Restricted emotional development is grounded in the fear of being labeled as inferior because of what we do not know or have not learned.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Episode Highlights:    “Confusion about Toxic Shame and Guilt”   Codependency is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to deal with. Even though we have been “taught” to rid ourselves of how God made us, it does not give us permission or the right to stay there. It is a sickness that we have, and we have the responsibility to find the healing.   Codependency is the loss of how God made us, with self-awareness, self-trust, self-care, being sensitive to our own true feelings, loss of learning how to respond to our feelings in a healthy way; it is the loss of self-worth—given over to the needs of significant others who are uncomfortable with themselves, or self-rejecting.    Codependency recovery is not selfishness; it is “Self-fullness.” Self-fullness is having enough of who God created us to be that we have the ability to give our gifts to a world in need.   The need to belong and matter is so powerful that we are going to find a way to get those needs met—through suppression or expression.   Expression has to be grown and matured, so codependency recovery does take time and investment.   Each of the symptoms that we have discussed in this podcast is from the work of Timmen Cermak, in his book Diagnosing and Treating Codependency. The descriptions and following work are from my own experiences.   Codependency is pervasive, a pandemic, and all the relief-seeking addictions we can name have their origin and influence in codependency.   Symptom #12  Confusion About Toxic Shame and Guilt Toxic shame is grounded in never being able to do anything “right enough,” or be right enough to be loved, or have the “right” to receive mercy.   In toxic shame the confusion between shame and guilt is birthed in the mistaken belief that I should be able to not mess up; not make mistakes; should not have to need mercy; should be able to be perfect. It is the belief that only perfect people can be loved. If I am not perfect, I am “worth-less” and cannot be loved.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.  

Click here to read the episode highlights.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Emotional recovery is about going back to “ground zero,” your childhood.   A disease is a morbid process that is destructive to the being: body, mind, soul, and heart. It reduces our capacity to be productive and prosperous. Disease has a characteristic chain of symptoms with known or unknown origins. A disease is chronic, with acute episodes, progressive and often fatal.   We are as sick as the feelings we will not let ourselves have.   Symptom # 9 Hypervigilance Hypervigilance is the fear of giving up anxiety that keeps me “on my toes” as a safety mechanism; bad things will happen if I'm not on my toes.   Hypervigilance is being controlled by anxiety. Anxiety is always seeking relief from the hypervigilance. Anxiety becomes the expectation of an external threat doing something to put me in a position of helplessness.   Anxiety is in us to tell us to be ready to take a defensive action, a reaction: fight…get ready flee…get ready freeze…get ready appease…get ready   Anxiety in its negative form is saying “watch outside right now because something is coming that is going to harm you.”  Anxiety is an external locus of anticipation and control.   The anxiety in hypervigilance is about avoiding the confession of being afraid and in need. The anxiety goes in search of the external threat; it looks for danger. This anxiety will not be quelled until it finds the thing that it needs to control in order to find relief.   We are made to live fully in relationship and connection. When we become disconnected from how we are made, because we are made for connection and to live fully in relationship, that has always been there. If I can't find a way to be connected the way I am created to connect, I will have to find another way to be connected, one way or another.    Toxic shame tells you that if you're not doing what others expect you to do (and your discomfort will confirm this), then you will be humiliated and rejected. Toxic Shame says: You better get your role together. You better watch the rules. You better read from your script.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights in full.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.  The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd   In codependency, people hide their competence and giftings in order to belong and matter.   People are generally unable to celebrate well with others.   6. Name the symptom  Enmeshed relationships with controlling people   Identify the fear that it's grounded in  Fear of being alone   Identify the toxic shame that it is birthed in  Unless I please, I will be rejected.   Discuss its impaired expression in our lives (External locus of control)  I wait to see what they want before I can act, and even then, I am uncertain about my feelings and thoughts.   Discuss what it was meant to be (Internal locus of control)  Being in relationship with people who see you as having the same worth, and desire to hear your feelings and thoughts.   “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”  Psalm 139:14   7. Name the symptom  Constricted emotions   Identify the fear that it's grounded in  Fear of being known or the fear of being seen as weak/inadequate   Identify the toxic shame that it is birthed in  If I let myself be known, bad consequences will happen. The past will repeat itself. I will be seen as weak/ inadequate again.   Discuss its impaired expression in our lives (External locus of control)  The need to hide or deny feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope.   Discuss what it was meant to be (Internal locus of control)  Freedom to express yourself wisely with others who can do the same   “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”  Philippians 4:8   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).   Episode Highlights:    Structure of Symptoms of Codependency Name the symptom Identify the fear that it's grounded in Identify the toxic shame that it is birthed in Discuss its impaired expression in our lives Discuss what it was meant to be   Codependency recovery and codependency illness is not an either/or; it's both/and.    Just like addiction, codependency is an attempt to have a full life, without having to be truly human and having to deal with needs, embarrassment and vulnerability. It is both/and as an impaired way of living and an attempt to find full life.   Recovery is developing a tolerance for vulnerability.    Vulnerability is the key to identifying myself as human, having feelings and being in need; and identifying others who are capable of feeling and being in need.   Codependency is the loss of self, and all that comes with self, given over to significant others because they are uncomfortable with someone being human in their presence. So, with our need to belong and matter, we will sacrifice how God made us to belong and matter to those who are actually running from themselves.   Sadly, children don't know that these caregivers are running from themselves because children look at their caregivers knowing that they are big and the child is little. They think, “You must be right because you're big; therefore, I must be wrong.”   The caregiver's toxic shame and defenses, and their protection from their own internal world become a rejection to belonging and mattering for the child.   The origin of how we're created is found in this equation: intuition + suspicion + questions = the growing ability to discern  where I am who I'm with what I need to do   This means I am listening to my internal world.   Intuition + suspicion + questions = discernment.   Intuition + suspicion + defensiveness = judgmentalism. Judging my environment around me all the time based upon making sure that I do not end up looking little, stupid, or weak. This is the fear and toxic shame of vulnerability.   So, your whole life revolves around trying to fit in based upon your performance again, rather than being how you are made. This requires that you ask a lot of questions.   Asking questions is a solution that helps separate us from judgment and return us to discernment.   Click here to continue reading episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).   Episode Highlights:   The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd  A story/workbook for helping codependents find freedom from codependency.   You are gifted, and there is a world in need of your gifts.   Loneliness is the biggest pain that people are facing now. What people need is to be known from the inside-out, rather than distracting ourselves from our loneliness (need for genuine relationship) through social media.   Diagnosing and Treating Co-Dependence by Timmen Cermak   5 Things God designed us to find fulfillment in: We are created to use the development of our inborn self-awareness through feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope to find and live in authentic relationship. ↓ With that in-born self-awareness, we are able to be “response-able” to our inner make-up.  (We're created to develop the ability to respond to our outside life by using our inborn makeup: feelings, needs, desire, longings, and our hope. We need our “makeup” affirmed and confirmed so we can keep being able to use it, so we can grow “response-ably” which ultimately becomes responsibility.) ↓       We are created to find genuine relational connection through being “response-able” and through using our inner self-awareness. ↓ We are created to initiate our lives from our hearts, with others who have the same capacity. (We are looking to connect with others who are also living a life of relational fulfillment. They are aware that we are all 99.9% the same.)   "It's a Small World" ↓ We are created to be in relationship with others, God, God's creation, and the others in it.   When we live our lives fully out of the 5 fulfilments, we are able to be healthy grownups who do what Jesus said in Matthew 7:7.   “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  Matthew 7:7   Matthew 7:7 is for grownups; grownups are just children who have gotten older and who have remained fully present in their lives. Grownups are able to live out of their fully present lives.   Jesus encourages grownups to: Ask so they can receive. Seek so they can find. Knock so the door will be opened to them.   Click here to continue reading episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).   Episode highlights:   The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd   God is a great garbage man; He wastes nothing in our lives.  God values His own creation; He picks up what we throw away, and He recognizes that some things need to be redeemed, repurposed, revitalized and resurrected.   Bring your child-heart to God and give Him your pain, suffering, and your struggle, and even your questions. God can deliver you. He delivers people through circumstances, prayer, His word, other people, and illumination of your heart.   “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength,” Ephesians 1:18-19   Paul was a man who knew that to love, is to suffer. Therefore, he needed a place to take his suffering. Paul refers to God in this passage:   “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”  2 Corinthians 1:3-5   So, we can either choose to believe that while God is good, we still suffer; yet we have a place to take our suffering. We can take it to God, who cares for us. OR We will stifle suffering unnecessarily, and just live miserably.   The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd   “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. ‘Eat and drink!' he says to you, but his heart is not with you.” Proverbs 23:7 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23   Click here to continue reading episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).   Episode Highlights: Codependency is the loss or the sacrifice of:  God-created true self.  self-trust.  self-awareness.  self-worth.  self… in terms of assertiveness.  Codependency is not being able to:  say what you feel.  say what you need.  say what you desire.  trust that your own feelings have validity or accuracy.    We are made for love; we are made to be connected.     In order to be accepted and loved by our significant caregivers, we often end up hiding our own needs. Examples: If I don't like sports, my dad will not love me. If I don't make good grades my mother will be so  disappointed. If I have opinions that are different from my teachers, they will reject me. If I'm not artistic like my older brother, I won't be as loved.   We end up acting a certain way or pretend to be someone we are not in order to be loved. We  eventually begin to “believe” in the pretending rather than being our true selves. We slip into denial.    We perform for love instead of being ourselves.    God designed for us to:  be who we are made to be;  so, we can do what we are made to do;  then, we will have what we are made to have.    In a codependency environment we end up:   doing what we've got to do;   so, that we can have what we're made to have;  and hopefully, if we do enough, we will become somebody.    Codependency becomes the belief that I can perform enough and do enough so that I can finally rest, trust, be believed, have my worth, and be valued.    Codependency is a disorder of distrust. You trust the anxiety. You don't trust listening to your own fear and exposing it.     Sadly, if a codependent person stays stuck in their past and sOll believes feelings are the enemy, they will,  no matter how much they are loved, never trust the love.     Codependency is bringing your “bucket of desire” into life, and your caregivers poking holes in the  bottom of it so that in your future, no matter how much love gets poured into it, it goes right through it.    There's not enough love; there's not enough approval, there's not enough trustworthiness because it all  slips right through the holes in the bucket.    Codependency recovery is about repairing, or healing, the holes in your bucket (revision).    Codependents are always trying to find their fulfillment externally by withholding what's happening in  them internally.    The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd    Click here to continue reading episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).    Episode Highlights:   Links and references from the episode:    Click here for more information about Champion's Path   Chip Dodd- The Boy & the Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency   Melody Beatty – Codependent No More  The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations for Codependents   Brené Brown   Sarah Young - Jesus Calling   Oswald Chambers – My Utmost for His Highest John Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way Of Creating Solid Self-Esteem Healing the Shame that Binds You   “Codependency is the loss of self, self-trust, care, love, assertiveness, given over to meet the needs of significant others, usually very important caregivers.” -The Champion's Path Manual   Codependency is the “need” to sacrifice which leads to the loss of self. I have a “need” to sacrifice what I brought into life so that I'll be accepted and connected to the people I'm made to be with, who are made to love me. So, it's the loss of self-trust, which means losing the ability to really struggle with what's happening inside of me.   Codependency is the loss of self-assertion which is the capacity to stick with what I'm struggling with in spite of what I'm told. Example: We only like you when you perform a certain way.    Codependency recovery is also the capacity to protest. Children have expertise in protesting. When life doesn't work the way they want it to, they protest. Like they have a picture of what it's supposed to be like, they protest. They protest with grief, or they protest with anger. They “pitch a fit.” And, if their protest is shut down, and they are “told” that they're not going to be loved or can't be affirmed, if you're stuck in that, then somehow, we decide that something's wrong with that.   Codependency is: a distrust of feelings. the loss of connection to needs. the loss of a sense of self-worth.    Sadly, self-esteem takes the place of inborn self-worth.    We're born to find fulfillment through connection with ourselves, others, and God. When the true self has to be sacrificed or rejected in order to receive care, then you have to give up the true self, creating what's called a false self.   Codependency is ultimately the creation of a false self that is triggered by the anxiety of not receiving the love that you were created to have.    We end up only trusting our performance instead of trusting that others love us for who we are and how we are made.    The problem with codependency is it's the never ending need to find confidence in being loved.    Sadly, no matter how much we do, we never do trust the love we're seeking.    Codependency is an anxiety disorder. It ends up being a control addiction.    Codependency is also the trigger point of all addiction. We finally give up on trusting that relationship is our answer, and find some counterfeit form of fulfillment.   Click here to continue reading episode highlights.

Episode 31: The Rediscovered Treasure (Part 4)   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).  Episode Highlights   Needs are:  how we're created.  what God works with.  what we have to have fulfilled, or we die.  Our need to belong and our need to matter are more important than food, shelter, and clothing. We will give up food, shelter and clothing in order to belong and matter. The unseen needs are more  powerful than the seen needs.  God gives us the desire of our hearts.    We are born with longings.    We long for justice. (We see a small child lying in a bed in a pediatric intensive care unit with bandages and  tubes, and we cry, “NO!” We don't have to know the child to recognize the injustice of it.)    We recognize that we are not made to die of disease. We're not made to kill each other. We're not made  for war.    We are made for love and peace and eternity and raising each other up.    We are made to experience the grace of a hand that can reach into the farthest depths. There is no mistake  that is so far away that God can't reach us.    We long for a place where we can put our heads against a safe shoulder, where there are arms to go  around us, and there is a voice that says, “It's okay now, it's okay. You can rest now.” We long for a place  called “home,” where God lives.    Longings are deep cravings within our hearts that will never be fulfilled as long as we live on this earth. It's living in the wishing every day. It's living in the wanting forever. It's meeting God every day, and God says,  “One day it will all be complete.”    Surrender your heart every day, and it will change. Walk in the surrender every day. Live in the world of  miracles. Tell the truth and live in the truth. Open your eyes to see the joy of what happens when we walk  in the truth.    If we do not deal with our hearts, we end up living counterfeit lives.   We grow into shriveled, little trees, not oaks of righteousness.  We live lives of shame. (We are ashamed of how God made us)  We lower our expectations.  We don't expect much from people. We don't expect others to show up in our lives.  We have counterfeit fulfillment.  We pursue power.  We pursue mood-altering experiences.  We seek relief.  We plan events in hopes they will make things different/better.  We refuse to face where we live.    We pursue all forms of counterfeit fulfilments instead of believing that God can fill us.    Sadly, we end up practicing hopelessness. We practice hopelessness as a way of not taking a risk to believe  that our heart's yearnings are real. We refuse to believe that our feelings really matter. We refuse to be  vulnerable. We refuse to surrender our lives to the God Who made us.    Click here to continue reading episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).    Episode Highlights   We are born as emotional and spiritual creatures. We are born with feelings.  Before we ever think or speak our first word, we are expressing ourselves as feeling creatures.    We experience life in the very beginning as God made us through our feelings and through the  longings to be in relationship with our mothers and fathers.     We came out of the womb experiencing life through what we feel.     We came out of the womb looking for who was looking for us. We were looking for emotional  and spiritual connection through relationship, before we were ever able to think or speak.    This emotional and spiritual language is the language of the heart.     We communicated from the very beginning of our lives with our feelings.     Hurt  is a feeling you feel when you experience a wound.  is possibly the most embarrassing feeling we carry and experience.  is acknowledging that someone or something “got to me.”   is a feeling that acknowledges that I am vulnerable.    Hurt that is not acknowledged becomes resentment. It is the impaired expression of hurt. It is a justification of your right to act badly towards another person because you carry a pain  that they've given you. Resentment takes us out of relationship.    People who won't acknowledge their hurt, hurt others with their resentment.  (Hurt people, hurt people.)    Loneliness  God gave us loneliness so we would seek out relationship.  We can be lonely for ourselves. There are times when we just need to be alone and have solitude.  We can be lonely to be with others.   There is a loneliness for “home” (heaven, or to be with God) that will not go away while  we live on this earth. We will always walk this earth with some loneliness because we  are not complete. We are lonely for God.    Loneliness that is not acknowledged becomes apathy.     Apathy develops when you try to make your heart stop caring about relationship.   Sadness  is a feeling you get when you lose something that matters to you or is important to  you.  is the feeling that honors; it values what you value.  is a cleansing feeling.   is how you relieve ourselves from carrying the burden of the pain of daily life.    Sadness that is not acknowledged becomes self-pity. Self-pity is a way of trying to escape your  pain.    Click here to continue reading episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).    Episode Highlights   The focus of this episode is a recording of a men's retreat that Chip did in Texas in 1993. The retreat  content was edited and put on CDs. The CDs were included with the first edition copies of The Voice of the Heart published in 2001.     You've got to get defeated to become rich in this “God world”.    God says that what He is after is our hearts. Our hearts that He made, that He created, that He  loves.    “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.    They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NIV)    What is feeding the roots of the tree? Its roots are planted in what feeds it, and it receives emotional and spiritual food.    God feeds our hearts with emotional and spiritual food.     God stamps our hearts with feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope at birth. This is what God is after. This is what puts us into a relationship with the God of our forefathers.   Through our feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope we end up growing into a strong person who others can love and trust.     Torment in our lives does not come from exposing the truth about our hearts; torment comes from the energy we take to keep our hearts hidden.    We are as sick as the secrets we keep within us, from the smallest manipulation to the largest  secret.    The difference between an unhealthy family and a healthy family is the willingness to seek forgiveness. Healthy families seek forgiveness.    Truths:  Pain of the heart is the teacher.  Love is the lesson.  Life is the result.  Sharing that is the practice.   God loves us so much that He will go to any length to get us back. There is nothing we can do to earn it. God doesn't need anything we have.     God does not need us:   He craves us.  He wants us.  He wishes to be with us.    Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Luke 19:39-40 (NIV)    God doesn't need us; We need Him. The price we pay for needing Him is having to go through the  excruciating and glorious pain of being loved, without being able to do anything to get it.    What we can do is live out our salvation. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He came to bring life  and life abundantly.     Click here to continue reading episode highlights from this episode.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com).  Episode Highlights The focus of this episode is a recording of a retreat that Chip did in Texas in 1993. The retreat  content was edited and put on CDs. The CDs were included with the first edition copies of  The Voice of the Heart published in 2001.   The CD intro song is “Capshaw.” The banjo is played by John Balch. It is available on iTunes and  Spotify. John's website is hidebanjoheads.com.  Living With Heart Podcast “Becoming a Portable Sanctuary” Episode 26  The message on the CD is just as true today as it was in 1993 when Chip did the retreat.  Our God absolutely looks toward us, moves into our world, and changes our lives, not a little, but a lot, not as an event, but as a journey.    Our God is not a god of an event; He is the God of the journey and the God of relationship. God is also our destiny.  “Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9 (NASB)  “…Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of  life.” Revelation 22:17 (NIV)  God is in pursuit of our hearts; He is in pursuit of what He created.  “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.”  Psalm 139:13  When we came into this world, we were stamped with the image of God. God made us in His image.  You and I were created to live fully. We were created as emotional and spiritual creatures,  created to live fully in relationship with myself, with others, and with God.   We are made to live fully in 3D.  We're made to feel it.  We're made to seek it.  We're made to hurt over it.  We're made to laugh about it.  We're made to take joy in it.  We're made to hunger, seek, and ask.  We're made for play, and work, and creation, and sharing.  We are made in the image of God! Everything about life is about relationship.  The 18” journey from our heads to our hearts is the longest journey that we will ever take. It is a  journey of wholeness. The journey never ends. If we don't make that 18” journey, we will be a  failure. We will fail within the walls of our own home and we will never be of maximum service. Click here to continue reading episode highlights from this episode.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). Continue reading below for an in-depth review of this podcast.  Episode Highlights Awaken-Awakening is to know and experience ourselves as emotional & spiritual creatures, created to live fully. We do so through relationship with ourselves, others, and God. We awaken to feelings,  needs, desire, longings and hope, or “The Spiritual Root System.” And we awaken to our inborn need  to connect.  Free Resource, The Spiritual Root System  Acquire-Acquiring is to gain the skills of using how we are created to live fully in a life that is  wonderful and yet difficult. We are created to live full lives in relationship with ourselves, others, and  God. In living full lives, we embrace and express our feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope with  others and God. When we awaken and then acquire the skills of living fully, we are moving through  life in the River of Euphoria.  Free Resource, The River of Euphoria  Arrive-Arriving is a reference to us becoming people who are Portable Sanctuaries. People who are  Portable Sanctuaries are people who live in the River of Euphoria and have become safe people  because they offer replenishment to those who are empty. They offer redemption to those who feel  worthless, and they offer restoration to those whose storehouses are empty. We never fully arrive;  we are always growing and learning. But we become more able to be of service.  The Four Essential Questions allow us to remain in the life-long process of Awakening, Acquiring,  and Arriving.  The Four Essential Questions are:  Where am I? (Where are you emotionally? (I feel sad. I feel hurt.)  What am I doing with where I am? (I'm hiding out. I want to run away. I am celebrating.) • What happened? (I dared to try something new, and I got laughed at.)  What was it like? (It was scary and lonely.)  These Four Essential Questions are never summed up or finished completely. They are circles that  are moving forward, headed toward where you are made to go. They continue for the rest of our  lives.   These Four Essential Questions allow us to continue to grow. The answers keep us connected to awakening, acquiring skills, and arriving over and over again.  These questions keep us fully involved in living exactly how we are created to live and move us to do  what we're made to do.  We are created to do one thing in life, and that is to live fully. Meaning, purpose, and significance  develop out of being fully alive emotionally and spiritually. The only way we are going to remain fully alive is through all of the relational experiences we have with others and God.  If you're fully alive:  You will find your meaning.  You will find your purpose.  You will display and receive your significance.  You will be able to give yourself to something greater than yourself.    Episode Highlights - Click here for a complete version of the highlights for this episode.  

Episode Summary: CLICK HERE FOR THE COMPANION STUDY. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ In Episode 26 of "Living with Heart," titled "Portable Sanctuary," Chip Dodd and Bryan Barley explore the concept of being a portable sanctuary, a safe space for others, while navigating life's challenges with faith and vulnerability. They discuss essential practices such as feeling emotions authentically, telling the truth, and building trust, all while reflecting on personal experiences and the transformative power of living cooperatively. The episode underscores the importance of mentoring younger generations and reclaiming our innate connection to feelings, aiming for a revival of the heart in both personal and communal contexts. The conclusion previews the upcoming season, highlighting a special focus on the spiritual root system and the process of awakening, acquiring, and arriving at a life of fulfillment. The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (www.vothcenter.com). Links from the Episode: More on Euphoria River in Episode 18, “Living Fully in ‘The River” FREE DOWNLOAD > River of Euphoria  Chip's Book The Perfect Loss (Amazon) Dr. Chip Dodd  Website  Chip's Free Resources link  Subscribe to Chip's website Follow Chip on Instagram  Facebook Link  Linked In  Find Chip on YouTube Chip's Amazon Author Page   Voice of the Heart Center Website Subscribe to the Voice of the Heart Center website  Instagram Facebook  

Episode Summary: In Episode 25 of "Living with Heart," titled "The Ladder," Bryan Barley and Dr. Chip Dodd discuss the intrinsic nature of healthy shame and the importance of emotional presence from birth. They examine the metaphor of a societal "ladder of success," highlighting its detrimental effects on self-worth and genuine human experience. The discussion emphasizes the crucial role of parents in understanding and meeting their children's emotional needs, and the importance of embracing vulnerability and authenticity. Ultimately, the episode calls for a return to living fully and truthfully, rejecting external validation in favor of inner fulfillment and genuine connection. The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) helping people be who they are made to be so they can do what they are made to do for over 40 years. Also brought to you by The Voice of the Heart Center (www.vothcenter.com). Healthy people get help, and we would be honored to help you. In Depth Show Note (Downloadable Transcript at the Bottom) “The Process”  Feel your feelings, tell the truth about your feelings, and trust God with the process, because He owns the process. Free Downloadable Resource - The Ladder (https://www.chipdodd.com/free-resources-download) The Ladder is a disrupter of The Process. If you get trapped on The Ladder, you will miss The Process and you will miss the actual “arrival” that you're created to have because you never acquired the skills of living fully. We are created for connection; created to find fulfilment through relationship with ourselves, others and God. Parents often want to prevent their children from having to experience the pains of the world, so they teach them to act in an “acceptable” way; they teach them to perform. The result is, children wind up giving up their presence (God given uniqueness) and putting performance in the place of how God made them. We come out of the womb with healthy shame. Examples: I am going to make mistakes. I'm dependent. I can't help but be fully present. I can't help but be in need. I'm a feeling creature. If something is sad or I lose something, I'm going to cry. If I walk into the dark, I need someone to hold my hand, etc.  Webinar on Shame > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Pjb6EsAGI  We are created to find fulfilment through relationship. When this need isn't met through relationship, we will give up our God-given identity and start looking to others to fulfill what they want from us, and claim a false identity, in order to find fulfilment through belonging and mattering.  “Adorning the Dark” by Andrew Peterson “Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.” Psalm 8:2 (NIV) “And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'”  Matthew 18:3 (NIV) Once healthy shame is rejected, once it becomes not okay to make mistakes, once it becomes not okay to be in need, once one becomes distrusting of questions, an unwillingness to risk having answers/ideas, and once we start to have to be more than human, we lose connection with healthy shame. Healthy shame is a dependency feeling that allows us to have the humility to be people who can be of equal worth to other people. We have the same needs. We have the same heartaches. We have the same struggles. We have the same feelings. “It's a Small World” is considered a children's song, but it is so deep and rich. The lyrics are pure and true for everyone, young and old.  https://youtu.be/2rTZ9UndNeI?si=5OhagIXRyS3socj5  When we have to give up, silence or hide our God-given feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope, we lose true connection.  Our hearts express that we are made like other people; therefore, we have the ability for attachment.  Passion is the willingness to be in pain for something that matters more than pain. Children come into the world with integrity that is fully intact. They are willing to be in pain. They hunger for intimacy. They cry when they are sad. They trust that you are who you “say” you are and you want their best.  So, when the way a child is created disagrees with the way they are parented or treated, they will speak up (crying, defying, protesting) until they finally have to give up how God made them in order to belong and matter. This is where “The Ladder” actually starts. The Ladder moves us away from how we are born to answer two essential questions, “Where am I?” and “What am I doing?”      Good parents are always in pursuit of “Where are you?” “Are you ok?”  “What are you feeling?”  “What are you needing?” “How are you doing (internally)?”  Since babies and infants can't talk and express themselves verbally, parents need to see the facial and body expressions of their children in order to know what is going on internally in their child. (Example: They can't tell you where they are hurting, but you can see their tears and trembling hands.) Babies speak a spiritual and emotional language. They are continuously communicating spiritually and emotionally saying, “This is where I am.” (Babies and infants communicate in many ways. They coo, they cry, they hold their breath, they burp, they engage, they reach out, they laugh, they grunt, etc.) As babies grow, they begin to trust moving from “This is where I am with feeling, needing and desiring” to “This is what I'm doing with where I am.” This growth, or “response-ability” leads them to becoming a responsible person. A parent's job is to raise a child to belong and matter simply by being the way God made them to be. Then the child can take ownership of what they're doing with how they are created. (Example: I have sadness but that does not make it ok for me to hit you just because I'm sad.) These two questions are essential for growing into “response-able” people: “Where am I?' “What am I doing with where I am?” A child that is being raised with heart, can answer these two questions. When we lose the ability to answer those two questions, we can't really answer where we are and be confident about it. Also, we no longer know how to take real ownership of what our intentions are (what I'm doing and what I'm planning to do,) and we lose connection with truthfulness.  Then, instead of belonging and mattering by being ourselves, we change the question from “What am I doing?” into “How am I doing?” Instead of “Where am I?” which needs an internal answer. We slowly lose our internal sense of worth and find our worth externally. When this happens, we are only as good as our last achievement; we're only as good as the last time we were applauded; we are only successful and belong and matter as much as the last time we saw you smile. Therefore, we move from inborn self-worth, which is inherent, to needing others to build our self-esteem, which is exterior. “You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.”  Psalm 8:5 (NIV) When a child's voice becomes diminished, he or she loses connection with their self-worth. When we lose connection with our personal presence (our God given uniqueness), we look to others because we still need to belong and matter. We still need to connect. But now, instead of being a feeling creature, we've become a figuring creature. We begin to look at others and try to “read” their faces in order to protect ourselves from their rejection, instead of just being ourselves.  Because we fear the rejection of people who matter to us, we begin to change our behavior in order to belong and matter. We also try to control or change the way they are behaving to make everything more manageable. We begin to let others evaluate us to determine our value, rather than embracing our God-given value that we are born with. Then, the question changes from the two internal questions to an externally answered question, “How am I doing?”  “How am I doing?” is a question that requires a comparison. We compare ourselves to people around us in order to determine our value. We ask ourselves these questions:  “Am I doing enough so they will smile?” “Will they applaud me?” “Will they reward me?” “What else do I need to do to move up the ladder?” “Will they notice me?” So, we lose or give up our personal presence, which is our own recognition of our self-worth, which leads to needing others to build our self-esteem. Anything that can be built, can be torn down. When we rely on others to build our self-esteem, it sets us on a roller coaster of achievement, a sense of “up-and-down” worth that is based on our achievements or lack of achievements. …Now we're at the ladder. The ladder is the thing you climb to prove you're worth something. The ladder is the thing you climb to show others that you are “somebody.”  Then, you end up trying to find your worth on the outside and absorb it, so you can say, “Now, I'm officially someone.”  “Now I officially belong and matter.”  Once we start climbing the ladder: We begin to avoid our own presence (We avoid having to admit that we have feelings.) We begin avoiding the truth about ourselves (We run away from being needy.) Avoid and despise the experience of being dependent (We refuse our need of others.) The ladder is the pursuit of:  Independence from needing others (Free from dependence.) Power (If I can get enough power, then I won't have to be in need anymore.) Being realistic (“It is what it is.” “It's just business.”) You climb the ladder in order to achieve.  “How am I doing?” has to do with what rung of the ladder you're on and how far up the ladder you've gotten. The person below you on the ladder is merely an object of competition, and the person above you is merely an object of competition. You're aways comparing yourself to everyone else all the time and ranking yourself as better, or worse, or not good enough. Comparison is the thief of joy and the thief of genuine connection. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Theodore Roosevelt Comparison always leads us to examining ourselves and comparing ourselves to those above/below us or to those people who are against us. The result is that we can't really be with these people because there is so much dissecting, scrutinizing, judging, and inspecting going on. This leads me to depend on myself--be independent. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” Mark 10:35-37 (NIV) The great delusion is that when I do finally become independent, I've “achieved” enough to say, “I've got mine.” When I do have power, and I have done it by being realistic (“I've got mine, now you get yours,”) then I get up the ladder and into the clouds. Instead of finally arriving at the top, I get past the clouds only to see there is more ladder to climb. I realize that it's just a ladder of achievement. I realize that I have been “tricked” by my life's teachings. I climbed the ladder of achievement and realized there was always going to be “more ladder.” I got tricked.    The best thing that could happen now is for me to experience the one thing that I will do just about anything to keep from happening…fall off the ladder.  For the climber, falling off the ladder is horrifying. It equals “certain death,” which means losing rank. It means losing belonging and mattering. It means not counting anymore, as well as having no value. I become “worth-less” (worthless.) “How am I doing?” is not a bad question. It is a great question if I really want to know how you see me doing, and I'm open to hearing your feedback, versus asking others to rank me and tell me that I'm the best or what I need to do to become the best. Pursuit of the “-est” (the “bestest”, the “mostest”, the “greatest”) is insanity. It is ultimately a hatred of others and a hatred of how I am made. We are indeed created to climb; however, just not ladders. We are created to climb the “mountain of our own dreams.” What does falling off the ladder look like?  The ladder climber will: Lose connection with themselves. Lose connection with others. Wind up attempting to become gods. Become a people pleaser, achievement-oriented, a caretaker, and an approval-seeker. Lose their own identities. Become secret-keepers. Figure out how to get their needs met without being in relationship with others. Lose connection with God. Give up being a feeling creature. Either become sick because they don't know how to feel anymore, or people become sick of them. Falling off the ladder often involves addiction, illness, rejection, waking up to not liking your life, or some other form of hitting bottom. What do you do at the bottom of the ladder? Feel your feelings (a wake up) Tell the truth (a reach out) Give it to the process (a risk of asking for help and accepting it) Learn to ask yourself, “Where am I?” and “What am I doing?” VERSUS “How am I doing?” This will help you move from competition to cooperation. When we return to how God made us and face that we're created to live dependent, we become truthful with how we're made and it returns us to being fully present, and known from the inside out. We begin answering these two questions: “Where am I?” (We admit feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping. This is where I am. This is what I dream.) “What am I doing with where I am?” Answering these two questions requires that others be in our lives. We admit what's going on inside of us, and hope in a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to the wholeness that we're made to live in. People who are living on the ladder are living in anxiety. They are living in the anticipation of the negative while attempting to achieve the positive. (“I've got to get up and go for it.” “I've got to be strong.” “I've got to be somebody.” “I've got to work harder”…) When you live knowing how you're made with others and God, your anxiety goes down, and your potential for embarrassment goes up. This is true because you're seen and known, you're receiving feedback, you're willing to go take risks, you're willing to ask questions, you're willing to make mistakes, you're willing to go fail. You're also willing to succeed, you're willing to be celebrated and grieved over. You're alive to feel again. Ironically, when you become willing to pursue the dreams that you were created to have, and you're willing to take risks with them, you automatically, through that dependency upon how you're made, become independent. Dependency allows you to live fully in the world, but no longer of it. I don't have to get in line. I'm climbing the mountain of my own dreams, pursuing how I'm created to live in fulness with how God made me.  Dependency leads us to being independent from the world, but dependent upon how we're made, Who made us, and who we're made to do it with. Truthfulness is like I am made to live a certain way, and I understand the context I live it in. I live in reality where it's tragic, but that's not going to stop me from going towards my dreams anyway. So, the truth trumps reality, although reality is not denied. Power isn't the purpose anymore. I'm not trying to get away from life, I'm moving fully in it, but I'm empowered now to do it by being fully present. Example: Battle of Thermopylae  Be liberated to become who God made me to be and go do what God called me to do in spite of what the results may be. There is so much pronounced rejection, and parents try to protect their children. Vulnerability is equated with being harmed, but vulnerability needs to be kept, and we learn how to live it in an empowered way, where we selectively decide how vulnerable we'll be according to who we're with. There are so many people against how God made us, that we get on the ladder reactively and once we give up having feelings, the ladder awaits us and the mountain of our dreams is abandoned. As long as there is breath, there is always time for change.  When I hit bottom or a place I don't like, it's not an ending. In the hands of God and others who are in recovery, it is my beginning. Dr. Chip Dodd  chipdodd.com  Chip's Free Resources link > https://www.chipdodd.com/free-resources  Subscribe to Chip's website > https://www.chipdodd.com/free-resources  Instagram link > https://www.instagram.com/drchipdodd/  Facebook link > https://www.facebook.com/chipdoddphd  Linked In link > https://www.linkedin.com/in/chip-dodd-phd-9a6b5a84  YouTube channel link > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP9WpxZNCZ9Xm8CoOHHwzhQ  Amazon Author Page link > Chip's Amazon Author Page   Voice of the Heart Center VOTHcenter.com Subscribe to the Voice of the Heart Center website > vothcenter.com  Instagram > https://www.instagram.com/vothcenter/  Facebook > https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556086675833  Timestamps: 00:00 Lou Lamour, prolific author of western fiction. 06:07 Our purpose is connection and living authentically. 08:24 Emotions are fundamental to human connection and behavior. 15:16 Identity struggle and parental pursuit of children. 21:32 External validation obstructs genuine self-discovery and connection. 24:40 Pursuit of success leads to unfulfillment and disillusionment. 28:18 Seeking honest feedback for personal growth and success. 32:54 Living authentically and embracing the present moment.. 37:23 Small, dedicated groups can overcome overwhelming force. 40:33 Embrace vulnerability, wield it with discernment and strength. Transcript - Episode 25 Transcript Keywords: Healthy shame, human beings, birth, fulfillment, loss of self, creativity, storytelling, Psalm 8, pure expression, parenting, children's emotions, needs, desires, integrity of children, societal expectations, ladder of success, impulsive decisions, pressure to achieve, addiction, denial, disconnection, identity loss, forsaking humanity, living truthfully, dependence, presence, embracing vulnerability, authentic trust, internal struggles, pursuit of dreams, morning writing routine, living from the inside out, performance vs presence, self-worth, external validation, internal locus of control, Christian Counseling

In this episode of "Living with Heart," Bryan Barley and Chip Dodd delve deeper into the concept of trusting God's process and stepping away from the illusion of controlling the future. They discuss the importance of honesty, openness, and willingness (HOW) combined with faith, emphasizing the significance of everyday moments over seeking epic events. Through personal anecdotes and the analogy of symphony, they highlight embracing one's unique traits and passions, the emotional impact of major life changes, and the need for patience and growth in daily life. The episode encourages listeners to surrender to their God-given path, fostering a genuine and fulfilling life journey. The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) & The Voice of the Heart Center (www.vothcenter.com). Healthy people get help, and we would be honored to help you. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 04:15 Trust the promise, embrace the risk ahead. 08:50 Choosing between two terrible options, surrendering to God. 15:29 Honesty, openness, connection, and being Velcro capable. 21:12 Asking questions, seeking guidance, making our choices. 32:01 Embracing your uniqueness invites resistance, risk, hope. 39:15 Parenting requires commitment, love, and anticipation. 45:05 Embracing limitations leads to better outcomes. 51:35 Embrace struggle, find fulfillment in daily life. 56:36 We become portable sanctuaries, giving ourselves away. Keywords: Fear, Control, Surrender, Trust, Ego, Honesty, Openness, Willingness, God, Process, Symphony, Memories, Emotions, Authenticity, Passion, Fulfillment, Voidition, Parenting, Growth, Creativity, Christian Counseling.

In Episode 23 of "Living with Heart," hosts Chip Dodd and Bryan Barley discuss the tension between societal expectations and personal authenticity, sharing personal stories of their own journeys. They highlight the importance of embracing emotions and vulnerability to achieve true fulfillment. Chip recounts feeling the need to switch career paths and the eventual realization of needing emotional and spiritual healing, while Bryan reflects on the societal pressures surrounding success. Together, they emphasize trusting the process, the role of God's kindness, and the importance of acknowledging inherent worth and emotional needs.   Time Stamps: 05:49 Choosing between self-worth and performance-driven life. 08:40 Embrace your true self to find fulfillment. 19:59 Trust the process, value relationships, avoid isolation. 22:50 Winning can lead to addiction, avoid fantasy. 24:18 Life journey of learning, feeling, and becoming. 38:48 Serve the captain and seek righteousness. 42:26 Addiction causes self-mutilation and societal damage. 49:25 Gladness and trust lead to deep sense. 51:11 Feel, tell the truth, trust the process.   The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) & The Voice of the Heart Center (www.vothcenter.com). Healthy people get help, and we would be honored to help you.