Living with Heart: From Birth to Death

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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. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Living Creatively
Relationship with creativity requires that we not only dream and imagine what could be, but we also think about “it” and step into doing something about “it”.
Dream/Imagine > Think/Plan > Do
When a person steps into living in Creativity, the fourth relationship, which we are created to do, they are willing to be vulnerable to hope. 
 
Hope is an action verb that means a person is reaching towards what may not be realized. 
 
Living in the fourth relationship entails risk, making the other three relationships a foundation of security and a place to report to and return to after “pouring out” or “reaching out.” 
 
We need to know our own hearts, the hearts of others and the heart of God to have the foundation and resources to maintain courage in the struggle to create.
 
Many people live lives of quiet desperation by not letting themselves be known, and thus, they never really take the risks of stepping into their own creativity.
 
Many people do everything possible to avoid the possibility of “stepping out of line” for creativity’s sake, to avoid being made fun of, resented, mocked, or rejected.
 
The empty approval for “staying in line” can become the practice of living in the fantasy of doing something, but actually not taking true action. Our need for others’ approval and the anxiety of losing approval can “make” us postpone our lives’ possibilities—sometimes unto death. 
 
People who do “step into” paying attention to how God made them to create, will get hurt more, sometimes feel very lonely, will have periods of sadness, because that is the price we pay to fulfill how God created us—to live fully, love deeply, and lead well in a broken place. 
 
Knowing our feelings and being able to use them is essential if we are to create.
 
Anger is required for creativity to have expression: 
Anger, as referenced in The Voice of the Heart, is required if we are to live creatively. 
 
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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Relationship with Creation
God created us as emotional and spiritual creatures. We are created to do one primary thing in life, and that is to live fully. 
 
Human beings cannot live fully without doing so in relationship with ourselves, others, and God. 
 
Relationship is foundation upon which we build a fulfilling life.
 
Out of relationship we discover meaning, significance, and purpose. These things move us to be creative and productive on the earth. 
 
Being productive is the fourth relationship. This relationship is a natural extension of being in the other three relationships.
 
Just as an apple tree’s roots initiate the production of fruit, so it is with human beings. If our roots receive the relational nutrition that we are created to absorb, the fruit of productivity is a God-created outcome. 
 
Also, as image-bearers of God, we are created to create: 
Psalm 8:6 (NIV) says, “You made him [human beings] ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.” 
We are created to oversee, caretake, steward, and rule over the earth. 
Just as an apple tree is considered to be healthy based upon the apples it produces, so we humans are considered to be healthy based upon our creative response to life, as we live fully, love deeply, and lead well.  
Social interest, i.e., the ability to care and contribute beyond one’s own personal gain, is marked by producing “fruit.” Social interest establishes a legacy of good, truth, and beauty that we “leave behind” us along the paths of our lives. 
Social interest has its foundation in self-awareness, which is the integration of one’s heart and mind.
 
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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Relationship with God
Episode 115 tells the story of a survivor from Auschwitz and the miraculous connection and marriage he makes with the young woman who saved his life after the Allied Forces came into the concentration camps at the end of WWII. 
 
The story reveals:
It reveals the power and presence of God in our lives. 
It reveals the mercy of God amidst the tragedy that we humans have created.
It reveals the continuing witness to how a story can affect us when we hear something that seems to “break through the reality of tragedy” and we find that “hope” is what we cannot escape.
 
We hope for something that pierces darkness, destruction, despair and death.
 
God’s Greatness
God has conquered and continues to conquer all four forces that have come against His light, creative nature, hope, and life itself. 
His light pierces darkness.
His creative nature steps into destruction.
His unyielding presence defeats despair.
His resurrection power conquers death.
 
The Deceiver cannot conquer God’s goodness, love, power and presence in our lives. 
 
Jesus calls us to him as the Shepherd and we the sheep who cannot live without the Good Shepherd:
I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy’ I hve come that they may have life, and it to the full. I am the good shepherd.”
John 10:9-11
 
Dr. Chip Dodd 
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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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Connected to God
In order to grasp experiencing a connected relationship with God, we are often taught that our theology brings us close to God. 
 
While theology offers us an understanding of God, apologetical thinking about God, and cognitive experiences of believing in God, it does not give us closeness to God. 
 
When the anthropology (the study of humankind) of how God created us meets the theology (the study of God) of who God is and how God operates, we can have closeness to God.
Anthropology + Theology = Experiencing Relational Closeness to God
 
Simply put, when the heart of a human being has come to a place of admitting his/her neediness for more than what we can manufacture ourselves, we naturally “cry out.” We “cry out” to have more than what we can manufacture by ourselves. 
This “cry out” from our own neediness opens the door to the “touch of God.” 
 
The Spiritual Root System (SRS) offers a clear description of the heart of humans and the foundation of our anthropology. We are God-made, but we can “run from” facing our need of Who made us. 
 
The SRS describes how God created us to find fulfillment in relationship. 
 
The SRS also describes how our anthropology attaches to a theology that begins with the need for an “Omni-relational” God. 
God created us to find fulfillment in relationship. 
 
God desires to have relationship with us as His people. 
 
The heart of the human being is the “attachment” center. If the heart is not available, then relational intimacy with God or anyone else is not possible.
 
Proverbs 4:23 speaks to the value of the heart:
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (NIV)
Every feeling, every need, all desire, our longings, and our hope come from the heart.
 
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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
What is a friend? 
 
A friend is someone who cuts your sorrows in half and doubles your joy. 
A friend is someone whose sorrows you cut in half and you double their joy.
 
If a person has three people in their life right now who fit this description, that person is very blessed.
 
You cannot have too many genuine friends. 
 
For friendship to develop, it requires:
time
truth-telling
trust
experiences
 
You cannot develop friendships with a lot of people because of the limitations of time and the requirements of daily life.
 
You can be a pastor, politician, or public figure and have thousands of acquaintances, experiences, and do a lot of good, and still not have that confidant, the person in the night you can reach out to.
 
You can have lots of genuine friends over a lifetime, and if you live long enough, you will have many people you carry in your heart who are friends. You remember them, and can recall life together if you ever meet again.
 
You have friends if you are available in heart to have them.
 
Ultimately, a friend is a person who desires your good. If you desire others’ good, you are available to have a lot of friends over a lifetime. 
 
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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Relationship with others
 
Neuroscience research points out very clearly that we are connection seeking creatures. We are born to “look for who is looking for us.” 
 
In the Voice of the Heart, which came out years before neuroscience research validated Dr Dodd’s work, he writes that we are created by God to seek life to the full, but we can only find that fulfillment in relationship with ourselves (head and heart connected), with other, and with God. 
 
Relational fulfillment is a dictate of our emotional and spiritual genetics. This genetic makeup is so powerful that we will seek a sense of connection that relationship brings in legitimate forms or in illegitimate ways as other episodes have explained, like the recent Addiction Series, Episodes 97-110.
 
So much of life is about the benefits of relational fulfillment that even the word share means that you receive from others initially, so that you can offer the gifts you have to others—whether that be the flowers you have grown; the experiences you have had; or the love you have received.
 
We cannot give what we do not have; therefore, we must be open to all that relational fulfillment can offer us, so that we have much to offer others. 
 
Research has shown that gratitude for receiving allows a person to increase their sense of gratitude by giving.
 
There exists a “child-like” willingness that a person must have to live fully, because relational fulfillment with another person requires that we be:
Truthful enough to be trustworthy.
Teachable enough to learn how to care well.
Humble enough to be open to being relational.
Brave enough to face our needs.
 
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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Relationship with yourself
These questions can help you become response-able for yourself:
What kind of person am I?
Who knows me?
Who do I love, and how vulnerably do I love?
Am I emotionally and spiritually genuine with God and a few others?
Do I use my mind to articulate the truths of my own heart?
Can I seek forgiveness, offer mercy, and forgive?
 
Christianity is truly a religion of growth. Jesus said, “The thief come only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10, NIV)
 
Christianity is a religion of living fully. This is unlike other religions in the world:
Jesus refers to Himself as a “Good Shepherd” in John 10. 
Jesus will lead us and grow us into becoming shepherds, ourselves. 
Through Jesus we give our hands, heads, and hearts to a “mission” that is worth whatever is required to live fully. 
Through the Spirit of God that indwells Christians, we can live fully through loving fully and leading well. This life leaves plenty of fruit behind.
 
Relationship with one’s self refers to the connection between the “heart” and “head.” 
 
Sadly, many of us are taught to defend ourselves rather than become ourselves. 
 
We use our thinking and reactions to hide the truth of our feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope, rather than use the development of our minds to identify, explore, and express “truth in the inner parts . . . wisdom in the inmost place,” (Psalm 51:6, NIV)
 
We are created to live fully, but to do so, we must feed the roots, so that the fruits can grow in abundance. 
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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Recover is not a pill > Recovery is a path.
Recovery is not a quick fix  >  Recovery is a lifestyle, lived one day at a time.
 
Recovery allows us to live with a “new set of glasses.”
 
People in recovery no longer see life through the “tinted glasses” that denial gives them, but they begin to live in clear reality.
 
A person no longer sees life through the “foggy” glasses of denial, but a person begins to live in reality. 
 
 Addiction
enslaves a person emotionally and spiritually
then begins to harm relational-social life   
finally, it harms the biological-physiological life
 
Recovery FROM addiction is freedom from what enslaves a person, so they can get recovery OF who they were meant to be. 
 
Recovery OF one’s self is a return to the emotional and spiritual human being who finds fulfillment through relationship with others and God.  
 
The Process of Recovery
Recovery requires that a person step into a journey they have never been on before. They need a map and guideposts along the path to know if they are going in the “best” direction.
 
The roadmap for recovery is found in the 12-Steps, a recovery map with guideposts that a person follows with guidance from others. The roadmap can break the “spell” of the continuous circle of addiction repetition.
 
Addiction repetition is like being on a train in your own personal boxcar. It doesn’t matter how one thinks, what one promises, or fantasizes, the train is going where the tracks are laid. Addiction owns the tracks and the train.
 
Recovery requires that a person jump off a moving train. Recovery places a person on their own ship and they sail onto the ocean, where there are no tracks, except for desire, dependence and destination. The recovering person is guided by the compass of the 12-Steps and the north star of relationships, especially God. 
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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Recover is not a pill > Recovery is a path.
Recovery is not a quick fix  >  Recovery is a lifestyle, lived one day at a time.
 
Recovery allows us to live with a “new set of glasses.”
 
People in recovery no longer see life through the “tinted glasses” that denial gives them, but they begin to live in clear reality.
 
A person no longer sees life through the “foggy” glasses of denial, but a person begins to live in reality.
 
While recovery has thousands upon thousands of personal benefits, the personal benefits do not mean that you’re the loved ones will change along with you, join you, or even be willing to participate with you. This reality is called resistance to change.
 
Resistant to change can be in the “main person” who has a clear and primary addiction, or it can be in the “co-addict,” or the one who has enabled, adjusted to, joined in, or “put up with” the primary addiction. 
 
The condition of a “co-addict” is addressed in the Codependency Episodes, 32-44.
 
Resistance to Change
Resistance to change is not rooted in a negative motivation. The soil out of which it grows is about not being willing to be controlled by “forces” that may not want my good. For example, in World War II, the French RESISTANCE fought the German forces from behind enemy lines to keep them from taking over or controlling the French homeland.
 
However, resistance that is an unwillingness to grow or change will yield “negative” consequences. This negative fruit can come from roots of terror, toxic shame, fear of loss, and secrecy. Sadly, this resistance can lead to control addiction. 
 
This control addiction can be in the “main” person or the “co-addict” as mentioned above.
 
The way to assess resistance as positive or negative starts with grasping the meaning of admission and surrender.
 
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). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com. 
 
Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.
 
Recover is not a pill > Recovery is a path.
Recovery is not a quick fix  >  Recovery is a lifestyle, lived one day at a time.
 
Recovery allows us to live with a “new set of glasses.”
 
People in recovery no longer see life through the “tinted glasses” that denial gives them, but they begin to live in clear reality.
 
A person no longer sees life through the “foggy” glasses of denial, but a person begins to live in reality.
 
While recovery has thousands upon thousands of personal benefits, the personal benefits do not mean that you’re the loved ones will change along with you, join you, or even be willing to participate with you. This reality is called resistance to change.
 
Resistant to change can be in the “main person” who has a clear and primary addiction, or it can be in the “co-addict,” or the one who has enabled, adjusted to, joined in, or “put up with” the primary addiction. 
 
The condition of a “co-addict” is addressed in the Codependency Episodes, 32-44.
 
The question becomes, “How do I do relationship with someone who doesn’t want to join me in this new way of living?” 
 
Recovery From addiction processes and recovery OF who I am created to be is a genuine form of authentic life, without running from one’s own heart. 
 
Resistance to change, then, is a heart problem.
 
Addiction in and of itself is rooted in denial, which requires that the status quo becomes the primary focus in relational life, not the capacity to adjust to change.
 
Acceptance of and willingness to change requires the ability to “deny” denial.
Addiction is founded in denial.
Change is founded on “denying” denial.
 
Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.