Living with Heart: From Birth to Death

82 - Keeping Heart: Love's Demand (Part 1)

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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. 
 
Keeping Heart, by Dr Chip Dodd is written in short sections; each section focuses on some dimension of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well a life that leaves a legacy of goodness. It can be used as a daily form of orienting yourself for the day ahead of you or a book to read cover to cover. 
 
Visit chipdodd.com to download a free resource that describes The Spiritual Root System. This resource identifies each “root” of how we are created as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping people who seek to live fully in relationship with ourselves, with others, and with God.
 
A path not a pill
So often, people offer a “pill” (metaphorically or literally) to a person who is struggling with life’s difficulties. The struggle could be anxiety, depression, or addiction. Most people, however, need a path instead of a “pill.”
 
This podcast is part of the path we are created to walk in life’s struggles.
 
The Voice of the Heart, Needs of the Heart, and Keeping Heart, also, are part of the path. 
 
This podcast and the books speak to the need for relationship and its power to help and heal us through relational connection.
 
Communion connects to community
We quickly think of communion as a religious experience only. It also means to share; it is where we get the word community and communication. 
 
We are created to be in communion with each other—a group of people who share the truth of their hearts.
 
In Genesis 2:18, God declared for the first time that something was “not good.” This declaration clearly made reference to a man and a woman. It also speaks to how we are created for fellowship; the fellowship of truth telling about our struggles and celebrations that connect us to each other.
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. 
I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
 
When Adam & Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they not only hid their physical bodies, they also hid their hearts from God. In the cool of the day, God comes to His creation and asks them, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9) This phrase in Hebrew is “ayeka” which is a lament and a question. 
 
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81 - Keeping Heart: Be, Do, Have

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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. 
 
Keeping Heart, by Dr Chip Dodd is written in short sections; each section focuses on some dimension of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well a life that leaves a legacy of goodness. It can be used as a daily form of orienting yourself for the day ahead of you or a book to read cover to cover. 
 
Visit chipdodd.com to download a free resource that describes The Spiritual Root System. This resource identifies each “root” of how we are created as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping people who seek to live fully in relationship with ourselves, with others, and with God.
 
To read a short encapsulation of episode #81, go to pages 28-29 of Keeping Heart.
 
We are created to BE, DO, and HAVE
In order to live fully, love deeply, and lead well lives that leave behind good legacy, we must:
admit that we don’t control how life works.
we don’t have power to change how we are created as relational creatures.
 
We only find fulfillment by living fully in relationship with 
ourselves
others
God
 (The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd) 
 
Surrendering to the process of how we are created occurs through three developmental movements:
Being - who we are created to be as relational creatures. We are created 99.9% like everyone else on an emotional and spiritual level. We seek connection through feeling, needing, desiring, longing, and hoping. We are created to respond to life accordingly. 
Doing - what we are created to do by participating in the actions of producing, shaping, making and caring about creating “good.” We take action in daily life by using our internal awareness; we are “response-able.”
Having - what we are created to experience if we live according to how we are created. We have relationships, connection, provision, bounty, and prosperity. We risk giving ourselves to and attaining the experiences of life that create relational and experiential fulfillments.
 
Be-Do-Have vs Do-Have-Become
If a person is raised in an environment that diminishes his/her essential makeup and places too much emphasis on performance in order to be accepted, the person’s worth becomes wrapped up in the constant need for approval of others and in competition with others. 
 
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80 - Keeping Heart: The Spiritual Root System (Part 2)

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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. 
 
Keeping Heart by Dr Chip Dodd is written in short sections. Each section focuses on some dimension of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well a life that leaves a legacy of goodness. It can be used as a daily form of orienting yourself for the day ahead of you or a book to read cover to cover. 
 
Please visit chipdodd.com to download the free resource, The Spiritual Root System. This resource describes and illustrates the specifics of each “root” of how we are created as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping people who seek to live fully in relationship with ourselves, with others, and with God.
 
Spiritual Rot System (SRS) = Feelings - Needs - Desire - Longings - Hope
 
Basic premise of The Spiritual Root System: 
Feed the roots of a tree, it will grow to produce much fruit. 
Moving the metaphor to human behavior, a child reaches out to be affirmed as belonging and mattering by connecting to his/her caregivers. 
The need to belong and matter is met by his/her caregiver responding by reaching back and affirming and attending to the child’s heart, made up of feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope. 
This process grows the child’s confidence in being created as a feeling, needing, desiring, longing, and hoping creature.
Through the confidence of being able to depend on connection, the child grows into a competent human being, who can use his/her mind to express their heart’s makeup as they grow into their giftedness.
Every human being is gifted and the world is in need of the “fruits” of those developed gifts. 
 
Understanding the connections of the roots:
Reading the “roots” from left to right: 
Feelings awaken a person to needs. 
Needs connect to desire within the heart
Desire moves a person to longings
Longings draw a person toward hope.
Hope will return a person to feelings; hope is wishing or planning to achieve something a person doesn’t know for sure will happen. Hope requires the action of risk, which circles back to the need to deal with feelings. 
The Voice of the Heart and Needs of the Heart offer specific details about The Spiritual Root System, as does this podcast Living with Heart: From Birth to Death.
 
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Season 7: Episode 79 - Keeping Heart: The Spiritual Root System (Part 1)

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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. 
 
Keeping Heart by Dr Chip Dodd is written in short sections. Each section focuses on some dimension of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well a life that leaves a legacy of goodness. It can be used as a daily form of orienting yourself for the day ahead of you or a book to read cover to cover. 
 
Please visit chipdodd.com to download the free resource, The Spiritual Root System. This resource describes and illustrates the specifics of each “root” of how we are created as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping people who seek to live fully in relationship with ourselves, with others, and with God.
 
The Spiritual Root System (SRS) explains:
When we “feed” the “roots” of how we are created, we will grow the “fruits” of a full life, one that blesses one’s self and others. 
We feed the roots through relationship. That is the most complete nutritional support for human beings.
The nutritional support encourages us to “keep heart” amidst an exhausting pace that can wear us out, drain us, and lead us to experience the discouragement of “losing heart
 
Spiritual Root System = Feelings - Needs - Desire - Longings - Hope
 
Feelings awaken us to being fully alive, and they push us toward our needs. 
If I feel, I will need. 
 
For example: 
When a person is sad about a loss, they often need comfort, or they need a listening person in their lives to help them.
When a person is fearful about some difficulty or danger, they often need help to deal with a challenge, or they need to be rescued from a danger.
 
The identification of feelings, leads to the needs of others and God.
 
Having needs lead a person to communicate their desire. Desire moves a person to ask for some form of connection that brings them to greater capabilities of living fully and loving deeply, even when life hurts. 
 
The book Needs of the Heart describes the many essential emotional and spiritual needs that we are created to have met through expressing them.
 
Desire expresses the inborn energy of our craving to survive and even more, to thrive. We desire survival, of course, but we were created for more. We were born to crave a level of fulfillment that we can numb or deny; however, it still remains a part of how we are created.
 
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78 - Out of the Pit: Living in Recovery

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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. 
 
The Pitfalls of Leadership are descending steps, one connects to the other with predictable effects. 
 
Some leaders have referred to the descent as a “chain reaction.” 
 
The 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. 
 
Living in freedom from the Pitfalls is work. It is a daily activity and a lifestyle. 
 
In the Pitfalls, we are driven by what we are running from. Essentially, we are running from: 
Feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope that expose our vulnerability;
Telling the truth about our hearts that expresses our need of others;
Trusting a process that we are not in control of, which expresses our distrust of God.
 
The daily activities that become the recovering leader’s lifestyle are:
Confession - the acknowledgment of my own healthy shame, and need of others and God.
Admission - the full awareness that I do not have control over life, and the more I attempt to get control, the more unmanageable my life becomes.
Surrender - practicing believing and trusting that God has control; therefore, I give myself to God and the way God works, because my attempt to control life hasn’t worked.
Acceptance - the practice of turning my heart and life over to God who cares for me, knowing that whatever happens, God wants good for me because I am loved.
 
Daily activities have to be practiced until we see the results and their benefits; 
The daily practices become a lifestyle. 
The leader eventually desires for his/her life to be different and adopts the new lifestyle because it is “better” than what life was like in the Pitfalls.
 
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77 - Out of the Pit: Returning to Being Human and Productive

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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. 
 
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. 
 
Out of the Pit
Hopeful Truths:
Freedom is not only possible; we are created for it.
The descent into the Pitfalls can be stopped at any time. When the leader who is descending into the pitfalls experiences an intervention from others whom the leader listens to and healthily responds to, the descent can be stopped. Also, if the leader comes to an awareness of his/her descent and cries out and is heard and responded to by others, the descent can be stopped. 
There is a path that takes us out of the Pit; we can ascend. Freedom is not only possible; 
we are created for it.
The people who dare to “come back to life” are some of the greatest blessers in this world:
They have humility and passion. 
They have compassion because of empathy.
They are doers who are relational. 
They are witnesses to what God can do with a person who dares to be in need.
Their “loss” can become many others’ gains.
They are witnesses of John Newton’s hymn, Amazing Grace.
 
That which we think has destroyed us has opened up a future before us. Listen to Episode #26 “Becoming a Portable Sanctuary.
 
The woundedness of the leader, coordinated with their healing, becomes the leader’s newly discovered productivity.
 
Liberation from bondage is available. If there is breath, there is hope. 
 
Recovery from addiction to control begins with:
Confession: the recognition of and “fessing up” to being human, which means that I feel and I need more than I can handle or manage without relational help.
Admission: 
The acknowledgment of powerlessness over life 
The profound awareness that the more I have attempted to do it alone, the more unmanageable my life has become. 
In these two beginning steps, the impaired leader must admit the specific nature of his/her secrets in order to get relief. 
 
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76 - Pitfalls of Leadership: #5 Secrets Sap Passion and Purpose

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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. 
 
Remember that the Pitfalls are descending steps; one connects to the other with predictable effects. 
 
Some leaders have referred to the descent as a “chain reaction.” 
 
The descent can be stopped at any time, with an intervention from others whom 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. 
 
# 5 Secrets sap the leader’s passion and purpose
Once the leader’s true self is isolated, the “getaway” or “cure” is usually a closely held secret. 
     A secret is anything one withholds from appropriate people because they 
     fear rejection, judgment, censuring, or being controlled. 
 
Secrets: 
require a person to withhold emotional and spiritual struggles from the people who hunger to know them and care about them. 
block the intimacy, or “into-me-see,” that is an essential part of human encouragement and fulfillment. 
make a person sick because they are not connected to relationship with others. 
 
At this point, a leader begins to survive in a cycle of work, performance, isolation, and secrets that increase toxic shame and guilt. 
 
To dissipate the shame and guilt, the leader tries to work harder, perform better, which cycles into a repetition of isolation and secrets. 
 
As the cycle continues, a leader will begin to experience symptoms of burnout, depression, excessive anxiety, addiction, and other forms of impairment.
 
Jesus says in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (NIV)
To many leaders who are caught up in the swirl of Pitfall #5, this scripture reference seems like a long-lost illusion. 
 
By Pitfall #5, the leader is far away from everything they had once hoped and believed. 
 
Jesus also says in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” (NIV)
This reference is a living, breathing experience for the leader. He or she is being robbed of every blessing they were created to experience in the passion, struggle, and joy of getting to do what they were created to do. 
 
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75 - Pitfalls of Leadership: #4 Isolation Becomes "Safety"

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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. 
 
The Pitfalls of Leadership are descending steps, one connects to the other with predictable effects. 
 
Some leaders have referred to the descent as a “chain reaction.” 
 
The 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. 
 
#4 To be an example to others, the true self is isolated
 
Leaders often put pressure on themselves to: 
continually be of service
to appear a certain way
to always be an example—as expected by others
 
This demand for perfection sets up a leader to deny his/her own feelings and needs. 
 
Denial does not stop needs, but instead arouses toxic shame when the leader has a need. Isolating the heart from being known from the inside-out leaves a leader hungry to get needs met and yet unable to need people to meet the needs. 
 
An inanimate source of fulfillment can become the “getaway” or “cure” for the leader at this point. Therefore, counterfeit fulfillments for needs take the place of relational fulfillments.
 
Problems that trap leaders are so widespread and repeated that they are considered normal, but they are not.
 
The Pitfalls are not normal, but they are so abundantly common that we can easily relate to them, and often get trapped by them. 
We must not confuse what most people consider as common, with what is normal. 
 
The book Keeping Heart by Dr Chip Dodd is a series of meditative “pearls” on what true normal is.
 
In the description of Pitfall 3, “People Become Things,” the drive for perfection in the leader begins to emotionally and spiritually drain the leader because he/she is not addressing their need for replenishment.
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74 - Pitfalls of Leadership: #3 People Become Things

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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. 
 
The 5 Pitfalls are descending steps. One step connects to another with predictable effects. 
 
Some leaders have referred to the descent as a “chain reaction.” 
 
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 finds freedom from them.
 
People Become Things
Leaders enter the world of doing good because they wish the pain of the world to be treated, bettered, or healed. 
 
However, as the leader slips into the pitfalls: 
the people that the leader wishes to serve become burdensome objects that have to be dealt with
the people that the leader works with become objects that have to be manipulated
his/her family members become burdensome objects of needs that have to be met
the leader who originally planned to benefit others reaches a significant crisis point
they must move into neediness as human beings or fade into despair as “human doings.”
 
The leader whose worth is trapped in work, and whose performance is valued more than their presence shows symptoms of people becoming things
 
They experience “feeling drained” of the passion or energy that had compelled them in the beginning. 
 
Whether slowly or rapidly, the leader becomes restless, irritable, and discontent.
 
Indicators of restlessness and irritable can be overt or covert, but the symptoms are “known” to the leader, but not accurately taken responsibility for. 
 
Compulsivity takes over for “being compelled.”
Blame, projection onto others, and denial are hallmarks of the impaired leader at Pitfall #3.
 
*The family is usually affected first and foremost, before the signs are noted by others who the leader influences.
 
In the name of loyalty the family members begin to take on feelings of “self-blame” and toxic shame that comes with the leader’s self-negligence.
 
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73 - Pitfalls of Leadership: #2 Performance over Presence

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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. 
 
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. 
 
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