Living with Heart: From Birth to Death

10 - The Need for Touch

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
Episode highlights:
 
Touch is one of our essential needs. 
 
It is important to be able to ask questions.
 
The Needs of the Heart by Chip Dodd 
“The need for touch is one of the deepest forms of fulfillment that we have, and it can be one of the most abused needs that we possess.” (Page 27)
“The child will literally not develop physically according to developmental norms without being touched well.” (Page 27)
“Emotional growth and trust are connected to touch if we’re touched well.” (Page 27)
“Your need for belonging and mattering [is] fed through brief moments of appropriate, caring touch.” (Page 28)
 
Touch is so vital that we cannot truly grow without it. When human beings are only cared for custodially, they can develop a condition called failure-to-thrive.
 
Babies and small children need to be “touched” appropriately and lovingly through:
cuddling
being held
carried in arms, on shoulders, or in a sling
being rocked
sitting in caregiver’s lap
hugging
snuggling
holding hands
brushing their hair
patting them on the back
a genuine smile
a bedtime story
a lullaby
 
Our needs never stop from birth to death.
 
Our toxic shame tells us that we “should” not have needs anymore. 
Examples: 
“You’re 12 years old! Quit being such an attention seeker.”
“That’s not scary. Put on your big girl pants and go back to bed.”
“What are you crying about? Dry those tears up and quit acting like a baby.”
“There’s no need to feel scared or nervous. You’ll do great. It’s just an interview.”
Healthy touch creates a response called attunement. In attunement: 
You become regulated within.
You’re in tune or in rhythm with others and the world.
You experience a symphonic connection with the outside world.
You know you’re not alone.
 
When you attune, you connect to others in a peaceful synchronized way, like night bugs singing a symphony.
 
Out of that connection, you are fueled to go attend to life’s tragedies.
 
This connection is called autonomy; it sets you free to make decisions, go take risks and possibly fail, because you have a safe place to go back to in order to be refueled. This place is called “home.”
 
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9 - The Need to Grieve

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
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
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8 - The Need for Guidance

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
Episode Highlights:
 
The Needs of the Heart by Chip Dodd 
“We must continue to rediscover and surrender to the reality that we are emotional and spiritual  creatures, not slugs, raccoons, rats, birds or scorpions. Do you get it? Those things get by on essential  provisional existence. We're made for more than provisional existence. We're made to live fully. We're made for more than survival and instinct. We are created to be guided and to guide.” -The Needs of the Heart, Chapter 9 
Neediness is the key that unlocks the treasure trove of God.  
Neediness “allows” God to: 
Meet us in our dreams 
Touch us in our desires. 
Address our longings for a world that we can’t create, but we long to make it better. • Continue to maintain hope that the future can be different than the present.
Return to a place that was better than where we are now. 
When we stop only being grateful for our provision and equate love with provision only, we stop our  imagining having more than what we were given already. 
When a person says their parents were great because I had food, water, shelter, and clothing, then you  have stopped your imagination and you’ve stopped yourself from feeling the rest of what’s true. You  stopped yourself from feeling sadness, from acknowledging hurt, loneliness, or fear. Once you stop your  feelings, you stop acknowledgement of needing. 
Guidance is neediness and the need to learn. 
“Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart  turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall  dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that  sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is  not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:5-8 
The heart of guidance is the willingness to recognize you need help. 
When we run from how we are made, we wind up doing things that: 
end up being nonsensical (not connected to our senses/feelings.)  
we do things that we think are very raLonal, but they are crazy, because we try to use the rational to avoid how we are made. 
we run away from the solution. 
The solution is to admit the pain. 
Hurt people…hurt people. Hurt people who don’t admit hurt, harm people.
Our shame and defensiveness keeps us from asking for help and guidance. 
 
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7 - Forming a Circle of Secure Relationships (Part 2)

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
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

6 - The Need for Security (Part 1)

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
Episode Highlights
 
“Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.”  I Corinthians 11:1 (NASB)
 
If we’re going to imitate Christ, the number one strength that kept Jesus from ever needing to repent was His neediness. 
 
We need to start with dependency and neediness as the triumph over the world.
 
Jesus never separated Himself from needing and depending on His Father. 
 
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”  Mark 1:35 (NIV)
 
Jesus’ ultimate dependency was expressed in the Garden of Gethsemane where He poured out His humanity. He poured out His fear, sadness, hurt, loneliness, anger.… (Matthew 26:36-45)
 
Neediness is the key that brings us strength. If we will face our needs and hand them over to God and others to be met properly and legitimately, we will literally, through dependency, become independent. 
 
We are created as emotional and spiritual creatures who are created to do one thing in life and that is to live fully through relationship; facing how you’re made; taking how you’re made to others (who are made the same way) and to God Who made you.
 
Needs of the Heart by Chip Dodd 
 
The Three Movements - Feel your feelings; tell the truth about what is going on inside you; and hand it to God.
 
“Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.  It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’  Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’  No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” Deuteronomy 30:11-14 (NIV)
 
The Process – Bringing how we are created to God, and letting Him be in control. God’s way of handling life, for us, is better than we can do! But giving it to the process (giving it to God) requires that we bring how we are created to God. That means, we bring our emotional experiences and spiritual search to the One who seeks our hearts.
 
Our hearts are in conflict when we trust the process. This conflict is ultimately between the reality of where we live and the truth of how God made us. The truth of how we are made requires that we remain vulnerable to relationship with others and God, in a reality that “punishes” vulnerability—rejects sadness, mocks fear, humiliates hurt, anaesthetizes loneliness, etc. 
 
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5 - The Need to Feel

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
Episode Highlights
 
We all have a physical body, and we all have an emotional body.
 
We are all 99.9% identical. You can’t escape your DNA.
 
Everything seeks the fullest expression of its survival and thriving.
 
We have an emotional and spiritual DNA.
 
We are feeling creatures who need, desire, long and hope.
 
Hope is the birthmark and birthplace of being human. 
 
Human beings seek pleasure and seek to avoid pain. It turns out that without dealing with pain, we will never have the pleasure we are made to have. 
 
We have been given 8 feelings that open us up to needs. The 8 feelings are sad, fear, healthy shame, hurt, lonely, guilt, anger, and glad.
 
Free downloadable resources:
8 Feelings List
8 Feelings Chart (With Gifts & Impairments)
 
We have been given the gift of feeling. Because we live in a tragic place, if you don’t do feelings, you can’t do living. You can’t be emotionally present. 
 
We’ve been given fear that allows us to recognize danger and seek help.
 
We’ve been given sadness that allows us attach to what matters, what we care about, and also allows us 
to deal with loss because life is full of change.
 
We’ve been given hurt that calls us to seek healing in our wounds. Hurt is painful. You can’t carry on fully 
unless you get healing from hurt. Healing makes us wiser and courageous.
 
We’ve been given loneliness as a testimony that we’re relationally created to be in relationship with ourselves. We get loneliness to spend time with ourselves, solitude. We have loneliness to spend time with others. There are certain people who we are made to be connected with more than others. We get lonely for God and lonely to create and have impact. Loneliness brings us to friendship and intimacy.
 
We’ve been given anger. Anger is a very vulnerable feeling because it exposes what we care about. It is a feeling that allows us to hope, wish, want, desire, long and yearn. The gift of anger is passion, a willingness to be in pain for what matters more than pain.
 
Healthy shame is the dependency feeling. It is the recognition that I need you; You need me; I make mistakes; so do you; I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve got some, let’s share; I’m not God and you aren’t either; so let’s face that we’re in need of God.
 
Guilt lets us recognize when we do something that goes against our value system.
 
Gladness is an outcome of being good at the other 7 feelings. 
 
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4 - Healthy/Unhealthy Ways to Belong and Matter (Part 2)

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
Episode Highlights
 
The two primary needs are the need to belong and the need to matter. The need to belong is being accepted for how I am created. The need to matter is to be appreciated for what I bring specifically and uniquely to how I am created.
 
We are looking for affirmation and confirmation
 
We are so created for relationship that we have to have it one way or another. Either we’re  going to have it as we are created or we’re going to have to take over and try to become someone we’re not so that we can receive the smile, the approval, the affirmation, the confirmation, the connection which inauthentically “meets” our need to belong and matter.
 
When your need to belong and matter is not met as you are created for it to be met, you will find another way to have those needs met.
 
When your need to matter and the need to belong are met in healthy ways through affirmation and confirmation, it will open you up to thriving.
 
Sadly, when our need for belonging and mattering is not met in legitimate ways, we use illegitimate means in order to have our legitimate needs met.
 
Our wounds can drive us to do great and extraordinary things, but no matter how much we give, it doesn’t heal us, because the toxic shame still says I must have done something wrong for me to be in this situation.
 
Toxic shame creates a circle of self-destruction that makes us, in the world’s eyes, successful often.
 
Generational Curse - Once you become loyal to protecting the people who did not affirm you for who you were, you get affirmed for acting like they act. You develop an addiction to avoidance of having to face your grief, loss, reality that you were raised by humans who wouldn’t do “human” well and wouldn’t need God well. 
 
Action Steps to Thriving:
Find my feelings.  
Face my feelings.
Feel my feelings.  
Give them to God. (Give them to the process of how life actually works. God owns the process.)
Take us to being in need. Be able to tell the truth about my internal feelings and needs (never as 
weapons of blame but as ownership of response-ability.)
Tell the truth about my feelings.
Dare to stay angry. (Stay in the desire of what you really want and be willing to be in the pain of what it’s going to cost to get there.)
Be willing to seek forgiveness.
 
Patience means willing to carry the burden of hope.
 
Passion means the willingness to be in pain for something that matters more than the pain.
 
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3 - The Need to Belong and Matter (Part 1)

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
Episode Highlights
 
Needs of the Heart by Chip Dodd 
 
God designed us to be needy.
 
Having neediness is not a weakness.
 
What are some of our needs that are described in “Needs of the Heart”?
Belonging
Mattering
Security
Touch
Attention
Sexuality
Guidance
Accomplishment
Support
Listening & Trust
Freedom
Fun
 
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  Ecclesiastes 3:11
 
A friend doubles your joy and halves your sorrows. (Old Proverb)
 
Trauma occurs when a person experiences a tragic happening, and they have NO place to take their pain.  So, the feelings get frozen because they have no place to go except suppressed, repressed, hidden, gone, gotten rid of, disassociated from.
 
Intuition + Suspicion + Questions = Discernment
 
Intuition is God-given.  It is a sense of what is going on around you.
 
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
 
Our most powerful needs are belonging and mattering.
 
“Needs of the Heart” by Dr. Chip Dodd, Chapter 9 “Guidance,” Page 51
 
Impoverishment is not knowing your heart and not being able to connect with yourself, others, and God.
 
We come out of the womb looking for who is looking for us.
 
“The Voice of the Heart” by Dr. Chip Dodd
 
We are born with 2 primary needs: the need to belong and the need to matter.
 
The need to belong is the need to be accepted as I am created.
The need to matter is to be valued for what I bring to creation.
 
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2 - How We Are Made: Introduction to Neediness

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
Episode Highlights
 
“Answer To Life: 
Do you like me? I Like You.
Circle ‘Yes’ or ‘No’”
 
The brain is always asking, “Are you safe?” and “Do you care?”
 
“The Perfect Loss” by Chip Dodd 
Quote from Chapter 3, p. 51
 
I don’t see…so that I won’t feel…so that I won’t wind up being needy…so that I won’t wind up trusting that someone is going to risk or be with me in the midst of that…and then also I can’t talk about what is actually happening inside me.
 
Redemption, restoration, recreation, and recovery are real and can occur at any time. As long as there is breath, there is hope.
 
God’s first question is “Where are you?”  Genesis 3:9
 
We are designed by God to be needy. Our hearts are bigger than our biochemistry.
 
Neediness is the key that unlocks the treasure trove of God’s blessings in our lives.
 
“The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who hear him; he hears their cry and saves them.”  Psalm 145:18
 
“The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.”  Psalm 145:14
 
“…the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.“
Deuteronomy 30:14
 
We are feeling creatures who can think, NOT thinking creatures who have to feel.
 
The heart takes precedence over everything.
 
Virginia Apgar
Apgar Score
 
Will the baby cry out…feel? (feelings)
Will the baby reach out their hands to the person they are looking for? (needs)
Will the baby crave? 
 
Babies come out of the womb looking for who is “looking” for them. They come out craving emotional and spiritual connection with their caregiver (usually their mother) before they ever seek biological food. They don’t come out of the womb seeking milk. They come out of the womb seeking the sustenance of emotional and spiritual connection to the being of another person. They come out craving relationship and connection.
 
Ask . Seek . Knock
 
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” 
Matthew 7:7-8
 
Ask - articulate the feelings, needs, desires, and longings of your heart (a cry out.)
Seek –  (a reach out.)
Knock – (crave.)
 
“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
 
8 Feelings – Sad, Hurt, Fear, Anger, Shame, Guilt, Lonely, Glad
Spiritual Root System – Feelings, Needs, Desire, Longings, Hope
 
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1 - Introducing "Living with Heart"

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). To consult or setup a session with Bryan, you can e-mail bryan@vothcenter.com.
 
Episode Highlights
 
Intro song “Spirit” by Judah & the Lion
 
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”  Mark 12:29-31
 
God made you. You are created in His image. He designed you for a purpose. “You’ll never outsmart your design.”
 
Repentance is “coming home.” 
 
Learn more about the Spiritual Root System
Read Chip’s book “The Voice of the Heart” & complete “The Voice of the Heart Companion Study.”
YouTube Introduction to the Spiritual Root System 
We’re made to live and live fully.
 
When you look at someone, you’re looking at yourself. We’re all made out of the same dust. The deeper the denial about that, the sicker a person becomes.
 
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 
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Facebook