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.    It is already November, and Christmas is just around the corner. How are you going to keep Christ in Christmas this year? I recommend spending a few minutes each day in December reading The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional.  This devotional will take you through the Bible, from Genesis to the birth of Jesus. Each day focuses on God’s protection of the royal line of Jesus and God’s plan of redemption for His people.   2 Helpful and free resources along your parenting journey: Characteristics of a Functional Family 8 Feelings for Children Chart   I recommend purchasing a copy of How Are You Feeling Today?  This children’s book about feelings will help you get started in guiding your children to understand express their feelings.   TO ALL PARENTS: Please remember that the list the characteristics of a healthy family is not about a perfect family; it is about a functioning family.  A functional family simply consistently works on “working things out” for love’s sake. Perfect isn’t functional. An atmosphere of perfection is oppressive; it is just as damaging as a chaotic atmosphere is abandoning. Neither a perfectionistic nor a chaotic atmosphere advance emotional, spiritual, and relational growth. To parent well, we need to be willing to seek aid, wisdom, and courage from God and others. No one has all the answers, but our humility can allow us to have more than we would have without asking.   There are six basic principles to creating a functional relational system, one in which relationship and health is the primary concern, whether it be a family, friendship or marriage: I can talk openly about things that are important to me. I can name my feelings, beliefs, and values, and keep my behaviors consistent with them. I can define the limits of what I can comfortably do or give. I can clarify the limits of what is acceptable or tolerable in the relationship. I can openly share my vulnerabilities and competencies with others. I can give permission and support others in doing the same things.   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.    2 Helpful resources along the parenting journey: Link to 8 Feelings for Children Chart How Are You Feeling Today   The research in the book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness supports everything that is contained in each and every episode of Living with Heart: From Birth to Death. The authors state, “Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period” (page 10). The 85-year longitudinal study, which is ongoing, concluded that, “Relationships are not just essential as stepping-stones to other things, and they are not simply a functional route to health and happiness. They are an end in themselves.” (page 51).   The Good Life, by Robert Waldinger, MD, and Marc Schulz, PhD.   Living with Heart podcast content focus is always about how we are created to find fulfillment through relationships.    We are created as emotional and spiritual creatures, created to do one thing in this life and that is live fully.    We cannot live fully unless we are doing so in relationship with ourselves, others, and God. The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd, PhD.   Digital age Since the early 21st century our children have been living in a time unlike any other in history. The technological advances, starting with the internet, then the cell phone, and now AI, have presented parents and children with a significant dilemma, one that will require some difficult choices to combat the negative consequences of our extraordinary advancements.  Digital technology has been proven to be addictive; screening distracts people from their emotions and addressing their needs for connecting relationally. Screening distracts people from their emotions and needs for connecting relationally, and AI puts people at risk of avoiding the brain work of thinking. We are creating a world in which we are not actually involved, with “sweat, thinking, touching the dirt, needing others with us, etc.” FOMO and the increase of depression and anxiety is directly related to the digital age.   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.    2 Helpful resources along the parenting journey: Link to 8 Feelings for Children Chart How Are You Feeling Today   The focus of this season on “Living with Heart: From Birth to Death” is parenting. Some of the content in these episodes loosely connects to the book, Parenting with Heart by Stephen James and Chip Dodd.    Taking responsibility as a parent is referred to in several ways: “Dealing with unfinished business”  “Doing your own work”  “Owning your own problems” “Self-care to care about others”   Taking responsibility as a parent means that a parent accepts that they are a work in progress, as is every child. We are all WIPs (works in progress).    A WIP recognizes that humility is an essential factor to be a healthy, responsible parent.   A WIP has healthy shame, identified by five basic recognitions: I make mistakes; so do others. I need other grown-ups and others need me. I don’t have all the answers, but I will share what I do know. I ask questions when I don’t know how to do something; I support others in doing the same. I am not God; I am in need of God.   The responsible parent is a WIP who: has humility has a willingness to grow and change  and recognizes that they are just as human as their children   The responsible parent also faces and is humbled by these realities: The best we ever become is clumsy. We have to live life on life’s terms. Everything in life is practice. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live. These four realities that are faced by the parent, give permission to the parent, and child alike, to live with imperfection and still pursue excellence. Basically, there is no finish line.    By having an attitude and disposition that focuses on growth, not perfection, parents create a healthy environment of children.   Ultimately, the responsible parent is a person who lives the Golden Rule. Jesus said, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12, NIV).   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.    What is the meaning of remember? We tend to think that remember only means to recall facts, a place, an occurrence, or a time period. It is that and much more.  Remember also means to take into account the emotional impact of what we recall. It is the need to integrate all the experiences of living. “Re-member” can mean to keep your thinking, feeling, and behaving congruent with your environment and the people who live in it.  For a parent, the definition of remember that also includes “re-member” is a need for the parent to recall and integrate what it was like to be a child, regardless of what age. The parent who does not “re-member” will forget the difficulties, and even the joys of growing up. They will not parent the way a child needs to be parented, or the way the parent actually wishes to do.  Many parents run from “re-membering” because it requires that we feel and integrate “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of our own lives.  To remember requires that we face, feel, and deal with the pain of failure and the sweet memories of success. If we don’t have the courage or willingness to remember, our children have to miss richer connections that they were made to have. Parents who are not willing to grow, have difficulty tolerating their own feelings, and their own inherent neediness; the effect is that they will have lower tolerance for the feelings and needs of the child.   Three helpful attitudes to develop to help parents “re-member” Acknowledging distance Doing the work of daily remembrance Facing the impossible   What is distance? Distance is to remember that the parent lives in another “time-zone,” called the future in relation to a child.    A child struggles in a place that the parent has gone beyond. Either the parent can recall the heart ache or the heart delight, and can relate to the child, or the parent’s need to ignore or suppress their experience will block emotional and spiritual connection to the child.    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.    2 Helpful resources along the parenting journey: Link to 8 Feelings for Children Chart How Are You Feeling Today Four realities that no one will defeat, this side of heaven. The best we ever get at living is clumsy.  No one can become perfect, even though we carry a picture of it in our hearts. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV) says, “He has set eternity in the human heart.” No matter our determination or information, we humans will always have to struggle with mistakes and sin.  We have to live on life’s terms, not our terms. Death and the unpredictable are a part of this life. We cannot know the future. We are dependent upon our need of each other and God. If we do not face, feel, and deal well with our neediness in a healthy way, we will become defended against the pains that come with love. No one can change or defeat this fact about life. If we don’t learn how to need others and God, it increases the negative consequences we don’t want for ourselves or those we love. Everything in life is practice. Doctors are practicing, and lawyers are practicing. Parents are also practicing, as are children. We are not works of perfection. We have to keep learning and risking without knowing all of the outcomes. We are in this life together; the more proactive everyone is in helping each other practice living fully and loving deeply, the better the outcomes.  It takes a lifetime to learn how to live.  Whether we are eight, twenty-eight, or eighty, we are still asking many of the same questions throughout our lives, like, “When will we get there?” “How much will it hurt?” or “Will you be there to get me?” No one has all the answers to life. We have to keep learning how to live, even as we gain wisdom about doing so, hopefully. There is not a destination of “having it all together.”   We are all works in progress. Rather than the facts of reality defeating us, they can actually give us permission to gain more humility.    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.    2 Helpful resources along the parenting journey: Link to 8 Feelings for Children Chart How Are You Feeling Today   The focus of this season on “Living with Heart: From Birth to Death” is parenting.   Some of the content in these episodes loosely connects to the book, Parenting with Heart by Stephen James and Chip Dodd.    The content of episode #86, “Big Results from Simple Actions,” comes from a free resource that can be downloaded at chipdodd.com.   Big Results from Simple Actions - Chip Dodd, Ph.D.   The following is a list of eleven qualities that make leaders worth joining and make participants valuable to leaders. These eleven simple actions are what leaders and participants do who create vibrant, sustainable, productive environments in which excellence is the norm. The list also speaks to what parents hope their children will learn and what children hope their parents already practice.    In addition, the list speaks to how friendship is honored, and how marital partners express respect for one’s self and their spouse. The driving force of these qualities comes out of what psychology calls an internal locus of control and what the rest of us call being responsible because it feels good and it’s good to do.    Simply put, the action-oriented qualities listed below show that a person brings ability, effort, and excellence to what they do.   If you open it—close it. If you unlock it—lock it back. If you drop it—pick it up. If you borrow it—return it. If you use it—take care of it. If you break it—fix it. If you can’t fix it—call someone who can. If you mess it up—clean it up. If you give your word—keep it. If it is your responsibility—own it. If it encourages someone—say it.   To summarize, I end where I started. The actions listed above are what make leaders worth joining, and make participants valuable to leaders. The actions speak to what parents hope their children will learn, and what children hope their parents already practice, so they can learn. In addition, the actions speak to how friendship is honored, and how marital partners express respect for one’s self and the other.    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.    Keeping Heart, a book by Dr Chip Dodd, is written in short sections that are self-contained as specific pieces. Each section focuses on a dimension of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well a life that leaves a legacy of goodness.    Please visit chipdodd.com to download a free resource of the “Feelings/Needs Chart.” The chart integrates the essentials of The Voice of the Heart and Needs of the Heart that leads to experiencing the Gifts of the Heart.   The Equation for the Gifts of the Feelings By practicing the equation, we can live fully; we can love deeply; we can lead well.   By practicing the equation, we discover that core feelings lead to genuine relational needs, which move us to admitting the desire of our hearts, as well as our longings and hope.   Feelings > Needs > Desire > Longings > Hope, as explored in Episode #80 and Episode #81.   The equation requires courage, that is, bringing your heart to who and what matters to you.   WILLINGNESS + PATIENCE + WORK + TIME = GIFTS   Willingness: Willingness is the courageous energy of allowing your heart to be given over to hoping again. Hope has become dangerous to many of us because of past experiences that turned out very differently than what we had hoped. Taking the risk of hoping again is fearful. We need help in risking hope, but we must take the risk if we are to experience new, better, or improved outcomes. Running from hope makes us sick.    Patience: Patience is ability to persevere amidst the struggle that comes with your desire to live fully. Patience literally means, “burden of hope.” So often what we seek and what we desire requires the ability to wait—to delay gratification—as we continue to move towards fulfillment. Waiting means that we continue to hope even though it is painful. Waiting requires feeling and needing, and means that our hearts carry the “burden of hope,” as we persevere, with the encouragement of others and faith in God.   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.    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.    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). 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.    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.   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.    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.   Click here to continue reading 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.    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.    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. 

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 "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.