66 - Understanding a Woman's Heart: Gentleness, Availability, Vulnerability

May 6, 2025

Exploring the complexities of emotional living, the discussion highlights the beauty of vulnerability and connection with oneself, others, and God. Surrendering to our true nature is presented as a pathway to reclaiming our passion for life. The importance of emotional safety in loving relationships is emphasized, alongside the journey men must take to understand and nurture a woman's heart. The conversation also challenges traditional masculinity, advocating for gentleness and authenticity in relationships, fostering deeper connections and mutual respect.

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INSIGHT

Gentle Strength in Manhood

A man must be gentle, available, and vulnerable to love a woman fully.
Gentleness is strength, providing a safe place for the woman to feel secure and supported.

INSIGHT

Men Need Mentorship for Gentleness

Men often lack proper mentorship, leading to emotional distance with their families.
This limits a man's capacity to be gentle and available with his wife and children.

ADVICE

Be Emotionally Available

Men should become emotionally available by recognizing and getting their needs met legitimately.
Seek support from other men to avoid placing unrealistic demands on their wives.

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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.

How We are Created

We are created as emotional and spiritual creatures; we are created to do one thing in this life—live fully. But we cannot live fully unless we do so in relationship with ourselves, others, and God.

* That statement means that we must bring our hearts to daily relational life and involve ourselves emotionally and spiritually with others.

Many of us have not learned or have refused to allow ourselves to be vulnerable with how we are created. We tend to “run” from how we are created as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, and hoping people.

Surrender is Good

To live fully we have to admit that we are powerless over how we are created. We do not need to run from ourselves; instead, we need to surrender to how God made us.

Surrender actually means to “render over,” as in give something back.

The goodness of surrender is that it returns us to how we are created. It also returns us to needing others and God, who created us to find fulfillment in relationship.

Surrender paradoxically allows us to reclaim our “anger” for life as we face that we are desiring, longing, hoping, wishing, wanting, yearning, hungering and thirsting people. Read my book, The Voice of the Heart and listen to Episodes #19 - Episode #20.

For a woman, to surrender is to know that she hungers to belong and matter through experiencing herself as secure.

For a man, to surrender is to know that he hungers to belong and matter through experiencing himself as appreciated.

Being Chosen

A woman’s security requires that she experience herself as chosen, as discussed in Episode 65.

She is not chosen on the basis of her appearance only, but on the content of her heart and character. She is chosen for “her.” She is chosen for how God made her. If a woman experiences herself as truly chosen by a man she desires to be with, she will have a strong tendency to appreciate the man who has chosen her.

Security leads a woman to be Appreciative.

Men Must Be Man Enough to Create Security

If a woman experiences the relationship as a secure place to bring her vulnerabilities, joys, desires, needs, and struggles, she will experience “heart security;” she will have the experience of being chosen consistently reinforced.

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