Living with Heart: From Birth to Death

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. 

Discover how simple actions can lead to profound changes in parenting and leadership. Learn 11 practical responsibilities that foster cooperation and accountability within families. The hosts explore how environments can encourage responsibility, drawing on examples like Disney's design. Understand the importance of balancing tolerance with accountability, especially during the challenging adolescent years. They emphasize patience in guiding children, celebrating failures as opportunities for growth, and the significant impact of these small, consistent behaviors.

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.    Parenting is the focus of this season on “Living with Heart: From Birth to Death.” Some of the content of the following episodes connects to the book, Parenting with Heart by Stephen James and Chip Dodd.    Parenting with heart is more about the parents than the children: Parents know their own hearts’ feelings and needs. Parents remember the struggles of being a child and the fullness of hope and imagination before “reality” tends to tarnish both hope and imagination. Parents not only perform the great duties of providing and protecting; they are able to remain emotionally relatable. Parents know that they themselves are only older, “growing up” versions of a child.  Parents are emotionally present as they continue to perform the tasks of love. Parents face the reality that the best outcomes and greatest hopes still will be riddled with clumsiness, mistakes, and regrets, but continues to persevere with heart.    Parenting with heart is for young parents and grandparents, “failed” parents and “successful” parents, and couples who desire to be parents, but has nothing to do with the “perfect” parent.    The “perfect” parent checks a list to see if they have fulfilled some magical formula that guarantees “perfect” children who never mess up and never have to face pain.    “Perfect” parents attempt to produce an outcome that is for their own self-images.   Children want parents who can relate to the struggles and joys of being a child; they want parents who know the feelings of living and the needs that come with living.   Children also desire their parents to know how to face, feel, and deal with struggles, as they seek the joys of life.   Children do not actually want a perfect parent; they want a relatable, human parent who takes a long view of life.    It takes a lifetime to learn how to live:  Children need parents who know this truth, and this truth creates great tolerance for a child’s struggles.   A child just simply wants a “good enough” parent, a human parent who needs others and God, the same way a child needs them and God.   Two responsibilities of a parent: Parents need to help their children “climb the mountain of their dreams.” Parents need to help their children “hold the flag brave and true.”   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.    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. 

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 of the “Feelings/Needs Chart.” It integrates the essentials of The Voice of the Heart and Needs of the Heart that lead to the experience of the Gifts of the Heart.    On page 23 of Keeping Heart, there is a sentence that shows the dark side of avoiding love’s requirements: “Avoiding love’s demand, though, requires that we hide our hearts, and, therefore, remove ourselves from living this life.”    Contact is not connection We experience a vast array of what we call “connections” through all forms of technology that has given us the internet and its multiple forms of social media that offers the illusion of “connection.” We call it “interconnected.”    However, it does not actually give what it says. We are “inter-contacted,” not actually connected.    There are multiple forms of contact, but we still remain disconnected from each other, and even ourselves.    Sadly, loneliness and relational isolation are two of the most talked about forms of misery in our society today, even though we have more pervasive contact than ever before in the history of humanity.   When Caesar connected the Roman Empire with roads, it led to people groups being connected—for better or worse. The technology of today is not a road to connect us. It is the technology that actually keeps us from “facing each other,” which is where genuine connection begins.   Contact is like watching a movie. In a movie, we experience life vicariously, which means “not really in it.” Even more, if we watch it alone, we experience life vicariously in isolation. We do not share a lived experience in reality True connection is a shared experience in reality.   Contact does not feed the heart. Connection feeds the heart. Connection requires that a person shares the experiences of their emotional and spiritual lives with another who is capable of doing the same.    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.    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.