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). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    Origins of Understanding a Woman’s Heart In this podcast series we have been discussing the dynamics of a woman’s heart in relation to a man’s heart. The content we have discussed has come from education and research; Scriptural foundations; and even more, from the 1000s of individuals and couples whom I have worked with in a therapeutic setting.   Relationships are a matter of the heart, as much and more than they are an experience of the brain: A woman experiences herself as chosen through the security the man creates for her by being a Redeemer, Protector, and Provider, in that order. She can offer her dependency to the man in an authentic way if he brings these qualities. A man experiences himself as appreciated because he has brought his whole heart to the relationship, allowing vulnerability, availability, and gentleness to lead the internal life of the relationship.  In this way, the foundational needs of belonging and mattering are met through relationship.   The connected couple can build on the foundation of security and appreciation.    This couple will experience the future together, come what may, because their connection and commitment are based in the “pain tolerance” of the heart, not the “pain intolerance” of the brain. The brain seeks pleasure; the heart tolerates the pain of love.   Super Practical “Response-Abilities” After creating a foundation for understanding the emotional and spiritual needs of the relationship, the following reality needs to be grasped: A man’s primary job is “customer service”! A man is created to serve others, especially his family.    A man serves best when he does the following three actions consistently: TCB: A man needs to “take care of business.” He needs to pay the bills before the frills. He needs to attend to the place they live, and oversee the management of property and vocation. Stay on Mission: A man needs to stay focused on whatever calling, role, or position he has been assigned to fulfill. In this way, he reinforces his own self-respect and shows himself to be dependable and trustworthy. Do Not Overly Need a Woman: A man does not need to overly need a woman. He must not pressure his spouse to be his constant emotional support. He knows he needs to get his needs met from peers who have the same experiences that all true men risk experiencing. He knows what the woman cannot do for him. Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Discover the dynamics of a woman's heart and how men can truly connect to it through qualities like protection and vulnerability. Humor and real-life anecdotes highlight the challenges of balancing parenthood with marital intimacy. The importance of listening and emotional availability shines through, emphasizing the need for open communication and support. Join in as the hosts explore the intricate dance of relationships, all while maintaining a focus on creating deep, lasting connections amid life’s chaos.

The discussion delves into the complexities of love and relationships, emphasizing the importance of emotional awareness and vulnerability. Listeners learn about distinct emotional needs in relationships, such as appreciation for men and security for women. The hosts share insights on the universal need for belonging, highlighting how heartfelt connections can triumph over transactional interactions. A poignant love story is explored, showcasing the power of resilience and vulnerability amidst challenges, making a compelling case for embracing one's heart.

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.

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.    Primary Need to Belong and Matter A woman and a man each have the same need to belong and matter.  Each person is equally responsible for affirming the need to belong and matter of the other person.   Belonging and Mattering differ for a Woman and a Man  Their need to belong and matter is met in different ways. A woman’s need to belong and matter is primarily met through security. A man’s need to belong and matter is primarily met through appreciation.   A Woman Needs to Feel Secure in order to Appreciate a Man While each person is equally responsible, the man’s initiation of security is crucial to create a healthy relationship. For the man to experience appreciation, the woman must first experience security.   Feeling Chosen Creates Security in a Woman The woman’s primary security need is met through knowing, feeling, and having faith in experiencing herself as chosen. She is chosen above all other women.  She has confidence in knowing it, feeling it, and having faith in the future related to it.  To be chosen is to know that she has: A Redeemer: a man who can relate to her, grasp her needs, desire the full expression of how God created her, and treat her with gentleness, availability, and vulnerability. Episode #64   A Protector: a man who can create a place of safety and stability that is based on her trust in his integrity, allowing her to focus on being able to love without fear or demand.  A Provider: a man who can provide for her the necessities that quell the fear of her essential needs not being attended to.   This order is very important: It establishes a foundation of what a woman needs most.   It expresses a man’s trustworthiness, his capability of relational intimacy, and his integrity. He is known as one who “says what he means and means what he says,” with an inner-focus on bringing his best to who he loves. He has a sense of his own dignity and self-respect.   This description is not about perfection; it is about growth and focus for a man. He cannot be more than perfectly imperfect. He can, though, live inspired to be the man God created him to be, by remaining dependent on God, and by relying on “growth-aid” from other men.    Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Delve into the heart's role as the core of life, shaping our thoughts and emotions. Discover how emotional security is crucial for women and appreciation for men in relationships. Engage in a lighthearted moment about misunderstandings that reveals the importance of empathy. Explore gender dynamics around belonging and connection, and the need for emotional availability in fostering deeper relationships. The conversation highlights trust and vulnerability as essential ingredients for healthy connections.

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). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    We just concluded a podcast series called, “The Twelve Movements of a Man’s Life.”   Although the series applies equally to women, I focused on men for three reasons: Men have a history of losing their focus as leaders, and not recognizing their importance to each other, their marriages, families, and society. There is a great need for men to be “response able” with their power, to avoid forms of being controlling and demanding and/or quitting when things become stressful. There is a need for men to continue to develop the capacities to live with integrity and passion, because society inherently depends upon the character of men to be vibrant.   Good men are essential and crucial to marriages, families, community and society. If good men don’t rise, bad men multiply and societies crumble.    “The Twelve Movements of a Man’s Life,” also presented a picture of the man that a woman needs and hopes will come into her life.    Every woman (who wishes to be with a man) seeks to: Be cared for by a man who can care. Be rendered secure by a man who is secure. Be protected by a man who will advocate for what is right. Be understood as a feeling creature, as a man knows himself as a feeling creature. Know that a man will give himself to a cause greater than her, without neglecting her.   Women and Men have to face certain realities in life: We are all works in progress. “Clumsy” or imperfect is as good as we will ever become. We are all like giraffes running on ice, as parents, spouses, children, leaders, etc. We have to live life on life’s terms. We will have to learn how to struggle, deal with feelings, be in need, face loss and in spite of everything, love! We have to face that everything in life is about practice. Medical doctors are referred to as “practicing medicine,” just as lawyers practice law. We are all practicing daily, as parents, spouses, and people in general. We have to face that it really does take a lifetime to learn how to live. We never arrive at a place while we are living to say, “I know longer have to struggle with being human in an imperfect world.” 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). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    A man will step into the future, often armed with nothing more than his own vision, because he trusts that the future is where God lives. He steps into the mystery of the future with hope, fear, and faith.   Hope is the inextinguishable flame of life in all of us.   Fear is the feeling that lets us seek out and ask for help with life’s struggles and questions.   Faith is the connection to God; and trust that our hope is not foolish, and our fear will be heard. Faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1 NIV)   Movement #1, “The Order of Love,” is the foundation for the other 11 movements. Episode 50    Movement #1 places the man in need of God, who created him and loves him. He is second, and he draws his strength, courage, and caregiving from God. One cannot give what he/she does not have. A man is created to deliver love to others, starting with his spouse and children (if he has them).   A man who trusts God will step into the future with hope, fear, and faith because he trusts that God wants to “grow” or develop him into all that he is created to become. He has also witnessed the experiences of God’s presence in his life.   Movement 12 can take us in many directions; however, we will focus only on two: The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10) show us the growth process of God. A process called Johari’s Window show us what we need in order to grow.   The Beatitudes present us with a series of growth processes. Each “step” evolves into the next growth experience.    I wrote the book The Perfect Loss: A Different Kind of Happiness about the growth processes given to us in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5:3-10.   Two remarkable things about the paradox of the Beatitudes:   Jesus says that “Blessed” are those who surrender to and submit to a painful growth process.  The gift of the first Beatitude and the gift of the last one is the same gift, implying that a person has grown, much like an acorn grows into an oak tree.   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). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    To download my Free Resources, go to chipdodd.com. Download The Discipline of Restoring, and more, to continue the journey of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well. A leader needs inner strength and inner resources. I offer these resources to help people succeed.   A Man Knows He is God’s Masterpiece: Every man is created to lead and needs inner-strength to do so; he needs to know how to get the strength he needs to fulfill his leadership responsibilities. Every man needs God and others to succeed. For his own personal fulfillment, every man needs to attend to his tasks, mission, and/or callings—all synonyms. A “job well-done” is gratifying. Every man (and woman) is created to live fully, love deeply, and lead well lives that others can benefit from long after the man has finished his career. The greatest treasure of a man’s life is the value he leaves behind. Every man needs to recognize his importance and dependency upon the God who created him. A man has inherent God-created worth, and he is created to be in need.   What stops a leader from succeeding? Usually, he does not know his value, and he does not know his neediness; therefore, he doesn’t develop the inner strength and inner resources to “stay the course” of his mission.    We are God-created; we need to depend upon Him and how he created us.    God created us to live with heart.    God created us as emotional and spiritual creatures, created to live fully through relationship with ourselves, others, and Him, as talked about in The Voice of the Heart and Needs of the Heart, by Chip Dodd.   Addiction takes us away from the heart of how we are created, because addiction is all about “avoiding” and “silencing” the heart.    Four powerful scriptures speak to our worth, our dependency on God who created us, and the importance of the heart: Ephesians 2:10. Psalm 139:13-16. Proverbs 4:23. Psalm 8.   Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”   The word “workmanship” testifies to God creating us specifically.    The DNA of the human being is 99.9% identical to all other human beings. We are created 99.9% the same emotionally and spiritually, as well as biologically and physiologically. We have also been gifted with a .01% uniqueness.   Click here to continue to read 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). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.    For a man to lead any organization, family, mission, or task, he needs to trust what he knows. In addition, he needs to be aware of what he doesn’t know so that he can grow into becoming all he is created to be.    This man seeks out the abilities of others so that he can accomplish his responsibilities.    No one knows everything, and therefore, we all need others’ abilities.   Four Categories of Practicing Appropriate Authority: Every man is a leader if he loves someone, and/or has a goal or mission in life. Therefore, he has authority, which is more about a responsibility than a form of power. A leader definitely needs certain skills to accomplish his responsibilities; just as important, a leader needs to be a competent human being. A leader truly needs to know what he doesn’t do well and know his limitations, so that he can reach out to others who have the abilities he needs in order to fulfill his responsibilities. A leader needs to be responsible with the power that is inherent in leadership. The power of delegation. The power of truth-telling. The power of delivering consequences.   Authority comes from the word author, which means that you have been given the ability and responsibility to communicate your assigned “mission.”   There are two kinds of authority Healthy authority is invitational. It grows trust and confidence in the “followers” because they know two things about their leader. They believe he desires their good or benefit, and they know that he is as much a servant of the “mission” as they themselves are. For example, the president of the United States’ mission is to serve the Constitution. The truest leader knows that he is serving God as the top authority. Healthy authority invites the full participation of heart, mind, and abilities of a person. Unhealthy authority is subordinating. It is about exercising power over someone. It is inherently threatening because it focuses on “lock-step” obedience even more than the development of a team that can accomplish a mission. Unhealthy authority focuses on “obedient” performance over the full of investment of a person’s presence of heart, mind, and abilities. Heart doesn’t matter too much in an unhealthy authority system, only abilities.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.