Living with Heart: From Birth to Death

Latest Episodes:

124 - Invitations, Demands, and Childhood Wounds Jul 14, 2026

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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.

123 - How Do I Develop Trust? Jul 08, 2026

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122 - Youth Sports and Parenting Jun 30, 2026

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121 - Is Therapy Tearing Us Apart? Jun 23, 2026

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Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.

Purpose of Therapy

Therapy is about healing; restoration; and returning to normal interaction in a society that finds genuine fulfillment in participation, appreciation, and contribution.

Those who develop the healing and “heart” of wholeness or identify themselves as an improving “work in progress” have tolerance for difficulties, ability to work communally, and desire to contribute.

Disruptive Therapy

Healthy therapy loses its focus on healing and restoration when it loses the wisdom of consideration.

The wisdom of consideration is the process in which a “client,” for example, does healing work around family of origin wounds and identifies the need to restore the true self.

To restore the true self is to be able to know one’s own feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope without toxic shame or self-doubt.

Toxic shame and self-doubt are diminished through community with non-shaming people.

Therapy disrupts the healthy process when boundaries become walls and feelings become weapons—

If the therapist and client do not go beyond “what happened” and move into the consideration for the people who through ignorance, denial, or incapability were part of the loss of self, boundaries become walls instead of fences and division is increased. Walls create isolation. Fences create respect.
If the therapist helps the client turn feelings into rights rather than the tools that help a person make decisions, they are helping client’s get “stuck” in a victim status, rather than choice making response-ability.

The true self is not the right to not have to feel and make choices. It is the ability to know yourself and become responsible for your own actions that never give up on love and restoration—though a person may have to grieve deeply that the ones they hoped to be in relationship with do not seek restoration, too.

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120 - Empowered by Surrender Jun 16, 2026

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Surrender:

What surrender does not mean.

It does not mean defeat, as in you have been beaten.
It does not mean that you are through defeat establishing a peace treaty, as in you remain sovereign over your country, which is yourself.
It does not mean that you are giving up benefits and have to tolerate abuse.

What surrender does mean

It literally means, “to render over, or give way, for one’s own benefit”
It is a relinquishing of my attempt to control what I cannot control; from that standpoint, the “defeat” is the relinquishing of pride, denial of need for help, or actions that make my life unmanageable
Recovery from any kind of addiction has surrender as a key beneficial step:

A person first admits that they cannot control “life,” but they wish to live life
Surrender occurs when we seek a path, person, or process that can do this for us
surrender: “I cannot; therefore, I surrender to what God and others can do for me what I cannot do for myself”

God and surrender

Actions of surrender imply that a person is “rendering over” “giving back” or “returning” something that was taken from someone them or someone else. In emotional and spiritual surrender, we, as humans, are “giving back” to God what we “took” from Him.

We “stole” our hearts from God; we took our feelings, needs, desire, longings and hope and refused the dependency upon God that these inherent characteristics require.

We are created dependent, but will we remain vulnerable to using that dependency well or refuse to depend?

Surrender really is “re-depending” on God as the Source of primary connection, presence, and fulfillment.

We were born dependent and created to develop resilience in life and living through dependence.

God gave us:

Fear - so that we would ask for help
Hurt - so that we would seek healing
Sadness - to resolve loss through grief

When we surrender, we are returning to how God made us, with the ability to be:

connected to Him

present with Him
fulfilled by Him

This allows us to experience all the relational wonder that life has to offer. But we must be “good at dependency.” We must start with knowing our feelings and using them as they can be used for our benefit.

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119 - Understanding and Using Anger Well Jun 09, 2026

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Anger is discussed in depth in The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd

The following are ideas that relate to the chapter on Anger.

Rage versus anger

When discussing anger, we have to start with what it isn’t because we have been misled to confuse anger and rage:

Rage is what a person does to avoid vulnerability. It is always rooted in fear of helplessness.
Anger is what a person has when they are willing to be vulnerable.
Anger really is the feeling that expresses our willingness to be hurt because something or someone matters to us.

Synonyms that relate to the experience of anger are yearning, longing, hoping, wanting, hungering, thirsting, and desiring. All of these words are vulnerable experiences that require courage to reveal.

The gift that comes from anger is passion that leads to a willingness to be in pain/care for something or someone that matters more than pain or discomfort.

To “find” or discover your anger, it helps to ask yourself these questions:

What do I hunger for?
What do I desire that I am willing to be in pain about?
What do I see that needs to be improved, changed, or grown and will require me to risk and “sweat”?
What matters to me enough that I am willing to speak up about or show up in to help make a positive difference?
What do I imagine could be that I am willing to invest in?

Anger and hope

When a person “finds” their anger, they are also facing their hope for something to be fulfilled that has not yet happened.

Anger helps us deal with the fears of failure because the risk is worth the pain.

Anger is invaluable if we are going to risk taking action related to hope.

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Season 11: Episode 118 - Ask Anything - How do I make the most of our Summer? Jun 02, 2026

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No Magic Wand

If parents had magic wands, most of us would tap our children with one.

At minimum, we would guarantee a future of being a good citizen of their community.

Even more, we would bless them to make a significant impact for good.

Even better, we would give them the wish fulfillment of their own hopes and dreams.

Parents do not get to escape the rigors of parenting, and children do not get to escape the rigors of growing up.

Even without a magic wand, we can create an environment and offer our strength to help children face the rigors of growing up.

To do so, parents must do four most difficult things:

We must let them fail.
We must let them feel.
We must let them struggle.
We must let them learn.

Whether we like it or not, children have to grow up in the same world that their parents grew up in.

The realities of life are going to occur—hopes dashed, hopes resurrected, hopes attempted, hopes fulfilled, and heart-ache.

We can offer something of immeasurable value to our children in order to assist them in their learning curve of living fully, loving deeply, and leading well.

There is a “place” and a “person” we can offer our children of any age.

We can become a “safe place to land” for our children.

Being a “safe place” means that we give our children an environment and a person to turn to in order for them to be able to face, feel, and deal with life’s difficulties—and celebrations—without terrible fear of rejection.

This person knows that the name “Dad” or “Mom” is the most important title they will ever have, and it is the title that children want you to value above all others.

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117 - Relationship with Creativity (Part 2) May 26, 2026

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Living Creatively

Relationship with creativity requires that we not only dream and imagine what could be, but we also think about “it” and step into doing something about “it”.

Dream/Imagine > Think/Plan > Do

When a person steps into living in Creativity, the fourth relationship, which we are created to do, they are willing to be vulnerable to hope.

Hope is an action verb that means a person is reaching towards what may not be realized.

Living in the fourth relationship entails risk, making the other three relationships a foundation of security and a place to report to and return to after “pouring out” or “reaching out.”

We need to know our own hearts, the hearts of others and the heart of God to have the foundation and resources to maintain courage in the struggle to create.

Many people live lives of quiet desperation by not letting themselves be known, and thus, they never really take the risks of stepping into their own creativity.

Many people do everything possible to avoid the possibility of “stepping out of line” for creativity’s sake, to avoid being made fun of, resented, mocked, or rejected.

The empty approval for “staying in line” can become the practice of living in the fantasy of doing something, but actually not taking true action. Our need for others’ approval and the anxiety of losing approval can “make” us postpone our lives’ possibilities—sometimes unto death.

People who do “step into” paying attention to how God made them to create, will get hurt more, sometimes feel very lonely, will have periods of sadness, because that is the price we pay to fulfill how God created us—to live fully, love deeply, and lead well in a broken place.

Knowing our feelings and being able to use them is essential if we are to create.

Anger is required for creativity to have expression:

Anger, as referenced in The Voice of the Heart, is required if we are to live creatively.

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116 - Relationship with Creativity (Part 1) May 19, 2026

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Relationship with Creation

God created us as emotional and spiritual creatures. We are created to do one primary thing in life, and that is to live fully.

Human beings cannot live fully without doing so in relationship with ourselves, others, and God.

Relationship is foundation upon which we build a fulfilling life.

Out of relationship we discover meaning, significance, and purpose. These things move us to be creative and productive on the earth.

Being productive is the fourth relationship. This relationship is a natural extension of being in the other three relationships.

Just as an apple tree’s roots initiate the production of fruit, so it is with human beings. If our roots receive the relational nutrition that we are created to absorb, the fruit of productivity is a God-created outcome.

Also, as image-bearers of God, we are created to create:

Psalm 8:6 (NIV) says, “You made him [human beings] ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.”
We are created to oversee, caretake, steward, and rule over the earth.
Just as an apple tree is considered to be healthy based upon the apples it produces, so we humans are considered to be healthy based upon our creative response to life, as we live fully, love deeply, and lead well.
Social interest, i.e., the ability to care and contribute beyond one’s own personal gain, is marked by producing “fruit.” Social interest establishes a legacy of good, truth, and beauty that we “leave behind” us along the paths of our lives.
Social interest has its foundation in self-awareness, which is the integration of one’s heart and mind.

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115 - Relationship with God (Part 2) May 12, 2026

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Relationship with God

Episode 115 tells the story of a survivor from Auschwitz and the miraculous connection and marriage he makes with the young woman who saved his life after the Allied Forces came into the concentration camps at the end of WWII.

The story reveals:

It reveals the power and presence of God in our lives.
It reveals the mercy of God amidst the tragedy that we humans have created.
It reveals the continuing witness to how a story can affect us when we hear something that seems to “break through the reality of tragedy” and we find that “hope” is what we cannot escape.

We hope for something that pierces darkness, destruction, despair and death.

God’s Greatness

God has conquered and continues to conquer all four forces that have come against His light, creative nature, hope, and life itself.

His light pierces darkness.
His creative nature steps into destruction.
His unyielding presence defeats despair.
His resurrection power conquers death.

The Deceiver cannot conquer God’s goodness, love, power and presence in our lives.

Jesus calls us to him as the Shepherd and we the sheep who cannot live without the Good Shepherd:

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy’ I hve come that they may have life, and it to the full. I am the good shepherd.”

John 10:9-11

Dr. Chip Dodd

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