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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.

The Five Pitfalls:

1. 1. 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:

1. They have humility and passion.
2. They have compassion because of empathy.
3. They are doers who are relational.
4. They are witnesses to what God can do with a person who dares to be in need.
5. Their “loss” can become many others’ gains.
6. 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:

1. 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.
2. Admission:
   1. The acknowledgment of powerlessness over life
   2. 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.

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