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.

Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week, beginning December 2nd. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership.

Dr Dodd continues to focus on his mission of almost 40 years, helping people see who they are made to be, so they can do what they are created to do. The articles in December focus on living fully, loving deeply, and leading well during the holidays.

It is the month of Christmas. How are you going to keep Christ in Christmas this year? I recommend spending a few minutes each day in December reading The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional. This devotional will take you through the Bible, from Genesis to the birth of Jesus. Each day focuses on God’s protection of the royal line of Jesus and God’s plan of redemption for His people.

Chip begins the episode reading an article called, “I Believe It Like Air” that he puts out every year. It is a statement of believing in the miracle of Jesus’ birth, as much as he believes in the air he breathes moment to moment. (This article is also included in Substack on December 23.)

So many of us never actually grow-up, which is to face that we are primarily emotional and spiritual creatures who find fulfillment in relationship. Our fulfillment comes from being able to connect to our own hearts, the hearts of others, and the heart of God.

“Adults” are people who wear masks to hide what they don’t know, to cover up the vulnerability that exposes their neediness.

Grown-ups develop maturity by being in need and growing and becoming more and more response able. Adults do not mature beyond their ability to mask vulnerability.

“Adults” lose the meaning and wonder of Christmas. Grown-ups live it fully with a faith that can contend with tragedy.

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants

You have established strength,

Because of Your enemies,

That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

(Psalm 8:2, NKJV)

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.

It is amost Thanksgiving, and Christmas is just around the corner. How are you going to keep Christ in Christmas this year? I recommend spending a few minutes each day in December reading The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional. This devotional will take you through the Bible, from Genesis to the birth of Jesus. Each day focuses on God’s protection of the royal line of Jesus and God’s plan of redemption for His people.

We are made for more

October to April opens up the most magical time of the year and potentially the most painful.

As the fall approaches and the “harvest” season settles into our consciousness, we begin to long for what the holidays are created to offer, family, friends, and fellowship.

The windows of the “soul” open to our heavenly longings as the holiday season of anticipation begins. The window remains open until the new year begins, our resolutions have turned back into daily life, and we lift the “heavy burden” of getting back to work—we prepare to pay our taxes in April!

If we allow ourselves to long for what we dream the holidays can offer, we will also need to allow ourselves to grieve what they cannot give us—heavenly completion on earth:

It is okay to grieve

The family gatherings will not live up to what we dream at the worst, and they will end with departures at their best.

The friends we love to be with will need to return to their places of other purposes.

The fellowship that blesses us will also come to an end.

We can experience heavenly hints of completion, but not get to remain in the place of completion.

The holidays awaken us to holy moments of seeing how life could be, or is created to be, but this is still not heaven.

In the movie “Field of Dreams” a character asks, “Is this heaven?” The answer to the beautiful question of hope is, “No, this is Iowa.” We can taste heaven here during the holiday season, but not keep it or possess it; we can only take time to live it by bringing family and friends together in fellowship.

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.

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.

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.

It is already November, and Christmas is just around the corner. How are you going to keep Christ in Christmas this year? I recommend spending a few minutes each day in December reading The Jesse Tree: A Christmas Devotional. This devotional will take you through the Bible, from Genesis to the birth of Jesus. Each day focuses on God’s protection of the royal line of Jesus and God’s plan of redemption for His people.

2 Helpful and free resources along your parenting journey:

Characteristics of a Functional Family

8 Feelings for Children Chart

I recommend purchasing a copy of How Are You Feeling Today?

This children’s book about feelings will help you get started in guiding your children to understand express their feelings.

TO ALL PARENTS:

• Please remember that the list the characteristics of a healthy family is not about a perfect family; it is about a functioning family.
• A functional family simply consistently works on “working things out” for love’s sake.
• Perfect isn’t functional. An atmosphere of perfection is oppressive; it is just as damaging as a chaotic atmosphere is abandoning. Neither a perfectionistic nor a chaotic atmosphere advance emotional, spiritual, and relational growth.
• To parent well, we need to be willing to seek aid, wisdom, and courage from God and others. No one has all the answers, but our humility can allow us to have more than we would have without asking.

There are six basic principles to creating a functional relational system, one in which relationship and health is the primary concern, whether it be a family, friendship or marriage:

1. I can talk openly about things that are important to me.
2. I can name my feelings, beliefs, and values, and keep my behaviors consistent with them.
3. I can define the limits of what I can comfortably do or give.
4. I can clarify the limits of what is acceptable or tolerable in the relationship.
5. I can openly share my vulnerabilities and competencies with others.
6. I can give permission and support others in doing the same things.

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 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.

1. Digital technology has been proven to be addictive; screening distracts people from their emotions and addressing their needs for connecting relationally.
2. Screening distracts people from their emotions and needs for connecting relationally, and AI puts people at risk of avoiding the brain work of thinking.
3. We are creating a world in which we are not actually involved, with “sweat, thinking, touching the dirt, needing others with us, etc.”
4. 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:

1. I make mistakes; so do others.
2. I need other grown-ups and others need me.
3. I don’t have all the answers, but I will share what I do know.
4. I ask questions when I don’t know how to do something; I support others in doing the same.
5. 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:

1. The best we ever become is clumsy.
2. We have to live life on life’s terms.
3. Everything in life is practice.
4. 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”

1. Acknowledging distance
2. Doing the work of daily remembrance
3. 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.