The Four Forms of Joy

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You're listening to the Sage Hill podcast with Dr. Chip Dott. Sage Hill is a social impact organization that helps people see who they're made to be so they can do what they're made to do. Hey, Chip. Hey, Stephen. We are here back in the Sage Hill studio. Yeah, we are. We have done over 100 podcasts now. This is podcast 101. I believe we've called. No, no, no. We're past that. Cause Are we really? Well, if we put in the, own addiction, Phil and I doing own addiction, I think we're at, you know, more, more. So we, we are now in Yeah. It's pretty neat, isn't it? It's pretty neat. What I like about it is that we remain consistent. Yes. We've we've kept on. And, even I don't even know how many blogs I've done now, but it's you know, once we were spurred on to just keep doing it, it's been pretty neat to to just just keep doing it. Yeah. You know, I just I like getting to. I don't know why I said that.

We we've got some brand new spiritual root system material today. Well, yeah, continuation of yes. It's a continuation of what what we've been doing now for, gosh, for me, since '91. Yeah. It you know, I wrote a, Sage Hill timeline Yeah. This last week that we're working on. It's gonna end up on the website soon that we're editing and revising. And, I was out of town in Chicago and I sent you a text, like, when did you start working on the spiritual root system? Mhmm. Right? In 1991. 1991. I I honestly believe it's it sounds like a cliche, but it was it was on it was like on the back of a napkin. It did one of those Yeah. That classic deals. But Yeah. I remember drawing, some roots and, some lines and the impairment and how we shriveled up and, yeah, and say, well, this is part of how we're made, feelings, needs, and it just kept going. And I I don't even remember, you know, exactly how it just it just kept going. It became very organic. Yeah. Very organic. Yeah.

Well, a few weeks ago in your adult formation class at church Sunday school. Sunday school. Yeah. One of your one of one of your class members Oh, that's right. Said to you, Chip, when are we gonna get to joy? Enough of all this sad and hurt and lonely. What are we gonna do joy? I keep I keep I continue to focus on, you know, the reality that we've been given eight tools to live fully in a tragic place. And and seven of those feelings are what people think of as negative, and I think they're all good. It's got the pain of life. Yeah. The gifts that come from it. And so but what he was saying was when are we gonna focus on the gladness piece and the the joy piece? And I remember thinking, you know, it really is time. It's Thirty years is about time, mister. And and I thought I had been because being able to live life fully, love deeply, and lead well is the joy. But, he was he was really talking more about give me some expressions and some formats, some forms of joy that, I mean, how how does joy come out of all of this? And there is joy in the Lord. There is joy in living. There is joy in relationship. And and, you know, I I just assumed that in so many ways, but so so today, we're talking about and I went ahead and started teaching four expressions of joy, four forms of joy that come out of the whole spiritual root system and being able to do your feelings well. Yes. So today, the the

our our gladness and the joy that comes through it is derivative of our ability to to live into the other seven feelings. That the more I'm I'm able to to experience my sadness, of course, I'll find acceptance and anger and passion and so on and so on. Hurt, healing. But to the degree that I I'm I'm skilled at being able to identify, experience, and express my feelings. Yeah. I've I've always used the word if I am adept. Adept. A d e p t. I'm so southern. I don't know if people can understand the word. A day up. A day up. Yeah. In fact, I've been taping, which is really cool. I've I've I've I've taped The Voice of the Heart. We've got audio book, and I'm doing the perfect loss. And the the these incredibly professional, what do they call them? Electronics? Producers? Producers? Yes. Yes. See, that's me. That's me. They will stop me and say, it's not impaired. It's impaired. They'd say, it's not theater. It's theater. You sound the same when you said Did I? No. You said that. Okay. Good. But they will stop me and naked is the one. Naked. Naked. Naked. Naked. Or naked. Naked. So yeah. So yeah. But, but adept. But, yeah, if if a person is adept, becomes adept at the seven feelings we we tend not to want, even though I prefer actually anger over all of them. But, anyway, if we become adept at the other seven feelings, the outcome or the derivative of being good at those seven feelings is gladness. And we've always talked about the gift of gladness is joy with sadness. Mhmm. And what that really means is no matter how great the experience of delight within, there is the reality of where we live. So, you know, the Becketts, this is a paraphrase, but you're on earth and for that there's no cure. Yeah. But and and joy, is is really, that which removes us from the earth even though we are forever bound to it. That sounds so like,

Oprah Winfrey spiritual. Yeah. Voodoo hoodoo. Well, you know, in the book The Needs of the Heart, one of the needs, is fun. I mean, what a what a strange statement. What a strange word for a need. You know, we have need to grieve, need to belong, need to matter, need for to be listened to, need to listen, and then there's the need for fun. And fun is actually a deep spiritual and also, lighthearted experience, but it it's it's the capacity to to lose consciousness around planning and to be fully participating in the experience of being fully alive. And play. Yeah. Play. And so it plays, you know, play play and fun don't have the gravitas that they really are due Yeah. Because we move towards, you know, the glory of living in fun, or in play.

But anyway, so So joy takes us out of, elevates us to Where joy is the feeling, the the internal experience of of having fun, of the need of fun actually being experienced or being met. Forgetting one's troubles and being all in to living fully, loving deeply, leading well. And there there are four four joys that I have found so far. And the first joy is ecstasy, that everyone knows what that is in from the standpoint What is it? Well, from the standpoint that we say, oh, it It sounds naughty to you. That's joy. Okay. You'd say, but that's joy. Ecstasy is joy. And ecstasy is the mountain top experience. It's it's you're unable to not notice that this has to be joy. I remember, an ecstatic moment, in my life. It was inescapably ecstatic, when there was complete forgetfulness, and we we moved from the could it be to to this has happened, from the possible to it's impossible and it happened. You've stepped into the more than, better than I even thought it could be, but I was made for experiencing something just like this. When, I remember in the substate years ago, How many years ago, Chip? Oh gosh. It's ten years ten years ago. Oh, your sons are playing in the substate. I thought you were talking about my substate. No. My no. Not me. No. That's, that's not joyful. That's the lost world. Yeah. Which makes the joy, that much sweeter. So your boys are playing in the substate base high school baseball. There's a long story that goes with it, but they lost the year before. William helped Tennyson. He said, I'll help you do whatever you gotta do to get back to that game. They make it to the substate. It's a ragtag bunch of kids. Tennyson had so believed that they would make it the year before, and then he gets to hit a home run with the game tied, in the bottom of the ninth, and it was a most glorious moment. I remember the ecstasy, the peep jumping around, just thrilled and just, you know, blown away. There are no words. It's just it was joy. Yeah. Absolute un unutterable, ultimately indescribable experience within and without. Can't stop celebrating. Can't stop the experience of celebrating what this what just happened. David dancing before the ark of the covenant. If you saw a film of yourself in ecstasy, it you probably would would not want to see it again because it is the complete vulnerability of expression of just thrill Yeah. Delight. Just so so that's exit. That's the mountaintop experience, and we're made for it, but it is not a daily experience. It is Can't live in it. No. Can't live in it. It's not of this life. Reality is we're bound to the earth, and ecstasy is something we are created to have great gratitude for. But to to live attempting to find it over and over again is sickness. That's addiction. In fact, addiction is most of the time controlled by an ecstatic moment, usually the first use, and then forever attempting to retrieve that original high. Ecstatic moment. So ecstasy is a gift. See, joy joy is always a gift. So ecstasy is one of the expressions of joy. A second, expression of joy is creativity.

Okay. So you got ecstasy, ecstasy, and creativity. Which is a mountaintop experience that that really has a lot of hope for and then it happens, but we didn't make it happen. It just occurs. Ecstasy. So what's creativity? Creativity is really you know, you heard me talk a lot about the artist the artist versus the laborer or the craftsman. When when somebody is fully participating in work, hands, head, and heart all involved, they have stepped into the joy of creativity. Mhmm. It's muscle, brain, body, heart, hope, all applied towards a direction. It's the creativity of building, the creativity of shaping, molding, of fashioning. It's trying to make that inside passion come into reality. Yes. The the creativity of imagining something as possible and applying oneself towards that direction. At the end of the day, you're sweaty and, dusty, and yet there is that sense of having done, but also the joy of getting to, the the the, participation in sweating, that we're moving towards something whether together or or individually. It's the joy of getting to experience moving and shaping and making. Yeah. So that is joyful. Taking on the challenge, while there's fear and often anxiety related to it, actually moving into create creativity. We are creative creatures. We're created to create. And when we are giving ourselves over to something, even if, it doesn't last, which is sad, having made, having reached, having stepped, having gone. Children on the beach, you know, they'll make the sandcastles and loving the creativity of it, and they walk away from them, and if they're not here the next day, they're just not there. Children are creative creatures, for example, and we're created to create too. So I think creativity is an expression of joy. K. Even, the experience of of, you know, maybe I don't wanna go work out. This is just like the daily routine. I don't wanna go work out, but then once I do, it's like step into the movement, step into the body action, and I'm better. I feel a sense of well-being. In the morning, I don't feel like waking up to do my prayer, meditation, reading, but when I do, I'm more prepared, I'm more, glad, I'm more joyful. Going to a meeting I didn't want to go to, but after I've gone, I realize how grateful I was or appreciated I was. Space without

the, tyranny of toxic shame, without the dread of anxiety or the like, I found this moment or this moment's happened for me Yeah. Where I am focused on either I've been delivered to the mountaintop or I'm focused on the expression of what's in me. Yes. And that that becomes my energy. Mhmm. Stepping into the challenge of something that matters to me. I'm not trying to do something to get away from my sadness or away from my hurt or away from my loneliness. I'm bringing the impetus of those feelings and the story that goes with them into the expression of my heart. Risking. Risking. Yeah. Stepping in. So creativity creativity, joy, has a sense of risk to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it might not turn out. No. It might not. And and

the the more we separate our worth from our performance and our worth is expressed in stepping into living, not the outcomes as much as the stepping into living, we can always say, like, my my son's in law school, and he he says and there's a joy in him saying this. He said, I'm going to work very hard, and I'm going to stay very focused. In fact, he's writing a, like a pamphlet on, you know, how to how to win in law school, but he's just he's creating. But he said, I'm not I'm going to miss some social functions. I'm going to give up some things that I normally would have done because I'm not gonna look back and say, if I just done more, if I just give more, I'm going to give it all and get everything I can out of what I'm gonna give him, win, lose, or draw. It's not about the outcome. It's about fully participating. Fullhearted participation. Yes. Yeah. So if we can separate our worth from our work, then it's it's just the the the dignity of having gone.

The dignity of having participated is just I was really there. I really did show up. There's a joy. My my it's no longer performance based identity. Yeah. Right? Where where my outcomes predict how well I like myself or how well you think of me. I got the trophy, so I must be good. I got this award. I must be good. I got the the great Mother's Day or Father's Day card, so therefore, I must be a good parent. Right? It's about it's about stepping into the thing that's in me that needs to be made known in the world. Yeah. That's creativity. Yes. And and and I guess really from what you're saying, Steve, it's, when it comes to joy and and creativity, there's no score. There's no score. There there just I haven't thought of it that way, but, yeah, there's no score. And it's a very sad thing because, fear of hoping and then fear of imaging in that hope and fear imagining and then fear of taking action in that imagining can stop a lot of joy. Well, you know,

you and I are both creative people. We build things, and we've painted things and drawn things and written things. Right? Yeah. And it never turns out to match the picture in my heart. No. It's always just even the my best effort, it's always just a shadow. Yeah. And that's the risk of creativity is Yeah. The disappointment that comes in it too. Yeah. Gosh. I I I I still think the the the best thing that I've done in the creative world, my hobby of writing, is, oh, no. Well, no. It finally hit me that somebody said, do you have any hobbies? And you used to, like, well, really? No. It turns out my hobby is pretty expensive. It's writing and, you know, publishing and doing all these things because it matters to me. And I still think that the best thing that I've ever created is Anthem to the Invisible. I know you do. I know. And it's just like so I mean, did and and still in spite of, who hasn't read it Yeah. And who did and didn't get it, it it's, I still I still can't I still take joy in having done it. I really enjoy You gave everything you had in it. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. I and so What's the third kind of joy? A third kind of joy is appreciation. Okay. And, it it if you look up the etymology of appreciation, it it means to appraise. Okay. Okay. Almost like an assessment. And appreciation slash gratitude now gratitude covers all of these, but I would say that gratitude is really closer to appreciation. But when you take an account of what what you've gotten to do, and what you get to do, it's an attitude of of having gotten to do and get to do. When I look at how I've gotten to participate in whatever is good or something's noble, lovely, admirable, just, it's it's taking an an appraisal, or an account of of of things that, we, got to do. I mean, I just don't know how to say that. Recognize the value of this experience. Yeah. And, and even it's like I never thought I would get to, and I did. Or, I never, or even beginning to, look into the future of of, what you get to do tomorrow. When we move the shoulds out of our lives and the have tos out of our lives and start looking at our lives from what we've gotten to do and what we get to do, then all of a sudden we have a sense of gratitude or joy. It's participation in getting to live, participation in getting to add, getting to love, getting to participate. So the experience of taking an account of what I've gotten to do and what I get to do, really is an arousal of appreciation

or joy. So I hear I hear in that, like, one of the defense against against joy would be to not let things matter, to diminish or downplay a small moment that touches your heart. Right? Like, whether it's a sunset or a friend writing you a note or someone opening the door for you and helping you with a bag. And these little these little moments that touch us. Right? But we try not to let them matter. Yeah. It really is it really is allowing ourselves to be thankful. Now thank thankfulness does arouse its counter proposal. I mean, it just does because reality is where we live. You said earlier that even when you created or done something that you really wanted to do, building something, you look at it and you can find the edges that didn't quite meet the the, you know, the the sanding that didn't wasn't quite perfect, the paint streak in it that wasn't what exactly what is smooth as you wanted it to be. But those those things, they're inevitable because of where we are. There is that grief. Yeah. But the appreciation for getting to participate in moving towards something so gratitude is appreciation. What it does, what gratitude does, if you if you appreciate thankfulness, what you've gotten to do, if you can see what you get to do, it starts to expand into other areas when you and I start looking around our worlds and seeing, as Chesterton said, that the mundane of God's sunset is is him bowing. It's his encore. Yeah. At the end of the day, he bows and says, here you go. How about that for an encore? It's the it's the end of the day. Yeah. Recently, we're we're treating a, let's just say a well known expert in the field of of medicine. And, he went home on what's called a therapeutic leave last week, went into his apartment and, what he would do a lot of times in his loneliness, he's single, he would distract himself and make time go by by playing a cello. He's very, very talented, very gifted. And he was getting he had a couple of hours before going to, an AA meeting Mhmm. And he got his cello out, began to play, and he's playing a a a piece of Bach Bach, Bach, Bach. And, he said he he he played the piece for over a decade, and he said he felt the peace. He said, I felt the music for the first time Touched by it. When I've ever yeah. Valued it. And he said he became tearful and he said, that piece of music is sad, and he had such joy in participating and getting to feel the music. And then he went on from there and assimilated this, so he reads everything, and he started talking about, read or haven't read The Art of Archery, and it's a book by a Japanese, expert Mhmm. And talked about you have to feel the arrow. You have to sort of, like, blind yourself to your reasoning and let the arrow become the arrow. Yeah. Yeah. He said he always thought that was absurd, but he's talking about just simply letting go and letting the process work. So he was seeing what he got to do. He spent his life avoiding and considering the other seven feelings something to simply to eradicate, but not realizing that his unwillingness to feel Bach and to let his heart experience that music was also robbing him of joy. Right. That that the old, the old, desideratum desideratum, in spite of the ugliness and darkness of life, and this is a terrible paraphrase, life is still worth living and has so much beauty and magnificence and joy in it. So by taking a daily account of what you get to do and what you've gotten to do, an an arousal of thankfulness, which you've gotten to do. Mhmm. Like, just appreciation Yeah. At a moment of rest. Yeah. And it's even shown that, we get a greater sense of control even in our times of great worry by looking for possibilities of the worry ending. That one of the solutions to worry is not false gratitude, but looking for solutions,

looking at possibilities of hope. So And true gratitude, actually, your brain cannot worry and be grateful at the same time. Like, it it Your heart just overtaken. Yeah. Yeah. So the appreciation is rooted in hope hoping for more. We've got ecstasy. Ecstasy. Creativity. Creativity. Appreciation. That leads us to the fourth form of joy. The fourth and ultimate form of joy in in in my opinion, the deepest, sustaining joy is faith. Okay. So now now you've got me. I could I could keep up with ecstasy. Mhmm. I can keep up with creativity as joy. Mhmm. I understand appreciation, but how in the world is faith an expression of joy? Well, faith faith, it says the book of Hebrews eleven one says the ancients were commended for this thing, this thing called faith. And it says they were sure sure of what they hoped for, and they were certain of what they did not see. And if you're and and what what that put together, what that means is no matter what happens, I'm incapable of of letting go, of being of being sure that I'm gonna be okay, that he who has made me will take care of me, I cannot be forsaken nor can I be abandoned, that the promise that's in my heart will come true? My my job is to continue to step forward into fully participating in this thing that won't let go of me, that I've attached myself to. K. So the ultimate experience of of joy, this long long sustaining joy that can tolerate the hardest knocks of life is faith. The continuing to believe it's okay and gonna be okay no matter what. And if a person's sure of what they hope for, they have a passion. Mhmm. K? You get what I'm saying? If I'm sure of what I hope for, I have a passion which we If I know what I who I am, I know whose I am, I know what I want. I'm passionate. I know what I hope for, I'm what I'm looking for. I'm undivided. Yes. And so it means I'm willing to be in pain for something that matters more than pain. So I am directed and have a sense of joy, a sense of passion, purpose, a plan, a focus. I know where I'm headed and I know what I wanna do. So and then if I'm certain of what I do not see, I cannot let go of knowing that over the horizon is something more and better. K. So the ultimate sustaining faith that can tolerate all forms of knocks knockabouts is is joy rather is is faith. So we have ecstasy, which is the mountain Hold on. Hold on. That's what Paul says.

The apostle Paul says, you know, all this been beaten, ship shipwrecked, abandoned, all of it. Yeah. But it's hard pressed but not crushed. Right? That one? Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. And so he's he's talk a little about that because he's not pointing to these things that didn't hurt and I wasn't scared. Yeah. That's the that's the faith that I am undefeatable. I've got a vision and a mission bigger than this current moment. Yes. The the heart and that which is within us. See how this joy. Like, I see that faith be like, it is Yeah. Like, I'm not deterred by this momentary thing. Like, I'm But, so It's before joys. For joys, ecstasy, creativity, appreciation, and faith. And, how how do we go about, though, living this joy? And and there's a there's a there's actually the the discipline of joy. And how do we step into and live in the discipline of joy? And it's a it's a daily, frankly put, morning

experience. Well, let's talk about that in the next podcast. Next time. Oh, yeah. Okay. Let's let's have a little bit of a cliffhanger. Okay. Get people to come back, listen to another. So we talked about the four types of joy today. Yeah. And then our next podcast, we're gonna talk about how living a certain way leads you to Yeah. Ecstasy, creativity, appreciation, and faith. Faith, and not happiness. Happiness is a nice occurring experience, but, it's not it's not joy. Thanks, Chip. Hey, thanks, Steve. Alright. Appreciate it. Yep. Bye. Bye.