The Doorway Of The Human Heart

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 Dobb. 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. Good afternoon, Stephen. How you doing? Good afternoon. It's been a been a while. We've had a little break in the podcast series. Yeah. Summer vacation. Yep. We've had some good, good podcasts from the past, and we've had, addictions podcasts that people have had some great feedback about too. And you you went on a little cruise, didn't you? I went to Alaska. Yeah. Yeah. Sure did. Land Of The Midnight Sun. Yeah. Sonya had always wanted to go to the Inlet Passage. And, I wanna do that trip one day. Oh, it's really it's really good. The,

I was she said she I I didn't wanna go because I've I've been to Alaska a couple of times, and I just I didn't, you know, I just didn't wanna go, to be honest with you. Especially, I didn't wanna go on the cruise. And she said, we haven't been with me. Like, well, that's true. That's true point. I'm telling you, man. It it was a wonderful experience. That's great. She got to see whales, and she's always, always, always, I just wanna see a whale. So she's I mean, we we got to see the whale. She likes to boat out into the Yeah. Yeah. We went out there. We did, kayaking around the orcas and, seals saw seals pop their little heads. It looked like like scary kayaking around orcas? No. No. No. It was, you know Those are called killer whales. There's never been an incident. Of a killer whale eating a human. Apparently, only one in the history of killer whales or something. Kills people and they don't have anything to say about it. Kills seals and stuff.

So apparently, whales are whales know where know what and where everything is. Okay. So they don't, generally speaking, you know well, they don't knock boats over. You know, they didn't Moby Dick, of course, but that's a different deal. So, yeah, it was great. A good trip. I'm telling you, we, the the it it really is grand. I mean, all of the previous week. I've not done a staycation in a long time, and I'm terrible at it. Like, I was terrible at just being at home Yeah. Not working, but not being distracted by being somewhere different. Like, it was, really hard. I could I really couldn't do that. I actually ended up creating a couple of work things. I was thinking, yeah. If I'm home, I'm work I'm gonna work. I'm gonna find something to do. What what is that? I don't know. I don't know.

Might be workaholism on my part. But, as we're getting back into the podcast, we're gonna revisit some just key themes of the spiritual root system. Right? And Okay. Primarily, what we wanna talk about over the next several podcasts are feelings and needs and desires and longs and hope, but generally talk about the heart. About what does it mean to to live fullheartedly? What does it mean to to engage your your own story and the story of God and the stories of others with a real real compassion and and passion for living? Because I'm seeing in my own life and as I continue to meet with people and, and you see this every day that that no matter how much recovery a person has, like, life doesn't stop happening. That's true. Right? The good things, but also, like, the heartache Yep. You know, having having, you know, like, recovery of heart doesn't keep tragedy and heartache from happening in your life. Yes. It does doesn't stop, frankly, put the,

the daily routine of the mundane going round and round either. I mean Yeah. That becomes, get up, go to work, take care of business, you know, eat and then have some time and then start again the next day. Yes. I mean, that's wonderful and I love it and I'm grateful for it, because the alternatives know, I know it's a first world problem, but at the same time, we you know, the the old song, the we were made for so much more. We carry eternity in our hearts. Know that song. We sit give me a couple of notes. Don't even think about it since you know good and well. But, I mean, that that we're continuing to look for a place called vacation that is actually tragically it dearly does mean vacate. So we have a hard time living in our own lives, so which means living life on life's terms. So and something I've begun to really really talk quite a bit about is actually living life on life's terms is that life is not going to change. I mean, the cycles that you and I are going through are gonna be the same cycles our children are gonna go through and their children are gonna go through unless something stops at all. Same cycles our parents went through and their parents went through. There is birth and then growth and then living and then not living anymore. And so, being able to live what you call full hearted, what you said, is really the difference between living life on life's terms versus resigning ourselves to survive in it. You follow what I'm saying? Impose our agenda on life. Well, you know what? I think that we are created on some crazy level to impose our hearts on life, and it becomes an agenda. But we really do try to impress eternity and our longings for a place that is home on our lives. So when we really we we do, but it's just it it doesn't work. And what it brings us to is having to face life on life's terms, which means feel the defeat, know the struggle, experience the mundane, and still keep carrying anyway. We don't just survive it. We live fully in it in spite of those things that, you know, we would like to be different. That's life on life's terms. So what happens is survival means that we we try to figure out a way to escape experiencing the events of life, whether it's the mundane or the tragic or the routine or just the fact, the way things are, that we can't impose eternity on it because it's not gonna happen. Right? Yeah. So what happens is that the way to live life on life's terms is to feel it through. That that for every event that occurs in life, there are corresponding feelings that go with it. If you don't know how to do feelings of life, you're gonna resign yourself to trying to not have them. Right. Okay? So and it turns out that we've been given by God and by by creation itself. I mean, we're created in a way to be able to live in a place that's tragic or, you know, routine and still have a good life here, but we can't do so unless we're living fully in relationship. Right?

Yeah. So my favorite phrases and I remember from the The Voice of the Heart book, but also when we were working on the book, The Voice of the Heart, you had all those tapes from your, that retreat you did Mhmm. In Texas. Mhmm. And, you know, you say in there, on the doorway of the heart are written eight words. Yeah. I believe it more now. And so what's amazing is that that, you know, here you are. You and I are older. Feels older. I mean, the the people who have we've been doing this Feels old. Feels old, man. But, yeah. He and I'm older. So but, here, you know, you know, I introduced you, and you helped this come to be realization in terms of The Voice of the Heart. But, you know, since 1990, now we're talking twenty eight years ago. So we're thirty years ago, honestly. And so if there were any sense that the spiritual root system was gonna create a change in the world or a change in life or some kind of change that allows us to escape having to live life on life's terms, it's probably not going to happen. It's not gonna happen. No. It's not gonna happen. So so any attempt to to try to impress or impose eternity on daily living is not going to make eternity happen here. So we are capable, however, and here we are thirty years later, and I'm I'm learning and knowing more about living life on life's terms with heart and still living no matter what versus survival that, I I'm okay with this, and I don't like it. Both. Right? Yeah. And I'm older and all those things. But still, what holds true is what we're gonna talk about is that upon the doorway of the human heart, there is the beginning of a solution of living life on life's terms so that we don't have to live in survival. We can live fully until we're not here anymore. Mhmm. Upon the doorway of the human heart are are written eight words, and those are the feelings.

So I get this whole, like, Lord of the Rings picture, right, of of this big door. Right? And and carved above the door, like, are these these in in stone are these eight words. Right? Yes. And and they're not the holy of holies. They're nothing but tools. Yeah. And they they are passwords that let us into ourselves. Yeah. So without let's let's slow down and talk about that. Without going into each feeling because we've done podcast. Yeah. We're not gonna do feelings. Yeah. Right. Let's let's talk about them as tools Yep. As lanterns Yep. Right, as, passwords, keys. Right? Let's let's talk about how the feelings Working them. Work. Let's talk about working them and how they connect to the next thing and how they allow us to live daily life. Mhmm. Because daily life's repetitive. Guess what? The feelings give us opportunity to live repetition Rhythm. Without it becoming, we call the, boredom Mundane. Or resigned or just passing through life. Let's talk about them being passwords. Okay. K? First of all, the eight feelings are are the the the passwords that let you into your heart. For example, if I have Sadness, Sadness awakens me to a need. If you have a feeling, it is an invitation for the door of who you are to open up. Yeah. Alright? So let's say I I feel Sadness. So my heart goes, well, I know that word. You may come in. Right. You may come in. Same word is same way in a computer unless you know the pa if you know the password, you get into everything that's in your computer. Right? Yeah. K. So they open the door to the heart. And what happens is then at that moment, feelings now become, lanterns. Now I say lanterns instead of piercing led lights because lanterns I'm talking about old Yeah. Lanterns like it shows about piercing lantern. You still have to walk into.

So the lanterns are are Also keep you from then having to experience more than you need to experience. Right? You just can see what you're looking at. And also, guess what? We're not gonna have control. This is life on life's terms. You don't have to control all of it. You just have to you you become capable living in it. K? So feelings end up awakening us through the passwords, through the lanterns, to needs. So the image that just came to mind in that is the movie National Treasure. Perfect. It comes in with a torch Yep. And they think they're in that step into the antechamber Yep. And he lights the thing, and the and the the fire starts spreading in the trenches, and the torch is And that started with treasure after treasure after treasure. Yeah. And it started with his recognition that if it this can't be all there is. So feelings aren't the point. Feelings are tools. Yep. And they and they're passwords that let us into our selves, who we're made to be, how we're created, created for connection, created for relationship, created to experience, created to taste, touch, and feel, you know, all those things. So feelings lead us to needs. The lanterns show us around what we're needing. They'll show us into the territory of desire because it goes feelings, needs, desire Right. Which is the backbeat of zoe. Yeah. Zoe versus bio, the the craving for life, desire. What are you looking for? And then longings are a picture of how the world could be. And then finally, longings bring us to a territory called hope. And the moment you hope

and you're wishing for something, you don't have picture you just painted of the heart as a territory Mhmm. Right, or this giant land, this internal landscape that is has no end of exploring. Right? It's just pretty. Like, it's like that we get to this territory of hope. And I just thought of, Chronicles of Narnia where they get to the sea in the end, and and it's the land beyond the sea. Right? The future. The future. It's like, wow. It's like there is even so much more. Well, let's say we've gotten to the shore, and we've we've gotten to the place where the shore is and the ship is there. There's the sea, their future. And then we we come to through feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope. We've come to a place we're about to take the next step Right. Into what we wish could be true. But the moment you or I hope for something, we also are wishing for something we don't have. Now we're back into fear, powerlessness. Right? Yeah. And that brings us back to feelings.

And so yep. And so feelings, passwords, lanterns, keys. We haven't mentioned those yet. Let's talk about the how they open the doors. And when I remember you talking about this long time ago, around that that these stories that live in our hearts, like these old stories and cobwebs and memories and trophies and the memorabilia, like, all the stuff that's in there behind these doors with locks on them. Right? And then there's just all these rooms. Yeah. When we when we when we decide that we're gonna control life or we don't have what it takes to live life, then we start shutting down that which gives us life. Mhmm. Right? That which connects us, which is the heart. So we lock doors because, one, is we see them as not worth messing with, too tragic to go in, or it's such a memory of life I once had I no longer have. It's where celebration was.

So So we'll lock up celebration. We'll lock up sexual abuse. We'll lock up divorce. We'll lock up death. Like, all the the beauty and the heartache We make our lives smaller and smaller so we can live them contained, so we can endure life, but not ever learn how to live life on life's terms. We we try to reduce our lives to that which we can control, which means not just stopping pain and tragedy, but we also stop adventure and potential celebration. Right. We shut our lives down. So feelings are are, passwords. They let us in. Lanterns, they show us around. But I wanna go back for a minute. They show us around in terms of they show us around through needs, desire, longings, and hope. But see, those those things are how we create the pictures. That's where the pictures are in terms of what we're imagining or looking for or wishing, what we need to grieve that's never gonna happen, what we thought would occur that didn't, and what we're willing to take a risk of stepping off into. I remember talking to a physician saying to me, he said, your your your guys you take into treatment, they they kinda have to go to treatment for like three months. I'm like, yeah. He said, how do they do that? How do they actually get that time? Well, they they just can't. I mean, believe it or not, there is a merciful setup and a way through things that would would not seem possible unless we had to do them. Right. You know? And and and I said, you could do it. He goes, I would love to. And not treatment, but I would love to, you know, go on sabbatical. I said, well, you can do it. He said, no. I don't think so. And so it's it's it's like he just the idea of entertaining it, you know, got scared, shut his heart back down, and walked away from it. But if he walked into his heart, god, I wish I could do that. I'll and he started having pictures of imagining what it could be like. I hope I can. It would allow him to step off into taking the risk of of attempting it. But he has to shut his heart down to keep himself from doing it, and he makes life the mundane, and he resents the heck out of, on some level. Everybody. Well, on some level, yeah. Not him specifically, but we tend to. You know? Yeah. So back to the keys. Keys. So once you once you've moved into exploring, and then we'll talk about that in a minute. But once we move into exploring, then all of a sudden our territory begins to expand. Our hearts get big bigger because we become more safer and confident in knowing how to process feelings and how to talk to other people and how to get our needs met and how to care about others and increase empathy and increase experiences. And daily life isn't just getting through it, but who you get to see in it, what you get to do, related to it, all those kinds of things. Sometimes it's gonna be putting up with stuff to get somewhere else. I get all that too. Right? Yeah. But so keys allow us to open those doors because we're created for more. We're created to to expand, grow, care, attend, make, shape, create, do, climb, see. Mhmm. And I'm really grateful that Sonya, you know, said, please, I wanna go. I wanna do this. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, let's do it. Because I haven't done it with you. You're right. That's one thing for sure. And I would I would love to experience with you because what you're gonna experience is gonna be much better than I would. You're gonna see things I won't even see, and you're gonna show them to me. And we did it, and it was wonderful. And, like, Alaska in the inlet passage is 10 times more than all the other segmental things we have in this country. Like, because the we have Fall Creek Falls. That's it. We have 10 of them, 15 of them. You know? So so then there there are passwords, lanterns And keys. Keys. They open us up to resolve the trash and tragedy, to move us into things more than we could ever ask or imagine, to step us into experiences of living that we didn't know we could have. They in they increase our story. Right. And if you increase your story, you also increase your capacity to be involved with and help others. Right? They also they also,

in that way, then begin to move us beyond our story into mystery, like, where life becomes surprising and new. Willing to go see what's gonna happen. We become good at hope. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But even the the practice of it, like like, not just the the belief and the energy around tomorrow could be different, and and something's pulling me forward. But once I move beyond my story and start living into new possibilities, that's a real mysterious place when I don't know what's gonna happen next. And you see what you mean by beyond the story is just beyond what I've known before kind of thing. Just like it. It's not just a routine. We read over and over. Yeah. New territory. Yeah. Right? It's not the same old, same old. Yeah. So so let's talk about we talked about what feelings are, their their their passwords, their lanterns, and their tools. Right? The keys. Their keys. Yeah. Sorry. And those three things are tools. Yeah. Yeah. The keys. So, Chip, the we talked about feelings being passwords, talked about them being lanterns, and we talked about them, being Keys. Keys. Mhmm. And together, those are the tools of feelings. And

and talk about tools a a little bit. Yeah. It's like that that that tools see, they're they're just tools. They they aren't magic. They show us inside ourselves, expand our possibilities, and give us experiences we didn't have before. They they expand our capacity to live life in a lifetime. The better we are at using a tool Think of think of a wood lathe. You Like, okay. Talk about that. A wood lathe is, you know, see, tables What's a wood lathe? Yeah. Well, it's like people have they there there are many different, like, they're like chisel. There's they're they're they're wood lathe tools, and each of them has different edges, some for rounding, some for grooving in, some for Right. Spiraling or whatever. And so that if you're not good at the tools, you're not gonna pick the the one that needs to be applied to, let's say, a table leg Right. At the right time or it's you're gonna bam bam bam. Beautiful carvings in a newel post. Yeah. And not only is beautiful carvings in a newel post, it's the same beautiful carvings in several newel posts. They're capable of repeating Right. Art. So, anyway, the better you get at the tools, the more artistic you become, more refined you're able to do. More production, more as well. More depth of life. Okay. So they're just tools that we, like, need to learn how to use so we can be artists. Okay. So to use them, there's three things we have to do. Yeah. We have we have to identify. Mhmm. We have to explore. Mhmm. We have to express. Yeah. Those are the three three sort of mechanisms. Got it. And and I hate to turn it into formula, but, really, the reality is with their tools. So Yeah. And then we need to know how to use them. The way you use the tools, number one, that when it comes to feelings, you need to ask yourself a question about the events of life on daily life. It's like, what am I feeling? So that's called identification. Identification, identifying what's happening inside your experience of yourself. Yeah. Because if you don't know, you're missing it. And if you're missing it, you're missing life. So one is identification. What am I feeling? Alright. What am I feeling? Two is expiration is where is this coming from? What have I experienced? Where is this coming from? What else is this? What's happening? What's familiar about this? How big is it? When did it start? When did it happen? What's going on with it? I'm noticing that you're not asking why. Yeah. Why takes a person to reason and defense. The word why is a word of the head. It's you know what I learned recently that in in almost every language, the word why is an accusation. Yeah. It's translated as an accusation. Even I I was talking to somebody the other day, and I said, even if I ask in a voice like, well, why are you doing that? And just a real sweet, kind, little baby voice or something. Yeah. Still, that it's asking that person to justify their behavior. Yeah. So why applies to, you know, really, why did the recipe not work or the cake fall or the tires or the flat? That exploring phase after identification,

which let's go back for just one second. Identification takes practice. So when you first start doing feelings work Yeah. It's so hard to tell the difference between sad and hurt, let alone guilt and shame. Right? I mean, it's Yeah. That takes practice. Well, you're talking about refinement. Refinement. Mhmm. And you in the exploration, it's not about figuring out what I'm feeling. It's about it's about exploring the threads of meaning and story and memory and need that go along with the feeling. Yeah. And exploration comes from knowing your experiences, having talked to other people, being open to learning how to explore Right. You know, like, having experience with life. So Practically, that's not a by yourself thing. This. How big is it? What's it connected to? What's what just happened? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Exploring too. It's like we we learn things about the tools too. Like, if if if my feelings are bigger than the event, we know that I've gone to a place I don't need to be or or I've gone home to where I came from. I've gone to where these feelings are unresolved. This is so familiar. And then finally, expression is who do I tell? Who do I tell? That's it. So Well, for some of us, just admitting them to ourselves begins Yeah. First expression. But who do I tell is is God, others? Sometimes it's your sponsors. Sometimes it's your spouse. Sometimes it's a men's group, sometimes it's a friend. I mean, who do I tell can be many different people, and it can be your journal. I'm really big on if if you and I are gonna live life on life's terms, we really gonna we really need to awaken to which we've done a podcast on this before, but we really need to awaken to what we feel about stepping into the day we don't have control of. So upon awakening, it is very important to spend some time identifying, exploring, and expressing.

Yeah. Getting prepared for the day. And as Who am I, where am I, and what do I do with it really? Possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, begin to imagine what you're looking for in in in terms of just anticipation of something, good and stepping into life with a with an attitude of of creation. Yeah. Chip, it's been a really good podcast. We're gonna we're gonna land the plane here. One thing that people can do if they wanna get better at using the tools in their own life and the lives of others is do the satchel training. Absolutely. Would you would you talk just for a minute as we end the podcast about new satchel training starting in a few weeks? We have room for people to sign up. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and why we do it? Yeah. The dates the dates are on the satchel resources website. You know, if it's satcheltraining satchelresources.com, satcheltraining.com.

Yeah. And could find the dates out there. Yeah. And I'm telling you, the Sage Trail training, I still say, is the best collaborative thing that you and I and Phil and others have done. Yeah. It is It's full team effort. I am I I do not hesitate. You know how some people say, hey. Ask people to come to your church. Yeah. And it's like, well, I'd rather send them somewhere else. But this is one of those things I can really say, hey. You know, come do this. Because it is a a it's an absolute true growth process Yep. Of actually introducing a person to live fully life on life's terms and never have to spend a tremendous amount of time going back to or becoming someone who's just resigned to the And the way we've designed it is if you're if you're new to the spiritual root system and new to recovery, you will gain a lot. Mhmm. If you've been walking in this a long time and you're in a professional people helper or you're, lay people helper, like a sponsor or work in a ministry somewhere, like, this is gonna oxygenate oxygenate and hydrate. Like, it's gonna add vitality to your work in a way. That's what the spirit it oxygenates and hydrates, which doesn't sound like it makes any sense to most people. Adds life. Yeah. It makes everything else more vital. Yes. Has more vitality. So And integrity. Yeah. And a ton of integrity, a lot of integration. So that's one practical place that people wanna get better adept at using the tools Yeah. And be trained by some experts who were adept at using the tools. Yeah. They can come to Nashville. They can participate in that. We got a few openings left for this year's training. Love to have you. Go to sageoresources.com to sign up, sageotraining.com.

Send a new Small group it's the the group process and teaching. Teaching and then group process. Elements. There's teaching, small group, process and experience, and then there's homework, reading, reflection, and preparation for the next time. So it's this integrative thing that takes place over a seven, eight month period. It's a beautiful thing. And we we have in fact, we have almost a 100% completion rate over a four month period of time. Yeah. We have people staying Two people of the whole thing not finished. And not and and nothing has come back in terms of a wasted time, wasted money, wasted It's over seventy hours of Yeah. Of experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So good. Alright. Yeah. Thanks, Chip. Thank you, Steve. Talk to you later.