Hope, Part 1: Powerlessness and Surrender

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 Dodd. Sage Hill is a social impact organization that helps people see who they are made to be so they can do what they are made to do. The following podcast was recorded at last year's Sage Hill training, an in-depth experiential training to help you bring your heart to the work you are called to do. If you are a therapist, pastor, or professional that works with people and you'd like to be better equipped to help people live fully, we invite you to learn more about Sage Hill training. You can visit sagehilltraining.com to find out more. The spiritual root system oxygenates and hydrates who you were created to be within the specific context of how you're made. Now how you're made is what we surrender to. Who you're made to be is the big question mark. But let me tell you this. If you do not admit powerlessness over how you're made, which is is is categorized without your consciousness, it's categorized without your choice. So that's what I mean we're born powerless over how we're made, as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping creatures. If you don't come to a place of admission over how you're made and surrender to the process of how life works, then what happens is you're on you're on the same train as everyone else decorating your boxcar in your own unique way, but you're still on the train. And that's a great thing we say, except I already know or anyone who's free or anyone who's in the flow or the process or surrendered or admitted powerlessness, they're not on the train, and they still know where you're going. Every one of us who runs from how we're made and all the multiple self cures, addiction is a term I use, control issues, codependencies, another another word for it, will power isms, Greek thought, perfectionism, religiously oriented will power belief in meritorious salvation, all on the same train, all in the same thought process. What's so amazing is if if a person is running from themselves, they're on a train, nobody gets off the train voluntarily. Almost everybody gets off the train by fainting and falling off, finally being so desperate to avoid something, they jump off. It's like jumping off into, to, not knowing what's going to happen, but whatever is is happening is so bad that you're willing to do something else. Once you're off the train, your life actually begins. But what's amazing about the train is that anyone who's watching the train is a prophet, not because they're so magical or because they can see the future, but because they know how trains operate, because trains go where tracks are laid. All addiction leads to the same place, isolation from how you're made and who you're made to be. You lose your destiny and sacrifice your identity to the cure, the false cure of not having to feel life on life's terms or be in need. Like, wow. There it is. It's huge. Now you can decorate your boxcar any way you want to, but it doesn't matter what you do inside it, whether it's pinks or reds or greens or blues. It's a long black train to, the song says, nowhere. So it doesn't matter how you and I decorate the train. What's required to stay on it is a thing called denial. Now denial is the cornerstone upon which all self cures or addictions or codependencies or control issues rest. It's the cornerstone upon which all running from being human is built. In our run from being human, we're running from how we're made as feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping creatures, and therefore, we're also running from the food we're made to eat and what we're made to live on, which if we don't eat it, we're cursed with starvation, Jeremiah seventeen five and seven. We're made to eat out of the food of relationship. Me with me, me with you, and me with God. And our most of our problems in life, most of our real problems in life, most of our genuine miseries in life or or miseries in life are are the things we do to keep ourselves from being in relationship. Those are most of our sicknesses. So now denial does not mean you're lying. But anyone who is running from their humanity was trained at the table eating denial. And you have to be in denial to fit into the system to allows you to stay at the table and belong in matter at the table. And denial means I do not see, like the literal defense. The defense itself is a defense of blindness. It literally means you do not see. Now it's not they're faking like they don't see. It's the person actually doesn't see. The purpose of not seeing what's actually happening around you is a way to suppress feelings. See, because we really do see through the eyes of our hearts until we learn how to be blind, deaf, and mute to what's happening within us. So denial is I don't see so that I won't feel, because a system that is escapist or avoidant or suppressive or depressant is about people avoiding disruption created by contending with life. In other words and kids are awful about doing that. Kids are awful about doing that very thing. They bring their contentiousness, their contending to the table. And if the family rulers have a struggle with the heart itself, then the child, because for safety's sake to belong in matter, will go into suppression. They get on the train. K. And their future in some ways is dictated, determined. That's where we get the idea that there isn't freedom. But the freedom that we're born with is really a freedom that we wind up not wanting. We don't want to feel. We don't want to need. We don't want to desire. We don't want to long. We don't want to hope because our freedom is pain. And we don't know the profit of pain, p r o f I t. We just know the curse of it, the rejection related to it. So denial also says I don't see so that I won't feel so that I won't need. The rules are real simple. Don't see, don't feel. Because if you feel, you're going to need. Does everybody relate to that? If you have feelings, you're gonna wind up having needs. If if someone puts a flame of a candle against your elbow, you're gonna have feelings and then you're gonna have needs. And then you don't need for a purpose too. You don't need because if you need, you're in a position of having to have a voice. You're in a position of taking action. You're in a position of showing what's happening. You're in a position of exposing presence. So this is this is extraordinarily elegant, and a child is capable of moving into this without the experience or intelligence of having experienced the world. That's an extraordinary gift, and it's an extraordinary tragedy. So don't see, don't feel, don't need, don't talk so that you won't wind up being in a situation in which it starts happening all over again. You wind up trusting that it'll be different, and then it winds up the same. That's the birthplace of the loss of self. That's the birthplace of us beginning to despise powerlessness as a curse instead of the doorway into neediness, which is a blessing. That's also the preparatory work for what becomes codependency, which is I watch you to see how I am. There's nothing wrong with picking up on cues in our world. I mean, I'm talking to you, and I'm watching your faces and seeing your faces, and I'm wondering things. You know, like, are they here with me or paying attention? Are they tired? You know, that kinds of stuff. But if I'm looking at those things and then, you know, based upon what I read, interpret, decide, make up a story about, and then start dancing like crazy all of a sudden, that my actions are not my responsibility. I've given up my Codependency is the loss of self or the sacrifice of self given over to the needs, covert or overtly communicated of caregivers. Now when I talk about the sacrifice of self, I'm talking about self. It's the self awareness. We lose contact with self awareness. Like, that can't be really happening. And I've got story after story, just growing up in terms of pretending literally to not see what I was looking at, to literally not see blood, not see vomit, not see guns, not see the facial expressions of potential violence or death. It's like not seeing. So self awareness is one of the sacrifices or the losses that a child will have under the circumstances of denial. This is one of the things you lose contact with. You lose contact with self trust, which means believing your awareness or laying claim to what's happening within you. Self care, self feelings, self worth. And that's where the self esteem school gets built. You can read about that in The Voice of the Heart, that self worth is something that gets lost early and self esteem takes its place. And that's why they call it building self esteem because it's something you do instead instead of something you were born with that you use. And self worth is something you're born with. You have a little bitty metaphor, gold ball, a a glorious gold ball that carries glory in it, which and glory means thick luminescence. It's light and it's thick, and you can't quite see through it, but you almost can. It's like it's transparent, but it's so full of itself that you can't see through it, and it's gold. So I I have to stop there. It's just it's life. It's yours. It's unique because it's yours. That's where they get the word inalienable in the declaration of dependence on the wall in our lobby. Inalienable means it's yours. The bank can't take it. You can't sell it. It can't be prostituted. Wherever you go, it's with you. It's yours. And that thing that is ours that we're born with is self worth. You're worth it. It's the you know when you're born, you're worth it. The idea of worthy isn't even in your vocabulary. Worth it was with without doubt. In fact, there's no such thing as doubt, especially at birth. And from the time of birth, just looking at it logically and help me remember to come back to looking at it logically. Just looking at life logically from the point of birth, you do nothing but gain skills. And I use the example, even if you become a catatonic depressive a catatonic depressive is sort of like someone who goes into a state of frozenness, and you can hammer a nail in their arm and they don't move. Now that's some serious skill, and we call that tremendous sickness. But sickness doesn't mean lack of sophistication. In fact, frankly, the sickest people are the most sophisticated and the most logical, amazingly logical. So self worth is something you're born with, and it doesn't go away nor does it grow. It simply continues to be expressed through creation. So self worth is something that you don't grow, you express, but you have to remember it to allow you to keep the hope you were born with to walk through the pain of creation over and over again. Now if you're born with it, you didn't earn it, you can't get rid of it, it won't stop doing what it's made to do. It was birthed in hope, and the last thing living in it, no matter what you do to destroy it, is hope, then what I need to ask you is where did it go? Where did it go? Because almost all of us will talk about our struggle with a lack of self worth. I don't feel like I have much worth, like I don't matter, I don't belong. Well, what we're where it is, it's hidden behind the fortress of denial. That's where self worth is, buried underneath a mound of toxic should, toxic shame. And you paint the castle blue and green and pink, but it doesn't make what's inside any different. So what happens is that once we start to become codependent or start to seek self cures or start to watch other people to see who we are, from that point, our self worth becomes really self esteem, and I go up and down based upon how you esteem me, what you think of me, how I've gotten your approval, how I've pleased you, or how what I've achieved, or how I've caretaken you versus cared for you. Because we live in a mistaken belief that we actually cause people's feelings. We live in the mistaken belief that we make people in moods, that we literally make, create, make. It's a narcissistic grandiose proposition that we believe to the core of our beings because that's what we were taught love is. We make people in bad moods. We make people feel. We make people think things. Talk about grandiosity. And then we actually believe that we could read minds. Now what I'm saying, that's not a distortion of insanity. That's sanity that's become impaired because we do pick up on the signals that are going on with other people. We are aware of of things happening with someone. Thank god. We do become aware that we influence each other, but we go from awareness and influence to dictation and story making. And it's all about preventing our past from recurring. So you see what happens, the tragedy is our self esteem goes up and down based on our success of stopping our lives from happening. The irony of self esteem is that you're in charge of your life, you make your own worth, and you do so so that you never have to wind up going back to a place that you're trying to leave behind, that you see yourself as worthless. We spend our lives doing everything we can to avoid living the lives we have because we're trying to prevent the past. We live our whole lives trying to stop something that has already happened from happening again. And then your brain, the rational brain I told you I would mention, the rational brain is actually used to rationalize your emotional decisions while denying that you're having emotional experiences. I just said that because you were doing so and so. And you did that, and that made me feel this way. And so you've got to do the so and so for me to be different. That's rationalizing around emotional emotional experiences that I'm denying that I'm having or denying that are mine. Now when you get off the train, which is what your first step was about, you you made a declaration of hope on some level. You made a declaration of dependence, a statement of powerlessness, an admission of neediness. In some ways, a surrender to how you're made. Like, oh my god. This is the way I'm made. And now I heard somebody say, I think, that no matter where I turn, I keep seeing the next step I want to take to make my life go away or to stop me from having to feel or need or desire or long or hope, which puts me in a position of neediness or powerlessness, but it also puts you in a position of creativity. Now once we become in need enough or desperate enough or lost enough or depressed enough or avoidant enough or drunk enough or failed enough or whatever it is, we call that a gift. It's ridiculous, but it is. That's ridiculous, though. I want you to know it's ridiculous. It's stupid, but it's true. It's stupid truth that powerlessness is the doorway to freedom. That's I I I think that's just so stupid. It's ridiculous. It's irrational. It's insanity. Sickening. It's stupid truth, and it's avoidable if you stay on the train. Did did you know that there were people who knew that Al Auschwitz existed who got on the train? They just didn't believe it. Did you know that there were people who were getting off the train at Auschwitz and telling their children it was gonna be okay? Even after they had seen one of the guards pick up a two year old that was crying and wouldn't stop, grab it by the leg, sling it against the box car wall, kill it. And they're telling the children to be okay when they split the children from the parents and the parents from each other. And then when they were going into the, quote, showers, unquote, they were still saying they were showers and it was gonna be okay. So when I say denial is a real thing and it is not lying, it's I don't see. Because the idea of having to see takes me to a place of such great powerlessness and I e helplessness. Basically comes down to this. If we don't contend with ourselves, we're not gonna get off the train. And the only thing that's gonna take you off the train is gonna be being sick and tired of your condition, and somebody probably kinda shoves you. You can't take it anymore. And you don't want to die. And it's always hope that takes you off that train, even if you make somebody push you. What's amazing is it is painful. You get off the train. But here's the promise related to living. That it's not a fix. This isn't a pill. It's a path. You get off the train, and even if you've learned, like in the movie, Divergent and all those, like how to jump, and you jump and roll, you're gonna get scratched up, torn up. But here's the promise. If you get up and run, there's a harbor over the hill with a ship. The mast three mast ship. The sails are up. It's your ship. And willingness to be in pain is gonna take you to where you're made to go. That ship has your name on it, and that's where pain, passion becomes creativity. Where are you gonna go? Well, where are you gonna go? The North Star is in front of you, the compass is on the map before you, and there are no tracks. And any track that's laid in the ocean is gone as soon as you're gone. Is that not astounding?

This is Stephen James, the executive director of Sage Hill Counseling. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill podcast with Dr. Chip Dodd. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, anxiety, depression, or burnout, please reach out to the Center for Professional Excellence for help. For more than twenty years, CPE's long term residential treatment programs have been helping professional men recover their lives, marriages, and families. To find out more, visit cpenashville.com. Further, if you're a therapist, a pastor, or professional that works with people and you'd like to be better equipped to help them live fully, we invite you to learn more about Sage Hill Training, an in-depth experiential training to help you bring your your heart to the work you're called to do. You can visit Sage Hill Training to register.