Hope, Part 2: The Pain of Hope

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. Hope is what exposes the conflict that is in life. Hope exposes the conflict that is in life. It doesn't expose the conflict of life, and it doesn't make life conflictual. Now hope is the energy within us that can't stop wishing for being fully alive. You think of it as a gas flame, like in a fireplace. That's the way I think of it like a little propane flame. And in the wintertime, your gas logs are turned down. It's just a little blue flame. In the wintertime, when it time that you take the little knob, you turn it, and it it lights all the logs. But no matter what you do, that flame is there. You can't blow it out. You can't get rid of it. It's there. Whether or not you like it, no matter what you do, it's still in you causing great pain of wishing. No matter how terrible, awful, ridiculous, sickening your life gets, it's still there. Even in the catatonic depressive or catatonic schizophrenic, it's still there. But that person has done everything they can except for death itself to avoid experiencing it. The denial, dissociation, all the defenses that come with protecting ourselves from more rejection or abandonment doesn't make it not there. We're just able to remove ourselves so far from it, but it's still there. It's the last thing left in the spiritual root system that says life. So hope is the eternal flame of creation within you, and it is the eternal change agent within you. It's the thing that keeps bothering you until you kill it off. And the only thing that kills it off is killing it off. Even hope torments helplessness. It's a thing we we wind up despising. You can you can literally lose contact with awareness of your feelings. You can lose the belief that you the needs even exist. Desire could be so squashed in you that you lie veg in a vegetative state. Longings are just they've been so long gone. It's just the just the idea of spiritual life is like, whatever. And yet, there's this thing within us, no matter how much we do to rationalize it away, it can't stop being, pushing us, wanting us to move towards how we're made. It just gets diverted, impaired, contaminated, twisted, but it's still there. Because hope is what actually controls addiction. Addiction doesn't make hope go away. It controls it. See, because addiction, remember, is an impaired attempt to find the life of a want or the to be fully alive without having to pay the price of feeding fully. A person who is suicidally depressed is still wishing to live. Hope, it brings us over and over again. But the the protective devices that that naturally occur in us under the circumstances of loss and rejection, squash it, squash it, squash it, but it's still there. Denial, dissociation are gifts. They're from gifts from God. They're protective devices that we're able to go into cocoon until we can get to a place someday, hope, that we won't have to do like that. All of it's happening without consciousness. The only thing we do consciously is make a vow never to be harmed again. Everything else is happening without us even deciding it. Okay. I'm I'm I'm 14 years old. And I'm 14, and I'm like a I'm kinda like a kid at 14. I'm kinda like a little kid at 14. Do y'all know do you know that? Can you accept that? Mhmm. That I was a kid? As a newer person. Yeah. 14? Yeah. Okay. I I still have a very difficult time with that. Very difficult. I look at him at 14, boom. Mm-mm. He he was a man. Because I was doing man things, like grown up big time adult things. But I I had a question that I needed to ask because I was such I was terrible with dire straits. I was in dire straits. I had been on the football team at high school. I was a year younger than all the other kids. And I I was playing football so that my father would love me and so that I could, like like, I wouldn't have to see a look on his face that was just, like, horrible. And it wasn't that he was a great football player. He was just an extraordinary person who accomplished tremendous amount of things and had been asked to come play football at LSU And was like this like some kind of sort of famous fullback in Murfreesboro before they wore, when they just had leather helmets and stuff. And, so I thought if I could do this, then he would be proud of me, and I would get rid of my shame. God, awful shame. So there were like, 88 kids that went out and by the end of a few weeks, there were like 14 or 15 of us left. In fact, I just had a high school reunion and the all the guys that were on that team, they got everybody they got everybody together from that team. And there were, like, nine of us there. And I'm like, that's really wild. It means that much to them too? Because I'd have thought, if we do that, we need to get a picture of the those guys if they're still around. It's forty four years ago. And a guy named Johnny, he said, yeah. I got the picture of us on my, filing cabinet in my office in Florida. And it says, to the greatest men I'll ever know. On that photograph. Man, I've just developed some serious gratitude and kind of pride that because Johnny was the number one baddest, toughest, roughest, most awesome guy on that team. Because one time, he threw me down and pulled my face mask off. We were fighting. And we had fight day. And and fight day could be any day. I mean, so so we're all out there and it's like Johnny Biggers jumps me. It's like a free for all, you know. And we had different ways of fighting, like, in a square, like, with, a 14 feet, and then water was sweetened. We had a box that you fight in, and then you just paired off and fought. And then you lined up and fought. And then you lined up. You had to run through while people kicked you and fought. So there's all different kinds of fighting. I'm like, daddy love me. Daddy love me. But at the end of the season, I was done. I'd already I'm I'm finished. I don't wanna do this. I don't like this. If this is it, I'm out. I've already proven myself. I'm done. But then when I and and, the basketball coach asked me to come play on the basketball team, he only picked certain kids. It was it's crazy stuff. But he picked me, and I'm thinking, yeah, I'll go play basketball and loved it. I really loved it. And it's like, man, I like shooting. This is great. I'm all in. Y'all learn how to use my left hand if that's what it takes and it gets me out of prison. But I also decided to be an All State basketball player at that point, which I wasn't, even close. But it was a dream, and it was a way to dissociate actually from where I was. Anyway, so when the the football coach found out I wasn't coming back, the football coach and the basketball coach got in a fight, like, talking to each other. The principal calls me into the office. I'm like, I didn't understand what's happening. They're gonna give me a special helmet. They were gonna turn like, I'm like, I don't wanna do this. You gotta decide what you're gonna do, son. You gotta decide. Like, I can't put up with these two guys fighting each other, and then the basketball coach is in there. He was yelling at the football coach, and I'm thinking, like, I didn't see myself as a prize of any kind. Do you know what I'm saying? All I would do is Danny Lovey, Danny Lovey, go home. I mean, I didn't wanna do I didn't wanna I didn't even know what they were doing. And I'm thinking, I'm not gonna be the football player you think, but somehow. Anyway. So I had this huge decision to make and I had to make it the next day. So I'm sitting at the table and, like, I gotta make this decision. Now this is the denial point. If you haven't gotten some denial already. The way kids work their lives out to be okay, to be somebody, to to get over being a child, all those things. So I sit at the table and I don't know in in I guess in healthy families too, but in families have their sitting positions. Me, my brother, my brother, my mother, my father, my sister. And there was this rare occasion where we're all there. And if it all every all six of us there, it was not going to be a good experience. But we'd all pretend it was wonderful and just really good, really good, really good. So as long as we kept it nice and tight, and everybody played their role. Y'all know family roles? I mean, they are the real deal. And I hope you'll examine your own family. Even healthy families have roles, but they're not rigid. The sicker the family, the more rigid the roles. So I I was like, you know, I got nowhere else left to go. I gotta do something. And I'm not playing for me anyway. I'm like, hey, I I gotta decided if I'm gonna play football or not anymore. Okay. Like, okay. Alright. Got a knee here. It's happening. And then for out of like, my father said, without looking at me, and he was already he's already kind of in a rough place. He said, my father's an addict and a surgeon and a drug addict. And, he said, I don't care what you do. But it was said, like, just I don't care what it was it was, I do not care what you do. Now I'm 14. I'm like And I watched. I looked right at my mother, because we used telepathy. Do you know? Y'all know telepathy. As a way to avoid things from happening. That's how you keep the boat afloat and keep it from rocking. K. She looked at me. I watched her. It was the most amazing thing. I watched her go pale and then turn back to normal color. And I went, got it. And I also got it. I saw. This is how it is. Like, I do not care what you do, which means you playing, it did nothing. You me loving you, you forget it. Whether you do whatever you do, it doesn't matter to me. I've given up on you already. See, now I was already named as star crossed. Now star crossed is Shakespeare. You know what star crossed means? Doomed. You're star crossed. Your life's determined for you. You're broken and nothing's gonna fix it. It's over. Thank you. Denial is a blessing. See, dissociation is a gift. The ability to keep silent is a a survival tool that saves us. I saved myself that day, and it cost me everything. You see? It's it was over after that. And then within soon, I'm running seven hundred something days in a row. I mean, it's just I'm a goner. I'm being an Allstate basketball player, things get worse. And me being able to not see, not feel, not need. Now, I'm feeling and needing and desire and longing, but I'm not really feeling about what's really happening and not really needing around how I'm made. I'm not really desiring and directly related to how God created me. I'm not longing for a life that's in life. I'm longing for a life that's somewhere else. See, all the longitude, and I'm hoping that if I do this and if I do that, then this will happen and that will happen. Life becomes an equation related to hope. Now the problem with these gifts, denial, dissociation, rationalization, intellectualization, suppression, all of those defenses, they're protecting us for a time. But until we get pushed off the train, follow the train, the time never comes. The gift is when our defenses break and we break through. But we're certain that once our defenses fail us, we will fall apart instead of break out. And that's where the astounding beauty of the first beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, is a freaking revolutionary, astounding, cannon shot right into the shield of denial, like blows it to pieces. Everything I never want to happen is the beginning of the life I'm made to have. And that's when I, later on, realized the beatitudes were the doorway into the whole growth process itself. They're they're astounding. Now, when it came time, when I became loved, Sonya loved me, I couldn't let her. And when people valued me, I couldn't let them. When the time came for me to put denial down, to drop dissociation, to set down defensiveness, to put down rationalization, intellectualization, to trust again, I couldn't. I wouldn't. I'm not. It was only being crushed that allowed me to do so. So your defenses are your gifts until they become your curses. John Bradshaw would talk about, I'm sure Brene Brown does it, but that that which once protected you will be the thing that ends up destroying you. Your defenses are what wall you off from being touched. In your marriage, by your children, with your friends, by God, by beauty, by creation, by gifts. That which you cannot make, you don't believe in.

This is Stephen James, the executive director of Sage Hill Counseling. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill Podcast with Dr. Chip Dodd. Sometimes in life, we get stuck or blocked or reach an impasse. At times like these, an intensive short term therapy can help you overcome what's keeping you from the growth and changes you desire. At Sage Hill Counseling, we offer therapeutic incentives to help couples gain new momentum in their recovery process. If you wanna find out more, please visit sagehillcounseling.com. Also, if you're a therapist, a 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. This in-depth experiential training will help you bring your heart to the work you were called to do. You can find out more by visiting sagehilltraining.com.