The Gift of Failure

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

You are 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. In this podcast, Chip sits down with his longtime friend, Stephen James, to explore the paradoxical gifts of failure and the three part anecdote to shame. We were talking the other day, and you said this thing that was which kinda blew my mind, and it reminded me also that so much of the real truth of life is paradoxical. Like, it looks one way, but it's really the other. You know, you gotta go up to go down, all this stuff. You gotta go in to grow up, all kinds of good things. But you said the other day that that real success is hidden in failure.

Yeah. There are a lot of gifts in failure, that there are some great gifts in failure. Until we fail, we will not get those gifts. At at something specific, actually. Okay. Could you can you talk more about that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I tell you what. So many of us are raised to live under a series of shoulds. And those shoulds are actually like become like a tribunal of judges that are watching us and measuring us all the time. And they're always on some level a little bit disgusted almost and and always kind of disappointed and always sort of just a little bit, distrusting of our moves and stuff like that. So they we live under this series of shoulds. And no matter how much we do, no matter how high we climb up the mountain, if we reach the peak, we turn around and they point and there's more mountain.

These are this internal tribunal. This internal tribunal. These voices in our heads of the critics and critic The coaches out of us. The judge. The judges. Yeah. Yeah. And we will even, kowtow to these shoulds as if we're hearing from god. I mean, god himself gets mixed up with this tribunal, the poison. Yeah. And this is what the there there are three essential shoulds that seems like this tribunal teaches. It's one, you must you should become independent, which means that if you wind up being a person that has needs or needs too much, whatever that means, then you are somehow a failure. If you don't become detached from need, if you remain on any level dependent upon, then somehow you are weak and have failed. The second should is that you need to become realistic. Realistic means that on some level, you face that life survival of the fittest or kind of life's a crap sandwich you eat it or starve. It's your job to make it paradise even though it never will be. And somehow, if realistic means life's not fair, so get over it. So strength and being realistic really means that the less touchable you are, the less affected you are, the less you care, then the more powerful or the better at at living in reality you become. But should be Should be independent. Should be independent. Should be realistic. Should be realistic. What's the term? And then I should be powerful. Should be powerful. And powerful is really a powerful human being is a person who can use their face to hide their heart. In other words, I am someone who even if I am affected, you will never know. You will never know me. Mhmm. I will have the power to not be known. We've said before that the most powerful person in any relationship

is the person that can care the least. Yes. Yeah. So if you become independent, if I become realistic, which means just not expecting too much, and if I become powerful, use capable of of using my face to hide my heart, then I get to a place where, ironically, I have completely and utterly failed. And the world teaches me that that is great success. I have the gift of being able to live alone and not attack. So the success of the world e equals the failure of being human. Yes. The tribunal inside me is always telling me that on some level, if I become a human being and move into the possibility of fulfillment through neediness Yeah. Then I am somehow a weak day. Where does that come from? Well, the shoulds come from the toxic shame. The tribunal is always depending upon my toxic shame. Toxic shame says if I need, then somehow I'm inadequate or incompetent. K. If I feel, somehow I'm sort of rejectable and, unlovable. A dream or a hope. If I don't measure up to some standard outside of myself that other people are watching, then I am no longer on the team. I don't belong. I don't mind. I'm grotesque, sickening, disgusting, ugly, pukey, sickening. If you get to know me and find out what's happening inside of me, you will simply walk away from me Yeah. Or not love me. And so these shoulds that we get taught often by people who want to protect us and they teach us how to manage the world instead of showing us how to remain ourselves and grow from that context. Teach us to hide our heart. Mhmm. Yeah. So if, yeah. Yeah. There's a whole lot more to that, but but yeah. We'll do the whole podcast on that. Yeah. We will. Yeah. Let's do let's do that. And, Stephen, the thing is you you know that me and you that, you know, I I my recovery is the idea that I pray every day to to live in failure, to escape the bondage of those shoulds.

And the thing is So the the way we get out of the trap of success is to live into the gifts of failure. To have the gifts of failure. Okay. And so we but there's a you have to take the antidote. But throwing off the shoulds is a revolution. We get to participate and must participate and have to take the risk of of revolting. We revolt against the shoulds. It's a revolution. To do so also requires that we accept the antidotes to the poison that has been injected into us. That's incredibly poetic. Uh-huh. And so we we we take the antidote. The antidote is three things. It's amazing that that we be people who can ask for help. Okay. Okay. So if you ask for help, it's showing that you're dependent. And that and the thing is what's amazing is if you ask for help exposing your dependency, you often receive help, which means you gain more, which means you become able more, which means you can help others more. So the irony is that you become capable, powerful, able Confident. Yeah. The second, failure gift or the second gift, the antidote is to feel your feelings. Feeling your feelings means that that you're capable of attaching and caring about something. And if it goes wonderful, you celebrate. That's one pole, on the continuum. If it goes not wonderful, if it turns into disaster, there's grief. And life to the fullest has lived between the two poles of celebration and grief and the continuum of everything else in between. So feeling your feelings means I'm in this life and that makes you an attractive person, not a not a repulsive person except repulsive to the tribunal, people who aren't gonna accept you anyway. Right. So and then the third one, the third antidote to the poison is asking questions. You and I amazingly and kids love this. Kids love to know that parents know it's their first time through life. Kids love to hear, hey, you know, I'm this is the first time I've been a dad. It's the first time I've been a mom. It's my first time through life. I'm learning how to do it too. We're all practicing. Guess what, son, daughter? It takes a lifetime to learn how to live. So asking questions and living in those questions and taking what answers we have that lead us to more questions is kind of like the most truthful way of living. By taking the antidote, living the antidote, we wind up becoming people who make decisions and work to make them right. In other words, we take ownership of what we're doing. We know life entails risk. We seek help before we jump. So we become able to make decisions and be responsible. It's called independence Yeah. Out of dependency. People who are realistic, people we we know that we may fail in doing something, but I can't help but hope and go. Yeah. So but so so this realism is recognition of how life works, but at the same time, I don't stop living the truth Yeah. Of how I'm made. And then finally, we find that a person who is truly powerful is a person who's most fully present. And so when Jesus talks about, he said that the disciples are talking about who is the greatest, who's the greatest, you know, among us. And Jesus said he he said is a great scene. They're walking down the road and they're arguing. Yeah. Like, he loves me more. I'm better. Yeah. I mean, It's Matthew 18, you know, two and three. He says he brought a child before them so there were other people around. And he said he said, unless you change and become. Change what? We cannot change ourselves. It's more like having to face our need to be changed. That that, who will help me get rid of the tribunal? Who will help me step into myself? You know? So unless you change and become like one of these, a child, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. He said that this kind of humility

is the greatest. Neediness, open heartedness, curiosity. Imagine we're talking about this antidote. Yes. Yeah. So I I pray for continuing to fail. I pray for the courage to accept the gifts of being human, which is gonna, you know, put me in a in a position of asking for help, asking questions. What's like a practical example? That's that's actually really clear. Well, when I don't know how to do something Right. My whole history is I need to figure it out, or I need to be strong enough to just do it. Or I need to act like it doesn't matter to me. Or act like it doesn't matter to me. And and and I still remember, I was putting up an arbor. You know, remember when you and I went down to railroad yard? Yeah. Got all the timber. Right. Well, I ended up building an arbor as you know. That's beautiful. And the the post are 17 by 14. Each post weighed about 900 pounds. I would say, yeah, about 900 because they were, you know, 14 feet tall. I dug holes and put them five feet in the ground. Yeah. I was putting the first post in in the hole, and I was balancing it to pour concrete in there and then brace it off. So I was trying to brace it off. I was doing it by myself. I started yelling to, up at the house, Tennyson, come out. He's 10 years old. He starts holding the post, you know. That's a pound post. Yeah. Because I can't do it myself. I put him in a position if the post slips, it tilts a certain way, hits him on the head possibly. He is, hurt terribly. Now I was not asking a 10 year old was not asking for help. I realized the danger that my pride Mhmm. And my self sufficiency and my figuring put him in Mhmm. Put me in. Disastrous. So I stopped where we were, braced that post op, actually, because he and I did get it done together, you know Wow. To keep it in the family. Same thing he worked. I kept it in the family. Yeah. And then, I called, three, four friends. And the next day, four guys came over after church, and we put the post in within an hour, all four of them. I dug the holes. I got to have the pride of that. And then over you know, I was still I was ashamed, Stephen. I was ashamed to ask for help. So knowing our need, knowing our fear, being willing to let go of figuring and step into the feelings and where do the feelings take me because fear we know is a is a feeling that we have when we recognize we're in need, and it's it's the it's the asking for help feeling. Mhmm. So listening to our feelings takes us to the recognition of our needs. Taking recognition of our needs allows me to wonder who will be there asking questions. And beams. And if they do, there's somebody there to, help me heal. Ask for help. In other words, like, if it turned out disastrously, then I'm not alone in the hurt. Good things happen to people who are known, Stephen. I mean, if if being known as failure, I'm I'm all in now. It used to be I thought that, only those who would be loved are the ones who had earned and deserved it. To have achieved and done something to be Yeah. Revered. Yeah. Exactly. But those people were actually never known. Yeah. They believe in a judgment system.

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 a 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 heart to the work you're called to do. You can visit Sage Hill Training to register.