The Powerlessness of Being Human

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're made to do. In this podcast, Chip sits down with his longtime friend, Stephen James, to discuss the powerlessness of being human and the gift available to us through accepting our humanity. Chip, we both work in the world of addiction and recovery in different context. You as the executive director at CPE, which is a treatment center, me at SACIO Counseling. But we both face a real similar problem every day. And and more than depression and anxiety and suicide and and addiction, it's really this idea that and it's a deadly idea that people really think they can possess the power to fix themselves. And he said to me the other day, he said, man's power to fix himself is killing us all. Could you unpack that and talk about that?

Yes. We have mistaken in a lot of ways, I believe, tech technological advancement for human progress about being human. We've gotten smarter but we've not gotten better being human. Well, we've got we well, we've gotten better at technological improvement. But it hasn't made us really that much more advanced intellectually because we still intellectually think that we can overcome humanity Mhmm. With our technological progress. Mhmm. So, Stephen, if we go back Even our therapeutic counseling approach. Oh. Oh. I I just I'm telling you, the work of many therapists is not how to overcome life, but how to live well in the midst of life. And really, it's like allowing ourselves to grieve, facing limitations, living within the context of powerlessness. And if you go back and look at, Genesis and Job and Isaiah and and, you know, the different books of the Old Testament, some of those books are 4,000 years old or even more. Six. Yeah. And Old tradition. And and looking at those stories that are many of them very unvarnished. It's about failure and, you know, success and

Yeah. And humiliation and joy and delight. Insecurity. It's very truthful. But those stories speak to the elegance of human beings' awareness of their humanity. And humans haven't changed one wit in those four thousand years. Yeah. And there's no reason to think that humans were really, much different before that. Right. You know, and if what whatever you believe before that. But human humanity has it it made a lot of advancements technologically, but human beings have not changed at all. We are emotional and spiritual creatures, created to live fully in relationship, and our technological advances are not gonna take us away from being humans. And in fact, did you They're not gonna take us away from our need for relationship, our fear of being without relationship, our our hunger for to be known, our desire to belong and matter somewhere. Like, no matter how much we invent, no matter how enlightened we become, like, enlightenment won't take me away from the need for relationships. Yes. We we can cure cancer,

but not cure the fact that we're gonna harm each other, and that we're going to hurt each other, that we're going to feel hurt, and resentment, and bitterness Well, thank you. That sounds so negative. Yeah. Beckett said that you're on earth and there's no cure for it. Now, God is present with us, but God is with us on earth for which there is no cure. We're here and there's not enough enough technology to stop me from saying harmful things to you or stop me from, betrayal or losing heart or manipulation or destruction or nothing to stop me from loving you no matter what you do or seeking forgiveness from you or putting me at your mercy. Marriage is not going to ever become perfect. This idea of progressive cures for being human

is I mean, I'm thinking of theology as a as a technological attempt to try to solve the human condition. Yeah. People can behave right or understand God right enough, and they'll quit acting this way. And that's a whole humanistic movement. Yes. If you only, if you would only, almost all of these messages about human beings are about putting today off until tomorrow. Whether it's a sermon or a thought or if you take this pill or if you take this injection or if you learn this skill, almost all of those things are saying, guess what? If you practice this, tomorrow will be so much better than today. And then tomorrow comes and you practice that cognitive skill or that ability That moralistic endeavor. Yes. And you may have gained some expertise, but it will not overcome.

You have to struggle as a human being living in this world emotionally. Well, let's make it how does this show up? You're not gonna overcome life. Give me a practical example. This is all kind of in the cloud right now. Okay. So the practical example is, like, we're trying to climb the ladder of success. Okay. And the question that we're asking ourselves is how am I doing overcoming being human and becoming successful? How am I doing? How do I look? What are people thinking of me? What am I thinking of myself? Comparing myself against my own successes, my own failures, other people's successes, other people's failures. Yeah. And I'm and I spend my life trying to become independent of neediness, not having to be independent. I spend my life doing everything I can to try to be realistic instead of living truthful as a human being, and I try to access power. There's nothing wrong with power and independence and realism. It's like we're this is I've said, we're on earth. There's no cure for it. That's very realistic. But to try to overcome presence of pain, their presence of dreams, the presence of delight to numb those, to try to become somebody who's not truthful about my condition,

or try to some parts become somebody who can't is not dependent. So I try to be a better parent. I try to be a a harder worker. I try to make more money than that guy. Yeah. Winnicott talked to just be good enough. I'm just trying to be good enough. Be good enough. Become human. Become human. So the question is not how am I doing, but what am I doing? So fall off the ladder Well, most people fall off. Most people get kicked off. Okay. Yeah. Once you get kicked off and you land on your area surface of the earth where we live. You become human again. You become human again and you're made to grieve and reach out to the hand that's reached out to you in dependency with truthfulness about how you're made with the presence of your own heart. You're saying in dependency, not Yeah. In dependency. Yeah. In the dependency that you the fact that you're made for relationship with yourselves, others, and God. The question is, what am I doing? You start to move into communion, community, and cooperation instead of the competition of who can hide their heart the best to climb the ladder to become somebody You can never be. That you can never be. And we know that if you climb the ladder of success and you get up to the clouds and you get through the clouds,

above those clouds is just more ladder. I'm just thinking yeah. There's more ladder. It never stops. I'm thinking right now inside of me, like, what are some of those subtle messages I carry around once I obtain this, then I'll be okay. Yeah. Once my kid gets this, once I mean, you know yeah. I mean, I've got all these contingencies in my life Mhmm. That are real subtle Yeah. But are right there kind of And those things are good. Hey, guess what? Shelter's great. Money's great. Vacations are great. Marriage is, you know, that stays good. Over being human. Yeah. But none of those things. No no thermostat is gonna be great enough to allow me to escape the fact that it might quit working. The thermostat may quit working. Yeah. Things break. So

and the hopeful message in that is what, Chip? That through what am I doing, how can you help me, show me how to walk through this, teach me how to live in this, advance me. You know, one of the great things that children are asking, children are always asking. They're asking for us to fix it. But what once they found out we can't, that we're humans with them, it's a great piece of heart to them to find out that we can't fix it, but we can be with them in it. Because they're asking us this one question. How do I live hurt? How do I live with loneliness? How do I keep gladness? How does gladness translate from feeling happy to being okay with, like, caring about something even though I know it's going to hurt? How do I stay in attachment when it's painful? They're asking us, since you're big, how do I live this thing? Because obviously, you can do it and life's happening to me, and it hurts. So will you be with me at a in a place where there's no cure instead of trying to keep teaching me to overcome it? We're not gonna overcome life.

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're interested in learning more about living from your heart, check out doctor Dodd's spiritual memoir on the beatitudes Perfect Loss, A Different Kind of Happiness. 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 that you're called to do. You can find out more by visiting sagehilltraining.com.