The Tools To Living Fully

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. In this podcast, Chip sits down with Phil Herndon, the clinical director of the Center of Professional Excellence, to discuss how our feelings are the tools to living fully. Hey, Phil. I'm hoping that some people, you know, listen to me and you, talk about how you and I came to be in the same room together really. Mhmm. And, even touched on synchronicity, serendipity, Lanyapi, conversions. But we were talking about also just trusting the process. Do you know like like there is a process. And the process itself of life is not something that you and I are in charge of. We are powerless over the process. And that Therefore, if we run from facing that condition, we cannot surrender to it. We're always running from the process. Right? Mhmm. Like taking control? Mhmm. Relief, control, survival. And the process requires. I would not say demands, but it has a requirement. Not the, dues that we pay, but a willingness that we have. It it requires that we have to feel. Because to even to go into the process is scary. Because we're saying, I have no control and yet I'm trusting that this thing will take me someplace I need to be, want to go even, made to be. And usually it's because we it's bad enough on land, so to speak, that we will put ourselves into the river. Yeah. You know. And I watched you and paid since you you mentioned that, you know, And I'm talking I know I'm talking about the book I wrote, but I can also say it from the book I was given, so to speak. Would you not say that, you know, like, all I did was speak what has been spoken for years and years and years and years. I call it two dimensional picture Mhmm. Of a three-dimensional and fourth dimensional life. But it really does it's the language of the river in so many ways. It's not the language of the land. You know, it's the language of the process. It's not the language of control. But it gives us a sense of being able to articulate what's happening in the ineffable. Now I know those two words are in conflict. To articulate the ineffable means to be able to speak the unspeakable. But it allows us to stutter and stammer, as Thomas Lewis says, to bring out of the dark regions, the emotional and memorable memory world, what it's like to be alive and what keeps us what makes us run from living. So with all that said, what what is the spiritual root system and the list of the eight feelings and the impaired and the repaired and the gifts of them? What what happened when you you got that book? It's like you went resonate. You went, yes. This is so. Mhmm. And then you say it works. Stephen James says, it works if you work it as we've heard before. So how did you come to integrate it so much? Or did it it meet you and you met it and you went, yeah.

Yeah. Reading the book, I found myself over and over and over and over and over saying things like, oh, yeah. Of course. Uh-huh. That makes sense. And it mean it made sense like a math problem makes sense. It made sense like, yeah, that's that's where I'm I'm now seeing words that describe how my life has gone. You know, something to me, well, okay. Well, these are words that describe how life goes. Yeah. Like, my life's gone this way. This is how life this is how life goes. It just goes this way. Like right now. Like, I'm when I'm it's intuitively true that when I stand at the graveside of someone I love, I have something happen inside of me that's not fact based. The facts are this person stopped breathing and they're not alive anymore. Yeah. That body's empty now. So So that is what it is. Yeah. Yes. It is what it yeah. All that stuff. Uh-huh. But the real truth is I'm having this thing rise up in me that is called sadness. Uh-huh. Situation like that. I'm sad about something and I honor and, you know, the book says, you know, we honor memory of relationship and honor the loss. And I'm I'm paying attention to that voice inside of me that I believe comes from Holy Spirit that says, this person for instance and that that whose body is lying in this casket by putting this hole was very valuable. And there are things I've had with this person that I will never have on this earth again. And there's something attached to that. It's called sadness. And there are things I wish had happened with this person that didn't happen on this earth. Uh-huh. And there's a feeling associated with that called sadness. It's beyond content and data. Let me give you an example of it. I was standing in the first base coach's box. Luke was playing Little League Baseball. He was about 10 years old, maybe maybe 12. So this is a story of life. It's not even a story of death. No. I mean, sadness that has to do with life. It's life that has death in it. Uh-huh. And he, he hit a home runs. One of those home runs that left the bat. I mean, you're, you know, you're Tennyson Williams' dad. You know all about that. Uh-huh. So that that ball left the bat and it was absolutely he just killed it. And so if you think about a baseball field, I walked toward home plate as he was trotting toward first. Yeah. It was one of those sling the bat and trot because it's a home run. Uh-huh. And I gave him a So he's already playing TV. Oh, yeah. He he's already bat flipping. Yeah. So he's walk he's running trotting toward first base. I gave him a high five. Mhmm. I kept walking. If you picture what I'm walking toward home plate. So I knew when he rounded third and he came around third base, he'd be coming to home and his teammates mobbed him. And afterward, I slept high five. I walked back to the first base coach's box. Uh-huh. And I reached in my pocket to grab my phone to call my dad who had died about five years earlier. Oh. Immediately, I wanted to call him. And so when I reached my phone to for my phone to call him, I felt something. Uh-huh. It's called sadness. And this recognition, we teach all the time. It's in the book. There's a gift associated with sadness. Celebration. Yeah. And this gift associated with sadness is called acceptance. Yeah. Acceptance, you know, working definition is not okay and it's okay. Uh-huh. Type thing. And in that Even down to it's okay. It's not okay. And that's okay at not being okay. Right. And in that moment, it was really, really not okay. Even though it had it's okay. Yeah. It was not okay right then. Yeah. So I remember after that game calling you, I remember saying, hey, you are a terrible second choice, but you're about the best I've got. Luke is his first home runner. I remember that. And you celebrated, you said, you're absolutely right. Years ago. I lost.

That's thirteen years ago. That's right. Ten, twelve years. Yeah. So I I remember that. So that was a that was a celebration of something Luke did. And in his moment of gladness like crazy, I had this moment of huge sadness. How come you didn't keep it to yourself? Right. You know, because I remember I literally remember I was outside. I was at a ballpark. Mhmm. I was at a ballpark somewhere else, Phil. Yeah. And you called me and I remember leaning on the fence and celebrating that. Uh-huh. Well, how come you did it? Yeah. I mean, you wouldn't have done that in the past. Because in the title of the book, I had this voice in my heart rising up. That was a description of a description of a life I was living. And I didn't want to describe, Chip, it was a left center field. He had 29 ounce bat, I believe. Yeah. He hit it by left center field, probably went about twenty, twenty five feet over and Yeah. You know, he ran around all the bases and it was a one one run. And so it was it was a it was it was a very, chip. It was just a real fulfilling experience. But for you to call

and for you to call, you also had to recognize the sadness. Oh, yeah. And the celebration took you to it. Uh-huh. Luke doing that, I gotta tell my dad, oh, my dad's not here. Uh-huh. And yet, it didn't take away from the celebration. It added to it. Totally. You called me to share with someone. You said you're a you're a bad second choice. A terrible second choice. And yet there was a second choice. You needed to share it. Uh-huh. And you said, because there's this thing in me called The Voice of the Heart. And, what did you go against to go even to tell it now even? Yeah. What did you go against to tell that story? I went against To to live that story even. I went against all the shoulds.

I should just be happy he hit the home run, Phil. I mean Uh-huh. I mean, I know your your dad's not here, but you should just be happy for Luke Uh-huh. That that happened. Even when you I'm sitting here looking at you. Even when you start talking that way, your head kinda kinda raises up. You look kinda down at me Uh-huh. Through your glasses like there's something Oh, yeah. Like you're talking to the real you going, you know, you're kind of a baby. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's kinda soft. Don't you think? I mean, it's a baseball story. And really, even though it's a baseball story, it's a it's a story about life. Yeah. And in my life, in that moment, it is great gladness in my precious son, his first home. Wow. And underneath that was this tremendous sadness. And and a lot of the sadness also was attached to the the relationship I didn't have with my dad that I always would kinda wished I had. And there's a language for that too. That's called sadness. Yes. And you're gonna call a man

who you wanted to care. Mhmm. Wanted to celebrate. Mhmm. That from, you know, Paul most certainly wasn't going to. Mhmm. Because he wouldn't let himself. No. And you were going to be sad for having taken the risk of making the call. But you went at it spontaneously. Mhmm. You reached without thinking Totally. Which is against the rules. Uh-huh. And you were going to express something that would have possibly, probably given you a bad return and you didn't care. Nope. So hope overcame reality. Mhmm. Do you know? Mhmm. And, your desire to be known overcame shoulds. Yeah. And instead of living on an island, you lived on the river. And, that's amazing. Yeah. Isn't it? It totally is. And there, you know, we'll Hey. Being normal is amazing. That's right. You do what you make living like you made to live is amazing. Yeah. And and it yes. And now we're gonna be talking a lot more in the future. That's just one example of one feeling we have. It has a trillion ways of our funerals and losses and moving and divorce and all kinds of loss and stuff. Like You know something my my brother said to me not too long ago,

a great awakening to him was and then when we talk about the feelings, by the way, parenthetically, we say so often that, you know, I know it looks like there's seven bad ones, only one good one. Yeah. Seven feelings that we don't want so much and only one we do want called gladness. But, I mean, we know that these these these are eight tools that let us live fully in a place that's tragic. Mhmm. And actually, they're gifts. But we have to start out with them. These are just the reality of the tools, but they're gifts. Yeah. My brother said for so long I carried the same belief too that my pain, whatever pain that was, never could measure up to being enough to be of any consequence or value. Mhmm. So therefore, to be, manly or, right or it just there's always somebody who had it worse. And I told him before, I said my awakening was pain is pain. Like, nobody can live in my skin but me, so I need to be about it. And that's gonna mean taking ownership of what's happening inside of me. I remember he said, just not too long ago, it hit me, Chip, that pain is pain. And then when I had that experience I wouldn't say when I knew that. It's like when I had the experience, I began to value myself. So this is about becoming, not some type of returning to childhood. This is about becoming human and alive and growing up, grown. For sure. I mean, right? Yes. And and even the the,

I guess, you call it the intuitive or the god given part of it is, you know, though my dad and I were not didn't have an intimate relationship, weren't close as we call it, how very honoring it was to him for me to have my sadness about both Yes. His not knowing about Luke's home run and and the return I probably would not have gotten, how honoring to his memories Yes. Of what I desired to have with him Yes. As an overflow, then going to it going, I think I'll honor my dad right now. Yeah. I felt sad and talk about that last So we never stop wishing. We really don't stop hoping. Mhmm. We we really can't get rid of desire. Humans are gonna feel whether they like it or not. We have needs which make us needy. We long for a world that isn't gonna happen here. And yet, since that's how we're made, we got it in us, then we need to really the courageous stance is to face it, feel it, and deal with it. You know? Sure. Sure. What let me oh, excuse me. Do you wanna let me ask you something. What made the spiritual root system valuable to you? I mean, you already intuitively went with it and yet I watched it continue to I mean, you're so adept. It it's like you're a, you know, professional chef. It's like you're a professional athlete. It's like you're an astronaut. I mean, it's like you just, like, do this stuff. It's amazing to me. But what what what made you take it on so deeply and, like, could could like Steve would say, this stuff works.

You know, what? Yeah. What did that? There's one word that has a bunch of tendrils to it. It's the word freedom. These things are so important. These eight words that describe human experience in this tragic place that we talk about. They're so huge and yet just feelings at the same time. Uh-huh. They're so intuitive to who we're made to be. And all I gotta do, the simplicity of how we're made, all I gotta do is tell the truth about what's going on internally in this language we've been given by God, not by man. Yeah. We've been given that describes to someone that cares about me what's going on in my life. Most in in the most intimate terms that we have. Just call the the expression of the heart. And so, and I talked about this afternoon with some of our guys here like, that for me, if I boil it down to a word, I just have a freedom now and I I remember it's the same thing when I was intervened on years earlier. Like, I'm I kept having this thought that said, I don't have to live that way anymore. I don't I get to live a different way and so I have to find this this tools we talked about. Uh-huh. These eight tools and I go, I don't have to pretend things aren't happening that are. I don't have to be careful and parse every syllable. I don't have to pretend life doesn't get to me. I don't have to bite my lip when my life is going on. Uh-huh. I get to use these eight words and the neediness that it opens up and the desire in me to live and the longings that I have and this hope that won't go away. Uh-huh. Like, I get to use these words to be an intimate relationship with other people.

And that that, even as you talk about that, I keep thinking about courage that that that a revolution that a revolution occurs in your life. And when we give ourselves to the process, it's a revolution. It comes from failing to be strong enough. We think to be like others, but it's failing to be strong enough to stop ourselves from wanting something that we don't have control of and we still go get it even though we don't know exactly where it is. It's like we surrender to our courage. We we surrender to how we're made and we're made to be in full hearted participation. That is so ironic that we surrender to our courage. Yeah. We don't produce it. We surrender even to how we were born, knowing what we hope for and wishing for a life that is beyond here. And we we were born, like, wanting to participate and wanting to work. Sort of like And it's almost like Surrender to how we're made. I hear you describing that. Yeah. You can

and and most most humans would say or I put this way, children would say, if you ask them, would you rather read a story about people being afraid and courageous and afraid and willing and moving into things or a technical manual on how to do something. I'm sure I'm gonna go, I wanna read the story about these incredible things happening Uh-huh. That are really somehow indescribable rather than something I can quantify or measure or would have nothing wrong with either one. But you look at the the heart of a child that Jesus said, I know there are other connotations hermeneutically around this. But Jesus said, unless your change become like one of these, I can inherit the kingdom of God. And let the little children come to me, for this is the kingdom of God. He's speaking to to,

not naivety. He's speaking to freedom of expression Mhmm. Of an internal world versus having everything figured out and making everything data. And so while that the very thing you just said, I was writing about this morning, a little blog called The Gift of Failure, that our weakness according to the world standard is actually the doorway into the strength that will grow. Uh-huh. And the strength to be able to to to fully participate, to be known, to continue to persevere into that which we cannot get away from. No doubt about it. And I have heard you have to we've talked about it. Probably a lot of the men listening to this podcast over and over and over. And women. And women. Uh-huh. Well, men that talk to me. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People. These men I talked to who have been here will often say, I totally get it. I I do this in my own life. I'm feeling these feelings like crazy. I'm in intimate relationship with other men. Mhmm. Iron sharpening iron to tell the truth and deal with the how scary that is to do that. Mhmm. And invariably, I go home and when I've lived this, not not to do therapy with my children, but as I live this out, I ask these simple questions of my children. Mhmm. What are you feeling about this? About not being invited to the sleepover, not making the team or whatever. And very well, they said big tears came to their eyes and they they really will tell me the story.

So the process allows the content to be what it's made to be. Yeah. The process itself doesn't get rid of the content. The process is the flow of making the content worth it. I mean, the facts are about the tools we live with while we feel our way through life or something to that effect. And even even yes. And even the the the gospels, they present this, God in human flesh. And, it doesn't mean one's more important than the other, but we humans, we read these narratives. And and and the and the parts of the narrative that make us go, wow, really? Mhmm. It's when Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem. Jesus is weeping about his friend Lazarus being dead. Mhmm. Jesus is angry at the money changers. Jesus is angry at the man at at what's going on around this man with a withered hand, the rule keepers, like, the parts we pay really close attention to, that we go, oh. These parts where God himself in human flesh is experiencing and speaking out loud these feelings he's in the Garden Of Gethsemane. We Christ followers read that and go, oh, Jesus is pulling the earth and he's either sweating so profusely, it's falling from his head like blood. And other scholars go, no, no, he's busting capillaries, man. He's bleeding. Like, he's in he's in intense human experience of pain. Mhmm. The loneliness and the I hear that. Things that's going on. So, it like even intuitively we we humans, it doesn't mean that doctrine is unimportant, or when Jesus is preaching and teaching is unimportant at all. It means there is a human Jesus that we read in the pages of scripture. He's having human experiences and invariably he is the scriptures are telling us this is Jesus' internal world. As he's talking to these people, he's having feelings about this world. So he trusted the process. Uh-huh. I say.

This is Stephen James, 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 Health. 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.