Click here to read the episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.

Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.

What is a friend?

A friend is someone who cuts your sorrows in half and doubles your joy.

A friend is someone whose sorrows you cut in half and you double their joy.

If a person has three people in their life right now who fit this description, that person is very blessed.

You cannot have too many genuine friends.

For friendship to develop, it requires:

time

truth-telling

trust

experiences

You cannot develop friendships with a lot of people because of the limitations of time and the requirements of daily life.

You can be a pastor, politician, or public figure and have thousands of acquaintances, experiences, and do a lot of good, and still not have that confidant, the person in the night you can reach out to.

You can have lots of genuine friends over a lifetime, and if you live long enough, you will have many people you carry in your heart who are friends. You remember them, and can recall life together if you ever meet again.

You have friends if you are available in heart to have them.

Ultimately, a friend is a person who desires your good. If you desire others’ good, you are available to have a lot of friends over a lifetime.

Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.

Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.

Relationship with others

Neuroscience research points out very clearly that we are connection seeking creatures. We are born to “look for who is looking for us.”

In the Voice of the Heart, which came out years before neuroscience research validated Dr Dodd’s work, he writes that we are created by God to seek life to the full, but we can only find that fulfillment in relationship with ourselves (head and heart connected), with other, and with God.

Relational fulfillment is a dictate of our emotional and spiritual genetics. This genetic makeup is so powerful that we will seek a sense of connection that relationship brings in legitimate forms or in illegitimate ways as other episodes have explained, like the recent Addiction Series, Episodes 97-110.

So much of life is about the benefits of relational fulfillment that even the word share means that you receive from others initially, so that you can offer the gifts you have to others—whether that be the flowers you have grown; the experiences you have had; or the love you have received.

We cannot give what we do not have; therefore, we must be open to all that relational fulfillment can offer us, so that we have much to offer others.

Research has shown that gratitude for receiving allows a person to increase their sense of gratitude by giving.

There exists a “child-like” willingness that a person must have to live fully, because relational fulfillment with another person requires that we be:

• Truthful enough to be trustworthy.
• Teachable enough to learn how to care well.
• Humble enough to be open to being relational.
• Brave enough to face our needs.

Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.

Click here to read the episode highlights.

The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.

Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.

Relationship with yourself

These questions can help you become response-able for yourself:

• What kind of person am I?
• Who knows me?
• Who do I love, and how vulnerably do I love?
• Am I emotionally and spiritually genuine with God and a few others?
• Do I use my mind to articulate the truths of my own heart?
• Can I seek forgiveness, offer mercy, and forgive?

Christianity is truly a religion of growth. Jesus said, “The thief come only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10, NIV)

Christianity is a religion of living fully. This is unlike other religions in the world:

• Jesus refers to Himself as a “Good Shepherd” in John 10.
• Jesus will lead us and grow us into becoming shepherds, ourselves.
• Through Jesus we give our hands, heads, and hearts to a “mission” that is worth whatever is required to live fully.
• Through the Spirit of God that indwells Christians, we can live fully through loving fully and leading well. This life leaves plenty of fruit behind.

Relationship with one’s self refers to the connection between the “heart” and “head.”

Sadly, many of us are taught to defend ourselves rather than become ourselves.

We use our thinking and reactions to hide the truth of our feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope, rather than use the development of our minds to identify, explore, and express “truth in the inner parts . . . wisdom in the inmost place,” (Psalm 51:6, NIV)

We are created to live fully, but to do so, we must feed the roots, so that the fruits can grow in abundance.

Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.