101 - Addiction and "The Castle"

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 [email protected]. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at [email protected].    You can also RSVP to Bryan for "Awaken the Heart" on Sunday, March 1 - more details here.   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.  What is Substack? It is a subscription-based platform that allows independent writers and other creators to publish content directly to their subscribers’ inboxes. The cost of the subscription is only $7 a month. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. The content focuses on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com.   We are created to live fully, and we do so through relationship with ourselves, others, and God, as we bring the true heart of feelings, needs, desire, longings and hope to relationships.    Relationship requires vulnerability.    If the ability to be “comfortable” with dependence is fractured in one’s earlier years of life, the result is a set up for that person to feel the need to “hide” his/her heart. Instead of remaining present and connected, he/she has a compulsion to perform in order to belong or matter.    Trauma is experienced when one’s ability to accept their need for dependence is fractured.    The need to suppress emotional pain in order to survive, belong, and matter is the foundation upon which addiction is built.   Addiction is a false fulfillment of how we are created to live.    Addiction is relationship with a substance or process that gives a sense of connection without having to be vulnerable; in other words, a person can distract or numb themselves from having to feel by using some form of avoidance of relationship with one’s self, others, and God.   Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.