112 - Relationship with Others (Part 1)
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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.
In fact, speaking of child-like disposition, one of the answers to life that leads us to find fulfillment is a child-like question:
“Do you like me? I like you.
Circle, yes or no.”
We must be brave enough to live fully, allowing us to trust, “yes,” and deal well with, “no.”
99.9 % the same
The DNA in all living things dictates what we seek fulfillment.
Humans’ DNA not only requires that we seek relationship as a “growth nutrition,” but it also allows us to “recognize” each other.
The emotional and spiritual DNA of humans is 99.9% the same. We all feel, need, desire, long and hope. Our “sameness” has exponential forms of expression, both healthy and tragic, but we are all made up of “sameness.”
This “sameness” can allow us to have compassion; it can open us up to the awareness of a simple fact: That which hurts me might hurt you. That which saddens me might sadden you.
Extrapolating from the above-mentioned basics, we can see how important the Golden Rule really is. We are created to find our greatest relational fulfillment by doing “to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12 (NIV)
Our inborn ability to value our own feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope requires that we be affirmed, because that empathy allows me to develop compassion.
Empathy is care about your own makeup. Compassion is to recognize another person as “being like you” and the ability to relate their pain.
The story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37 is a great example of compassion. It speaks to the need for relational care, not only for health and safety, but for love and growth.
God has created us to find fulfillment in relationship.
We either face the truth of how we are created or we run from it.
We must learn the ways of compassion that has its genesis in empathy.
The alternative is to run from everything we can have.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center
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