132 - Trust the Process (Map to Freedom)
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The Map of Freedom is a diagram of the steps and the process through which we can gain when we reclaim our makeup as God predesigned us.
The steps and growth set us free to give our gifts, trust outcomes to God, walk in integrity, and lead well. (See The Map of Freedom in Free Resources)
The process of growth can overcome toxic shame, false rules, imposed roles, and survival scripts that block a person from being and doing who and what God designed them to be and do.
Arriving at the “places” that “The Map” guides a person toward, takes a person from hearing about something to experiencing something. It is the difference between hearing about the giant Sequoia trees and the experience of standing beneath one.
As stated in the last show notes, the journey:
requires many switchbacks
is often slow
takes a lifetime
Unless something is terribly impaired about us, we all hope to be able to be productive in life and live fully until we die. We all wish to have an impact for good.
We live fully with impact by being able to:
give
trust God with the outcomes
have integrity
lead well
The result is freedom.
But this freedom isn’t free. We must walk, work, and persevere with an image in mind and the heart involved to pull us forward every day.
The need for expression
Human beings are created to be expressive creatures. We are created to use our minds to articulate and communicate what occurs in our hearts.
Expression communicates the need for connection, along with the boundaries that make us safe to trust connection.
Suppression of expression creates depression of the heart, which works against the nature of how we are created. Suppression is the use of the will, complicated by denial and dissociation, to “protect” one’s self.
Eventually, the very things that we use for self-protection become self-destructive, effecting many of the emotional and physical problems that come with isolative conditions. We survive by working against how we are created.
Living “protectively” is understandable; but the protection can become the defenses that block us from living fully and loving deeply.
Our lives are made to be connected, which requires overt communication. We cannot live behind walls of defenses and be connected.
Give it to the process
If and when a person feels their feelings and tells the truth along with the pattern of freedom on “The Map of Freedom,” they are set free and vulnerable at the same time. They are behaving as normal, and yet they can now experience life in a way that has previously taught them to defend themselves.
This position or situation is what “give it to the process” means. A person who feels and tells the truth about their own heart’s experience acknowledges need, desire, longing and hope to be “received,” not ignored. This experience is trust that connection will occur. A human being is reaching for life as it actually is created to be for fulfillment's sake—to be together in life, not alone.
What we hope in the “process” of offering our hearts is that we will be met in ways that let us have confidence and comfort in connection. Normal and natural is:
to seek to know that we belong and matter
that there are places of safety and care
that “fuel” to live fully is available in relationship with others and God
When we offer our true selves to “life,” we have given ourselves to the process of how God created life to work—relationally. We will need to continue to learn how to live the way life works. But through trust, we can imagine hope’s fulfillments amidst the inevitable difficulties that life has in it.
Responsibility for one’s self and responsibility towards others
When we offer our hearts to relationship with others and God, we are risking a return. We need to be responded to.
However, many of us grew up having to be responsible for others’ feelings, thoughts, and actions; thus, many of us developed the survival skills of anticipating through mind-reading what others were looking for. In that way, we would belong and matter and be safe and cared about—NOT by being ourselves as much as attempting to become what others were demanding or manipulating to get.
This environment creates Codependency (Episodes 32-44) not self-hood, and it can distort the normal paths of development. By following “The Map of Freedom” paths, we return to being responsible for ourselves and become responsible towards others.
We become “response-able” (responsible) towards others by telling the truth about our hearts in ways that are not harmful, but allow others to have their feelings, too.
Giving ourselves to the process of living is like offering an RSVP to another. The risk is allowing ourselves to deal with the response of another in life healing and life enhancing ways—by feeling our feelings and telling the truth to ourselves about the experiences of life that happen when we reach beyond our defenses. In this way, we continue to live in such a way that leaves room for progress and growth on our way to living fully, loving deeply, and leading well.
When we become able to live like God created us, we become:
stronger and more courageous
wiser and more discerning
more able to find friends we trust, while having good boundaries with people we cannot trust—at this time.
Doing so allows us to grow to the next movement on our journey. The next movement on “The Map of Freedom” is passion, the ability to keep living fully even though life hurts.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center
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