Season 5 Episode 49 - The 12 Movements of a Man's Life - Introduction
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). Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.
Episode highlights:
This new podcast series, “Twelve Movements of a Man’s Life,” is not going to be exclusively for men. We want women to learn and have confidence in seeing and expecting men to be who they are created to be.
I created these twelve movements over 15 years ago when I was in my early 50s. I knew that I was not old enough to present them with assurance, because I had not witnessed them as a “lived experience” yet—even though I knew they were true.
I am now more of a witness to how extraordinarily true and vital they are for our society, for families, for marriages, for mission, for men in community with other men, and for a man with God.
I learned these truths and concepts from the thousands of men, couples, and families that I have worked with while running my treatment center and in my own consulting/mentoring practice that I started in 2019. This material is the culmination of work that began in 1988, if not before!
These twelve movements are not a list that a person checks off, completes the next step, and then gets his diploma. These movements are actually real processes, or interlocking circles that expand over a lifetime. They are never completed. They only end when the man’s life ends.
This episode lays the foundation for the twelve movements to follow:
We are all feeling creatures. We feel, need, desire, long and hope; and we imagine our lives being fully lived related to our feelings.
We are all emotionally and spiritually created to do one thing in this life, to live fully (all purpose in life begins from the desire to live fully).
We are literally born to find full life in relationship with ourselves (our own hearts and heads connected), with others, and with God. We are not created to “do” life alone.
Neuroscience has “caught up” enough to verify and validate what has always been true. We are connection seeking creatures. We come out of the womb looking for who is looking for us. We find fulfillment through connection.
Unlike all other mammals, we as human beings can attempt to run from or deny how we are created. We can attempt to use our “heads” to deny our heart’s makeup—to avoid vulnerability.
We can use our minds to avoid engagement with the feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hopes of the heart. When we do so, we isolate ourselves from each other, our own makeup, and God.
We all look to connect in three ways: (a) we all need to belong and matter; (b) we all seek safety and care; (c) we all crave the experience of being fully alive.
In episodes 1-48, we talk in depth about how humans are foundationally created. These human foundational building blocks are true for all humans. We are all created 99.9% the same on an emotional and spiritual level.
Each person is also amazingly unique. I have seen over my career how vital and exacting Psalm 139 actually is. We really are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place … All the days ordained for me
were written in your book before one of them came to be.
(Psalm 139:3-16, NIV)
As much as we are uniquely created, we also are similarly made.
We are all created to find fulfillment in relationships.
We are called to be witnesses to each other’s lives.
Marriage is a witness of the other person’s existence. Relationship itself is a witness, making us “not alone.”
We are known best as we share the truths of our hearts.
As relational creatures, however, a woman’s need to belong and matter and experience safety and care are met differently than a man’s need.
Men and women have the same needs, but how they are met is different. In a man the need is met through a “witnessed” sense of appreciation. In a woman, the need is met through security.
Men must take responsibility for their actions in order to have their heart’s needs met.
Men are responsible for creating security within the context of a tragic world—if he is going to experience appreciation.
A man attempts to create a secure “place” to be appreciated. It is in his DNA.
A man needs to know that he has:
“shown up” emotionally, spiritually and behaviorally
“done his job” for his own fulfillment
For this, he craves to be appreciated. As a result, this man can be depended on and shows himself as trustworthy.
God created men to have personal dignity.
At birth man is assigned a mission, a job, and a task:
To tell the truth with his heart.
To finish his commitments, even when it hurts.
To admit when he has done what is wrong, or made mistakes.
To know pain well enough that he can care about it in others.
Ultimately, to create a better world than the one he finds himself living in.
Within marriage, a man’s assignment is metaphorically to build a beautiful brick wall around his wife and his family, for the sake of security.
This security opens the door for his wife to develop into who God created her to become without being hypervigilance about danger.
This gift of security also lets her know that she:
is cared about
belongs and matters
is safe
is cared about
has room to grow within “the estate” that surrounds her.
can develop
can express herself
can love freely
can be about who God created her to become
The man must not pose a danger within the estate. If his wife feels she is in danger, she cannot grow. If her security is not a gift, she is in danger.
A man must remember that this “estate” is a gift, not something provided that has an invoice tagged to it.
A man doing what he is made to do is not someone else’s debt.
Love and care that become an obligation is not love or care. It is demand.
No one is secure if they live within the context of demands.
A man’s wife must be free to grow into who God calls her to be, not who the man subtly or overtly demands she become—whether she be involved in the work of raising children, practicing medicine, or running a company.
This work of the man creates opportunity to be appreciated, even adored, by seeing who he is made to be and doing what he is made to do.
A man is created to know that he is just like the woman and the children—he has needs that are the same as them. He also knows that as an image bearer of God, he is created to lead because of how he has been created. BUT he leads through relating, more than through his capacity to provide!
THE GREAT MISTAKE:
Men have mistakenly been trained to think that because they provided something, they are owed something.
Men are often mistakenly taught to believe that they are owed appreciation or respect. That demand makes appreciation an obligation!
Men get things messed up when they believe:
that if they provide, the provision will protect his people, and then he will experience his worth
they will be deemed worth something because of their performance
they will be valued because of what they have provided and the protection they have offered
they will be called a re-deemer, making those who are less valuable worth something
To get their needs met, men have mistakenly believed they must be:
Provider
Protector
Redeemer
The truth, however, is that a man is called to be relational first and foremost.
This means that every man must understand that he is made out of the same dirt as every other person. He will suffer and have joy in the same feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope as every other man, woman, and child.
Out of this recognition, he also recognizes his assignment, mission, and power to do something about a world that is broken in order to make it better.
A man who is relational understands pain and cares about others because he can relate. In other words, his identification with his own human awareness of pain, vulnerability, and desire lets him see it in others. He wants to do something within his own power and neediness about the pain he sees.
A man is called to be a redeemer first, then a protector as a result of being a redeemer, and then provide people what they need.
A REDEEMER protects and provides.
The way a man is made to live fully and be inevitably appreciated is through the following:
Redeemer: understands with his heart, relating with compassion, and taking action accordingly, doing “unto others as he would have them do unto him.”
Protector: knows that if others around him experience security, they will also experience protection of love and trust.
Provider: trusts that God will give according to his own willingness to live with love and humility and dignity as his primary values.
We turn what has been turned upside down—provide, protect, redeem,
right side up—redeem, protect, provide!
This is Biblical: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33, NIV). This fits perfectly for the mission of a man. Seek first the way you are made by God, with Him as your leader, and follow the ways in which His kingdom works. This way of living will guarantee you the results of the things you need.
Redeemer: Live as a feeling, needing, desiring, longing, and hoping creature, who sees that life needs to be repaired.
Protector: Then follow the paths of life as life is made to be lived, by making the world a safer and more caring place
Provider: God will meet you (us) in our needs to take care of us.
As we lay the foundation of the twelve movements of a man’s life, being a redeemer is the ultimate fulfillment.
Being a man who is of maximum service is a life fulfilled, regardless of how much he is appreciated. However, his need is to have a home in which he receives the appreciation that he was made to have.
The man who is willing to cry out for help will find out in the process of their cry out that God does show up. That man ends up being raised up to be who he was made to be.
Men who live fully, love deeply, and lead well lives that are worth living, end up being men who:
walk in passion
live in intimacy
spend their days in integrity
This does not mean perfection.
When they mess up, they say they are sorry.
They can be trusted to tell the truth in all of their foibles.
These men build something bigger than their egos.
They pursue something that makes them known in terms of a legacy.
They leave behind that which others can treasure in their hearts.
Any man who leaves treasures in loved one’s hearts is a man who has succeeded. That success can even be at the last moments, as exemplified by the thief on the cross. His legacy lives to this day, and is a treasure of hope for even the most lost of us.