Girl Power #20

Robin Hodgskin:

Find a place where you can be your authentic self. If you're in a job where you can't be, then change your job. But don't be afraid to be. Don't be afraid to let people know who you are and to bring forth all of your best qualities in your authentic skin.

Margaret O'Keefe:

Part of it is learning to speak with conviction. Part of it is learning to value yourself. And I think you hear this story a lot that women in their 40s finally become more comfortable in their own skin. I wish I had been more comfortable in my own skin back in my 20s.

Joanne Arnold:

So it was wanting to take control in a powerful way, to create a body that matched more than just the idea of a cultural symbol to match, but that would match somehow what I knew about myself more deeply than that. That by nature we are infinite. By nature we have profound capacity to experience silence.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle and welcome to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast Show Number 20, airing on January 29, 2012. This week's show is on the topic of girl power, or as one of our guests is going to show us so remarkably, women power. I actually, I guess all of our guests, right, Genevieve, all of them are gonna talk about the fact that there's power in being feminine and not just being girls.

Genevieve Morgan:

Yes. And I've always thought it an interesting conversation. The girl woman. I remember when I was at Bowdoin, I used to get in big arguments. The women would always say it's all about woman power.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Woman power.

Genevieve Morgan:

But we all have a girl inside of us, just like every man has a boy.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. And so Genevieve's already poked her head into the conversation. But this is my co host, Genevieve Morgan, who is the wellness we call her the wellness editor, because we've just decided that's her title for Maine Magazine. Certainly. She is the head of the wellness department at Maine Magazine. So I'm glad to be here again with Genevieve.

Genevieve Morgan:

Thanks, Lisa. Hi, everybody.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So girl power, whether we talk about girl power, women power, feminine power, sometimes that can get people's backs up. Men don't really necessarily. Not all men, but some men don't like it when we talk about this.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, I think there's a perception that there's a lot of attention paid to that and maybe boys and men are getting left out. But I think your take on it is a really interesting one and I think think everybody would love to hear about that because I certainly learned a lot.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, what I believe is that there's. It's just differences. It's. In Chinese medicine, you have yin and yang. And anybody who's ever. If anybody who knows anything about Chinese thought or Chinese symbolism has seen the yin and Yang symbol. This is a circle and it has two fish looking things.

Genevieve Morgan:

Black and white.

Tara Treichel:

Right?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Black and white. But within the black there's a little dot of white, and within the. And within the white there is a little dot of black. So there's always yin within Yang and Yang within yin.

Genevieve Morgan:

And what is yin and Yang?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yin and Yang is one of the fundamental principles of Chinese thought, Chinese medicine, and actually Taoism. If you think about Yin, yin is the more calm, receptive, cool. It's the energy of the moon and darkness. You think about Yang, it's more heat, it's the light of day, it's the sun, it's an outward pushing energy. Generally it's more sort of ebullient. But they both coexist peacefully and. Well, sometimes not so peacefully. But they both coexist.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's the important thing in everybody and in everybody. Living thing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Every living thing. And the reason why it's interesting, related to girl power specifically, or women power or female power, is that the yin is traditionally thought of as a feminine energy and the Yang is traditionally thought of as a male energy.

Genevieve Morgan:

Right. So sort of yielding and passive. And the Yang is more active and forceful. Forceful, yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. And it does get a little tricky because, of course, women don't like to think of themselves as passive or yielding. That's why I like the word sort of receptive. You think about women as sort of a vessel of creation. It's sort of a. If you think about like an alms bowl being the openness to receiving.

Genevieve Morgan:

I like that word. Open.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. Open is good. So we have yin and Yang. And within. It is important to note that every male has Yang predominant, mostly testosterone, of course, but also underlying yin. And every female has predominant yin, but also yang. And every family has an interesting mixture of yin and yang aspects. And some of the children who are female, they can still have the male energy or they can have the female energy, but there's always a balance.

Genevieve Morgan:

Dominant.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Dominant. Yes, that's right. So this is why we're talking about yin power or girl power this week. Because even though we think of the sun as being this powerful, forceful, beating down, heating us up energy, you can equally be forceful as being a cool, calm, moonlit force of nature.

Genevieve Morgan:

When they actually need each other, they.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

They do. And you can't have the contrast if you only have that hot summer energy. If you never had a winter, you would only ever know that hot summer Yang energy.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and I think our guests coming on, it's interesting that we're talking about this because some of them have had to use their Yang energy to get where they've been. Some have exhausted that energy and had to reconnect with their yin energy. So everybody's had this challenge with finding the balance of the energies, which is, of course, what you help people do in your practice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's right. When people come into my practice as patients, I will see where they might be deficient or excessive. And people can be both deficient and excessive in different sorts of energy. And it is about learning yourself and figuring out what makes you balanced. And this is what each of these women are going to do today on the show. We have Robin Hodgkin from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. We have Margaret Minister o' Keefe who is a fellow Bowdoin graduate. Yes, my year. Go you bears. Who works as an attorney at Pierce Atwood. We also have from Maine Magazine minutes,

Genevieve Morgan:

Joanne Arnold, who is a fitness trainer, a former award winning weightlifter, and is training to be the first chaplain of the body. So she's a very interesting person and

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

she is featured in the March issue

Genevieve Morgan:

in a article called Fit to Feast

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Feeding your inner Athlete Great of Maine magazine. And then we also have Tara Treikle for the Coastal Studies for Girls in Freeport. So there's a broad variety of women and they're going to come in and talk to us about learning how to use that particular yin energy, that female energy, and learning how to sort of coexist within a world that has both yin and yang.

Genevieve Morgan:

And I'm also interested in hearing what you have to say about the stereotype of A successful woman having to be more masculine to get ahead. I mean, do you think that that's necessarily true if you're accessing, do you always have to access that young energy to succeed in today's world, in business, in a law firm, in weightlifting, all of these women have really ventured into what would be considered traditionally more male dominated fields, but they've had this great success.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think the most successful women, or actually the most successful people of any sort are those who can read a situation. So if you go into a situation and you determine that it requires more of the forceful energy and you're able to adequately apply it, then you'll be more successful in that situation or simultaneously. Or I guess conversely, if you can be in a situation and you know that you don't need to be that forceful, you can read that energy, you can be less forceful and you can use a different sort of energy, then you are going to be more successful. So I don't think it's necessarily, you have to be more male and in the male situations you just have to be able to read the situation correctly.

Genevieve Morgan:

So really, when we're talking about girl power, we're talking about the girl power that's in all of us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, the girl power that's in all of us. And also the sort of adaptive ability that we have as females but also as males to communicate, to move back and forth within the situation we find ourselves in.

Genevieve Morgan:

It sounds like it's going to be a great show.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is going to be a great show and I appreciate your deep dishing with me about it this week. I did think it was very interesting when I was reading Our Daily Tread, which is the book that we, that we put together to honor my Bowdoin College classmate. Again go you bears, Hanley Dunning, who died actually this month, 2008, when she was at a fairly young age. But we've been reading from Our Daily Tread and the quote that I came up with was an Anna Quindlen quote. Sometimes we end up doing what we are capable of, whether we like it or not. Which I think is pretty appropriate because that just means again, you go into a situation and sometimes you end up having to kind of change your energy based on the reading of the situation. So if you're interested in our Daily tread, go to islandportpress.com and the proceeds from the purchase of this book will benefit Hanley's organization, Safe Passage. I know that everybody's going to enjoy the show. Those of you who are not yet podcast subscribers, please go to itunes Dr. Lisabal and become a subscriber. Go to our website D O C t o r lisa.org for more information about our radio show about my medical practice, about Genevieve Morgan and John McCain, who are our superstar Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast team.

Genevieve Morgan:

That way we can talk to you all the time, not just on Sundays.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's right. And if you go to Facebook and you like the Dr. Lisa page, then you get to have little personal comments from us.

Genevieve Morgan:

And we promise we'll write back.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, we absolutely will. So thank you for joining us. We are fortunate each week to be sponsored by the University of New England, a wellness innovator to be sure, and it is appropriate that they sponsor our Wellness Innovation segment. This week's Wellness Innovation is something that probably many of us have thought about, and it comes from a piece on scientificamerican.com if there are any men left who still believe that women are the weaker sex, it is long past time for them to think again with respect to that most essential proof of robustness, the power to stay alive. Women are tougher than men from birth through to an extreme old age. The average man may run a 100 meter race faster than the average woman and lift heavier weights, but nowadays women outlive men by about five to six years. By age 85, there are roughly six women to every four men. At age 100, the ratio is more than two to one. And by age 122, the current world record for human longevity, the score stands at 1 nil in favor of women. It's an innovative thing to be a woman, and yet something you don't have much control over. Learn more about this@ScienticalAmerican.com Learn more about Wellness Innovations or the University of New England at une.edu.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, our theme is Girl Power, which actually one of our first guests is asked that we call Women Power because she said she's not feeling very girlish, although I know she's a girl at heart. This guest is Robin Lynn Hodgkin, who is a Senior Vice President Financial Advisor with the Global Wealth Management Division of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Portland, Maine. Hi Robin.

Robin Hodgskin:

Hi Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And next to her we have Margaret Minister o', Keefe, who is a partner at Pierce Atwood in Portland Maine, formerly the in house counsel at Angela Adams. Hi, Margaret. Hello, Lisa. And we also have Genevieve Morgan, who does not want us to forget that she's sitting next to me. So. Hi, Genevieve.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I can't start without acknowledging the fact that in the most recent issue of Maine Magazine, there is a profile of Margaret and a great picture. And it's interesting to me because this is the. This is a quote. Life showed me again and again that people are never one thing, that identity is complicated, and that those who wear suits can be as radical as the guy in leather picketing city hall. I learned that artists and art advocates come in all shapes, and that corporate entities are not always blind to the power of art. So this probably gives you an idea as to sort of the. I don't know the range of your experience and your background, but I also know that Robin did something very interesting and creative this last spring. Tell us a little bit about that program that you had.

Robin Hodgskin:

We sponsored a event called act with Passion, and it was all about how women. It was a women's event about how women can get to a place where they feel a little stuck, and that if women act with passion and follow their heart, that they're not only happier, but more successful. And it was a fabulous event. And we had Bettina Dalton speak about her decision to start a winery after being a very senior executive at Fidelity. And we had other speakers along those lines.

Margaret O'Keefe:

It was really great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it was standing room only.

Robin Hodgskin:

It was. And we couldn't get him out of the room at the end of the night.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's right. And I think, Margaret, you were there at that.

Margaret O'Keefe:

I was there. It was a wonderful event. It was very inspiring.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So these two women who are sitting across from me, as well as the woman who sits next to me every week, these are no ordinary financial advisor lawyer types. I just want everybody who's listening to know that these are some creative women. So it's not just about the power, but it's also about the creativity. Tell me you're both successful. I think it's fairly, you know, obvious to any who would pay any attention to your lives, what has helped you to create success in your own lives.

Margaret O'Keefe:

Robin, I will start. I think some of the themes that your show talks about, which are being your authentic self, relying on those around you, really building yourself within your community and tapping into those relationships to support you.

Genevieve Morgan:

Margaret, can I ask you a question? When you were studying law, did you think you wanted to go into intellectual property law?

Margaret O'Keefe:

Did you know that I didn't at all. In fact, I thought that I wanted to be an environmental lawyer. I wound up at a big international law firm in D.C. and within the first month, the partner that I was supposed to be working with on environmental matters went to another big law firm. And so I got stuck in the international trade department. So you never know. I mean, all the best laid plans, right? And from there it just evolved into my current practice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And both of you, it's so interesting to me, both of you went elsewhere and did things elsewhere because, Margaret, you're from Arizona originally and you went to Harvard for law school, but you came to Maine to go to Bowdoin. So Genevieve and I, of course we went to Bowdoin. You're Genevieve's classmate. And then, Robin, you did something similarly. You went to Bates here in Maine and you went elsewhere, I think you worked in, I want to say Boston.

Robin Hodgskin:

I worked in Boston and I spent 10 years in technology related fields, financial services and technology fields, and decided when I was having my first child, which was 25 years ago yesterday.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Happy birthday to your first child.

Robin Hodgskin:

Happy birthday.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm sure he's going to listen to this.

Robin Hodgskin:

Of course he will. But I decided that I really wanted to have a little bit more control over my career and my success and so on. So I joined Smith Barney as a financial advisor 25 years ago and spent 10 years as a financial advisor and then came to Maine to manage the office 15 years ago.

Genevieve Morgan:

You did that at a time when not many women were making that choice.

Robin Hodgskin:

That's true. And there still aren't that many women making that choice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, Margaret, you have a, I believe a 10 year old daughter.

Margaret O'Keefe:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have a 10 year old daughter and your daughter Robin is 18.

Robin Hodgskin:

She's 18.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How has this changed the way that you have chosen to approach your lives from a business or a personal standpoint? I guess I'll ask Margaret first.

Margaret O'Keefe:

Wow. Well, that's a broad question, but a really powerful one. I think parenting changes all of us. It changes our ability to relate to others. And early in my career, right after I had my first child, I remember one of my partners telling me, you will never try a case in the same way that you did before you had children.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Was this a male or a female parent?

Margaret O'Keefe:

It was a male.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Interesting.

Margaret O'Keefe:

But I think parenting experiences for men and women share a lot, of course not comment. And I didn't quite know what that meant until the next time that I showed up in court and had to relate to those jurors. And it doesn't matter that it is not a case involving a child. It is just a different way of relating, a different way of being able to communicate sometimes very complex concepts in lay people's terms, in ways that people can relate to both emotionally and intellectually.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, I think this is important with what you do, but what both of you do. As a writer and a female, dealing with money and protecting my rights as a creative person are two of the things that make me feel the most powerless. And it's taken me now 20 years to do exactly what you both are saying we need to do. Which is what? Find help. Get help. Because when you're a writer and you get hired or somebody buys your work, you're just so happy that somebody's going to pay you that you don't think about all of the other ramifications and the complications. It's just too complex. You're just happy someone wants your work. So I'd like. Margaret, maybe you can speak a little bit to that.

Margaret O'Keefe:

Sure. Well, first of all, you're not alone. Second of all, this is a common phenomenon, I think, more common for women to undervalue their work, to believe that they will be treated fairly and properly in the business place, to believe that keeping your head down and doing good work ultimately will lead to recognition.

Genevieve Morgan:

Exactly. If I just do my job and am nice, they'll like me.

Margaret O'Keefe:

Of course. Of course they'll like you. It will all work out. But unfortunately, it doesn't always work out. And you really need to take steps to secure your rights. You need to take steps to ensure that you are fairly financially compensated. And you need to get over this. What? There's A woman named Dr. Valerie Young calls the imposter syndrome, which is I'm not really good enough. They're going to figure out at some point that I'm just playing the game or that I'm pulling one over society. So once you really recognize your own value, I think you can move forward and make sure that everything is lined up so you're protected.

Genevieve Morgan:

And then once you get your paycheck, you turn to somebody like Robin and figure out how to make it work for you. Which is another big hurdle for many women.

Robin Hodgskin:

That's right. I've always felt that there should be more financial competence, both at high school level and at the college level, for not just for girls, but for boys as well. And I have a son who's graduating from college this year, and he gets a credit card in the mail, like, at least once a month. And I think to myself, that's really frightening.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Not just because it's your son, just in general. Any child who's graduating from college, that's a little bit too much too soon. So it's interesting to me that you're quoting Valerie Young. Valerie Young. And I read this book. I think that you got this out of this book, Women Don't Ask. Is that perhaps the case, or. No, you didn't, but it happens to be in that book. Okay. So this book, what's interesting to me is that there's this book, Women Don't Ask by Linda Babcock and Sarah Lechever. And one of the times that I met with Robin, because I was a woman who came to Robin and was asking, robin, I have this new radio show. I have nothing to show you. It's just airtime. But do you think that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney would come in as a sponsor? And she went through this incredible process to get me there. And at the same time, she said, thank you for asking, and you need to read this book about women not asking. And then I had to go ask you, Margaret, do you think that Pierce Atwood would be a sponsor? And this is not the reason you're on our show. But, I mean, it just speaks to this notion that it's so hard to ask. Do you find that that's one of the challenges involved in being female? I mean, you said this already.

Margaret O'Keefe:

Absolutely. But it's also one of the strengths. I think that women in particular are available and excited to help each other out. So we have a natural network there. We have natural skills to network, and there's a real wealth that we're not tapping into. We don't recognize often that there is a unstated quid pro quo that our perhaps male colleagues understand, and when they pay a favor, they are looking for a favor back. I don't think that women as often think about favors in those terms, and we ought to start thinking about them in those terms and feel free to go and request help in return.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and Robin, maybe you can speak to this. There's also an element of shame. I mean, I was one of those people who got a credit card in my mailbox at Bowdoin my senior year and moved to San Francisco with it and ended up $3,000 in debt. I'd never been talked to about credit by my family, and I was ashamed to call my father and say, bail me out. And I think there is. That's still occurs even now when I'm 45.

Robin Hodgskin:

I think that's huge. It's about taking personal responsibility and really understanding what it means whenever you go into debt that it means that you can't afford to pay for something. So unless there's an event that in your future where you know that you will be able to pay that back, then you really shouldn't use debt at all. You really should stay within your means. I have a story about something that happened to me that kind of changed the way I think and it is that when I was a manager, I was asked to speak at a national meeting. And at that meeting I was honored to be asked to speak. And I prepared diligently, put my head down, spent hours doing research and coming up with what I was going to say, practiced, rehearsed, went to the meeting and did a good job and got some good feedback. And I was talking to one of my colleagues who was also asked to speak at the meeting, who was a man, and I said, what did you do to prepare for this? And he said, well, I got on the phone, I called 12 of my friends, colleagues and I got their best ideas and I made an outline of their best ideas and I presented it at the meeting. So what happened there was first of all, he had a much broader perspective for his audience. Secondly, he got buy in from 12 people in the audience who were then out, you know, kind of speaking his, his praise. And thirdly, he built his network. He had these, you know, people who were invested in his presentation and in his success and were, you know, kind of a part of a club, if you will, an ever expanding club. So that's not quite women don't ask, but it's also about just kind of raising your head and realizing that you don't have to keep your head down and do it all yourself. That, you know, just go out and talk to other people and you actually end up with a better result as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One thing I wanted to make sure we talked about is the fact that this is a girl power slash, women power Show. But we all here in this room have sons. Is what we're talking about translatable to the males in our life

Margaret O'Keefe:

emphatic?

Robin Hodgskin:

Yes.

Margaret O'Keefe:

We have an obligation to educate our sons about the value of a different perspective, the value of a women's perspective, and we have an obligation to role model for our sons, that women can be powerful, women can be successful, women can speak with authority. And so I would encourage everyone out there to make sure if you're not valuing yourself in your career, at least value yourself in relation to your family, because that is making sure that the next generation takes on this mantle that we're talking about.

Robin Hodgskin:

I would say emphatically yes, to paraphrase, I have two sons, and they are 25 and 21, and the world will never change unless the men change. It isn't just a woman issue. And I often say that one of the problems with corporations that aren't making these giant leaps is that they keep trying to change the women instead of understanding that they just have to understand that women mean business, which is another great book. I can't remember the author, so I apologize. But. But it's about the fact that if women are at the top of organizations, and particularly if they're at significant numbers, that if there's just one woman on the board, she's completely ignored. But if they're in organizations at significant numbers, it's just a really powerful marketing strategy, it's a powerful financial strategy, It's a powerful strategy in every way to have more women at the top of organizations.

Genevieve Morgan:

I'd like to know individually from you too, what you would go back and tell your late teen, early 20s selves if you could. If you could travel in a time machine back then, what would you say to those upcoming girls as they face their future?

Margaret O'Keefe:

Be bold and courageous. Talking a little bit about, again, about this imposter syndrome, recognizing that you have something to say and you need to learn how to package it in a way that it is going to be heard and understood by people of all different backgrounds and gender, since that's what we're talking about here. So, you know, part of it is learning to speak with conviction. Part of it is learning to value yourself. And I think you hear this story a lot, that women in their 40s finally become more comfortable in their own skin. I wish I had been more comfortable in my own skin back in my 20s.

Robin Hodgskin:

My first advice would be don't apologize. Women tend to apologize for their work, apologize that things aren't quite right, etc. For example, they may turn in a paper or work product and say, you know, I'm really sorry, I didn't quite get this the way I wanted it, and so on. So they immediately put people in a place where they're evaluating their work in a much lower level. So that's about valuing yourself. But think very clearly as a mantra. Don't apologize for for your work. The second is the authentic self. Find a place where you can be your authentic self. If you're in a job where you can't be, then change your job if you. But don't be afraid to be. Don't be afraid to let people know who you are and to bring forth all of your best qualities in your authentic skin. And then my third advice would be to really consider making changes. One of the things that women tend to be more loyal instead of making changes in their jobs and careers. And often that doesn't serve you as a young woman. You go into a new job, you make a bunch of mistakes, and then if you move on to a new job, they don't know about those mistakes. They just know you as the person who's learned from those mistakes. So often having a new job and being able to take forward your new self is really powerful. And if you look around, women don't do that as often as men.

Margaret O'Keefe:

And we beat ourselves up for making mistakes, which is a natural part of the learning process. A natural part of becoming more of an expert is taking those risks and learning from the risks that you perhaps should not have taken.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. Talking with Margaret, Mr. O' Keefe and Robin Lynn Hodgkin and Genevieve Morgan, all the estrogen in the room where you all have a lot of power. Of course, I already knew this before we came on, or else we wouldn't have had you in here today. But thank you so much for coming in and I hope the people who are listening are empowered to go out and do great things in their lives.

Robin Hodgskin:

Thank you, Lisa.

Margaret O'Keefe:

Thanks so much to both of you.

Robin Hodgskin:

That's.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This week's Bountiful blog post found on bountifulpath.com speaks to something that many of us are thinking of or feeling for longingly. The post is from August 31, 2011. It is called Summer Girl. I am, at heart, a summer girl. Summer is, according to traditional Chinese medicine, the season of the heart. It is the season of fire. It is the season of joy and laughter. I live, interestingly enough, in a state where the summer stint is brief. One might think that this is nonsensical. If I am such a summer girl as I claim, then would it not make more sense to live in a warmer clime? It might, and someday perhaps I will. But right now I can be content with this place. Maine Maine is known as vacation land for good reason. We who live here understand why. Those who visit us soon learn Maine is a place for those who wish to reconnect with what is real, the realness that many are not privileged to live most of the time. Maine is a state of passion and intensity. We feel things to our core. When it is hot, it is sweltering hot. When cold, it is frigid. Which is why I live here. I live here because I like to live. I like to feel things to my core. Give me not perpetual moderation. I will take the sweltering heat any day. I will take the brilliant sun and the offshore breezes. I will take the brisk, dark Atlantic waters. I will take the succulent green trees, which are soon to transform into dervishes, a whirling color. I will take the sharp granite rocks under my soles. I will take the coastal sunrises unobstructed. I will take all of these and absorb them into my being passionately with fiery lust. I will live them with great joy, with laughter, because I am a summer girl and a Maine girl, both at heart. Read this post and others like it on bountifulpath.com.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This week's theme on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is Girl Power, and we have a guest that has recently been sharing her powers with Genevieve Morgan, the host of the Maine Magazine Minutes segment. So Genevieve's gonna go a little bit more into this wonderful guest.

Genevieve Morgan:

Thanks, Lisa. Joanne Arnold is here with us today and I know she's a beloved figure around Falmouth and Yarmouth in Portland and has trained many of the kids in our community. She is a former competitive bodybuilder who who won titles of Miss Maine and Miss Natural New England and was a finalist in Miss America AAU Bodybuilding Championship. She was and still is a very strong woman and Persona in the room. Joanne May be best known for her work as a strength trainer with Ian Crocker, the Olympic gold medalist. She's currently in her first year at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine and will soon be the first ever ordained chaplain of the body. I'm so glad you're here, Joanne, welcome.

Joanne Arnold:

Thank you very much.

Genevieve Morgan:

You and I have spent a few hours talking about fitness, and the word fitness has a different meaning for you than it does to many of the people out there when they think of fitness. So I just wanted you to tell me a little bit about your idea of fitness.

Joanne Arnold:

I think fitness includes our spirituality, and that was not something that I experienced in my time out in the world as a bodybuilder. The heart and soul and intellect of the athlete at that time was as little considered as an old dirty sock in the corner of the room. It was not part and parcel of what their body was. And that I resisted, that I felt that fitness had to include the deeper aspect of the person, the more whole aspect of the person. So fitness should include, or in my estimation includes, awareness, consciousness, your spirituality. And when I say spirituality, I would mean your whatever practices, whatever you need to do to explore yourself completely. So fitness is not just the aspect of how we look or dragging a bunch of weights around for hypertrophy to make muscles. There's so much more to the beauty of the nervous system, to the beauty of the body that doesn't get addressed when we define fitness as strictly something about the body.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and interestingly, you talk about the weights people need to pick up, but more importantly the weights they need to put down. And that was something you came to after a long hard struggle yourself, am I right?

Joanne Arnold:

I have plenty of my own struggles with weights, both lifting them and putting them down and with other folks. But to lift weights, we all know about the value of that. I don't think that's a mystery, but frequently it's the stress we need to put down in order to experience ourselves more completely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Joanne, I'm interested in what you have to had to say about your own having a second child and needing to come into your physicality that you didn't even have when you were younger. I see this in my own practice with women, that they will watch their bodies change as they have their children, and then they find the need to kind of find their bodies again, you know. So it does seem to me that we are having more women in their 30s, 40s and 50s who are training for triathlons, who are training for peaks to Portland, who are doing, you know, try for a cure. What do you have to say about that?

Joanne Arnold:

Well, it's interesting that as women, regardless of an athletic background or career prior to childbearing, is that we watch our bodies change remarkably during pregnancy. I mean, it's astonishing there's not one woman, regardless of how minimal the changes are, that it doesn't note that there's enormous transformation occurring during pregnancy. The beauty for me can become when we've delivered that child and hopefully everybody's healthy and sound, that then we can continue to transform and continue to change and to do so in as loving a way as we did when we were pregnant and we were careful about what we ate and we didn't, hopefully we didn't smoke and hopefully we didn't drink too much. And we took care of that transformation so well when we were pregnant. And now it's time to turn that attention back on the body of the mom. That was the critical junction for me and gave me great energy to invest.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, let's get back to what you were saying about meditation and the subtle mechanisms in your body that were getting drowned out by the strength training. First of all, how did you know that that was important? And second of all, how did you come back from there?

Joanne Arnold:

Good questions. I've been a meditator since I was 16, so I had a practice, a regular practice. When you have a regular practice, it's like collecting data. You have a familiarity with the experience and with that intense training. Fatigue was the major demon, if you will. That so transformed my nervous system into something that was less strong. Even though I was winning trophies for muscles, I was the least strong as a person. How did I know that? It's because my meditation experience fell apart. I had all this data from years of meditating and my mind wouldn't settle at all. Not to say that meditation is a completely settled mind, but there is a process where the mind settles down during meditation and it wasn't happening. My body was too exhausted.

Genevieve Morgan:

And would you say that you've seen that in this group that Lisa's talking about with insomnia, you know, other symptoms of stress even as they're training for their triathlon or the.

Joanne Arnold:

I think frequently that's happening?

Genevieve Morgan:

I think.

Joanne Arnold:

I think you have to go person by person. You can never generalize these things. You really do have to do, like a forensic study on each person to understand. But there would be the general conversation about if your problems with sleep are increasing. Big telltale sign. Big telltale sign.

Genevieve Morgan:

Loss of libido.

Joanne Arnold:

Loss of libido. Depression, anxiety, increase in injuries, disturbances for these females, disturbances in menstrual cycles. People don't talk about that. It's like taboo. That's a big deal. It's a real clear marker for females if their nervous system is functioning in a normal pattern. For them, again, it has to be relative to them or is that changing too? That's a good, real signal.

Genevieve Morgan:

and what you're saying is really interesting, and I think Lisa sees this all the time, is that while people are in the pursuit of one idea of strength, they're actually losing strength. So what did you do and what can you tell our listeners they can do to round out that training?

Joanne Arnold:

Well, the big turnaround for me personally was learning from John Dollard many techniques that helped physically reclaim my nervous system to a place that was not. I was not burdening it with stress during training. It was actually a method that could de stress the body. This was a huge turnaround from a lineage of stress and recover modality that just beats the heck out of you and you hope you have something left at the end to show. This is a ridiculous method of training. It is still by far the biggest training out in the world. It's a myth. It's an unfortunate myth. You can build a body based more on the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the quieter, more organized nervous system that we have. It's the opposite of the flight or fight response. We can build a body from there. Well, how the hell heck do you do that? One of the ways you do it is in your training. You adopt nasal breathing. Very simple nasal breathing. What do I mean by that? The oxygen goes in through the nose and you breathe out through the nose and that stimulates the vagus nerve, 10th cranial nerve gets stimulated. And when that cranial nerve, the vagus nerve gets stimulated, the nervous system shifts from the high anxiety or high adrenaline, you know, high stress hormone type functioning, the flight or Fight response and shifts to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is orderly. The function of the organs are more orderly. The heart rate lowers a bit, which does not interfere with output athletically. It's fascinating. You can actually achieve quite a lot. Much lower heart rates, and you can accumulate rest while you're training. This is an astonishing thing.

Genevieve Morgan:

I often say that is.

Joanne Arnold:

It is.

Genevieve Morgan:

It's a radical idea.

Joanne Arnold:

People kind of look at me and they go, yeah, right, but. So here's some data in my own experiences when I was first doing this program. You checked your morning heart rate to get. Again, to collect data on what this body is telling you. You know, if you're going to listen to the body, there are different ways to listen to it. And monitoring the heart rate in the morning was one way to do that. So. So I monitored my heart rate as I began this program. My heart rate in the morning was about 70, 75, which is different for different individuals, but for me, that's what that was. And I, at that point then started training with nasal breathing. I subdued the heart rate. I got a lot more rest. Three months later, my morning heart rate was between 40 and 45. I was training for a nationally ranked competition. I was doing my work, but I was doing it in such a way that was no longer stressing the body. My body was accumulating rest. My heart was functioning with the same output at a much more efficient, much more precise way. What was the experience of that was that I had resources, I had energy, I was kinder to my family, I was a better mom. I had resiliency, I had a sense of humor, which I had lost, you know, when things were getting. You know, when we start training in this method, we tend to get. We just hook, line and sinker, go towards the workload. You know, we got to work this. We got to. We were already all working too much.

Genevieve Morgan:

You know, so much about the physiology of the body, Joanne, but you're also investing a lot of time becoming the first ever chaplain of the body. What is that and how will you practice?

Joanne Arnold:

Well, I think I came to the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. The acronym is chime. I came to CHIME with the experience of. Of really living in the world as chaplain of the body. The work with people is very intimate about their recreation of their body. So I felt that it's already happening. It was giving a language to that, giving a level of respect. Also that the body must be chaplain both from the community and from the self. You know, I have many doctors for clients and one notable doctor who does a lot of work around women and hormones and she said, you know, we're telling our patients all the time that the body is a temple. But she says this wonderful comment. She says, but we know there's nobody in the temple. And this is a lovely comment. And it, and it's clear we disavow the power of our own bodies and what's possible. So being chaplain to the body is

Genevieve Morgan:

being companion to the body, populating that temple.

Tara Treichel:

Yeah.

Joanne Arnold:

And inviting you to come into your own temple, not for me to hang out in your temple. I've got my own temple. I can share. I can be in the temple with you. I can, I can sit in it with you until you come into it yourself. But I think that's the most important value of that is to hold the space for someone until they truly make the leap into the ownership of their own body. You see this with athletes all the time.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, that segues right into my next question, which is our show is called Girl Power or Woman Power. And we've asked our first two guests the same question and I'm going to ask it of you. What would you coach? How would you train the younger you? If you could go back in a time machine and look at your 20 year old self, how would you get that person into the temple faster?

Joanne Arnold:

I think this is a great question. I think I would have reassured her that even because I knew that I knew about the temple and I was harshly criticized for going into athletic endeavors because of the fear of being taken away from the temple. For instance, I was thought little of for going into athletics because I was thought of as a more spiritual person. And I would have reassured, per your question, I would have reassured her and said, hey, it is cool. You are walking directly into the temple. However you get into it. If this is the way you get into it, go that way, be reassured. You know you'll find your way.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's terrific. Thank you, Joanne, for joining us here today on Girl Power. You are the epitome of a powerful woman, Powerful girl. We appreciate you having you being here.

Joanne Arnold:

Thank you very much.

Genevieve Morgan:

I interviewed Joanne arnold for the March 2012 issue of the Maine Magazine in a column called Fit to Feeding youg Inner Athlete. Every month I write a wellness column for the Maine Magazine which you can read online@themainmag.com or pick up an issue at your local newsstand.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In the studio for today's Give Back segment is Tara Treichel, who is the director of education at the Coastal Study for Girls in Freeport, the country's first science and leadership semester school for 10th grade girls. You can find them through Facebook and blog links on the homepage of their

Tara Treichel:

website, which is www.coastalstudiesforgirls.org.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you're so good. You embody this whole idea of leadership. You just jumped right in there. And I've got Jen Morgan here. She's also about girls and leadership.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi, Tara.

Robin Hodgskin:

Hello.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is a great organization. It's exciting and it's so unique. This fact that you bring girls into Freeport and this is near Wolf Neck Farm, is that right? Correct. To explore things that they might not otherwise have the chance to explore. Tell me a little bit about your programming.

Tara Treichel:

Well, there are a number of semester schools around the country, and ours is the first to cater just to 10th grade girls. There are semester schools that focus on programs like arts or ethical decision making or there's other programs that even focus on science. But we really wanted to cater to girls and just to the 10th grade age. The 10th grade age is an age for girls when they can get lost. And we target girls who are curious and love learning and love science. And we wanted to give them an opportunity to really be themselves and not have the competition of boys and then to be able to just delve into their love for learning, for science, for a communal living experience. It's been tremendous success in our first couple of years.

Genevieve Morgan:

So what are you looking for in an applicant?

Tara Treichel:

Well, it's actually quite simple. We really seek a student who wants to be there. She sees herself at the school. She is, she's curious. She has a desire to learn. She loves learning. She is capable of being academically successful, not necessarily a straight A student, but someone who is college bound and who would jump at the opportunity for adventure and rigor and challenge and the opportunity to live with 15 other girls for a semester.

Genevieve Morgan:

What do you offer in a semester school?

Tara Treichel:

While students apply to attend a semester school, they leave their home school or their sending school in the fall or the spring and they attend our school for 16 weeks. Then they take all of their classes through us. So they take English and World History, they take for math, they take geometry, Advanced Algebra or pre Calculus. For science we have a Coastal Marine Ecosystems class in foreign languages, we offer Spanish and French and then we also offer our Leadership Adventure class. So students return to their sending schools and they pick up just where they left off. They can attend from anywhere in the country.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Where can girls or their parents find out more about your capital campaign or your organization? How to Apply what's the best Way?

Tara Treichel:

The best source of information is definitely the website which as I said said earlier was www.coastalstudiesforgirls.org. there you can find information about how to apply. I want to also mention that we starting this summer, we have summer opportunities as well, not only for girls, but also for women and educators. We also are seeking ways that people can help, which might include supporting a student. We have a lot of students, especially from Maine, who aren't able to afford a program like ours without a little bit of financial assistance. And in addition, ways to support the capital campaign for the barn would be extremely helpful. Also, if anybody has connections to a particular student or school that might like to learn about Coastal Studies for Girls or an organization, a women's organization and another educational organization that would like more information.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you very much. It's been great. This is a perfect it's a perfect fit with our Girl Power show. We know you're doing great work, you've been in it for two years and we hope you have many more.

Tara Treichel:

Thank you very much. I'm really excited to be here and really excited to spread the word and thanks for your support.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Today's Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, co hosted by Genevieve Morgan, worked with the theme of Girl Power. Girl Power, Woman Power, Female Power. Really what we were talking about was this yin power that is discussed widely in traditional Chinese medicine, this receptive energy, this power of the moon, in contrast to the power of the sun which I spoke about in my Summer Girl Reading from Bountiful blog. Ultimately, as we talked about in Deep Dish, power is really about having the capacity to change and work with your talents. We at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast are indeed all about power and energy and giving you the power and energy to be inspired to live your life in a more bountiful way. Thank you for being a part of our world. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. May you have a bountiful life.

Tara Treichel:

Sa.