Health / Wealth #21

Tom Shepard:

It was only later on when I got sort of a fuller, more holistic approach to understanding what money is, how we value it, and how we use those values to make decisions on a day in, day out basis that sometimes what's right for one person is absolutely the wrong thing for somebody else.

Susan Conley:

A painter will paint, a dancer will dance. I needed to write and I kind of wrote my way through the cancer. I know we all hear that it can be incredible, incredibly cathartic to have some kind of artistic expression around disease. And I have to say I couldn't agree more with that. It was actually one of the greatest surprises of my life, how freeing it was to write through the cancer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle. This week's show, which is airing on Sunday, February 5, is our Health Wealth show, show number 21. And we are going to be speaking today with Tom Shepard of Shepherd Financial, Susan Connelly, author of the Foremost Good Fortune, and I have sitting across the microphones from me, Genevieve Morgan, my co host. Hi, Jen.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi, Lisa. It's gonna be a great show today, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think it is gonna be a great show. This is a very favorite topic of mine, the relationship between individuals and their health and their money.

Genevieve Morgan:

It's interesting how that's connected. What have you seen in your practice?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we often talk about levels of wellness and people come in to me and they will have some sort of a health crisis. They'll have a back issue, they'll have a neck issue, they'll have had a heart attack or some sort of trauma that oftentimes is coming along at the same time as a transition in their life, whether this is a divorce or job loss or even something that needs to transition that they haven't quite gotten to yet.

Genevieve Morgan:

Right. Sort of stuck there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Genevieve Morgan:

Causing them a problem.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Exactly. So there's something underlying in their life that they haven't dealt with. And many times this has to do with money and financial security.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, it's sort of a dirty secret, people's financial status. I mean, there's a shame about talking about money or somehow connecting your health with your money. And so I find it interesting that we're doing a health show and we're including a lot about finances and people's relationship with their money.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

There is a shame that's associated with it, and I'm not sure why that's so. Because if you think about money, all it is is it's a currency. It's something that enables you to do something you want to do, whether that's feed your family, put a roof over your own head, your family's head, or go on a vacation. It's a currency. It's an exchange of something not unlike energy, which we talk about all the time on the doctoralisa Radio Hourm podcast.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, some people seem to make a lot of it with very little effort, and for some people, it seems to be hard to come by. So it's a big difference between individuals.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I think that this does get to the root of the shame issue that you're describing, which is if you can't be one of those people that makes enough money, then it sometimes makes you feel as if you're not quite as powerful as you should be, or you're not quite as creative or intelligent. It just strikes. It speaks to your ability to function in this world and in this society.

Genevieve Morgan:

And certainly not having enough money to meet your needs creates a tremendous amount of stress. And stress is very bad for our

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

health, as we know stress is very bad for our health. And stress and money issues are also very challenging when it comes to your relationships with other people, particularly your spouse or your significant other. Our relationship with money is very reflective of our relationship with ourselves and how we think of ourselves, from whether we think of ourselves as highly capable or as being impoverished, whether we think of ourselves as being enough or not enough, whether we're confident or not confident, and we bring that into how we interact with other people.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's true. I mean, how you value yourself. I'm hesitant to go into this whole idea of, well, positive thinking will make you rich, but there is a sense that if you value yourself, then you and you're connected with your sense of self worth, you're more apt to connect to your money making money and your financial health.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, there is that sense, although it's not entirely true, because I know plenty of people who make Lots of money. And they aren't entirely connected. So it's interesting.

Genevieve Morgan:

Or happy or healthy.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Or happy or healthy. So it's not always a direct correlation, but there certainly is a correlation. And when things start to fall apart in a relationship in a very significant way, you will often see a parallel decline in financial status. And divorce lawyers will tell you that this is so that people will come in and they will leave. Well, they will leave in a far poorer state, but they also will come in in significant financial distress, especially today.

Genevieve Morgan:

But. And one of the things that I hear you saying is that money is an important factor in health, but it is just one factor. And so relationship, physical health, which I think Susan Conley will talk about later on in her book, that they're all aspects of, of well being. And that sometimes when people stop stressing about money or can take a step back from their financial stress, they can find other ways of motivating themselves. It's not all about money. In other words, success isn't all about money.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's not all about money, but it is all about valuing oneself, knowing what one has to offer in this world to oneself, to other people, to the greater world. So Tom Shepard will talk about the fact that you need to know where you are starting from. And Linda Varrell and Frankie Chapa will talk about enabling teenagers to sort of write a value statement. And it's just knowing who you are and what you have to offer. So it doesn't necessarily have to be financial, but there, it's just again, there's such a direct correlation that we thought it would be important too.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and interestingly, I think we have a society where we're tempted by the pill, like to fix everything with a quick pill. But what you're saying is that I think that that kind of mentality takes over with the money piece too, which is, oh, well, we should all just get rich quick. Like, there's got to be a secret out there that will help us stay healthy and be rich. But it's really a process.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is a process. And I write on the blog on a daily basis and somebody who reads the blog for me said, you know, one of the things you need to stop talking about is showing up because you keep talking about showing up all the time. And I'm like, well, but that's what there is, is you do have to keep showing up. And this is why I talk about it a lot, because this is a major theme is you may not get rich quick, but there is a sequential. They call them success spirals that occur over time, that if you can get a little bit of success and you show up the next day and you get a little bit of success, and this is whether it's true with money, relationships, valuing yourself, any of those things. And one last thing that I thought would be interesting to talk about is, is this idea of the Secret, because this became very famous. I don't know how long ago it was, but there was a marketer who went out and talked about, well, I've

Genevieve Morgan:

been visualizing a lot of stuff every day and it still hasn't come. So.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay, but this is what I wanted to talk about is you can visualize all you want for the positive, but they do have studies that have shown that this idea of mental contrasting that actually works. So if you can visualize sort of where you'd like your life to go and set some goals and some intentions, but at the same time, there has to be that other side where you're visualizing where you don't want your life to go and maybe where you've been. And you have to be able to hold those two ideas in your head simultaneously. And there's a researcher in New York who has been working with this for 20 years and has had great success. So you have to be able to do both. And they say there's a sweet spot. If you're overly optimistic or this whole sort of idea of the Pangloss where everything is good all the time, then you're not going to succeed. So people who have read the Secret and they're beating themselves up because they weren't positively thinking enough or speaking enough, it's because it doesn't work. You have to be able to do both. You have to be able to hold the contrast in your head and you can be successful.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and there we go, back to the currency of exchange, that it's never just one easy way, there's always something balancing it out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And this week we will talk with Tom Shepard, Susan Conley, and find out more about how this is related to health and wealth. We're fortunate on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast to have the University of New England sponsor a segment we call Wellness Innovations. This week's Wellness Innovation comes from Psychology Today and an article called the Epidemic of Financial what yout Can Do. Here's the good news, something we have had the pleasure to witness many, many times. When people step outside of the norm and are not being driven by anxiety about money, many new perspectives as well as new opportunities surface. Sometimes they surface from your hobbies or passions. Sometimes they are vocational routes that were right in front of your face, but you've been blinded by old habits and defenses. Most importantly, we need to stop being carriers of the financial anxiety contagion. Knowing and exercising your affluence intelligence will help you regain the locus of control for your finances and your life. Read more about this on psychologytoday.com through the Dr. Lisa website and read more about the University of New England at www.une.edu.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Today's first guest is a friend of our show from the very beginning, Tom Sheppard, and he and I are sitting with Genevieve Morgan. Hi Genevieve.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi Lisa. Hi Tom.

Tom Shepard:

It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on your show.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So, Tom, we decided that we wanted to bring you on the show because you have a very interesting perspective on money and how it impacts the family, how it impacts the individual. And we recognize both as individuals, but also in our chosen fields, that health and wealth, they just can't be separated. This is true. Give us a little bit about your Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do and how you came to this place.

Tom Shepard:

I am currently a financial advisor. I own my own firm called Shepherd Financial. We work out of Yarmouth, Maine, and we recently established ourselves as an independent firm. And so we're going through a transition right now and we're really excited about being able to get our message out to the world with our new brand and help people understand what we're all about. We really believe that money is more than just stuff, that it's it's got elements of it that can really help us live healthier lives, wealthier lives, and have better relationships and manage our time better and all kinds of other benefits. I actually got into the business of being a financial advisor because I was a teacher of math at Gould Academy up in Bethel, Maine, and I wanted to help the kids get an experience in that last year where they didn't have to take math but might elect to take a class that was associated with it. Anyway, so we created a personal finance class that was a lot of fun. I mean, I had four kids the first time I offered it and we got to dive really deep into stuff, but clearly had a nerve the next time we offered the class. There were 17 enrolled and that makes for a different dynamic. But, you know, talking to the kids about money and helping them understand some of the things that they were going to wrestle with led them to go home, talk to their parents. And it was the kids who said, you should talk to our parents. And I said, you know, that might be a good career move for me. So that's how we got into deciding to become an advisor.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what do you think it was about the kids and how you were impacting them that caused them to want you to talk to their parents? What were you saying that was so striking to them?

Tom Shepard:

I think one of the coolest exercises that we were able to do with the kids was take the math part of what they were learning, which was the power of compounding of interest over time, and connect some of their expensive little habits or hobbies. The six Mountain Dews that one student would drink every day. I mean, aside from the nasty health benefits, we wanted to show him how much more money he could have if he could figure out ways to do that habit, either cheaper or just eliminate it altogether. He used to pump quarters into a very expensive vending machine, and there was a store just not that far away. So the walk would have been good for him, and it would have been cheaper if he'd just gone and bought a big giant 2 liter bottle. So it was just helping them recognize that not only is your health impacted as a result of the habits and addictions that we all have, but also there's a financial impact as well. One of the things that I bring to my practice is the personal experiences that I've had with respect to money and finance and careers and transitions. Been through a lot of transitions. The first one was getting out of college and working for Pratt and Whitney as an engineer. Getting laid off during the recession in the early 90s, I sort of tried to decide what it was I wanted to do next. And I thought, you know what? Teaching and coaching and working at a boarding school might be something I should. I should try. And the only thing I could get was an internship. So I went from $30,000 a year to $6,000 a year.

Genevieve Morgan:

That was a big leap.

Tom Shepard:

Went from working as an engineer to being a football coach and a dorm parent to teenagers who really weren't that much younger than me at the time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you were originally from upstate New York.

Tom Shepard:

You grew up in a small little town called Fayetteville, outside of Syracuse, where it snows a lot. And the whole reason we settled on Maine was because I wanted to be closer to the coast. I wanted to be close to the mountains.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You came to the qigong class that I teach, and in the qigong class we talk about energy and building one's energy. And of course, over time, you and I have often said energy and money, they're very much the same. It's just a currency. It's a different sort of energy currency.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, that struck me too when you were describing the way you identify different habits that people have with money. It's very similar in some ways to some of the things that Lisa sees in her practice about how people manage their health. I'm interested in. Can you do a quick description of the roller coaster and the different ways that people work, have habits with their money?

Tom Shepard:

I can probably give you a couple of my own habits that, you know, I've either had or have been working on overcoming. You know, it used to be that when I would leave the office at five o' clock for my five mile drive home, I'd stop one mile into it at a local convenience store and I'd, I'd buy myself a bag of Cheetos. You know, I didn't need to spend the money, but there was just something about my health and my condition of needing to get some, some sugar or salt or whatever and it's just a funny place to be spending money on Cheetos, four miles from home and arriving home and, you know, I just spent the last 4 miles licking my fingers and, you know, trying to hide the evidence. Whenever anybody asks me to sort of talk about money, one of the things I have to do is I have to go back to the beginning and say, you know, what is it? What is money? Money for me in an ideal world would be everybody going to work, doing something they love and putting love into it and getting something out of it that they can then turn around and share with other people. And just having that go around and around would be a great basis for our economy. You do this, I do this. We help each other out, we share. But what happens in the relationship that people have with money is they go through about seven different levels of relationship to money. The first one, and the name I have for it, is insufficient. I would even call it level zero. You feel like a zero. You feel worthless, you feel like, you know, you're just not everything that you can be. You may in fact make most of your decisions based on reaction and instinct. It's all done at a gut level. And, you know, I've known people and clients who, you know, they just don't take the time to think about what's really the right next step. They just take a next step. And so that's sort of the first level. The second level is often a roller coaster ride. You might make a lot of money and then you spend lots of money, and then you make very little money and you don't have enough. And so that's kind of the second stage is the picture I would paint would be a roller coaster. The third stage would be where you, you know, you're trying to nail it all down. You're trying to make the right amount of money to meet the right amount of expenses. You're trying to control it. But if you're not careful, it starts to control you. There's lots of tools out there to help people sort of track where their money goes. But all of a sudden, the next thing you know, you're addicted to tracking where your money goes and you're wasting time. Another valuable resource, doing something that really doesn't add any additional value to you. The next level for me is where you actually get paid to do a good job of managing your resources. Whether those resources are time, money, stuff, relationships, your health, you're creating value that can then be repurposed so you can take some of your excess savings and you can do something else with it. Lots of folks get to that level and then maybe take that purpose and just plow it back into those other three levels. Deal with the crisis, deal with the ups and downs, try to nail down, try to reduce your debt. That's a spending mentality. And it's very similar. The whole financial system, the problems with our current system financially are very similar to the problems with our food system, which is we can create lots of food, but what's really the value of it from a nutrient standpoint, we can create lots of money, but are we really creating the value for ourselves that we want? And so there's a jump. There's a big step from having money, controlling your spending and taking the money and investing it. Creating a second skill set.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were talking about these stages of sort of money understanding and development. So what you're talking about, that restructuring is further down the line. First you had to go through that initial phase, that fear phase.

Tom Shepard:

I believe fear is definitely one of those. One of those emotions that if I could only, I wouldn't be so afraid, or if I could only, I wouldn't be so worried. So fears are looking backward and thinking negative things might happen. And the antidote to that oftentimes is looking forward and identifying how you can take that fear and hedge or manage that risk that you see as a potential and turn it into an opportunity. So you can take a negative and turn it into a positive. If you can get to a more neutral place, if you can get to a place where you're not being ruled by any of your emotions, but you're still in touch with your emotions, you can make better decisions. One of the things I've observed is there are lots of folks who think that they've reached a certain level of success with respect to their wealth, but because they're disconnected from it, they are. You know, it might all be in a retirement plan or a 401k plan. It might be money that's been set aside for college or specific purpose, but that purpose is way far off. They feel wealthy because they see what their wealth looks like on paper, but it's got no practical application for them right now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Which you've said is kind of a problem when people are dealing with money is that they disconnect from their money.

Tom Shepard:

And the worst case scenario is where you've got wealth over here that you can't touch and you've got debt over here that's adding to the expenses that are making it harder for you to live now. Especially in a situation like we're in right now where the economy's not that strong. There are plenty of folks who have put money away for retirement, but now they're laid off, maybe they have to go in and all of a sudden it's more expensive to access that money. So some of the things that we do when we're going forward don't work as well when we end up in sort of a backward period. One of the things that we've done in our firm is to study the history of money. Let's go back over not just the last 10 years, but let's go back and look over the last fifty hundred thousand years so that we understand really what money is and that it goes through these different cycles and by understanding what it is, knowing that it goes through these cycles, but knowing that it evolves over time. One of the things we need right now is we need a Wall street that's scaled for Main Street. So if we could figure out a way to get our food system to recognize the need to shrink back down and get to a human scale, we probably need something similar, a similar movement to exist that will bring our capitalist structure back to a human scale scale. But at the same time, it also has to exist in a global environment. And that's the challenge. The challenge is how do you continue to evolve globally while also bringing the scale back down locally? And Maine's a really neat place because, you know, it's small enough where you could take any system that is benefiting us on a national or a global level and you can come back and really work very quickly. If people were directed well enough to create something that would be very useful for us here, much healthier, smaller, scalable, and I'd love to see that happen.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tom, did you come to some of these lessons not only as a teacher, but through some of your personal experiences?

Tom Shepard:

One of the things I bring to my financial planning practices, I'm not afraid to go out and make mistakes so others don't have to. I mean, I've made lots of financial mistakes from failure to recognize the value proposition between a private school and a public school when I was trying to select colleges, buying beer for all my friends at college on a credit card that I'm probably still paying for, leasing a car, buying a car, owning a two family home, buying a single. I've made lots of decisions and not all of them have worked out for the best. But one of the things that I've always tried to do is pay attention to why I made that decision. And if it didn't go well, why didn't it go well? Where did I go wrong and learn from it? Let me take back what I said. I haven't made every mistake in the book. Some of what I'm able to bring forward from my experiences are the mistakes that either clients or family or friends have made around me. One of the lessons early on that I sort of was, you know, well, that's not smart, was a decision that my brother in law made regarding his 401k plan and paying off debt. So even though when I talk about there being different levels and at one level it's an investment that reduces your debt, for my brother in law it really came down to, I think you know, this is me speaking many years after the fact about why I think he made the decision he made was there are four things people value. There's time, relationships, stuff. Money falls into that category, and your health. I think he got to a certain point with college loans and debt that had piled up of feeling like he just, you know, that was robbing him of certain energy to advance his career, to do better financially. So if I look at his decision to cash in a 401k and pay off all his debt from a mathematical standpoint, from a financial standpoint, it doesn't make any sense. So when we start talking about the interconnections of health, relationship, money and time, sometimes it's time to make a decision to do something with your money that actually pays huge dividends, say on the relationship side of things, the relationship you have with a spouse, the relationship you have with yourself, an employer, that sort of space. So, you know, that's not an example of a mistake because it turned out very, very well. His career took off very rapidly after he made that decision. But I viewed it as a mistake when I first saw it. It was only later on when I got the sort of a fuller, more holistic approach to understanding what money is, how we value it, and how we use those values to make decisions on a day in and day out basis. That sometimes what's right for one person is absolutely the wrong thing for somebody else.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And this is the reason that we had you come in and talk to us today is that relationship between health and wealth. I mean, it's not just about how do you manage your mutual funds. It's about, from what you've seen in your own practice, you've seen that people, when they feel scared, they get anxious, they can't sleep at night. And it does have a very. There's a very primal relationship. It's very foundational. Can you talk about some other examples that you've seen?

Tom Shepard:

The better connected I can be to how I feel about the value decisions I'm making with my money, the more aware I am of the impact that those decisions are going to have, not just on my health, but also on my relationships, the way I manage my time. So if I can manage my time well enough, then I can get enough sleep. If I can get enough sleep, I won't be tired, I won't need the extra caffeine. The extra caffeine won't kick me into a craving mode that then starts to pour cheap, no value calories into me. My energy will improve. And if My energy is better. I can be more productive. And the way that you get paid is to be productive and do something that you share with other people that's very positive. And so when I think about the connection between health and wealth, I think plenty of people try to put it into a box and then forget about it. That's oftentimes why they hire me. But the difference between what we used to do when we first got into this business and what we do now is I'll let them hire me. We'll look at the box, but we'll definitely connect them to the inputs and outputs that are going in and out of that box and hopefully make it such that their money's allowing them to grow and develop and become the person that they want to be today and tomorrow, not just 30 years from now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, Tom, I know that there's a lot more wisdom that you have to offer. And you have a new logo, you have a new website that's being launched very soon. Where can people find out more about you?

Tom Shepard:

Yeah, if somebody wants to find out more about Shepherd Financial and what we're all about, our web address is www.shepherdfinancialmain.com. and we are building our website. It's under construction right now. We expect it to be launched in the next week or so. And we're really excited about the information that's going to be on it, the artwork that's being created that helps, really. You know, picture tells a thousand words. And hopefully, you know, just by going there, you'll be able to get a sense not only of where you are, where you've been, but also what your potential is and the path that you might go on in order to get there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you have any parting words of wisdom for people as they're listening and sort of embarking on 2012?

Tom Shepard:

I think this year is a very exciting year, obviously, for us, because we got a lot going going on. I think this is a year for people to really get in touch with what your purpose is, stay connected to it, figure out how your money can serve you, can serve others. You know, hopefully it's a year that has a mark on it out there somewhere around 21 December, where the world's going to come to an end. And my Birthday is the 22nd, and I hope to see you all at my birthday celebration.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you, Tom, for coming in and talking to us today about the connection between health and wealth. And I know that people are going to be very interested in learning more about the type of services that you offer.

Tom Shepard:

It's been great to be on your show. Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've just spoken with Tom Shepard from Shepherd Financial about the relationship between health and wealth, and we now have an individual who has a slightly different perspective, but also very strong on the health, wealth side of things. She will be speaking with Genevieve Morgan, the wellness editor for Maine Magazine, as part of our Maine Magazine minutes.

Genevieve Morgan:

Thanks, Lisa. Today in the studio on the Maine Magazine minutes, we have Susan Conley, an intrepid traveler in life and geographically, who has written a book called the Foremost Good Fortune, a memoir about her experience moving her family to China in 2009 and the Adventures of many different sorts that occurred there. Welcome, Susan.

Susan Conley:

It's great to be here.

Genevieve Morgan:

Why did you name your book, your memoir, the Foremost Good Fortune?

Susan Conley:

Well, the book is a memoir about moving to China with my family. We lived in Beijing for close to three years. And the extended metaphor of the story is moving through China and moving through cancer. And I really equated cancer with a kind of foreign land. And if I read you the poem that goes with the title of the book, it might make more sense. Should I do that?

Genevieve Morgan:

I would love that. That would be great.

Susan Conley:

Okay. This is From Dhammapada number 15, hunger, the foremost illness fabrication, the foremost pain for one. Knowing this truth as it actually is unbinding is the foremost ease, freedom from illness, the foremost good fortune. And I think when I read that at the start of many of my book talks around the country, I get this sort of light that goes on in people's eyes, and the whole story begins to make sense on many different levels.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, certainly when you're young and relatively healthy, you don't think about your health as a fortune, as a reserve. But then when you become ill, it becomes so clear.

Susan Conley:

Yes. And I think when you become a mother as well, the sort of elixir of good health becomes even more magical and sacred and. And it's Only when illness really came knocking at my door that I realized all these other wonderful good fortunes that I had in my life. So this story of mine is. It's a story about tracing disease through motherhood as well, and how it resonates through a family and how a family learns to put cancer in its place and make room for disease in all of its different sort of permutations, which

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think is very important, because when you were describing in your book Moving to China, you were talking about your boys being relatively young and very active. I remember quite vividly one of the opening paragraphs about how you didn't have the boys that would go off and, I don't know, play Scrabble or something. They were the boys who were jumping on beds and were always with you. And so you really needed to make room for this in your life.

Susan Conley:

We brought young boys to Beijing. They were 4 and 6. They were doing ski jumps off the sidewalks and running up the stairs at the Great Wall. And they were fearless travelers. They were game for it all. And then when Mommy got cancer, we had to find a language for that and a place to put that so that it didn't take over our family, didn't take over our time in China. And we really learned to do that through a whole lot of honesty.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, let's talk about your move a little bit, because you were born and raised in Maine, though you've lived in other places, in Boston, in San Francisco, and you've always been a writer. Do you want to take us through a little bit of your background?

Susan Conley:

I was the girl in sixth grade here in Maine who was always scribbling poetry and reading the lyrics to the. The Jackson Browne songs on the album sleeve. Poetry was where language really came alive for me. So I studied it for years and years. I got undergraduate and graduate degrees, and then I became a teacher of poetry. And it's always been that distillation of language that attracts me to poetry and still does, that kind of crystallization of the thing that can't be said any other way. So I brought that keen interest in that economy of language to China. And I had a real intention that I set to write a story about my family moving to China. And I did that for about 100 pages before I found my own cancer. And in the end, the book became a love letter to the boys. It was really written for them and to them. And it's something that I hope they will read with great pride and delight when they're maybe in their 20s.

Genevieve Morgan:

So it didn't start out as a book about cancer?

Susan Conley:

No, it was a Day in the Life book, A book about what happens when you watch your children learn a new language. What happens when you go figure out how to weigh Chinese apples at the market. And then it had to become a book about cancer or it was never going to be finished. And that was really my revelation, that there had to be a way to connect that mother, that. That carefree mother with that new mother who had cancer. And was she the same, and was that voice that same? And the sort of breakthrough was when I went back over some rather scribbled notes I'd taken during the cancer treatment and realized, okay, I have a book here. It's actually the second half of that first book. And it's the same mother. I'm the same woman. I'm changed, but not necessarily for the worst. I think I had to get really open to the material. I had to come to terms with it and find my own language for it. And I hear that a lot with cancer survivors, this sort of needing to assimilate it, decipher it in whatever way works internally for them. So a painter will paint, a dancer will dance. I needed to write, and I kind of wrote my way through the cancer. I know we all hear that it can be incredibly cathartic to have some kind of artistic expression around disease. And I have to say I couldn't agree more with that. It was actually one of the greatest surprises of my life, how freeing it was to write through the cancer. When I found my cancer in Beijing, I went through an early phase of denial, which I think is now quite common. And I had a kind of on the spot lumpectomy in a Beijing hospital because I had come head to head with a sort of patriarchal old school Chinese doctor who really was dismissive of these lumps that we had found. And he wanted me to go far, far away for many months. But I was stubborn. And I called my wonderful woman doctor back here in the States, and she has some lines that I quote in the book that goes like this. We never wait, Susan. We always go back in and find out you can't wait. So then I called that Beijing hospital and I said, hi, it's Susan, that American with the breast lumps, and we can't wait. So as things go in China, things move really quickly. And I had the surgery, I think the next day. And then things got zooey and a little crazy because it was clear we had malignancy. And then they wanted to do an on the spot mastectomy and we sort of said, wait, and we put the brakes on and we actually came back to the States for the mastectomy.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, so you used the Western model for the emergent surgical care that you needed, and you came back to America for that, but then you went back to China. I did post radiation. And that was when the book started to change and when your perception about how to heal started to change. So I'm interested in that because that's a real sea change for you.

Susan Conley:

Cancer caused me to give up the reins, so to speak, and to begin to let go of that powerful control mechanism that I was sort of driven by. I think here in the States, cancer is so humbling that there really wasn't much left to do but give up control. When we got back to Beijing and what I did was I found a fantastic yoga teacher, a Chinese woman who worked with me to get my strength back in my arms. And she also worked with me on all kinds of mantras and things that were incredibly helpful and grounding. And through her I was introduced to five element acupuncture. And I began to really open up to the language around the disease and to be able to say, yes, I have cancer and I am incredibly hopeful. I think this has a happy ending. I've made room for it. I can find words to talk to my kids about it. And once I sort of became that open, it all got very simple. And it was all about honesty and about living very much in the moment, as much as we as I could.

Genevieve Morgan:

I also love the part in your book where your dear friend Lily King says to you, suze, you can't think your way through this because it seems to me that some of what was happening for you, at least in reading your book, was this opening to feeling your way right.

Susan Conley:

For those of us who want to live in our heads, cancer really challenges that assumption. And I think Lily was right that it was time to try to live more in my body, in my heart. Acupuncture really helped that and I found this wonderful man in Beijing who did a lot of acupuncture and acupressure. I remember going to him for the first time, and he knew very little about me. He spoke limited English, and it was a very special place. Very quiet, very spiritual, and it was all intuition and touch. There wasn't a lot of verbal. And he began working on me. And he said, okay, we need to tell your body that it's okay to let go.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, do you have a sense for what you were holding onto, or do you have a sense for what it was that you needed to open up to?

Susan Conley:

It's a really interesting question, because I think my answer has changed over time. And the obvious answer is that big C control word that I think can inform a lot of what we do here in the West. But I also think that what I was holding onto was more primal than that. I think as a mother, when I was diagnosed with cancer, I felt this incredibly intrinsic urge to survive for my kids. So it was very simple. It was, if I can control this, if I can hold onto it, and if I can solve this, then I can live. And if I can live, then my children will have a better life. So it was really all about mortality for a while. And then I began to work through that, and that was a big turning point for me, was, hey, you don't have to hold on to the whole disease and think it inside out. You can let go, you can trust.

Genevieve Morgan:

Then you came back to Maine a year and a half ago.

Susan Conley:

Yeah.

Genevieve Morgan:

How have you taken some of the lessons that you learned in China and that opening and translated it back to your life here in the US what have you learned?

Susan Conley:

There's a certain chaotic, wonderful, wild energy on any street in China. And that sense of potential, that anything could happen on a given day is something that I try to draw on while I'm here in Maine. And then I would say yoga. Yoga, Yoga. Meditation. Living much more in the body. As someone who sits at a desk and writes a lot, I could live in my head all the time. And for those of us who need to get that kind of release, for me, yoga is the perfect thing.

Genevieve Morgan:

So you're working on a novel? Yes. And when will that be coming out?

Susan Conley:

I just finished the novel. It's called the Woman who Cooked on the Roof. And it's about an Indian teenager who ends up in Paris in the late 80s. She's befriended by an American teacher there who comes and helps her at her asylum center. And that teacher's brother is. Is dying, actually, of a disease. And I had written a draft of this novel before I wrote the memoir. So I think the fascinating thing here for me and for all of us who are trying to write the stories of our lives is that these stories weave together. So the work I did in the memoir and the work I did around getting honest with myself about cancer, then came to the novel and informed the novel and I was able to write, I think, much more honestly and authentically about disease. The novel will come out in about a year. It's with the same publishing house, Knopf, and the same editor as the memoir. So that's really nice because there's continuity there.

Genevieve Morgan:

And then what else are you doing? Because I know you're very active in the literary world in Portland.

Susan Conley:

Well, the Telling Room has always been very dear to my heart. It's the Creative Writing center here in Portland that I co founded with two wonderful writer friends coming on about seven years ago. So I'm always trying to do all things Telling Room, trying to teach there as often as I can and watch that organization grow in all these incredible ways. I'm also teaching for the Stone Coast Writers Conference this summer, actually at the Stone House in Freeport. I'll be doing some memoir intensives. Excuse me.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, that is one thing we didn't talk about. You are a wonderful, wonderful teacher.

Susan Conley:

Thank you so much. I feel like I love teaching and I can wear many different hats when I teach. And I have been teaching various workshops up down and down the coast. Actually, I was teaching some in Beijing back in June. And I'm always amazed by the power of the story and about how when you gather a group of men and women together in a room and you ask them to get really honest with themselves, they will take great risks and they will really show you how much story can transform human experience. So I've been deeply moved by that. I love teaching.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that that struggle, the power of the story, potentially the illness, do you think that that also is a part of the wealth that you're describing? Not only health as being wealth, but also struggle?

Susan Conley:

I'm happy to say in hindsight, yes, it's a hard earned wealth and you don't wish it upon people necessarily. I remember being asked at a reading by a cancer survivor if I would give up the knowledge that I'd gained through having my cancer to not have my cancer. And I was pretty floored by that question. She had a quick answer. She said she would not give up her knowledge, but she didn't have children and there's the rub. I didn't answer her. I think it's a complicated question and it comes back to some of those sort of primal survival mother bear things that we were talking about. But I've learned so much and I've learned that that struggle was not about being happy, but that happy doesn't necessarily mean growth, doesn't mean change. And as I said earlier, I'm definitely changed by the cancer and really do not think it's for the worst.

Genevieve Morgan:

How can people who have heard you today learn more about you and read more of your work?

Susan Conley:

We did a website when we launched the Foremost Good Fortune and it's for me more than just a here's my book and here's where I'm reading. But we put a lot of content on there around. So what do you do if you find yourself with a cancer diagnosis? What might you look for in your provider? I also did where to get the best dumplings in Beijing, where to find the most crazy flea market in the world. So that website was fun. And I did a blog on that website where I took on a lot of the topics that we've talked about today in various essay form.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's great. Well, we're so thrilled that you could come in today and I am hoping that you don't get any more surprises and that you continue to add to your health and your wealth. And thank you for coming in today.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we will link through to your website off of the Dr. Lisa website. But do you want to tell people what your website actually is?

Susan Conley:

So it's susanconley.com and I also pulled together a fairly detailed Facebook page which is a sort of an ancillary to the website, but that has a lot of stuff on it too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you, Susan.

Susan Conley:

Thanks so much. It's been a treat.

Genevieve Morgan:

Susan Conley's work can be found online. It has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Plowshares, the Harvard Review, and the Paris Review, among other literary magazines. She was Profiled in the March 2010 issue of Maine Magazine and was the recipient of the Greatest Women in Maine Award in 2011. To read more about writers like Susan Conley, go online@themainmag.com or pick up the latest issue at a local newsstand near you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. You have been listening to show number 21, Health wealth, airing on February 5th. We went on and talked with Susan Connolly, the author of the Foremost Good Fortune, who described the importance of knowing that not only is one's health of value, but also occasionally health care crises. And it's all in how we go about dealing with these crises as to how wealthy we might become. We hope that you will continue to listen to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, co hosted by Genevieve Morgan. For more information on our show, go to Dr. Org. Be sure to download the podcast every week and even become a subscriber at iTunes. Dr. Lisa Belisle read our Bountiful blog at bountifulpath.com or like us on Facebook. We hope that you are going to be able to create more health and wealth in your life as a result of listening to our show and we encourage you to join us for next week's show, which will be called Happy heart, airing on February 12th. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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