Intentions #16

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Because health and wellness aren't solely the responsibility of doctors or nurses or people who call themselves health care providers, it is the responsibility of all of us. The responsibility and the privilege, honestly. So this is why we bring so many different people in, because we know that everybody's a stakeholder when it comes to health and wellness. And whether it's individual wellness or whether it's environmental wellness or whether it's global wellness and there's courage required, there's a lot of fear associated with the unknown. But if you can get past that fear, you learn about yourself and you learn that your body has wisdom and your life has wisdom and the universe has wisdom and you live more fully.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast number 16 intentions, airing on January 1, 2012. This show is a little bit different. In recognition of the new year. Instead of our regularly featured guests, I will be interviewed by my co host Genevieve Morgan, who first interviewed me about a year ago for Maine Magazine and their inaugural Wellness issue. We'll also be hearing from our past guests over the past 15 weeks who will be discussing their own intentions in their own lives. We'll go into a little bit more of Give Back why We do it and our special affiliation with Maine Magazine and the ways in which they have been giving back in the community. We hope you enjoy this show. Thank you for listening in. This week's Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is on the theme of Intentions, which my co host Genevieve Morgan and I find very important in our lives. So we thought we would have a special extended Deep Dish, which is actually our new version of the Deep Dish reintroduced for the new year. Hi Jen.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi Lisa. Happy New Year.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you. You too.

Genevieve Morgan:

I'm looking forward to this year on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. We've got a Lot of exciting things coming up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I am too. And I've thought a lot about this show and what the show looks like moving forward. But I thought it might be good to give a little background as to why we're here in the first place. For those people who don't know me as a doctor, they haven't come to see me as a patient. They're not my sister, not one of my family members or not one of your family members.

Genevieve Morgan:

I know that my family sometimes wants to. What do you do every week?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. Right. What is it? Well, what's really nice about being on the radio is if people really want to know, they can actually listen.

Genevieve Morgan:

That would be great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Also, if you write like I do with a blog, then they can read the blog. But for those people who don't, who haven't been tuning in as much but are interested, what we're trying to do is offer a talk radio program that offers meaningful mind, body and spirit connections that go beyond the individual to celebrate health with a global perspective.

Genevieve Morgan:

I think that is something that we do that is very unique and new. The global perspective. When people, we talk about this amongst ourselves a lot, but when people think about wellness, they immediately think about how they're feeling individually. So I think we should tell people what we mean by global perspective.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, there's so many different ways to think about global. And it's interesting in this culture because you live in the United States and it's all about the American dream and we're all supposed to go out and do well as individuals. And we focused a lot on individual health in Western medicine since the Flexner Report came out in the early 1900s. But medicine and health and wellness are about connections. It's about connecting to people around us. It's the health of our children and our families and our communities, the environment in which we live. So there is that global element.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and I know when I interviewed you a year ago, we discussed to great detail how that change came about for you where you moved from Western medicine to a more integrated approach involving other eastern disciplines like acupuncture. And that that was really a mind blowing moment for you in terms of setting an intention for how you wanted to practice in the world. So I think it'd be interesting if you'd tell everybody a little bit about what we talked about last year, which is how did you set your intention for this practice and this show?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, for those people who haven't read the article which was in the inaugural issue of inaugural wellness issue of Maine magazine last spring, spring of 2011. I talked a lot about realizing that health and wellness are more about the story of the individual and that we manifest dysfunctions in our lives, in our bodies. And that's kind of a different way of looking at it from a Western

Genevieve Morgan:

perspective, certainly that what's happening outside is also happening inside.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. And the Chinese medicine has been around for a few thousand years, as has acupuncture and just this whole different way of looking at things. A whole five element approach that you and I talked about. And I can go into in a little bit more detail. Western medicine is a lot more linear. It's a lot more what they say is algorithmic. There's a lot more sort of evidence based to it. And I think there's a lot that western medicine does well and then there's a lot that Eastern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine does well. So my intention was to find what worked for people, was to try it.

Genevieve Morgan:

I think we can talk a little bit specifically. Just recently I had a really terrible infection that was treated with antibiotics. But then you and I worked together to treat the outer lying aspects of my infection through eastern medicine. And so we've had. They're both useful, both approaches are useful. But what I think you were saying was that our form of western medicine is very, very specialized and doesn't see the connections as much as what you're practicing. Would that be fair to say?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think that's really fair to say. Anybody who's seen a doctor recently or been in a hospital realizes that we've kind of divided things up. We've divided the body up into parts. So you go and you see a periodontist, a gum tooth specialist, or you go and see a podiatrist, a foot specialist, or you know, just different body parts have different people in charge of them.

Genevieve Morgan:

Some of them never even talk to each other.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that is the issue is it's not that we shouldn't specialize in body parts. It's that we have to create a network where specialists can converse. And Chinese medicine is interesting because especially if you look at what they call the five element or five phase theory, all of the parts of the self are connected.

Genevieve Morgan:

Tell everybody out there what the five elements are.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The five elements or five phases are actually related to the seasons of the year and are also related to organ systems within the body. And they each have, well, they have different things associated with them. So for example, if we're talking about the winter, in the winter it is the season of water. And you think about that. That makes sense. Snow, ice. But it's also associated with the kidney. Now, the kidney that has an element, has the emotion of fear associated with it, which actually kind of also makes sense if you think about it, because if you. If it's always very icy out, or if you're out on the deep waters, you know, there is this sense that, you know, you're afraid that you could fall or that, you know, you could fall in or something bad could happen to you.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and as we talked about with Marcel Pick, the adrenals sit right on top of the kidney. So it's sort of. You're hyper vigilant, your adrenaline is connected, correct?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, that's absolutely right. The other side of fear, of course, is wisdom. So if you can get past this fear, you can learn a lot about yourself. If you can sort of almost push yourself to go out on the ice, you can skate as opposed to fall. You can see how balanced you are. If instead of thinking you're going to drown, you believe that you can swim, then there's a certain amount of, again, physical wisdom that comes through. So what's interesting to me, again, is that this is sort of a metaphor. I mean, the body is a metaphor for a person's life. And when somebody comes in who has issues associated with their kidneys or actually, the other thing about. And I think it's appropriate to talk about this, given that it's winter and this is the season of the kidney that it's all about. If you have thinning hair or if you can't hear well, or if you have knee pain or back pain, those are all kidney, and those are also diseases of old age. So what happens when we get older is we can either get wiser or we can get more scared. And there is an element associated with the body organs. So you have livers associated with the element of wood, which is. In the spring, you have the heart, which is associated with fire. In the summer, you have this. Interesting. Because, of course, most people would point out we only truly have four seasons, but in Chinese medicine, there's five. The spleen is associated. The spleen and the stomach are associated with the element of earth, which is the late summer, early autumn. And in the autumn, we have the season of the lung. And the element is metal, and then it kind of connects back again to the kidney. So kidney is water, kidney is water. Wood is liver.

Genevieve Morgan:

Wood is liver in spring.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In spring, summer is heart, summer is heart, and then late summer is stomach, spleen, Autumn is lung. And then again. Yeah. And you're back again, and each of these and again. And it's not just one organ system, it's a couple of different organ systems. There's a yin system and a yang system. And this gets kind of deep into Chinese medicine, so we don't have to do that too much. But the interesting thing is that, as you can see, the kidney is attached to the organ system before it and after it. So the lung kind of feeds into the kidney, which is true even in Western medicine. It is all connected to the global perspective, which is exactly what we're talking about. It's global from, like, fit, sort of as an individual, globally connected. But also you can sit, you can be an element within your own sort of ecosystem of your family or the ecosystem of your community or of the world. And the thing that's so important is that we start creating a dialogue so that we get on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, and we are talking to people who aren't. So we do talk to doctors, but we also talk to business people and we talk to artists and we talk to people who create. Because health and wellness aren't solely the responsibility of doctors or nurses or people who call themselves healthcare providers. It is the responsibility of all of us. The responsibility and the privilege, honestly. So this is why we bring so many different people in, because we know that everybody's a stakeholder when it comes to health and wellness. And whether it's individual wellness or whether it's environmental wellness or whether it's global wellness.

Genevieve Morgan:

I think anyone who builds a team, whether it's a sport team or a business team, would totally agree with you and say that the health of the team is only as strong as each individual member's health and participation. And so it makes total sense.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. And for me, this is. People ask me all the time, you're a doctor, why are you doing radio? And I think one of the questions you asked earlier is, how did you come to this place where you're doing radio? Well, it's similar to how I came to the place where I was doing writing. It's just doctoring at a different level. So when I write, whether it's been, you know, I've written for more than a decade for various publications. It's a doctoring to people who might not be able to come in and see me. Doctoring is teaching, it's educating. So I talk about health and wellness. And they read it in a publication, they read it online, they read it weekly or daily in my blog, they read it in my newsletter. Or they listen to it now. And the reason it has to be a dialogue between you and I and the people who come on our show is because there is that important feedback loop that can only occur over the course of conversation, over the course of connecting with other people. So this is why the radio show is so important, because you can connect with people when they're listening to you in ways that you can't connect with them when they're reading your words.

Genevieve Morgan:

That is very true.

Genevieve Morgan:

and we learn a lot from our guests. It helps us with our pursuit of wellness and our connection to ourselves and our loved ones.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, I think that part of the reason why I keep doing what I'm doing is, is that I've never stopped learning. I never want to stop learning. And everything that I have ever done informs who I am now and probably who I will be in the future, and how I parent my children and how I doctor my patients and how I write and how I'm on the radio. And for me, my life is a global life. So this is the reason why I come on this radio show every week and do something that I'm not, quote, unquote, trained to do, because I feel passionate that this is an important I want to be out there doing what I'm asking other people to do, which is to connect in with their true selves, with their authenticity and their true purpose in this world, whatever that looks like.

Genevieve Morgan:

So would you say that's your intention for yourself and your practice to connect people with their own authentic selves?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

My intention is to be authentic and then whatever people take from that is what they take from it. I don't think there's any I have never championed the idea of preaching to people. All I would like to be able to do is present people with stories and ideas and sort of prompt connections. And if those connections prompt them to connect back with themselves and what they're meant to be doing in this world, then I'm happy And there is a

Genevieve Morgan:

little bit of a leap of faith. For instance, a year ago when I was interviewing you for the magazine for Maine Magazine, we had no idea where it would go, but we had a great connection and we had similar interests and we followed it down the path where it went. And here we are today.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And there is that important piece, is that openness. Is that openness to. If you show up and you attempt to be as authentic and connected in your life as possible, and you don't know where it will go, but you're open to whatever happens, then connections can be made. And this is true even in early brain development.

Genevieve Morgan:

Yeah, beautiful things can happen.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Beautiful. Yes, absolutely. So it's. And there's courage required. You know, again, we go back to the kidney and the idea of fear. So there's a lot of fear associated with the unknown. But if you can get past that fear, you learn about yourself and you learn that your body has wisdom and your life has wisdom and the universe has wisdom and you live more fully.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, let's get back a little bit to the five elements, because you and I used that model in so many ways when we talk about wellness. But we've really talked a lot about shaping the show as a reflection of what it takes to be healthy as an individual, but what it takes to be healthy as a show. So I know you have some ideas about that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you and I recently got together and talked about how we, I guess, translate some of these Chinese ideas into something that's more readily accessible to those who maybe don't. They don't connect to Chinese medicine. And what we decided was that our underlying aspects of well being include physical resilience, mental clarity, spiritual awareness, emotional freedom and connection to others. And what we're hoping, what we've hoped that we have done in the past shows over the course of the fall was to bring all of those elements into the show. And what we continue to do as we try to make the show better and better, is to really emphasize each of those elements. And that's what we're hoping. And we also hope that we're building community. We're building a community of people who really believe in the importance of health and wellness.

Genevieve Morgan:

Absolutely. So we're sort of a model. We have our own individual entity, the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, that we're trying to support in these five aspects of wellness and hoping that out there on the airwaves as it spreads out, it's going to help our community and eventually our nation, maybe even the world, to

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

why not get better? Well, and this is, I think we kind of laugh as we say this, but you know, it's always the microcosm representing the macrocosm. And the healthier you can make, the smaller or what you consider to be small, say yourself, the healthier you can make your heart, the healthier your body will be, the healthier your self will be, your family will be, your community will be. And then if you just go out and be as healthy as you can be in each of these five ways, you can't help but impact those around you. You can't help but impact people, whether it's the person sitting next to you or whether it's the person who's listening on the radio in Thailand.

Genevieve Morgan:

And I love that idea that fear can lead to wisdom. What a beautiful thing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, absolutely. And I know that many people who are listening, as they're thinking about setting their intentions for the new year, they will be fearing that they can't change. And what I can absolutely say to you is that there is always room to overcome that fear. There's always room to set a new intention for your and we think we can help you. We think that as you're listening, you're going to maybe be able to move beyond the fear.

Genevieve Morgan:

And in support of building community, we'd love to hear from our friends out there and our supporters and maybe those of you who think we can be doing things a little differently. How can we get feedback from people, Lisa?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we do have a Facebook presence. They can go to Dr. Lisa and like our page and read along and they can send comments to us. They can go to DoctorDoctor where they can read our past podcast updates and they can send us emails through that. They can get our newsletters and send us feedback that way. They can read the blog and give us feedback that way.

Genevieve Morgan:

And they can pass on our podcast to their friends and family.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, and again, we are all about creating discussion and community. And we're not trying to present a right way because there isn't a right way for every person. That there isn't a right way that's going to fit every person who's listening. We're just trying to present multiple paths that can possibly all lead to health and wellness here at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. So we hope that people will join our community and join in the conversation. We're fortunate on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast to have a segment called Wellness Innovation sponsored by the University of New England. This week on our Wellness Innovation segment, we explore the idea of willpower. Recent research as discussed@newyorktimes.com suggests that willpower can indeed be quite limited, but only if you believe that it is. When people believe that willpower is fixed and limited, their willpower is easily depleted. But when people believe that willpower is self renewing, that when you work hard, you're energized to work more than when you've resisted one temptation, you can better resist the next one, then people successfully exert more willpower. It turns out that willpower is in your head.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jen every week on the Dr. Lisa radio arm podcast, we bring you in to host the segment we call Maine Magazine Minutes. This week's kind of a fun segment because the man who's always off air but watching our and listening to our every move and stutter and gasp is actually on air with us. So the pressure's on. John.

Genevieve Morgan:

Very exciting. Today we have on the Maine Magazine minutes John C. McCain. He's a musician, a visual artist and a teacher. He is a shining example of the kind of innovators and entrepreneurs that we have here in our state. He's one of the great entrepreneurs and creative minds like the people we always feature in the Maine Magazine Minutes. And John, you have a very special treat coming up for us. Can you tell us what you've done?

John McCain:

Thanks, Jen. It's a collection of audio clips that have collected over the entire reign of our show. So as people have come in and talked, we've often asked a separate question of them at the end, which is basically, what's your intention in your work or in your life? How do you set it for yourself? We've also phrased it for people as what gets you out of bed in the morning?

Genevieve Morgan:

So what gets you out of bed in the morning?

John McCain:

Certainly the sense that life is brief and that the chance for the day is ours to take, that things are precious and fleeting, each day is a gift, truly, and that we have a chance to support our values in the world and to foster the kind of world that we'd like to live in.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's a beautiful sentiment. Thank you. And so now we're going to hear what you've done.

John McCain:

Thank you. I hope you enjoy this kaleidoscope collection of voices all discussing the same theme, which is various ideas on intention.

[Unidentified voice]:

There's something that wants to be heard, there's something that wants to be expressed in life. And what that is for each of us is very personal. And it is kind of generated in a sense out of the fabric of our being.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is always the intention of to marry the head and the heart. Because I think when you're a physician and as I am you're trained in Western medicine, it's all about the intellect and the data and the systems and the theories. And then when you are trained in Chinese medicine, you know that it's about those things, but also about a deeper understanding and really connecting into who you are and what the underlying issues are. So for me, it's always about connecting those pieces and connecting people back with themselves and with their families and with their communities and with the world as a whole. Because we are not solo in this life, not any of us. We're always connecting to something bigger than ourselves. So that's always the intention is for me to start with my head and my heart and then connect to something bigger. And then part two is when you're not connecting the way that you want to and things aren't ending up the way that you thought. Having the strength to make changes and be flexible and move on and connect in different ways. So being able to break patterns that don't work for you. So that's what I have in my mind when I think about intentions.

Genevieve Morgan:

A very wise man said to me once that it's really hard to know what you want because intention for me has some relationship to deciding what you want in life or out of a situation. And that can be very hard for me. But he said, why don't you start with what you don't want? And when we were talking about what to let go of, what to edit out, what to leave behind, that begins to narrow my intentions. I would say that that's where I start is thinking about what I don't want and then I can go to what I want and then I can set my intention. Yeah, it's beautiful setting intention. Well, when a client comes to see me, see us, see me, the first thing we do is open sacred space. So automatically our intention is different. We're creating an environment where it's not the day to day environment. I don't want to say it's more elevated, but it gives us access to different information. So we've already set an intention not only for the physical body, but for the spiritual body, for the mental body and for the emotional body to feel comfortable, to come and Bring what it's coming to that space to clear. So as we come together through talking, we understand together what the intention of the clearing is for the day. And then we actually do work around the clearing toward that intention.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The way I feel about intention for myself is that what's really important for me is if I talk about things, that I actually practice them myself. And it's really a pet peeve for me in medicine is that if I don't look healthy, then I don't really have any right to talk about health. And if I'm not exercising, I really can't talk about it. If I'm not eating well, then I shouldn't be talking about that either. So I'm really careful that I practice what I talk about. And I think that in my own life, I also have taught my kids that there's no such thing as no, which means that if you want something enough, you can get it. You might have to change things. You might have to work a little harder. Not to your expense, but you can always accomplish what you want. And it's been certainly true in my life.

Courtney Ogden:

Every day I take the opportunity to listen to the will of my heart and allow that to come forth. It's really a bubbling up, a rising up from that heart space that connects me to what I think of as the greater consciousness that is always longing to unfold. And if I can tap into that, then I know that I'm expressing.

[Unidentified voice]:

The high

[Unidentified voice]:

intention to me is just living more authentically and comfortably in my own skin. And that sometimes is harder than it sounds, but it's something that I wake up with every day as an intent. And that means in, you know, genuine relationships that I have with family and friends and partners and children, versus genuine relationships I have in my business world. And that's the intent. And some days I win, and other days I lose, but every day I leap out of bed with that same intention. My intention in my life has drastically changed since the birth of my daughter Evelyn, 21 months ago. What having a child has brought out in me is not simply how I want her to be in the world, but I want to show her what a model person could possibly live like. So my teaching to my daughter is as much about paying attention to my own hangups and my own aspects of myself that are beautiful and that I can honor and how can I relate to people in an honest way. And I try to model that so that she has someone growing up that she can look at, who's trying to live with as much Integrity as possible. And that's. I primarily see that as my intention in the world, is to model my behavior for her.

[Unidentified voice]:

I think setting an intention, or whatever you want to call it, is incredibly powerful. And I'm amazed when one sets something out there consciously and speaks it aloud, how much more likely it is to come true. And it sounds a little bit like magical thinking from a kid, but it's not. And I think, especially in public health, we can be so reactive and look at the problems and react to them. But because that's not our training or our values or our natural inclination, it certainly wasn't what I was taught in graduate school. Our discipline is to set that intention, I think, to look proactively at what's going on in our communities and set an intention and say, you know, we want a community where children grow up. Children of any income level, of any color, any spot, any whatever, can grow up and actualize their own potential, whatever that is, whatever they want to be, that they have what they need to grow up and be healthy. And that is certainly the goal and intention of our work, is that no matter who you are in our community, that you can live to your fullest potential.

[Unidentified voice]:

When I think of intention, why I do what I do, why I am so motivated to continue in the direction I'm traveling with my career, with my family, with my personal life, I'm reminded of a story which was. Maybe it's a parable. When I was a child, a tree was a tree. And as I became a student and a young man, a tree became the photosynthetic properties xylem and phloem, carrying those compounds from roots to leaves and the sun's effect and the weather and the soil and the microorganisms. And ultimately, when I was a wise old man, a tree is a tree. And I'm hoping that the study of medicine and the practice I pursue on a daily basis, a human becomes a human.

[Unidentified voice]:

There's something that wants to be heard. There's something that wants to be expressed in life. And what that is for each of us is very personal. And it is kind of generated, in a sense, out of the fabric of our being. And so for me, what gets me up in the life, gets me up in life, is trying, is knowing that I have a piece of something to offer that no one else can offer in quite that unique and special way. And I think that each of us has this inside of us. I know people whose thing in life is to cook the most beautiful meal and to share it with others. And to. To feel kind of that warmth of community and thing that happens in breaking bread together. And for me, I'm most alive when I am in the midst of a story that is engaging others. And when I can see there is a spark that gets brought alive through the story. Sometimes I live for those moments. I mean, one of the reasons I do mysteries with kids is, is that I feel that the very small and the very secret and even the dark and earthy and mysterious have something to say to us. The body, earth, nature, animals. They have something deep that they need to say to us. And our culture has a tendency to ride roughshod over those things. And so my stories are about those things. It's about the piece of soul that is dancing inside of matter itself. And the message for me is that matter matters.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The first word that comes to mind is service. And I don't mean necessarily service to others, but hopefully what I do is. But mostly I put myself in service to. To something bigger. And I find that something bigger either comes through my dreams or in meditation

Genevieve Morgan:

or,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you know, it's something sometimes not even like my ego wants to do necessarily, but it's in service of something bigger. And so I offer myself to that. Sometimes it's writing, and the writing is something bigger. It's a story that needs to be told. So I put myself in service to it, and it makes me work very hard sometimes. Okay,

[Unidentified voice]:

I will tell you the moment. I was having a drink with my friend Monica Wood, the writer Monica Wood. And we were talking about writing, and she's so supportive and so generous and was talking, oh, I love your writing. I love your writing. And I said, yes, Monica, but I don't have an Ernie's arc. I don't have an any bitter thing, you know, these beautiful books that she wrote. But I said, you know, I have not done my best. I have not done my best. If I got hit by a truck tomorrow, the thing that I would be thinking about staring up at the sky is, I have not done my best yet. So no one was going to do my best for me. I mean, I've had, you know, a wonderful writing career, but I have not done something that I can hold and say, this is my best effort. This represents my best work. And pretty much at that moment, that's when all of this show and book started happening. Is that because when I did the show, it was the best I could. I mean, it might not have been perfect, but it was the best I could do. And to be able to say that is A creation of an intention and a fulfillment of an intention, whether it's exactly how you think it's going to happen or not. But to set a goal and to work as hard as I've ever worked in my entire life for anything is in itself its own reward,

[Unidentified voice]:

I'd say. I think more than anything, I try and bring. Bring good humor and joy to. To the people around me and. And try and approach each day kind of with a fresh perspective. Sometimes you. You have things not go your way, and if you let those things kind of carry day to day and week to week, it. I think it can kind of take hold. And I think it's important in our relationships and in our personal lives that we try and take a deep breath every once in a while and give ourselves the opportunity to have new and fresh perspective and bring lightness to our world and to those around us.

[Unidentified voice]:

Wow, that's a great question. I think I'm all about giving back. I was going to put a quote on Facebook today that said, if you're not a giver, you're a taker. But I'll wait. I guess that I derive most of my energy from others, like yourself, who are positive and add something to the day. My motivation, I guess selfishly, is my daughter. My motivation is doing the right thing, leaving something of value in the day. I try to add to people's worlds. If they ask me for something, I want to give them something. But a lot of adults are programmed never to ask for help. I'm trying to change that. I think more of us should. So I get a big mouth, I'll start asking more.

Courtney Ogden:

I guess I have to say the thing that gets me up every morning and keeps me motivated and. And looking forward to the next day are just all the great small conversations I have with people that I see are making a difference not only in their lives and how they're thinking and where they'll end up going with their day, but the impact it has for me knowing that I'm connecting with someone in our community and that we are making a plan to do something bigger than ourselves and that conversation. So I try and look for the small things that I know are going to lead to something a lot bigger.

[Unidentified voice]:

When I think about what motivates me, I think back to a very pivotal moment in my life. And that was in 1992. I spent several months after I moved from Los Angeles and moved back to Maine, I spent several months in India and Nepal. And I had a wonderful time hiking and doing some volunteer work. And I ended up the last month volunteering in Calcutta with the Missionaries of Charity. And lots of people were just so moved to work with the Missionaries of Charity there, and they were giving up their lives at home and moving to Calcutta. It was quite moving. But by the end of the month, I had learned a lot. But I was really excited to move back to Maine, my hometown, my home state as well. And so at the end, the tradition is that you would go up to Mother Teresa, and we saw her every day she was there and for the morning prayers. And I went up to her, as was the tradition when you were leaving, to let her know how your time volunteering was. So I asked her. I said, you know, I have to tell you, I had a wonderful month. I learned a lot from the sisters. But my dilemma is that I actually am not that moved to stay here. I'm just really excited to go home to my home state of Maine and start a new job practicing in my hometown of Farmington and practicing medicine. And I feel a little guilty about that. And she took my hands with her kind of rough, elderly hands and held them. And she looked at me and she said, if where you are going, you will work with love, and you will love your work. That's where you are called to be. And I thought, you know, I had to go halfway around the world to figure out that. It's just finding your passion and finding what helps you to help others who are in need. And if you can get up every day and be able to realize that you're going to be able to help others and help others in need and that you love your work and that's

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

where you're supposed to be.

[Unidentified voice]:

And I feel extremely fortunate because everything has come to fruition. That was 19, almost 20 years ago. And I've been able to find what makes me passionate about things.

[Unidentified voice]:

Actually, I'm motivated by others. I mean, I get up in the morning and drive the 12 miles from Sydney to Camp Keys in Augusta, Maine, and I walk into my headquarters, and I'm surrounded by a great generation of young men and women. My dad was a World War II veteran. They were the greatest generation. They were my call to service. But we're being served by another great generation of young guys and gals today. And my motivation comes from seeing and being with them on a daily basis. These are young men and women who have left their families and their employers and deployed some of them three or four times to serve this nation. And if you can't be motivated, being surrounded by people like that probably isn't worth getting up in the morning wearing the uniform. I think that some folks would look at me with a certain lens and would be surprised to find out that I am in awe of the other people who serve in uniform. The folks that are willing to actually take a bullet for another American. The people who are actually willing to give up time, years from their families so that they could be. Make sure that their families were safe back here at home. And the idea, the very idea that I've been blessed with, the ability to go into work every single day and try to do everything I can to help those people have a better life, is motivation enough for me?

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, I love that question. Because one of the things I do in my work is to ask. We set intentions to our work. And, you know, I'd say that for now, the main intention, and I don't mean to be vague, but the main intention that I have constant. Have to come back to is opening my heart. It's really hard to. And that takes different forms, but it's really hard to open. Open my heart not just to other people, but to myself. So there are times that, like, you know, I'll make a mistake or I'll think of something I could have done better or something like that. And to stay open to that and say, you know what, I'm okay, and. And everything's okay, and things will continue to move forward. And that intention, boy, that's just a lifelong, lifelong practice.

Courtney Ogden:

Generally, I start my day, I really

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

ask for peace of mind and the

Courtney Ogden:

openness and the willingness to accept what

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I encounter and to try to

[Unidentified voice]:

approach

Courtney Ogden:

it with some kind of humility and

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

some kind of compassion for myself as well, because I think sometimes it's really easy to be reactive. And there's a lot that gets thrown at us.

Courtney Ogden:

And at the same time, if we

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

miss something because we're too busy focusing

Courtney Ogden:

on busyness, then we might miss something really special. So I try to slow down, I

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

try to reach out to others, and I try to be grateful.

[Unidentified voice]:

At night, all of this sense of who we are and what we are in the world disappears and breaks apart and splinters off. And we experience the dream world and its messages. And when we wake up into the morning, we crawl out into the day and make ourselves all over anew again. And in a sense, at that moment, we are trying to craft together a piece of the earth. We were diving deep into that unconscious and bringing up a piece of the earth, a place for people to stand. And so that's what my work is about.

Genevieve Morgan:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

earlier on in the show, we discussed the theme of wisdom and fear and how overcoming fear can lead to wisdom. So now I'm going to read a little bit from my Bountiful blog, which is available at bountifulpath.com on a subject that makes me feel a little bit silly, but I'll read on and you can see what you think this is called 12 Hugs for Growth. I am a reformed non hugger and proud of it. The oldest of 10 children and a doctor, I have always had slightly germaphobic tendencies. I'm also extremely sensitive to touch, which has led to a need for perhaps more physical space than is needed by most. By the way, this is the silly part. Thus hugging for me was not a straightforward venture. It required a bit of risk taking on my part. Strange, I realize. Especially strange because I have a great deal of love and affection for my family, friends, patients and colleagues. It was this love that caused me to realize I had to get over myself. I had to learn to hug. I began with my children and their father. I branched out to my siblings and other relatives. I now regularly hug my friends and other special people in my life. I am now a hugger. Tentative at times, to be sure, but a hugger nonetheless. So when a friend recently told me about the health benefits of hugging, I was especially thrilled. I had been positively impacting my own wellness without even realizing it. Not only that, but I was helping others have improved health. According to an abstract on the U.S. national Library of Medicine website, a researcher named Hanning described findings that four hugs per day was an antidote for depression. Eight hugs per day would achieve mental stability and 12 hugs per day would achieve real psychological growth. Mental stability. Psychological growth. Sign me up. I figure the benefits of hugging far outweigh the potential germ transfer inherent and in the end, hugs just downright feel good. Read this post and others like it on bountifulpath.com

Genevieve Morgan:

Lisa, this next segment of Give Back is especially close to my heart. Being the wellness writer for Maine Magazine, you had this brainstorm and maybe you want to tell everybody out there what we're doing for this special New Year's Day show.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, every week we come in to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour studio and I put this in. You can't see this, but quotation marks because we do have a very special studio and it's right in the office of Maine Magazine off 75 Markets street and we actually are located right next to a wonderful group of individuals who make a lot of giving back possible. So I thought, you know what? For 2012, let's talk about how Maine Magazine gives back in addition to being a supporter of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, which of course we completely appreciate. So why don't you tell me who you are and what you do?

Courtney Ogden:

Well, my name is Courtney Ogden and I'm the director of events and stuff, sponsorships at the magazines and my co worker, I'm Leanne.

Leanne Ouimet:

We met and I'm the marketing coordinator here at Maine Magazine and Maine Home and Design.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And one of the things that we did when we initially came up with the Give Back segment was to go to Leanne and say, Leanne, we know there are a lot of events that are being sponsored by Maine Magazine in various ways. Can you tell me about them? And there's an enormous list and we've had many of these people on our show. So why don't you give us a few, give us some ideas about who do you sponsor?

Leanne Ouimet:

We sponsor so many different events all over Maine from Bar harbor down to Kennebunkport and York and the different types of organizations we sponsor. I think, Courtney, you have that big, long list right in front of you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Courtney, read us a few of these.

Courtney Ogden:

Yeah, they vary so much. We work with Camp Ketcha. We work with the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, the Maine College of Art, we work with the Portland Flower show, the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust, the Camden International Film Festival, Harbour House, Lobsters on the Sound, which is out of Bar harbor, the Maine Cancer foundation, which is near and dear.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Try for a cure, right?

Courtney Ogden:

Yeah. Yeah, that's a big one. Mississippi Harborfest, poptac, Portland Stage Company, a couple other local stage companies. And that's just a very small list of.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I know you have multiple pages that

Courtney Ogden:

you could read from? I could, yes, I could go on and on, but it's just. It's something that we really enjoy at the magazine. We understand the importance of community and being heavily involved in the community. And all of these organizations have their own missions and we're just doing what we can to help promote awareness for each of their visions and goals.

Genevieve Morgan:

There are so many events that you're involved with, but I know there are a couple that are really your babies. Do you guys want to speak to that a little bit?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sure.

Leanne Ouimet:

One event that we produce in house is the Kennebunkport Festival. And that's taking place down in Kennebunk and kennebunk port from June 5th to June 9th of this year. And it's a wonderful event that really brings out everybody in that community, plus people from Portland and the Mid coast and from all over. It's food, it's wine, it's art. We have a wonderful grand tasting event on Saturday that brings out so many wineries and distilleries and breweries and some amazing chefs and restaurants who set up their table and provide samples to people who attend. And it takes place at the Colony, which is so beautiful, right on the water and just wonderful events. And we also have art of dining, our dinners that happen in homes throughout the area. And we bring in a chef, really well known chefs, and wine and some art sometimes. And the proceeds from those dinners go to Share Our Strength Main. And it's a really important organization, not only for us, but for the chefs that are involved and for many who attend. They really love that organization and as do we.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What is Share Our Strength?

Leanne Ouimet:

Share Our Strength is an organization that fights to combat childhood hunger. It's a national organization, but we have a main chapter and that's the partnership that we have. And what they do is they raise money and they're out in the community doing their own events and their own fundraising to then distribute that money. I think it's to four different local organizations, One of which is the Good Shepherd Food Bank. I know cultivating community is involved and there are a couple others that I can't remember. But it's kind of a hub that sort of fundraises and then distributes the money where it's needed in the community.

Courtney Ogden:

And the other event that we produce that's kind of our baby at the magazine is the Maine Home + Design show. And this show, year that is taking place June 30 through July 1 in Rockport, Maine. We're thrilled to be doing this, we started promoting the show a couple months back and we're full force ahead. It's a big 150 exhibitor show. We have architects involved that have a pavilion as well. And it's really fun to work with so many different types of businesses and help to get them exposure in our magazine and then, you know, leading up to through the Facebook, like Leanne said, and then see them there that day.

Genevieve Morgan:

And when will tickets be available?

Courtney Ogden:

I would say probably in the next month or so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And the same thing for the kennebunkport Festival.

Leanne Ouimet:

Yeah, we're hoping to go live with tickets this month, actually on our website. You can buy tickets@kennybunkportfestival.com and we will

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

make sure that we link back to your website and those event websites as well. How can people find out more about potentially working with Maine Magazine on a sponsorship or maybe just the organizations that you sponsor? Is this available on your website?

Leanne Ouimet:

Yeah, they can definitely go to, to

Courtney Ogden:

the calendar of events on the website. There's also you can email eventshemainmag.com to kind of start the ball rolling and give us some information about your organization. You can call us. We're happy to talk with you. And generally we ask that you put together some sort of an informational piece and we kind of start from there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And your information, your contact information is on the website also.

Leanne Ouimet:

It is, it's right on thememag.com well,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

we've been talking with Courtney and Leanne today from Maine Magazine about all the great job, all the great sponsorship opportunities that Maine Magazine has been part of. We appreciate all the hard work you're doing and thank you for helping us with our Give Back segment on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. It's meant a lot to us.

Leanne Ouimet:

Thanks for having us. Yes, this was fun.

Courtney Ogden:

Yeah, this was great. Thanks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Ladies, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle. You've been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast number 16, Intention, which is airing on January 1, 2012. This has been an interesting and special show put together for us by our audio guru, John C. McCain, musician and audio producer for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, which has brought in a lot of different people's ideas on the theme of intention, how intention is set in one's life and how one sets an intention for perhaps the betterment of people's lives around them. As we talked about in our Deep Dish segment with Jen Morgan, I truly believe that intention begins with the individual and it is not for us to go out and try to change the world and it is for us to try and change ourselves and see how the world might change around us as a result of that. This is the intention of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour that we create a community of people who feel the same way, who are interested in having conversations, whether they be artists, physicians, business people, people who are giving back to the community, or maybe even people who need to have people give back to them. We're creating a conversation, a conversation of people who are willing to set intentions for their own lives. We believe that we do approach things from a more global perspective, and we think that this audio montage prepared by John McCain will give you an idea of that. The show for me also is about going beyond fear and finding wisdom. As a physician, I'm pretty comfortable with my ability to heal patients on a one on one basis in my office in the Sparhawk Mill in Yarmouth Main. As a writer who's been writing for more than a decade, I'm pretty comfortable with my facility with the written word. I've been parenting for almost two decades and I feel comfortable. I feel wise in that. With my 41st birthday coming up this January, I'm having to take on some new fears. And one of these is being a radio host. But because I feel so strongly that in living my life authentically and setting the intention to be well, just to role model the type of change that I would like to see in the world, as I believe some famous person once said, this is what I need to be doing right now. I believe that by going beyond my own fear, my own discomfort, and my own thought that perhaps doctors aren't meant to be radio show hosts, then I'm kind of doing what I need to do. And I'll be gaining wisdom along the way as I have already very grateful for the chance to work with Genevieve Morgan, John McCain and the staff at Maine Magazine who came in and talked to us during our Give Back segment. I truly believe we are making a difference in the world already and we will continue to make a difference in the world. I hope you've enjoyed our show. Thank you for being a part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sam.