Spiritual Essence #216

Jacob Watson:

Speak your name out loud, then say who I am and what I'm doing or not doing is enough.

Kevin Hancock:

Learning that I was able to integrate was that losing the consistent use of my voice was an opportunity to strengthen the voices of others.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you're listening to Lovemain radio show number 216, Spiritual Essence, airing for the first time on Sunday, November 8, 2015. Most of us accept many roles in this life. Parent, co worker, friend. We do this willingly and yet may wonder if there is a deeper essence of spirit that exists within ourselves. Today we speak with Interfaith minister Jacob Watson and Hancock Lumber President Kevin Hancock about the ways in which they have more intimately connected with their own spirits and encouraged others to do the same. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

was in a local bookstore and saw upon the shelf something which caught my eye immediately and made me very happy. Just to see it made me happy and this was book the Emotional Path to Spirit by my friend Jacob Watson. Jacob Watson is an interfaith minister who writes about spiritual life. His books include Morning Blessing Letters, A Book of Daily Gifts and most recently Emotional Path to Spirit. Jacob is the founder of the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine and co founder of the center for Grieving Children. Thanks for coming back in again to have a conversation with me this morning.

Jacob Watson:

Thanks. I'm glad to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This really is a wonderful book. Of course, it's my favorite color. It's blue or one of my favorite colors. But it also has an ENSO circle on the front, which you and I talked about. I don't know if we talked about it on the radio show, but you and I have talked about before the design of the ENSO circle. And then it's such a treasure trove. To have it in my hands is such a treasure trove to be reading through it and thinking, I'm so proud of this person that has created this book and brought it to life. Tell me about that process for you.

Jacob Watson:

It's been a long process. For starters, a couple of years ago when I stepped away from running the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, I still teach there, but I stepped away from the administration. I went back into my files and found the folder that said book, and it was dog eared and dusty, but it was full of ideas that went back 18 years. And I finally had enough time in the last two or three years to put them all together. And the book is the result of that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me why, essence, why is this getting down to the sort of the naked self so important to you?

Jacob Watson:

I kept running across that word in spiritual reading year after year, and for me it captures the final point, the deepest place you can go or the highest place you can fly. And that seemed important because all of the, I mean, the basic idea of the book is all of the natural emotions are leading to the spiritual life. And that's not what we were taught, certainly not what I was taught. I laugh, I chuckle. When the students at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, they come in the first semester and they're all excited about being in an interfaith seminary. And they're very happy to be delving into the spiritual life. And then about two or three months into the semester, I get a call or somebody takes me aside and they say, jacob, I really like this spiritual life. But I'm still upset or I'm still grieving or I'm still pissed off or I'm still whatever. And I say, welcome to the spiritual life. They had the erroneous impression that the more spiritual you become, the less you feel. And in my experience, it's the opposite of that, the more you feel. But you have, I think, a bigger context for your natural emotional life. You have an understanding that the spiritual life, indeed, can hold all of your natural emotions. And that's. Once you get there, that's a very, very comforting idea.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In fact, your name, Jacob, was not the name that your parents gave you.

Jacob Watson:

True.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This came about because of. Essentially you took on the wrestling with the angel Persona. You've gone through some of this stuff yourself.

Jacob Watson:

Yes. Yeah. And I think when I first, again, years ago, when I first had the idea for the book, I called it a workshop book. And it was a compilation of the teachings that I've been privileged to witness and take in in my life and also eventually began to teach myself. And I looked at the book and it was too dry. It was just workshop stuff, stuff that you could read other places. And I understood it took a while because it felt very vulnerable to do this, but I understood that I really needed to put my own self in the book to talk about my own life, to give examples of the theory, if you will, the teachings and so forth. So I began to do that. And that was the hardest part. I mean, the teachings are there and inspiring to me, but I had to really share what. How my life was affected by the teachings. And that's what's woven into the book, including as you bring up the story about how I changed my name to Jacob,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

one of my favorite gospels. Some people don't exactly acknowledge that it is a set of gospels, but others do is something that you actually describe in the book. And I'm going to read this because it just keeps coming up again, again and again in my own life. And I think others will relate to it. And this is from the Gnostic Gospels. If bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. And for me, that's so profound because there's so much that we seek to craft in how other people see us or in how we live our lives. But there is some internal essence that is going to remain, no matter what it is that we're attempting to winnow out or add to our lives.

Jacob Watson:

Yeah, exactly. And we're often, as those lines suggest, we're often afraid of that. We're afraid of our anger or afraid of our grief or afraid of our sadness. And they will save us if we can have the courage. And it does take courage to bring those feelings up. Our American culture likes certain feelings and doesn't like other feelings, but the reality is that all feelings are valuable and they have something to teach us, whether we like Them or not. I think of the center for Grieving Children. And when families walk in the doorway, they're walking in. The sign outside the building says the center for Grieving Children. And it takes enormous courage for families to simply walk in that door. And what the center provides is a safe place for people to express whatever it is, whatever feeling it is. Anger, sadness, and I would add, love. Sometimes love is scary, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, certainly that's true. And that one of the scenes in the book, which just for some reason, it really caught me, because I think that it spoke of one's love of family and one's love of being raised a certain way and a certain set of familial values, but then having that be contrasted with one's own search for the truth. And this had you visiting your family with your girlfriend at the time and having. And your mother being very upset. I guess you boated in fairly late at night, and she didn't like the fact that this was your girlfriend and that you were going to be maybe sleeping in the same room.

Jacob Watson:

Having a girlfriend was all right, but sleeping in the same boat was not all right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

There you go. So it had her sort of you. You left early the next morning. You got into quite an argument early the next morning. You had your girlfriend run over to the dock next door and you picked her up on the boat on the way out.

Jacob Watson:

Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And, you know, that's an interesting thing about. I mean, I can actually. I can feel that having been raised as a Catholic and knowing what is said about relationships and marriage and how things are supposed to be, and yet knowing how we feel when we meet somebody that we love and the conflict inherent. And the conflict inherent in how we are raised versus how we seek the

Jacob Watson:

gift from that experience for me was that I finally saw what my mother really felt. You know, kids are smart. They can figure things out. It's not like parents post the rules on the refrigerator. Right. But kids can figure those things out. But after a while, they get tired of figuring. And particularly when they. When we grow up to be teenagers, we want to have our own life. And the gift of that was my mother really got upset and angry, and out it came. And I could see that. And I rebelled against that. I said, okay, you go down to the next dock and I'll pick you up to my girlfriend. But the clarity of what was going on was healing for me. After that, I didn't go home for probably two years. And that was. I needed that space. And then eventually I could find a way to Come back home and come back home as an adult living my own values after that confrontation. But it took time. It took a couple of years.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You also went through a divorce and you talked about how painful it was when the mother of your then 2 year old child was planning to move out of state and how much anger you had and how much sadness you had. And that's something that I think we don't often give and I'll call you a spiritual leader within the Maine community. We don't often give spiritual leaders the opportunity to be human, to go through things like divorces and to experience very human things like grief and sadness and anger. How did that shape the way that you began to approach your life?

Jacob Watson:

I think in my work, particularly in the public eye or doing workshops or training volunteers at hospice or the center for Grieving Children, I've allowed myself over time, over some years, to, just as I did in the book, to illustrate what I'm teaching by my own stories. That did not come easily to me. I'm more of an introvert. But it seemed natural to do it once I began to and people really responded. I could look out and people were nodding their heads around the circle of volunteers or students. And I developed by doing that, I think I developed a layer, not a layer, but I developed my own integrity. And it wasn't somebody else's ideas I was talking about, it was my own ideas and it was my life. And I could say this is what happened to me. This is my experience. Living with my own sadness, living with my own anger, living with my own love. And when I began to do that, I relaxed. And I think I dropped old anxiety about teaching or about presenting workshops and so forth because it became I was the same person in front of people as I was at home. There was a, I guess the word is integrity about it. I just am who I am no matter where I am. I don't change when I step into a workshop or to lead a class or a church sermon.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

There's a pretty impressive list of people that you've either worked with or educated yourself on. And you also, you of course have training as an interfaith minister.

Jacob Watson:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You actually knew Elisabeth Kubler Ross and did a lot of work teaching the stages of grief. And you also spent time with Gestalt theory, transactional theory. So it's really interesting for me to read this book as someone who has some small amount of knowledge in these areas and see how you weave these ideas throughout. Talk to me a little bit about Elisabeth Kubler Ross

Jacob Watson:

Well, I owe a lot to her and I think the culture owes a lot to her. I laugh because every so often the five stages comes up in a book or even do you know Big Nate, the cartoon? Lincoln Pierce, who writes Big Nate, lives across the street from me and we're friends. And even Big Nate came up with five stages of test taking or something like that. But it's just a testimony to how much Elizabeth's ideas are part of the culture. And she was feisty working with her. She had a training program and she never quite told us how long it would take to go through the training program. It wasn't like a three year training program or something like that. You were admitted to her staff when she felt you were ready. And that could happen within a year, could happen within four or five years, or it could not happen at all. And I think that speaks to one of her basic teachings about the integrity of people who have the responsibility. And it is a deep responsibility to work with other people to do their own work and to do it first and always. Because in my experience, my own work is never over. So I have to continue to be awake and aware to my own natural emotions. Even that phrase was very instructive to me that feelings are natural. Again, that was not what my parents taught me. It was not posted on the refrigerator. In fact, growing up, feelings were something to get rid of in order that you can make a rational decision. And that's. I've come a long way since that. In fact, for me, my feelings inform and instruct my decision making process.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I liked the time that you spent on the victim, perpetrator, rescuer, triad. I think for me that's something that I have seen in my own life, I have seen in the lives of my patients and friends. And it's really so interesting that we can at any point be in any part of that triangulation. I don't know. My Persona has always been rescuer because I was oldest child doctor, Just, you name it, that was me. But then I could easily see how if I'm always the rescuer, then at some point maybe I get tired of rescuing. And then I start blaming the people that I'm supposed to be rescuing.

Jacob Watson:

Exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's the perpetrator. There's me saying, my goodness, why don't these patients start doing what they're supposed to be doing? And then I start to feel victimized, like, poor me, it's so hard to be a doctor. I work so hard with these patients. So I've actually seen myself Kind of work my way around the triangle over and over and over again. And it's so common. And yet I don't think most of us really understand what a toxic cycle this is and how hard it is to get out.

Jacob Watson:

It sounds like you have some awareness of what's going on, though.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've gotten there now. It doesn't mean I'm perfect at it, but at least, you know, I'm in a. You know, I have awareness, right? Exactly.

Jacob Watson:

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the key to it, is being aware of the pattern. We have that in common, being first born. And that's a setup right away, because if somebody else comes along. There were three siblings that came along in my family. Well, part of your unspoken duty is to help take care of them. But I learned that role even more powerfully when my father was away in the Navy in the Second World War, and we were living in a small apartment in New York. And we lived in an atmosphere of worry and fear about his safety in the North Atlantic, especially in winter. And there was one day when the doorbell rang, my mother. And I was. Now, I was two at that point, so I was just a little boy. And I followed her to the door. And the door opened and two uniformed naval officers stood there. And my mother fainted because she imagined possibly that they were arriving to tell my mother that my father had been killed at sea. That was not the case, luckily, and my mother recovered. But as a two year old, I could see what was going on. Two year olds are smart. And I put my hands around my mother's leg and comforted her. That's the role of the caretaker. And that was the role that was most comfortable for me, especially as my siblings were born. And I lived that out, becoming a teacher and a counselor and a minister. And so I have to be really aware of not living out that role, but allowing my true self, my authentic self, to come out and be more balanced.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You even got to a place with the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine where you had. You seemed very humble about the way that you've approached your role with them. You didn't want to be called executive director. You asked to be called abba, which is Abbott Abbott. Abba. Abba, Father. I think of the song that I sang when I was growing up. Abba, Father. So the Abbot. But then at some point you realized, I need to let down this. I need to set this role down. I can't be the father anymore. Because I think inherent with being the abbot, the father comes. People I Don't know. I guess being on your doorstep, wanting you to provide that role for them.

Jacob Watson:

Well, another way to describe it is it's such a setup to. To be the focus of their projections.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Jacob Watson:

And it could be of what an abbot was supposed to be, but these roles go deeper than that. Because you mentioned Father. Yeah. The leader, the head person, the guru. And I didn't want to be the subject of other people's projections. I think that's not healthy for an organization like a school, and it's not healthy for me to continue in that role. So I moved away from that over some time and then eventually resigned from being the abbot. And that was a healthy thing for the school, and it was a healthy thing for me, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And in some cases, you didn't necessarily move away willingly from caretaking. There was a point where you were doing a lot of grief counseling, and you actually had to be. Your office had to burn down for you to decide that that was no longer your path.

Jacob Watson:

Yeah. Yeah. I was very much, you know, into a career as a grief counselor, and I finally began to understand that grieving families, grieving individuals, were bringing me their wounded souls, their wounded spirits. And when I understood that, I realized that I needed some more training. And that's when I went back to ministry school. It took the office catching on fire to get my attention. I mean, there was a point where I was. The fire had started, and I got my family out of the house. I had a home office at that point, and I was sitting on the curb across the street waiting for the fire trucks to come. And if somebody had come along and said, jacob, this is going to be a good thing, I think I would have slugged him at that point. It didn't feel like a good thing at all. It felt like a tragedy. And I was losing my books and my office and so forth. It's really scary. And yet when I look back on that, it was another sign, yet another sign to pay attention to what was going on in my heart and to eventually make the transition from being a counselor to a minister and really allowing the spiritual life to come forth in me and being better able and better equipped to help that come forth in other people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jacob, in the book, you have given us meditations and also spiritual practices. Would you share some of these with us now?

Jacob Watson:

I'd be glad to find a safe and quiet space to inhabit. Introduce yourself to who you are at this time and in this place. Speak your name out loud, then say who I am and what I'm doing. Or not doing is enough. If you'd like a word to focus on, a mantra, a word that can be enough, I am enough. This practice is to do nothing, not even meditate, not even sit in a particular way, nor breathe in a particular fashion. This practice is not to change a thing, only to bring a quiet, soft, relaxed acceptance to exactly how you are at this moment in time. Reading these words. Wherever you are in your life right now, say it again. I am enough. That's all. No change. Simply being enough.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I especially like the piece that you wrote about fog, and I'm happy that you're able to share that with us.

Jacob Watson:

Today, here in Maine, the thick, wet fog rolls slowly in from the Atlantic Ocean. The fog gathers density from the white surf breaking on the hard, black rocks. First at outermost islands, towering Monhegan, then Low and Long Damaris Cove island, safe haven for the men and women of the coast's first fishing community. Then the fog moves on south, down to the hulk of Seguin island, then to tiny Halfway Rock with its tall stone lighthouse. After touching stately Jewel island and the rest of the Calendar Islands, the fog lumbers onto the mainland at Portland, touching and enveloping all of us. Just as the fog is all around us. We are surrounded and touched and loved by the spirits of all who have ever walked this earth. Allow yourself now, as you hear these words in the present moment, to know and to feel this spiritual blanket surrounding you like fog. Now as you breathe, you take in the thick texture of love and goodwill. So it is at this very moment, here and now, see how you welcome that which is already here, already yours. Use your five senses. Sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste, and the sixth intuition. Now here you arrive where you can live your life today. Now, finally, you have arrived in your life and can be a part of it all. Now you can know and feel and enjoy and celebrate your being, leaving behind loneliness, embracing the fog as it embraces you. Be yourself without being alone, but with yourself, being surrounded by all the love you will ever need. Ever.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jacob, I referenced the ENSO circle that's on the front cover of your book. And I remember the first time you and I spoke, and it has to have been four years ago now. And you were talking about your art, and you were talking about ENSO circles, and now here we have one right on the COVID of this precious book, this book about essence. Tell me why this has been important to you.

Jacob Watson:

Yeah. I was so pleased to be able to use an ENSO circle on the COVID of essence. Number of reasons ENSO circles are part of my spiritual practice. ENSO is enso. It's an ancient Japanese practice that combines art, religion, and. The idea is to enter a state of meditation with your painting, drawing materials all already arranged, and with the blank page or paper in front of you, to paint an enso circle in one breath and in one stroke of the brush. The idea being that that circle is perfect. No going back and saying, oh, it's a little too thick here, not very color there. That's perfect. And then you put that aside, and you have another blank paper, and you paint another enso circle. When I do this, as part of my spiritual practice, I'll prepare 30 or 40 pieces of paper so I can keep going. Paint one circle, put it aside. Paint another circle, put it aside. And this one has color in it, but you can do it using just black paint as well. But I like the whole. The understanding of that. That each one is perfect. Good metaphor.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. The perfection within the imperfection.

Jacob Watson:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Or vice versa.

Jacob Watson:

Yeah. Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I would encourage people who are listening to buy Jacob's book at a local bookstore, Emotional Path to Spirit. That's actually not the only book that you can buy. If you're going to the local bookstore, you can also buy Morning Blessing Letters, a book of daily gifts. It's really. It is like giving a gift to yourself reading this book. And I felt myself blessed by it.

Jacob Watson:

I'm glad. I'm glad I have something to add. The original book, Morning Blessing Letters, is now expanded, and John Hunt, the publisher who published essence, has agreed to take a second book, which is a lot more of Morning Blessing Letters. The original book had 50, and the new book has 168. And I'm glad you asked about Essence, because the new book will be called Essence. Not Essence, but Enso Morning, a compilation of 168. And each page has an Enso Circle at the top. Wow.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That must have required quite a lot of meditation.

Jacob Watson:

Yes. So I expect that'll be out in the winter.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot. I've felt a lot. I've thought a lot over the course of reading this book. And it's really been a privilege to spend time with you today and to have spent time with you in our prior radio show conversation, we've been speaking with Jacob Watson, who is an interfaith minister who writes about spiritual life. His books include Morning Blessing Letters, A Book of Daily Gifts, and most recently, An Emotional Path to Spirit. Jacob is also the founder of the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine and co founder of the center for Grieving Children. Jacob, do you have a website that people might go to in order to find you?

Jacob Watson:

Yes, it's reverendjacobwassen.com thank you so much

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

for the work that you're doing here and for being willing to share your own essence with people. It's really, it's a wonderful gift you're offering.

Jacob Watson:

Thanks. I appreciate being here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In the studio with me today, I have a fellow Bowdoin graduate. So go you bears and also esteemed member of the Maine community for many years. This is Kevin Hancock. As president of Hancock Lumber Company, Kevin is leading a six generation family business that has operated since 1848. A graduate of Lake Region High School and Bowdoin College, Kevin travels often to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota where he is connected with residents and key organizations. He he has created a nonprofit called 7th Power to support initiatives on the reservation and has published a book titled not for Finding center in the Land of Crazy Horse. Thanks so much for coming in today.

Kevin Hancock:

It's A pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So this book is such an interesting book for me because. It's almost a book about your process. It's not like, here's what I have found out, and I'm summarizing it all. It's like you're kind of writing about it as it goes.

Kevin Hancock:

Yeah. In fact, this. This was definitely a book that found me. I didn't set out to write a book. I didn't even know I was writing a book at the beginning. I was just keeping a journal. And the story about Pine Ridge, the reservation, what brought me there, why it was so powerful for me, just kept calling me in, and I looked down at my journal one day, and I said, oh, my word. There's a. I'm writing a book. There's a story here that I want to tell.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Your story is interesting because it began before you started going to the land of Crazy Horse. It actually kind of began when your family founded Hancock Lumber. And if I remember correctly, the town of Casco was incorporated only a few years before Hancock Lumber actually came to be.

Kevin Hancock:

Right. Yeah. So Hancock Lumber began doing business in 1848. And the way I put that in historical perspective is prior to the first cannonball being fired in the Civil War, this company was in business here in Maine. And it's been owned by the same family doing basically the same thing uninterrupted ever since. And it kind of ties to one of the core themes of my book, which is this simple but powerful notion that we. We all come from a tribe, and in many ways, that tribe is a blessing. But the real point to me here is that our tribes pull on us to act in certain ways, to do certain things, to have certain beliefs. And as individuals who are all trying to find our own way, it's important, I think, to reflect on the tribe we come from and understand the ways in which it pulls on us in both healthy and maybe sometimes not so healthy ways.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Your association or your closer association with Hancock Lumber came as a result of your father's passing away. You were in your early 30s, and I believe your father had lymphoma and had had it for a number of years, and he was in his early 50s. He passed away, and here you are, you're left. You're the guy. You're the man in charge of the company, and that's kind of an interesting way to have your life handed to you.

Kevin Hancock:

Right. And it was not anything I ever planned or predicted. When I graduated from Bowdoin, I had wanted to be a Teacher and a coach. And I started my career at Bridgeton Academy here in Maine. And then my dad got sick and I came to work in the family business. And Wright, he died in 1997. And at age 31, I was president of the company. And thinking I was completely ready for that task as kind of a 31 year old mite, but not really realizing what would be involved and how much responsibility. I think more than anything I would feel for trying to do right by the company. The legacy of the company and the people who are connected to it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hancock Lumber, because it's been around for a long time, it has an enormous reach. You have as of the time of this information, 10 retail stores, 3 sawmills, 425 people, 112,000 acres of timberland in Cumberland and Oxford counties. Those numbers may have even increased since they were written. But that's a lot of responsibility. I mean, it's not just this. It's not just the, I don't know, the bricks and mortar stores. You're being responsible for a lot of Maine families and Maine forests.

Kevin Hancock:

Yeah, it's a really wonderful organization. Most importantly, and the lesson I really learned here only recently is that I didn't have to take or internalize the responsibility or the pressure for doing right by the organization. That the organization was filled with people who believed in it, who were talented, who are capable, who are ready to share responsibility. And it was more about me learning to let go of the pressure a little bit. Which happened coincidentally because of what I refer to as me losing my voice with the voice disorder I acquired back in 2010.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. For people who are listening, there's probably, you're probably thinking, huh, his voice sounds a little different than I might expect. And you have spasmodic dysphonia.

Kevin Hancock:

Correct. Which was something I'd never heard of before I got it. Most people have never heard of it. It's very, very rare. It affects perhaps 25,000 people total in North America. And it's a neurological disorder that only affects speech. So when you go to talk, the muscle, the neurons misfire a bit and the muscles around your voice box contract and they squeeze. And it makes talking very difficult, at times painful. I run out of air and I almost get dizzy. And it's can be a bit of a challenge. So I woke up in 2010 with this disorder kind of right in the middle of the economic downturn and was shocked for a while because I was like, well, okay, now what am I going to do? How am I going to help lead an organization without the consistent, comfortable use of my voice. And that turned out to be a blessing because it forced me to stop in a way that I don't think I would have otherwise. It forced me to think in ways that I might not have otherwise. And it forced me to evolve a bit. It created an opportunity for me to evolve. So out of the disability came a lot more blessings than have come problems.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It almost seems as though in losing your voice, you translated it in from something physical that goes through the air and other people hear it into words. It's almost as if your voice became this book that you wrote over time.

Kevin Hancock:

Yeah, that's how I've experienced it. So I talk about losing my voice physically, but what I've come to think about is really searching for my own voice, kind of spiritually or emotionally. And what I came to see when I lost my voice a bit and had to reflect was that I hadn't really been serving myself enough, which is a notion in our society that we almost shun, as weird as that sounds. It's often about sacrificing, it's often about putting others before yourself. And those things are really important. But like anything to a point, and for any individual that doesn't think enough about themselves, care enough about themselves, you end up compromising your ability to help others in the long run. So I started looking for a few simple ways to serve myself a bit more. And always having been a lover of American history and the American west, and I was particularly interested in the second half of the 19th century when America's western expansion and manifest destiny ran into the Plains Indians, I decided that what I wanted to do was to go see what one of the biggest, poorest western reservations in America looked like. Probably no one else would have picked that as what they wanted to do, but it was what I wanted to do. And I made some contacts and, and went there and was keeping a journal. And at the time, this was the fall of 2012, it was only going to be just a one time trip, but the place just grabbed a hold of me and I kept going back and I was keeping this journal and the journal took it turned into a book. Most importantly, what emerged was a kind of a. What's going to be a lifetime connection for me with Pine Ridge and the people of Pine Ridge and a place that. That is outside my own tribe that really serves a lot of my own kind of spiritual personal needs.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

There's something about the pictures that you've taken for this book and also the way that you describe it that is a direct contrast to the life, the physical landscape of the life that you lead. There's, it's, you know, I think about Casco and I actually drove on the way to Camp Sunshine the other day. I, for some reason, I got lost. I drove by your, one of your sawmills and there's trees everywhere. It's just trees. You guys are all about the trees, but you go out to Pine Ridge and there's some trees, but there's mostly like openness, there's grass, there's. It's like this space. And so psychologically, I think it must have been so interesting for you as someone who's gone from trees and trees and trees and trees and trees to, okay, here's space and here's time and here's the ability to just listen to the grass as it, you know, as I walk over it or, you know, you spent time laying on your back like observing wildlife. And I mean, who. You haven't had that opportunity probably in your life?

Kevin Hancock:

No, I hadn't really. I hadn't really realized until I acquired the voice disorder, the degree to which I was really consumed by my roles. And one of the things that I write about in my book, because I came to feel is that in this fast paced, 24 7, Internet, wired world that we live in today, especially in business, if you're not careful, it's always about bigger, better, more, bigger, better, more and more. And it never ends. But unless you stop and think about for what purpose and for what reason, and you've got to really, I think, be intentional about putting balance back in your life. And for me, Pine Ridge was a place where nobody knew me. I had no title, I had no role, I had no legacy, and I had no agenda, which is one of the other reasons I've done well there. You know, I didn't go there to fix them, which people have been doing for decades. I didn't go there to rescue them. I just went there because I was really interested in the place and I became really attached to the people and I like it there. So one of the things I talk about at Pine Ridge all the time is I go there for me. And I think it's important for them to hear that because they're used to, in that community, people going there for them. But they have a lot there in their spirit and culture and place that is valuable to others. And I think it's healthy for them to know that they have a lot to give.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, even in this idea, the seventh power that what there is out there for them to give is this kind of spiritual tradition of reconnecting with one's individual, I guess, gifts. And that is something that I don't think that we often, we're all born from a tribe, so oftentimes we just kind of agree, all right? And I say tribe in a very broad sense, not necessarily Native American, but we sometimes agree to whatever somebody hands us. All right? You are the oldest child of this family and you're going to have these responsibilities. And that doesn't necessarily come from inside of ourselves, that comes from outside of ourselves. But if you reconnect with nature, if you go on a vision quest as you did, you can really hear your own heart more clearly.

Kevin Hancock:

Yes, absolutely. In a lot of ways, that's really what my book is about. It's about being self aware. In a world that is very busy, in which tribes pull on us, I think it's possible to live years, decades, or a life without really knowing fully who you are. Part of being aware is to recognize the impact your tribe has on you. So Pine Ridge is a really good example of this. It's the biggest, statistically poorest reservation in America. Unemployment is 90%, 9 0. So we had a national crisis a few years ago when unemployment reached 9%. There, it's 90. There are people who don't know anybody in their family who's ever had a traditional job. And you can look at that community and say, well, they just need to get their act together. They just need to get on, you know, and make a move. But it's not that they're missing anything. These are really smart, creative, resourceful, fun loving people. They have all the skills essentially within them that you do or I do or the people we know in our communities. But their community has a big pull on them. And. And so what I like about my book is while it's in some ways I really bare my own soul about trying to search for my own identity. I'm hoping in that openness of a subject that's often not talked about, that it will help other people say, you know, I'm not the only one who's searching for more or who's thinking about who I am and it will give people more permission. If someone from a perceived position of power or respect, like I might be in certain circles here in Maine, for example, if someone like me can. Can just open up and talk about these things, I'm hoping it will help others do the same.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The. The entire premise of the book not for Sale is I believe and correct me If I'm wrong on this, based on the fact that the government paid people, Native Americans, for their lands, but that they actually, in this particular case, and I think in many cases, the Native Americans refused to take the money because they said, well, this land was never for sale. You're just taking something that we now can't use the way that we wanted to, and you're giving us money, but that's just not possible. And so, you know, and you actually suggest in the book that, listen, guys, you guys kind of need this money now. You know, you've held it in trust for, I don't know, like, 120 years or even longer. You should probably take this money, because this is something that could really benefit you. But that is a long time to hold on to something that you believe in so strongly.

Kevin Hancock:

Right? And the biggest thing I feel they're holding onto that hasn't yet been reconciled is the past. So, as you say, that's what happened. In 1980, the Supreme Court, US Supreme Court, ruled that the Sioux Indians had had their land taken without just compensation, in violation of their Fifth Amendment rights. And they awarded. The court awarded damages, but the tribes wouldn't take the money. They said, no, you don't understand. Our land is not for sale. And I love the spirit of that. You know the values of that. But the price for growth is giving up your grievances. And part of what has to happen at Pine Ridge is the people that live there have to. They have to let go a little bit more of the injustices of the past and start to look a little bit more at their own, at the fact that their own, really salvation and future lies within them and. And start to move on. And so, to me, as long as they don't take the money and that settlement hangs out there, it's just an attachment to the past. It's not so much about the money for me as it is about releasing the past, coming to terms with the past for the sake of releasing it, for the sake of moving forward. Because, again, we all come from a tribe.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's what I was just thinking about, is this is something, you know, you wrote about your father in very few paragraphs, very few sentences, and it's clear that you love him. And you start with love this man, you end with love this man. And in there, there are some, I think, very difficult to write sentences about how his influence on your life maybe wasn't entirely positive, and for you to have to, like, let go of whatever. Whatever it was to sort of move Forward even in your own life and even in your own role as the head of Hancock Lumber. That must have been very interesting.

Kevin Hancock:

Yeah. And it's difficult to even sort out, but what I really came to feel is that it wasn't actually anything that he had done or hadn't done. It was how I, unbeknownst to me, had internalized the responsibility of being his eldest son and feeling responsibility for that legacy and this tribe and the company, which, again, is hard to describe because so much of that is really fun and exciting and valuable to me and meaningful, and I feel blessed for it. But I went a little too far with it where it was really consuming me, and I was losing a bit of my own identity. And the Lakota have a great. Well, one of their sacred rites is the vision quest, one of their seven sacred rites, which they call Homble Chia. And the concept of a vision quest is that individuals coming of age or at critical moments of their life would leave their community and sequester themselves in nature alone, without food, water, or any provisions, for the purpose of seeking a deeper understanding of who they were, where they were at that point in their life, and where they wanted to go. And then that tribe member was to come back to the tribe and live in accordance with their own callings. So the real fundamental notion there was that the. Well, it's Rudyard Kipling's the strength of the pack is the wolf. And that if each individual was powerful, free, expressing themselves, that's when the tribe becomes most powerful. And I really came to see this for myself, too, that I. What I needed to do, as counterintuitive as it sounds, was serve myself more. And if I found what was really calling to me, that would, in turn, become the most powerful way for the longest period of time to serve others.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I would also send out my thanks to your wife, who very patiently, oh, I don't know, was in this journey with you by saying, kevin, go ahead. Go do what you need to do. And eventually, you actually brought her back out again to visit all of these places that became so important to you. So even just having that latitude, that flexibility within your relationship, I'm certain was. It meant a lot.

Kevin Hancock:

Yeah. I dedicated the book to my wife, Allison, because without her support, she really, if anything, pushed me to keep going back, keep writing, keep leaving. You know, I'd leave the family and the community for a week at a time, two or three times a year, and would look, you know, looks like a guy just in the middle of a midlife crisis. Right and my wife was so, so, so supportive of what I was doing and her freedom for me to pursue this is a large piece of what made it possible. I don't know if that circle would have been completed without her. I'm really blessed that she is with me and I'm with her and that she saw it that way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Kevin how can people find out more about Hancock Lumber and or your book book?

Kevin Hancock:

So you can learn about the book and order the book at www.kevindhancock.com Kevin Dhancock.com you can also buy it on Amazon at other bookstores in Maine. But on that website I see all those orders and I sign all those books personally. So that's a great way to get

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the book and to find out more about Hancock Lumber in general.

Kevin Hancock:

Yeah. So you can find out more about Hancock Lumber at www.hancock.com.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

well, this has been a fascinating conversation and having spent some time living with this book that you wrote, because it's considerable. This if you, if, if those of you who are listening who go out and get Kevin's book, and I hope there are many that will want to do this, it's an investment. This is an investment, but one well worth making because it just, it's so there's something so raw and wonderful about this experience that you've gone through and your willingness to share this with people is, I think it's significant. So we've been speaking with Kevin Hancock, who is president of Hancock Lumber. He is working with his sixth generation family business he's operated since 1848. Not him personally, but others in his family. Also father to two lovely daughters and husband. Thanks so much for coming in and being part of the story that we're sharing on the radio show. But also thanks so much for spending the time to do things that you feel passionate about and sharing that story through your book. Not for sale.

Kevin Hancock:

I appreciate you inviting me and as the Lakota say, wopila tanka, which means big thanks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

have been listening to Love Maine radio show number 216, Spiritual Essence. Our guests have included Reverend Jacob Watson and Kevin Hancock. Follow me on Twitter as DrLisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Spiritual Essence show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.