Transcription of Out of the Box, #86
Male: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast recorded at the studios of Main Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Download past shows and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.
Male: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists, Sea Bags, Booth Maine, Apothecary by Design, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin or ReMax Heritage, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, and Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes.
Dr. Belisle: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, show #86, Out of the Box, airing for the first time on Sunday, May 5, 2013. Have you ever felt yourself boxed in by your life? Sometimes the boundaries we believe exist are more perception than reality. This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour we benefit from the perspective of individuals who have gone outside the box, Tom and Lee Ann Szelog authors of Our Point of View: Fourteen Years at a Maine Lighthouse and By a Maine River – A Year of Looking Closely; Zachary Theberge of the UMaine 4H Camp and Learning Center at Bryant Pond; and Dr. Stephen Donnelly founder and owner of the Maine Center for Integrative Medicine.
As physician trained in public health, acupuncture and Chinese medicine, I haven’t spent much time in the box. Though I respect tradition, I also see it as a place from which to progress. Isaac Newton is reputed to have said, “If I had seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” We have known the benefit of legacy, the bounty afforded us by our forefathers and foremothers. If we stop to consider this bounty we realize that we owe much to those who came before us. We also realize that the only means of repayment is through leaving our own legacy for those who will come after unless the need to emerge from the box and see how our perspective changes.
This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour we meet four guests who share with us unique perspectives on the world. Tom and Lee Ann Szelog spent more than a decade living in a Maine lighthouse before moving to a solitary cabin in the woods. Zachary Theberge chose to make use of his college education by sharing a love of the outdoors with campers at the University of Maine 4H Camp at Bryant Pond. Dr. Stephen Donnelly journeyed beyond the boundaries of Western medicine to offer a more integrated model of care to his pediatric patients. Each climbed up upon the shoulders of giants so that he might see further. That climb would not have been possible had they chosen to remain within the comfortable confines of their life’s boxes. There is a beautiful world to be experienced outside of the box once we realize that the box we believe ourselves to inhabit doesn’t really exist at all. Thank you for joining us on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast this is week. We hope that you are finding a way out of your own box and that my listening to the stories of those who have inhabited boxes themselves you maybe inspired to at least look at life a different way.
Dr. Belisle Many people talk about the idea of living in a lighthouse and seeing what that’s like to be right on the edge of the world. People also talk about going into the woods and finding themselves like Thoreau did near Walden Pond. I’m sitting across from two people who actually thought about this, did it, and then wrote about it, which is unusual. I’m very fortunate to have with me today Tom and Lee Szelog who are authors of Our Point of View: Fourteen Years at a Maine Lighthouse and By a Maine River – A Year of Looking Closely. Thanks for coming in and sharing your experiences with us today as you’ve shared your books with us today or in the past.
Lee Ann: Great, thank you for having us.
Tom: You’re welcome.
Dr Belisle: Tom, I think that this, when I was talking to Lee yesterday, this was something that you’ve been interested in doing from the beginning. You used to hang out on the shores of the river in Manchester.
Lee Ann: Merrimac River.
Dr. Belisle: Merrimac River in Manchester, New Hampshire, and you were always about nature, and you were always about being outside and you picked up a camera pretty early. What was it about the outdoors that really appealed to you?
Tom: I think the first thing is that garnered my attention to nature and the outdoors was I had come from a large family. I had six brothers and sisters. My father passed away when I was quite young, so we had very minimal amount of resources to go on fancy vacations and to travel and such. I was forced to find simpler cheaper means of entertainment. I soon discovered that visiting your local parks and streams and rivers really brought a lot of enjoyment to me. They were like mini vacations. I looked forward to school vacations because I knew I could spend the whole summer walking the woods and exploring the nearby rivers and streams. At the time, unbeknownst to me, I was developing this incredible bond and passion towards the outdoors and nature and wildlife.
Dr. Belisle: Your books reflect that. Even right on the front cover, there’s a picture of a couple of frog eyes coming from a frog looking up at us through the water and a squirrel looking at us head on. There is this connection that you made with these creatures in order that you could actually take a photo of them.
Tom: It’s not easy for me to say, but I actually tend to relate to nature and wildlife and being alone outdoors. When I am in the forest by myself with my camera, sitting in my wildlife photography blind I’m actually at my happiest. When I’m sitting in a studio in downtown Portland I’m actually not at my happiest.
Lee Ann: Although we’re happy to be here.
Dr. Belisle: I appreciate that.
Tom: Don’t take it personally.
Lee Ann: I understand that. The way I look at it is I’m Tom’s wife, but he also has a mistress, and his mistress is Mother Nature.
Dr. Belisle: Wow, that’s very open and accepting of you.
Tom: You knew all along? I thought I was really good at hiding that.
Lee Ann: It speaks to something that I think a lot of people feel, the simultaneous desire to be solitary and to convene with nature but also the very real need to be out and about in the world and make a living and pay the mortgage. I think there is that pull in either direction for many people.
Tom: It’s a difficult balance for me being a professional photographer because I realize I do need a source of income and to obtain this income I have to interact with people and get out there, get outside the box, so to speak. I make up for it by spending as much time as possible in the field and enjoying Mother Nature.
Dr. Belisle: Now Lee, you seem like if there’s a yin and yang element to this you seem like you offer more of that yang, more of that outgoing, energy, more of that. what your business is is really very connective. You do a lot of public speaking, but you also started your career with the knowledge that you yourself were fairly shy.
Lee Ann: Yes, still deep down inside I’m very shy. When I was 7 years old I had my first a-have moment, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I saw a girl I went to school with who was shier than I was. I looked at her and felt sorry for her. I thought, “I don’t want to be like that person.” At that point in my very young age, I decided that I wanted to break through and I started to raise my hand more in school. I started to volunteer as much as I could. I fight it every single day. It amazes me to think what I do now. I do public speaking. I teach a lot of classes on communication, absolutely love what I do. I work at it every single day. I think that’s something that we all just have to make conscious decisions every single day.
We talk about how challenging it is to, as Tom was talking about, spend as much as time in nature and really bonding with nature because we’re so overwhelmed with technology and information in this day and age and we’re all running so fast. When I was 25 years old I was running just as fast. Fortunately for me I met Tom and he helped me to slow down and to appreciate our surroundings. That really has led to where I am in my career in my life right now. I have slowed down. I can appreciate the simple pleasures. I make very conscious decisions to stop and observe a soaring bald eagle or look out the window and enjoy the forsythias that were just blooming across the street when we walked in, we stopped and looked at those. We have to make conscious decisions about the pace of our lives and what we’re doing in order to really find the happiness that we strive for inside. That’s different for all of us. That’s what we have to do to get there and that’s what Tom strives to do with his nature and wildlife photography, and that’s what I strive to do as well in my business.
Dr. Belisle: That is an important point because I believe that many people think of themselves as either introverted or extroverted, either they like a party or they like the quiet. Sometimes you may like one or the other, there may be a sweet spot for you, but you still have to make a choice to exist within the bigger world, whatever that looks like. Whether it’s you choosing to slow down and exist within this world where you’re looking at the bald eagle or you’re looking at the forsythia or whether Tom pulls on his let’s go work with the world and sit in front of a microphone in the radio studio outfit, they’re both choices being made.
Lee Ann: It’s that balance I think that Tom mentioned a few minutes ago. We have to find that balance that’s right for all of us. First step in finding that right balance is discovering within ourselves what are my strengths, what do I love doing, what’s more challenging and striking that balance. That’s a discovery we all have to make for ourselves.
Tom: Individuals have to take responsibility for their own happiness. If you’re not happy then you have no one else to blame but yourself. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but that’s the bottom line. You have to make yourself happy. No one else is going to do it for you.
Lee Ann: No one’s going to change your life but you. If you don’t like something in your life, whether you struggle with a relationship or a situation in your life that person isn’t going to change. If you’re struggling with a relationship that person isn’t going to change, but if you change what’s going to happen, if you change your approach to that person, what’s going to happen is they’re going to change their approach back. It’s a conscious decision. We all have to take responsibility as Tom said. It’s hard work. It doesn’t happen overnight.
Tom: When I was younger, my father passed away young and I had three older brothers who I looked up as fatherly figures. I adored them. I wanted to be whatever they wanted to be. I wanted to go wherever they wanted to go. I eventually learned that they weren’t the types of persons you looked up to. They had their problems. When I made the decision I’m going to change it was a difficult decision to make, but I had to decide that I was not going to look up to them anymore as fatherly figures. It was a very big decision in my young life. It eventually led me to what I am today which is a very happy person, a content person.
Dr. Belisle: This back-and-forth that I see in front of me, and that I know our listeners can hear between the two of you, is something that has developed over many years. You met in your 20s.
Lee Ann: Um-hmm (affirmative), right.
Dr. Belisle: You committed yourselves to these interesting lives, living in a lighthouse, living in the woods, simultaneously being a photographer and also you said you worked, Lee, in the banking industry for many years.
Lee Ann: Correct.
Dr. Belisle: You had to keep, again, making conscious decisions that come together as a couple and constantly reevaluate. Is this where we want to be going? Is this how we’re going to be doing it? Talk to me about that.
Tom: We matured a lot as our relationship matured. We were maturing individually as persons. I think we were very lucky that we both synched our lives when it came to how we wanted to live our lives and what we perceived our future being. We were very lucky when I needed some support Lee Ann was always there to support me and vice versa. I think that was a very important factor in our success and happiness.
Lee Ann: I would say we really evolved. Living at the lighthouse was a dream come true for me, a dream that I had had since I was 6 years old. Tom, when we first met, lighthouses was one mutual subject that brought us together. I shared with him my dream of living in a lighthouse. To make a long story short, part of it was being at the right place at the right time, but I also truly believe in the power of our thoughts and fate. It was meant for us to be at Marshall Point. That was a big turning point as far as our growth together. We moved in there a week before we got married. Living at Marshall Point, Tom really introduced me to nature and wildlife, helped me to slow down. He opened my eyes to nature and wildlife. Mother Nature opened by heart to that. living at Marshall Point helped me mature even more in that respect, enjoying and appreciating our natural surroundings, our natural beauty, living on the edge of the continent, and seeing the wildlife, and the weather, and the events that people would come and celebrate there. It really helped me to appreciate more than ever before the simple pleasures of life. We really grew together at the lighthouse. That was a very special time and helped us, as Tom said, mature together.
Tom: Lee and I are no different from most people. People are very complex, but there’s also a very simple side to most people. I think maybe people refuse to recognize or grasp what their simple side is and enjoy that part of life.
Lee Ann: There’re so many distractions nowadays.
Dr. Belisle: Lee, you’re right. There are a lot of distractions. I think it makes it hard from a practical standpoint for people to focus on the bigger picture and from a nature all around them. What are some of the things that you talk to people about in order for them to really tune in more?
Lee Ann: As we had mentioned, everything in life is about choices, even down to how we from a practical standpoint implement whatever changes and choices that we want. For example, with all the distractions we have, with all the technology, is really what I’m talking about the distractions. We have to make a conscious decision to put that technology down, put it away. We are so worried. Our society has created this mindset that we’re so worried we’re going to miss something on our cell phone or our mobile device, but think about what you’re missing in the present. If you’re so distracted with what you’re going to miss on your mobile device, you are undoubtedly going to miss something even greater one-on-one. You have to make that conscious decision to turn the TV off, turn the computer off, put the cell phone away, whatever it happens to be. That’s one piece of advice. Live in the present, live in the moment, put that away. It’ll be there. That’s what Tom and I have really tried to do. I think that’s what’s made such a difference in our lives and has helped us grow together and bond because we do spend a lot of quality time together. we don’t allow for those other distractions.
Dr. Belisle: We’ll return to our program in a moment. On the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we’ve long understood the important link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the subject is Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Tom: A few years ago we gave a talk called Raise Your Kids, Raise Yourself, Raise Your Mind. In it, we introduced a broader concept of currency. We pointed out how the little things like a smile, giggle, first step and milestones along the way make the bad stuff seem worth it. This led us to talk about how our kids learn about money. Done well a child will come to understand that money has value in their lives that transcends our simply forking it over upon request. They will find that values discovered, shared, made, earned, invested, loaned, and given. Interestingly enough, we found that when we teach this subject to our kids we get to learn it a second time. There are many resources to help you integrate learning about money and to raising your kids. To learn more, browse our Shepard Financial Facebook page or send us an email to [email protected].
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Dr. Belisle: As I was reading through your book, Our Point of View: Fourteen Years at a Maine Lighthouse, and your talking about Marshall Point, and I’ve been to Marshall Point myself, one of the intersections for me that was very powerful was your discussion of coming across the family of James Andrew also called Drew Griffith, who was a Maine State Trooper fatally injured in an automobile accident in Thomaston. We had his wife, Kate Braestrup, on the show back a year and a half or so ago. When I happened to cross this in the book it just brought me right back to that time and what that meant to her family.
You intersected with a lot of families over the time at Marshall Point. You saw weddings. I think you saw maybe a baptism. It wasn’t just animals and birds. It was people who were bringing really significant parts of their lives to you at the lighthouse. What did that mean to you?
Tom: We discovered over the years that the lighthouse was a place of pilgrimage for many people. People would come from across the world, literally, to visit Marshall Point. We observed people doing things as simple as taking a nap or playing a game of checkers, but we also observed numerous things that we never expected such as elaborate weddings or people scattering the cremated remains of their loved ones or if you can picture full immersion baptisms in the cold Atlantic in the springtime. I think what we experienced is something that a lot of people don’t have the opportunity to experience, and that is to see people at their most vulnerable, to be able to witness and experience this literally from the comfort of your own living room by just looking out the window perhaps.
We often would engage people and learn more about why they were visiting the lighthouse and what brought them there and lured them to this beautiful area. We were able to experience something that really no one probably has ever experienced before. It’s a very rare and unique opportunity. We never expected that to occur when we moved in there. We knew we were going to move into an environment that was very unique and spectacular, but we never expected all the human drama that we experienced there. It was really quite fascinating, not only from a psychological standpoint but from an artistic standpoint with all the unique opportunities that we had to photograph.
Dr. Belisle: I do think this idea of pilgrimage is very relevant because the family of the Griffith/Braestrup family they actually put a bench out in honor of Drew who had passed away in this accident. A lighthouse is not just a physical beacon, but it’s almost a spiritual and emotional beacon of sorts.
Tom: Very much, very much. We tried to interact with people as much as possible. Sure, there were very many times where we would just observe from the inside the keeper’s house, but often than not, we’d try to get out and talk to them and visit with them. That one-on-one interaction revealed a lot about humanity.
Dr. Belisle: This book that you’ve created, By a Maine River, the ongoing story of your love, Tom, of nature and your love, Lee Ann, of connection, I think. You also are doing a project with the North Woods and you have a website that is involved with bringing people back to nature.
Tom: We’ve developed a project called The Maine Woods National Park Photodocumentation Project. Essentially, it’s a photodocumentation project of the proposed 3.2 million acre Maine Woods National Park. Our goal of this project is to inspire and motivate people to want to contribute towards the creation of this beautiful area of the state and with the ultimate goal of creating a book and a fine art traveling exhibit to show people and put a face about this place for people to see how beautiful and wonderful this part of the world is and what an incredibly unique opportunity we have as citizens of the state of Maine.
Lee Ann: It’s a very fragile and magnificent ecosystem that’s really on the verge of destruction or protection. It’s all really based on all of us as human beings, the human species, looking to protect our natural world. It’s a remarkable place and it deserves protection. We’re trying to use Tom’s photographs and our words together to inspire and educate people to rally behind the support and the creation of the proposed Maine Woods National Park.
Tom: I think a lot of people tend to take this part of Maine for granted, maybe more so from Southern people right here in Portland. I have involved in some form or fashion with wildlife and conservation groups for approximately 40 or 45 years. I have been to some of the greatest national parks this country has created. I seriously believe that a Maine Woods National Park could easily be one of the flagship parks in this country. I think it’s as equal with Yellowstone National Park with its grand scenery and its abundance of wildlife and biodiversity. I think we really have a very unique opportunity in Maine to create something that is just beyond belief. I think most people really don’t understand that. They should take a few minutes to either read on the Internet or grab book or even visit the area and try to get an idea of what this opportunity is. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I think like Lee said we’re either save it or we’re going to destroy it. What’s it going to be, Maine?
Lee Ann: This project for us is the next chapter in the evolution in our lives together. I talked about how Tom opened my eyes to the beauty and tranquility of nature and wildlife. When we moved to our log cabin, and Tom, we didn’t live there a month and Tom said, “You know what I’d love to do?” We have 70 acres, Tom said, “Do you know what I’d love to do is I’d love to take a year off someday and photograph just the nature and wildlife on our 70 acres to show people just how closely we live to nature and wildlife,” and then oftentimes all we have to do is step outside our backdoor to experience it and slow down. I thought because he had brought me so far I thought it was a great idea. I said, “Just do it.”
January 1, 2004, he started the project and finished it December 31. From that, we said to ourselves, “What else can we do?” We looked beyond our backyard and that’s how we founded the Maine Woods National Park Photodocumentation Project because we wanted to look at what kind of exposure can we give to our backyard in Maine? That’s what led us to that. We need to remember that we too are a species, the human species. Protection of a natural world is just as important to us as it is to the wildlife that call that habitat home.
Dr. Belisle: There are so many difficult directions we could go with this conversation, but I know people who are listening will want to learn more about the work that you’re doing, they’ll want to read your books, they’ll want to get involved in the organization. Where can they find out more about you?
Lee Ann: I would direct them to the mainewoodsnationalpark.com website, so www. mainewoodsnationalpark.com. That has information about our photodocumentation project. It also has the book there. It has a link to my website with the public speaking that I do, it’s leeannszelog.com, but I’m sure people will stumble over how to spell that. The easiest thing, mainewoodsnationalpark.com and they can find everything they want to know about us through that website.
Tom: You used the word organization. I think it’s important to note that we are not an organization. We are just Lee and I. We’re just two simple lay people who have a conviction and a passion to want to make a contribution in our own way. I surely encourage many people to don’t look at organizations, look at yourself. You have the power in yourself to change the world and make yourself happy.
Lee Ann: I do presentations on my own about communication, but Tom and I also do presentations about our books and the Maine Woods National Park, the proposed Maine Woods National Park. If people have a group that they want to learn more about the proposed park, we’re happy to do a multimedia presentation that we do that actually features the music of legendary folk singer Pete Seeger. He was kind enough to allow us to use some of his music for our presentation which we’re thrilled about.
Dr. Belisle: I’m glad that you’ve pointed out that it’s the two of you. It’s not an organization and I think that each of us can act as individuals and go out there and do what needs to get done and be passionate about how we live our lives. I have myself felt inspired sitting with you this morning and taking the time to talk to you, Tom and Lee Ann Szelog, authors of Our Point of View: Fourteen Years at a Maine Lighthouse and By a Maine River, and proponents of saving the Maine woods. Thank you for coming in and talking to us today.
Tom: You’re welcome.
Lee Ann: Our pleasure, thank you for having us.
Dr. Belisle: The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted: We live in a very coarse and ugly world today. The media surrounds us with a constant barrage of predatory commercials, murders, chaos, economic peril, wars, ethnic cleansing, rape, on and on. John O’Donohue, one of my favorite theologians, writes even amidst chaos and disorder something in the human mind continues to seek beauty. Land and landscape offer this refuge. When I work with clients I always envision how these lovely landscaped areas will offer a home to all those that enter that will help sooth them and make them whole once again, refreshed and in balance they can now return to the harsh demanding world that awaits them beyond this magical oasis. You more information, you can reach me at tedcarterdesign.com.
Male: We will return to our program after acknowledging following generous sponsor, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine. At Orthopedic Specialists, ultrasound technology is taken to the highest degree. With state of the art ultrasound equipment, small areas of tendinitis, muscle and ligament tears, instability and arthritic conditions can be easily found during examination. For more information, visit orthocareme.com or call 207-781-9077.
Dr. Belisle: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is all about health, the environment, education, kids, so it makes a lot of sense that we would have somebody else who feels pretty much the same way we do. On our show with us today we’re talking with Zachary Theberge of the University Maine’s 4H Camp and Environmental Learning Center at Bryant Pond. Thanks for coming in and having a conversation with us.
Zachary: No problem. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Belisle: How did you get involved in environmental education? Why did this become a passion for you?
Zachary: Being born and raised in Maine I’ve been surrounded by the Maine coast, the forests, and everything around. Really what brought me into being into the outdoors was the Chewonki Foundation. It’s a foundation in Wiscasset, Maine. Being a camper there and going on and doing their semester program just brought me into the realm of the environment. Then, I went to the University of Vermont, and then I studied environmental science and forestry. That was like really good reinforcement, and then I realized that I’m learning all this new material for the first time. How did I get into it? I started to think back on how I got into what I got into. I remembered being inspired when I was at the Chewonki Foundation. I wanted to pass that on to the younger generation because it’s always good to build upon the youth, especially now. I was looking for positions that would help me educate youths. Bryant Pond 4H camp part of the UMaine extension, I applied and got the position and it was really wonderful.
Dr. Belisle: What types of things did you do when you were there?
Zachary: Everything. We do a lot of stuff with the kids. In the spring and in the fall it’s a school program. It’s more based around school programs. We bring different classes ranging from second grade all the way up to high school, from all around Oxford County. The school groups, they come to us for several days, even as long as a week, and they stay overnight. They stay in our bunk house which is heated by a wood stove. They eat family style in our dining hall. We as field teachers teach them about ecology, a sense of place, and we also do a lot of team building to establish their class as a unit for that school year to go on and to be a strong school year, I guess. In the summertime it’s a summer camp. They do a bunch of week-long programs from anywhere from primitive skills where they learn how to start fires from flint and a bowstring, or they build shelters, or there’s a pioneer camp where they recreate the Western movement out to Oregon. Anyway, they do such a variety of things. I think it’s really cool that they encompass all of it into that one camping center at Bryant Pond.
Dr. Belisle: What are some of the major themes of this environmental education that you’re doing with the kids?
Zachary: A lot of what we do is natural science, so like an intro to the natural sciences. The ecology, but a lot of times we can’t introduce really in depth levels of science to these kids just because they don’t retain it. Really what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to inspire the kids and to get them outdoors. What I’ve always used as my motive is establishing a sense of place for the kids. These kids, they’ll go the camp and we try to have them feel about as home as they can get at the camp and really establish the relationship between the kids and the outdoors. By establishing that relationship with the kids and the outdoors you can oftentimes ignite a spark or use that spark and ignite a passion for them for the outdoors.
That’s what happened to me. That’s what I’d like to carry on and pass onto them is establishing that sense of place in the outdoors because a lot of times they think of it as a second home and they treat it like a home. How do you treat a home? You take care of it. You invite other people to your home. That’s where you live. It’s where you are pretty much all the time. As Bryant Pond’s part of the home the children, the kids, they tend to treat the outdoors as their home.
Dr. Belisle: For parents who want to reconnect their kids to the outdoors, what suggestions do you have?
Zachary: Get them out there. I know it sounds simple, but really just let them explore. A lot of times parents will let the kids go outside, but they have such a tight figurative leash on their kids and they don’t let them run around and get dirty because then they’ll have to do the laundry. For whatever reason, the don’t let their kids just explore. I think that’s such an important part about being a kid and learning is letting your kid roam and explore, get dirty, turn up rocks, climb a tree. I think those are really good experiential ways to have your kid grow.
My advice for parents trying to get their kids into the outdoors is just encourage them, take them to new places. Maine is a beautiful area. We have so many parks and so many natural areas that it’s hard to not to get to one. By bringing them out to the outdoors, getting them away from what we call the world of rectangles, their computer screen is a rectangle. You have your GameBoy as a rectangle. We try to get away from the world of rectangles and into the outdoors. Usually, that is the spark that ignites it, the passion for them.
Dr. Belisle: How can people learn more about the camp and the school that you worked at?
Zachary: Bryant Pond is a part of the U Maine extension program, and through that it’s part of the 4H. 4H stands for head, heart, hands, and health. The cooperative extension aims to bring the information that is gathered and studied at the University of Maine and try to bring it out to the public. The 4H part is more of the kids outreach on how to get them involved. It’s been around for a long time. My suggestion to get involved with UMaine Bryant Pond, is first of all, they have a wonderful website. You can go. My ultimate suggestion is to go there, is to check it out because websites and all that, they’re usually great. The website has a lot of information on it, but you don’t get quite as much information as if you just went and you go and you see where your child would be and where he’d be playing, and all of the wonderful things that they have there. They’re so accommodating. They would be more than happy to have you take a tour of the campus and show you around.
Dr.Belisle: I appreciate your coming in and spending time talking with me about your experience being part of the University of Maine’s 4H camp and environmental learning center at Bryant Pond. It’s been a pleasure talking with you today, Zach.
Zachary: Thanks, Lisa.
Dr. Belisle: We’ll return to our interview in a moment. We on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast hope that our listeners enjoy their work lives to the same extent we do and fully embrace every day. As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marcy Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy.
Marcy: You put so much time, energy, and emotion into your relationships, but the truth is some relationships are just not meant to be. Same thing goes for employees. Of course, we always want the people we hire to be the perfect fit. We invest time and energy to developing those relationships, but the reality is some people simply don’t fit your organization, so you spend weeks agonizing over what to do, fighting with the voice in your head should they stay or should they go. When you think about it and are completely honest with yourself you made the decision a long time ago. You just can’t pull the trigger. Not only do we worry about the impact that change will have our business, we worry about finding a replacement, how the layoff will impact that person and their family, how long will it take to train a new replacement, and so on, and so on.
Consider the alternative, if this person continues in your employment you continue to waste valuable energy. We get frustrations instead of growing your business and finding positive ways to build your staff. By not taking action you may be ignoring the discontentment of other key employees. They become unhappy and leave. By not taking action this employee provides bad customer service and leaves a customer or client very discouraged. There are so many reasons to make it happen before the hole gets any deeper.
Planning the moment to terminate that employee is only the first step. Before you make the change, be sure to familiarize yourself with your rights as an employer, then put the big boy pants back on and take action. You will be relieved and wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. I’m Marcy Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need. Boothmaine.com.
Male: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of ReMax Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With ReMax Heritage it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com.
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Dr. Belisle: As we move forward in health care, we need to be spending time looking back at traditions that have worked for us, both from a Western standpoint and an Eastern standpoint, through nutrition and herbs and yoga, things that have an evidence base behind them and also anecdotally work for our patients. I’m pleased to have with me today Dr. Stephen Donnelly, a pediatrician, that trained with me at the Maine Medical Center a few years ago and went and got additional fellowship training in integrated medicine with Dr. Andrew Weil in Arizona and has come back to the state of Maine and founded the Maine Center for Integrative Medicine. Thank you for coming back and bringing integrated medicine to the state Maine.
Dr. Donnelly:Great to be here.
Dr. Belisle: Dr. Donnelly, why did you become a pediatrician in the first place?
Dr. Donnelly:I love working with kids. It’s a funny story how I ended up becoming a physician to begin with. I actually started college as a music major. I wanted to be a music teacher. Got in there and realized that I just want to keep music as a hobby. I didn’t want to do it as a profession, and then from there I decided to be a psychology major and found to do anything in psychology you have to have a Ph.D. and I said, “Geez, I might as well be a physician.” I fell into it that way. Ultimately, when you look at the underlying themes I like working with people and ultimately I like working with kids, from music teacher to pediatrician there is that one link, although it does seem a little round about.
Dr. Belisle: You chose to go into the type of medicine which I’ve always considered to be very integrative. From the beginning, you actually have an osteopathic degree rather than an allopathic degree. You are trained as what we say is a D.O.
Dr. Donnelly:Correct.
Dr. Belisle: Why did you make that decision?
Dr. Donnelly:I researched it and I liked the philosophy behind osteopathic medicine. Honestly, a big part of it was it was right in my backyard. I grew up in Maine. I was born in Bangor, graduated high school from Caribou High School. University of Southern Maine is where I went to college. Knowing that medical school can be very stressful, I figured let’s take the changing my location of where I live, let’s take that out of the equation and UNE was right in my backyard. Again, I liked their philosophy and their approach and it just made sense.
Dr. Belisle: We hear a lot about the brain drain and people leaving the state of Maine once they have gotten their education because theoretically they can’t make a living here, but it seems like you are proving the opposite.
Dr. Donnelly:I’m hoping to. I have been an employed physician really from the get go, since ’98 when I finished residency. Back in July of 2011 I decided to open up my own practice at the Maine Center for Integrative Medicine. I’m working at it and it’s very, very satisfying. I’m hoping to make that a long lasting fixture in the Maine medical community.
Dr. Belisle: We had Dr. Craig Schneiderwho is the head of integrative medicine at Maine Medical Center on our show last year, but for people who haven’t been listening and perhaps they’ll all go back and listen to that podcast, but for right now, tell us what integrative medicine really is.
Dr. Donnelly:Integrative medicine is really a blend of conventional medicine with everything else that’s out there. There’s a lot of focus, as you said, on nutrition which boggles my mind that nutrition would be considered like an alternative or complementary type of medicine. It’s what makes us us. Anyway, it’s a lot of focus on nutrition, herbs, supplements where appropriate, other modalities of delivering health care like osteopathic medicine, manual medicine like osteopathy, chiropractic, physical therapy, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy, mind-body medicines, spirituality, probably leaving something out, but it blends all of those modalities in with conventional medicine and to try to optimize by plan of care for an individual.
Dr. Belisle: Why did you decide that you wanted to go back and get this fellowship training with Dr. Andrew Weil in Arizona?
Dr. Donnelly:The big thing that I was really interested in was nutrition. It’s embarrassing the lack of that that we get in our traditional medical training. We learn that if you don’t get enough vitamin C you get scurvy. If you don’t get enough vitamin D you get rickets. From the nuts and bolts of practical application to give to patients and families on diet and nutrition just isn’t there. I was trying to research that on my own. It’s sometimes hard to weed through. We all hear don’t look at the Internet because you’ll find a whole gamut of things. That was really the big thing because I knew Dr. Weil was really big into nutrition, and actually Matt Hand who’s a pediatric nephrologist locally or was locally, he did the fellowship a few years before me. He and I got talking and he showed the program. I said, “I have to do that. That’s exactly what I want to do.” Lo and behold, a few years later I went and did it. Nutrition was the driving piece given that I felt lacking in my ability to educate patients and families based on my conventional training.
Dr. Belisle: For people who are interested in reading about Matt Hand, Maine Magazine actually did a profile of him in the Wellness issue about a year ago, again, along with Dr. Craig Schneider. This is something that we’ve been, actually maybe two years ago now, but this is something that I think people are paying more and more attention to. They’re paying more and more attention to it for themselves as adults, and you treat children. Is there an upsurge of interest in integrative medicine for kids?
Dr. Donnelly:I don’t know if there’s an upsurge, but I think these parents or these adults that are looking at it for themselves are wondering about it for their children as well. Yeah, a lot of people are looking at … or dissatisfied with just the conventional approach to a lot of things and looking for that integrative approach for their children as well as themselves like you said.
Dr. Belisle: One of the things that you and I talked about before we came on the air was this idea of inflammation and inflammation being a problem that has been more recently recognized as underlying many of the diseases that cause not only acute but chronic problems. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Dr. Donnelly:There’s some interesting research based on a hypothesis that one common thread between those big ailments that are killing us, basically, as a society is like you said inflammation. If you look at the big two, heart disease and cancer, those have been the big two killers since the ’50s or ’60s and nothing’s really changed despite all our conventional technology and pharmaceuticals and stuff. These are the two big things that are killing us and they’ve been killing us for decades.
What’s come out is, again, this root cause of inflammation being behind these ailments, but things like arthritis, inflammatory bowel, asthma, all these things are on the rise. New research, actually, is looking at even mental health issues, things that we didn’t think of as having an inflammatory component. There’s an interesting theory of depression called the cytokine theory of depression which is cytokines are inflammatory mediators.
Where is coming from? There’s probably a lot of areas where it could be coming from, but one interesting thing is diet. A lot of research now is coming out about how really pro-inflammatory the standard American diet is. Standard American diet is very processed, very high in carbohydrate and lacking in some varying important fats, omega-3 fats to be specific. One thing we know about large fluctuations in blood sugar, for example, based on a high carbohydrate diet that’s what’s going to happen, all carbs are converted to sugars. If there’s no fat or protein or fiber in the mix what happens is you have a very volatile blood sugar, and so you’ll have peaks and valleys. We know at the peaks and valleys of these blood sugars that inflammatory markers or mediators are made. That’s one driving factor for inflammation.
The whole high carb diet probably stems back to the not so good food pyramid of the early ’70s where we were told low fat, low fat, low fat with all good intention, but as we can see today that really hasn’t made a difference in heart disease and certainly we’re more obese now than we ever were. Low fat is synonymous with high carb. We may have set ourselves up for what we’re dealing with right now.
From the fat standpoint, like I said, omega-3 fats, we know we get from fish for the most part. As a society, we don’t eat a lot of fish. That’s your omega-3 fats are going to come from. Omega-3 fats are the building blocks in the body of hormones that down regulate inflammation and also down regulate cell division.
Omega-6 fats on the other hand which we get an abundance of, more than we need, come from the oils of grain, corn oil, sunflower oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil. We get more than enough of those, but those in the body become the building blocks of hormones that up regulate inflammation. We have this unopposed pro-inflammatory drive of the omega-6s and the high carb diet. It’s felt that that can be a big factor in a lot of what is ailing us. When I talk to families I talk to families in a broad sense about that, and then depending on what we’re dealing with if there’s any issues like ADHD or inflammatory bowel or anything like that or asthma, then I might tweak it to be more specific for that illness. Everyone who comes and sees me either in my general pediatric practice in Windham or my integrative practice they all get the diet talk.
Dr. Belisle: How can people find out about the Maine Center for Integrative Medicine?
Dr. Donnelly:They can look at the website, www.themcim.com, or give a call, 899-038.
Dr. Belisle: I did spend time on your website. You have some really nice blog articles that people can read that talk about nutrition. I also went and looked at the Apothecary by Design presentation you did, so anybody who has an interest in integrative medicine and nutrition and as it relates to pediatric or ADHD I do recommend that they go and check you out a little bit.
Dr. Donnelly:Great.
Dr. Belisle: We’ve been speaking with Dr. Stephen Donnelly who is the founder of the Maine Center for Integrative Medicine here in Portland, Maine. I appreciate your having this open mind and bringing all of your knowledge back to our state and helping people integrate wellness into their lives.
Dr. Donnelly:My pleasure.
Dr. Belisle: You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show #86, Out of the Box. Our guests included Tom and Lee Ann Szelog, Zachary Theberge, and Dr. Stephen Donnelly. For more information on our guests, visit doctorlisa.org. the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. You can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest, D O C T O R Lisa, and read my take on health and wellbeing on the bountiful blog, bountiful-blog.org. We would love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. I am privileged that they enable me to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week.
This is Dr. Lisa Belisle hoping that you have enjoyed getting out of the box, also hoping that you may find a way to at least look at your life in a different way after you finish listening to our show, perhaps even finding a way to live your life a different way. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Male: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists, Sea Bags, Booth Maine, Apothecary by Design, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of ReMax Heritage, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, and Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street in Portland, Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Become a subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details. Summaries of all our past shows can be found at doctorlisa.org.