Transcription of Emotional Intelligence, #79
Speaker 1: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, recorded at the studios of ‘Maine Magazine’ in Portland, Maine. Some of these of all our past shows can be found at “Doctorlisa.org”. Become a subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors, ‘Maine Magazine’, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at RE/MAX Heritage, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists, Booth Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Apothecary by Design, and the Body Architect.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 79, “Emotional Intelligence’, airing for the first time on March 17th, 2013.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery reminds us that “What is essential is invisible to the eye”. Michael Chase, bestselling author and founder of the Kindness Center and Sandra Fisher, suicide prevention advocate and mother talk to us about emotional essentials on this week’s show.
Have you had your heart broken? Me too. I doubt that there’s a human life who can claim differently. We, who choose to love are choosing to make ourselves vulnerable to heartbreak even as we are opening ourselves to joy. The joy that comes from loving is due in part to knowing that we are connected to all others who have chosen to love.
As philosopher, Martin Buber wrote, “The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable through the embracing of one of its beings.” Buber describe the difference between an “I thou” and an “I it” relationship. When we see another person as an it object, we are unable to recognize that person’s humanity. We keep him at a distance. When we embrace that person as a thou or a you, we are better able to understand our commonality.
As a doctor and a human, I’m highly aware of my vulnerability. I hear my patient’s stories and from them, I hear my story. I feel my heart break even as I feel their hearts break. I also feel their joy.
Each week, I share some of this joy and this heartbreak with listeners of our radio show. Sitting with one of this week’s guests, a mother who’s college-aged son committed suicide eight years ago caused me to feel intensely vulnerable. My own son is currently a college student. I love him as fiercely as any mother might. I know that by loving him, by loving anyone, I put myself at risk for loss. Yet, I choose to embrace him. I choose to embrace the mother who shares her story and know her as I thou, rather than believe that her story is unique to her and could never become my story. I choose to embrace Michael Chase of the Kindness Center. I invite you to join me in this embracing. Thank you for joining us this week.
Compassion is good for health. Studies have long demonstrated the impact of stress on the body. It can initiate or worsen illnesses including heart disease, depression, and countless others. Often, stress is caused by changes in circumstances such as moving or divorce. It can also be created by strained relationships occurring when people of all ages don’t see eye to eye. Because it isn’t always possible to avoid stressful situations, you must develop appropriate coping mechanisms. By cultivating compassion, we are promoting the ultimate exercise for heart health.
If you’d like to explore cultivating compassion, give me a call at the Body Architect, 207-774-2196. I look forward to seeing you.
I’ve always been a big proponent of love and compassion, which is an interesting thing to be a proponent of, as a doctor in the world, it’s not necessarily something you think about as being a healing modality, but I do believe that this is one of the things that we all could benefit from whether it’s being more loving and compassionate towards ourselves or towards other people. I know that Michael J. Chase, the man who’s sitting across from me in the studio today is of the same mind. When I read his book, “Am I being kind?”, and I read the following, “The pathway to happiness really is that simple. No pills, no therapy, no looking into the mirror and repeating affirmations for a lifetime. All we need to do is be kind.”
I knew that there was a kindred spirit, and I wanted to bring him in to the studio. Thank you for being with us today.
Michael: Thank you, Dr. Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: You are the founder of the Kindness Center, bestselling author of “Am I Being Kind?”, and you have a book coming out this spring. This wasn’t how you saw your life going.
Michael: No. This was not the original path that I had chosen. For 16 years, I was a professional photographer. It’s something that I loved very much and was blessed with a lot of success from having my own photography studio. Despite having all that success, and having all of the things that people said would make me happy such as a nice home and the cars, and the money and all the things that we’re told, “If you have this, you’ll be truly happy and your life will work.” I had all of those things and I was still unhappy.
This had me on a very deep path, I’d almost call it an, “Obsession” in the world of personal spiritual development trying to discover … “What is it that truly makes us happy in life?” It was five years ago that I had that epiphany, made that discovery that kindness was at least for me, it’s what eliminated my negative behavior, my negative thinking, some of my depression, it just melted it all away and it became my method for finding true happiness in my life.
Dr. Lisa: It’s important for people who are listening to know that you choose kindness. You have said that you lived a life of unkindness as a younger child. You actually had every reason not to go down the path of kindness, because sometimes it’s easy to say, “I’m going to be kind” if your life is so good, but your life wasn’t always so good. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Michael: Yes. That’s all part of the journey. There was a time that I was in on victim mentality. When you come from a difficult background, in my case, it was an unkind childhood, at least my father’s side of the family. I have the world’s most amazing mother. She’s like one of my best friends in life. My father’s side of the family, a generational pattern of alcohol, a lot of violence, just vicious behavior … That was passed on from great grandfather to my grandfather to my dad, and then to me, so I had to make a choice. I had to be the one to break that pattern. It took me … I was 37 years old when I first made this discovery. I’m 43 now, so yes, it’s been a heck of a ride.
Dr. Lisa: Part of the reason you needed to do this was because you had your own son, Alex who I believe is now …
Michael: He’s 22 now.
Dr. Lisa: Twenty-two. I was going to say in college, because this is the last I rented a book.
Michael: Right.
Dr. Lisa: It sounds like you might be out of college now.
Michael: He’s in his last year of college right now, yes.
Dr. Lisa: You had to make a decision that whatever had happened generationally was going to stop, and you were going to change it. How difficult was that?
Michael: I think the big moment, the defining moment for me was in the year 2000, my father who … we had a very … in the later years, our relationship changed, but throughout most of the years, we really struggled. I can look back and I can have compassion now, because I can see that his behavior and any unkindness toward me, it was just built-up anger, resentment toward my grandfather, the things that he had done to him.
In the year 2000, my father committed suicide. That event was related to how my grandfather had treated him, so I started to look at all of that, and made a decision. It took me about six months after my dad’s death to dig out of it, a very deep depression. Then I found myself at his grave site right before Christmas and I said, “I promise you dad.” I said, “This is it. It ends here.” I said, “I will not pass this on to my son, and somehow, someway, I’m even going to help other people.” I didn’t really know what that meant.
I barely graduated high school, I picked up a camera, and then just went from there and I thought that would be my life. I have no degree in Psychology or anything like that. Just from that point on, I had a burning desire to not only fix my own life, but to help other people someday.
Dr. Lisa: You talk about this in the book, this idea that for a long time, not being a … I guess it was only being a high school graduate was something that you would be down on yourself, but then you came to a place where you said, “Hey. I’m only a high school graduate. Look how much I’ve been able to accomplish, or look what I’ve been able to do in my life.” That was an interesting turnaround, and important I think.
Michael: Yes. That’s one of the things that you start to learn with this path of kindness, is to be kind to yourself and look at these things like, I’m proud of it. I’m proud of the fact that … and there’s a funny example. My wife who is just the most amazing, supportive woman, I could do a whole radio show about her how great she is. I was on my way to Washington D.C. a few months back to give a very big, huge presentation. I was nervous, and she’s in the car driving me to the airport. She said, “Can you believe that you’re going to this enormous thing and you’re giving a presentation, and you’ve written two books now?” I said, “No. It’s amazing. I know. I can’t believe it.” She said, “I’m serious. You barely graduated from high school.” I said, “Okay. Thanks.” She’s playing with me. I said, “Thanks, honey. I recall. I remember.” She’s grinning. She said, “Honestly?” I said, “Hey. How’s publishing? Put it on this event.” “Don’t they do background checks on people?” It’s become this ongoing joke and it’s fun now. People will ask me. They’ll say, “How did you do it? How did you go from having really no experience as a speaker or as an author, and then all of a sudden you’re on some of the biggest stages in the world?”
The first thing that I tell people is that it comes down to the wonderful quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” I had decided, when I closed the doors of my photography studio, I didn’t say, “Maybe it will work out. Maybe I can do …” There was no … There was only one way this would work for me, is I had to decide a 100% with all my heart, and just keep on keeping on no matter what. There were some obstacles no doubt.
The second thing that I tell people is that it’s not about how, it’s about why. For me, it’s always been about the why, “Why am I doing this?” I think when the why overpowers the how, then you can’t fail. For me it was personal. This mission of kindness was something that, because of my family history and everything that I had experienced, failure was not an option. I just knew that I would continue on this path and that it would work out exactly the way that I hoped it would.
Dr. Lisa: In the book, you tell the story about, I think it was dressing up for Halloween and you had a gun that’s part of your costume. I think this was the night that you had written a suicide note, and you had gone around and you are talking to various people to say goodbye even though they didn’t necessarily realize it.
Michael: Yes. That was probably … If I hit rock bottom in life, at any point, that was it. I was in my mid-20s, still very angry, resentful, just living with a lot of bitterness toward my childhood, and I just couldn’t get past it. My relationships were falling apart … I just had nothing I felt. Nothing to live for other than I had this beautiful little boy, but I felt that if I was in the world, then I would pass on this disease of unkindness from my family.
Yes, a very dark, dreary Halloween night. I got dressed up and I was all in black, I painted my face white … I look like a complete freak. Then I bought a toy plastic gun that I tucked into my belt. I went out with a bunch of friends that night and did the whole stupid bar scene thing. My whole plan was to basically just go out with my friends and even visited some other people that day, and it was my secret way of saying goodbye, because I was planning on going to my apartment that night and ending my life.
I left the bar a little before midnight, and they were all going up to check out Stephen King’s house … a great night on Halloween to … I started walking home, and I’m just walking down Main Street when all of a sudden, I see blue lights and I hear the sound of a police car roaring straight at me. He locks it up in the middle of the road, jumps out, puts his hand on his gun, and he starts yelling. He says, “Put the gun down now.”
At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I was thinking about the note that I was going to write and things I would say to my dad, and I was just in this complete fog. He just kept saying it, “Put the gun down.” Then I finally looked down and I realized I had that plastic gun in my hand. My first thought was to lift my arm up and just end it right here, make him shoot you.
This whole dramatic thing started to unfold. It was just a matter of … I don’t know. It could have been a minute and a half, a couple of minutes, it felt like forever of this intense stare down between me and this police officer.
As the seconds went by, he just started to look at me with more and more compassion and understanding. I was seeing something in his eyes that I rarely experienced. It was just this tenderness, like he really cared about me. That triggered a flashback and a promise that I had made to my mom. I was standing there, I remembered that I had told my mom I will never end up like my great grandfather, my grandfather, my dad … all the messiness. I would be a good person, good husband … all of that someday. I was breaking that promise. That thought … Of course, I’m thinking about my little boy. I dropped the gun and found myself being smashed face first into a brick wall, left a really cool, white imprint of my face on the wall. I drove through Downtown Bangor for a couple of days telling my friends, “Hey. Check that out. That’s my face on the wall.”
After that experience, I knew that I had to make some changes. It wasn’t that I had gotten on this deep spiritual path after that, but I knew that, “Okay. Something has to change.” The first that I began to work toward was forgiving my father, just at least considering it and things started to change in small ways at that time.
Dr. Lisa: Part of it if I remember correctly was that you actually came to a place of understanding that if you asked by putting your arm up and pointing a gun at the policeman, if you asked him to end your life, then you would be changing his life for the worse. You would be causing him to shoot somebody, which would just cause irreparable damage to his own psyche and his own emotions.
Michael: Absolutely. That was another thing that popped into my mind that night. He could have. He could have been some renegade cop and just put me down right then and there. He had that … like I said a look of compassion and care in his eyes, and I realized that as well, “Had he shot me?” Some stupid kid with a plastic gun? Who knows what that would have done to his life and how it would have affected him?
Sometimes, we just don’t realize how powerful our choices are, those small, tiny epiphanies and decisions that … They have a profound ripple effect. Yes, I’m forever grateful for just those kind eyes on that night that probably saved my life.
Dr. Lisa: That for me I think is one of the two really compelling parts of this, that you would in this moment of significant stress and that time in your life when you were thinking, “Okay. This is all going to be over soon anyway,” you’re able to think about somebody else. That’s one thing that I think just captured my attention.
The other part is just this capacity for change. This is something that we talk about on this show all the time, is that people always have the capacity to change. Your father actually became a loving grandfather to your son for a short period of time before he ended his own life. He changed.
Michael: He did. My dad did a lot of work to try to just get on that happier, healthier path. Many years back, he gave up drinking, and he also started to seek out therapy, and he tried a variety of different medications. Those weren’t working for him. Those actually created more struggles.
He was searching endlessly. It did put him on a healthier path so that he at least became … In many ways, I look at my father’s relationship with my son. That was my dad’s way of healing some of his pain from my relationship with him. At first, it hurt because I saw all this love and attention being going toward my son, and I was like, “Why didn’t I get that when I was a little boy?” Then I started to see it in a different way. It was beautiful to witness it. It would bring tears to my eyes.
When I had that understanding of … like I said what my grandfather was like, my great grandfather was like. This was a beautiful thing for my dad, and I’ll be forever grateful. Having my son is probably one of the things also that began to heal our relationship somewhat.
Dr. Lisa: We’ll return to our interview in a moment. We, in the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast hope that our listeners enjoy their own work lives to the same extent we do, and fully embrace every day.
As a physician and a small business owner, I rely on Marci 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 Marci.
Marci: Throughout my career, I’ve worked with countless small business owners and entrepreneurs who have invested so much time and work, that very little time was left over to enjoy life, to savor time with family or friends and doing things other than work, that revives them.
It’s a common application to the old adage. If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself. What if doing it yourself means not doing it correctly? What if spending all that time at work, keeping all the balls in the air zaps your mental energy so much that you’re not able to enjoy your life outside of work?
When I ran into people who suffer from that “I’ve got to do it myself syndrome”, I tell them, “Stop. Take a look at the parts of your business you enjoy working on, you’re good at, and create value. Then look at the duties that are on and need to get them done list and think.” Can I outsource these? Chances are, the answer will be yes and there are a number of people out there who specialize in helping small businesses win.
When you outsource, you give yourself the gift of time, time that can be savored doing more of what matters to you personally. When this happens, you’ll be surprised that the positive impact it will have on your business and your mental health.
For more insight, contact us at BoothMaine.com.
Speaker 1: 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 RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine, Honesty and Integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at Rheritage.com.
Dr. Lisa: We talked about the reasons why you might not have become kind, the unkindness in your life, and we’ve talked about some of the turning points that caused you to become kind. Now tell me what it is that you do with the Kindness Center, and what are some of the things that you’ve done to promote the idea of kindness in this world?
Michael: It’s interesting that the Kindness Center, people … First of all, they think, “Kindness Center? That must be nestled in the mountains, surrounded by unicorns and rainbows and pixie dust. It sounds like a magical place.” We did originally think, “Okay. We’ll be a physical location someday,” and it still may. If the right opportunity comes along, then I would love to have a place where people could come. It quickly turned into a mobile center, where I started to take this idea of creating a kinder world, I’m putting it in a vehicle of doing large scale random acts of kindness events. We’ve taken them all over the country.
The first one was right here in Portland called, “24 Hours of Kindness”. It’s this marathon, 24-hour marathon of just performing random acts of kindness with no sleep, no breaks … just doing good things for other people.
Last summer, I did this event in New York City. I did the “24 Hours” there. You want to talk about … There’s a difference between Portland, Maine and New York City. Let me just tell you, you don’t wear your Red Sox hat there if you want to perform acts of kindness. It was amazing. The people are really wonderful actually. We’ve done 3,000 miles of kindness across country road trip … All of these events became a big part of a sharing the message of kindness.
The primary thing that I do now is I speak. I speak to people all over the world now. I’ve been so blessed to be able to travel, to share this. The wonderful thing is that kindness is a universal language. It makes no difference whether I’m speaking to a group of middle school students, which I do. I speak to thousands of students every year using kindness as an alternative to anti-bullying, so it brings something positive, “Here’s what you can do instead of what not to do.” It’s been extremely effective.
Whether I’m speaking to middle school kids or a group in corporate America, everybody understands it. It doesn’t step on any toes. It doesn’t offend, it doesn’t … Some people … I speak to Christian groups, I speak to Buddhist groups, I speak to people that are just totally non-believers. We all can connect with that message of kindness.
The Kindness Center just continues to be a vehicle for creating these events, sharing the message, and we have other people that get involved with those events, and it’s been amazing, absolutely amazing.
Dr. Lisa: We know that in medicine, we’ve done work on compassion, we’ve done work on kindness, we’ve seen actual brain – changes in brain physiology, we’ve seen changes in the way that the heart works … We know that. Actually, being kind to other people comes back to benefit us positively. This is something that’s become more mainstream as we’ve understood it. It’s funny that this is something that all of the major religions and the spiritual traditions have been talking about for thousands of years, and medicine is just finally catching up.
Michael: Absolutely. It is so simple. People say, “How can you possibly make a living in kindness?”, because it’s the most basic thing. Sadly, it’s a thing that’s missing from the world so often.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe there’s far more good out there. Unfortunately, the media shows us a lot of the ugliness in the world, but there is a tremendous amount of unkindness happening. I believe that unhappiness is for the most part, the cause of the unkindness in the world.
When we’re not happy with who we are, if we don’t love ourselves first, and not in egotistical way, but in a spiritual sense, it’s very difficult to be kind to others. Kindness toward to yourself is where it all begins. So many spiritual teachers have told us over the years that world peace, it must develop out of inner peace. It starts with you.
As you said, the science is showing. An act of kindness towards someone … If you perform an act of kindness, your level of serotonin goes up. It gets more interesting because if … not only does your serotonin going up, but the person on the other end, their level of serotonin goes up as well. Then, someone just observing the act of kindness, just the observer witnessing a kind act, their level of serotonin goes up as well. It’s that simple but at the same time, it is that incredibly powerful.
The way that I typically define kindness is that it is love in action. Love is that big, warm and fuzzy word that people think about romantic love, you think about family, but I’m speaking about just all encompassing just that divine spirit of love. Whenever you perform an act of kindness, you are essentially performing an act of love.
One of the things I wanted to do in my first book, “Am I Being Kind?”, is to explain what a kind heart really looks like. I came up with nine – what I call, “Nine Elements of a Kind Heart”, very briefly to break them down there, to be attentive, authentic, charitable, compassionate, courageous, enthusiastic, grateful, inspirational, and patient. I can’t believe I just remembered all nine of them. I think that was nine.
Each one in the book explains how that really creates a kind life. It’s just like that first one, to be attentive. The first key to kindness that I talk about in the book is awareness. We’re living in a time where our awareness is being stripped away by technology … You see, wherever people are, their heads are down, we’re always staring at our iPads, our iPhones or some electronic device.
I love my iPhone. It’s amazing. However, we have to open our hearts, open our eyes and look around and recognize there are opportunities to be kind everywhere. Just the other day, inside an outdoor Farmers Market and there was a big pizza stand, and I was just hanging out, leaning against the wall, talking to my wife, and a little boy and his mom walked up to the pizza stand. She said, “How much is a slice of pizza?” He told her and she said, “Oh. Would you take credit cards?” The man said, “No. We don’t take credit cards. I’m so sorry.”
I heard that. The first thing that I wanted to do of course was walk over and buy that piece of pizza. I did. It was just a simple four dollar act of kindness, but the thing that I find is that we’re so blind in life now because of our technology and our business, we’re impatient, we’re just rushing, rushing, rushing, and we’re missing all of these little, beautiful moments that are unfolding, and an opportunity to touch someone’s life.
She was almost in tears. “It’s okay. It’s just a piece of pizza. All I want is for you just to pass it on in some way. It doesn’t mean financially, just a kind word, a compliment, open a door for someone, and the universe sees it as we’re even.” Yes, defining kindness, it is so much more than just a word. It is a way of being. When you are thinking, speaking and acting in kinder ways, and being kind to yourself, others in this planet, I can guarantee, my life comes with a 100 …
My book comes with a 100% life back guarantee. I would say, if it doesn’t change your life, you can have your old life back, no questions asked. That’s a good deal, right?
Dr. Lisa: It’s not always easy to be kind. Some of the stories that you’ve talked about involved hanging out with people on the streets who, maybe don’t smell very good or they’re a second-hand smokers or maybe you feel a little threatened because some of them are a little angry or dangerous, how do you push through that?
Michael: Yes, I know what you’re saying. I’d worked with a lot of homeless people, I’m doing these events, but I rarely run into people that reject what I’m trying to offer .For me, it’s all about energy. When we do these large random acts of kindness events and for out there on the streets approaching people, doing things, I talk to everybody first before we head out there. I said, “Listen. It’s all about the energy that you’re putting out that’s coming from your thoughts, radiating out of your own heart …” because when I approach people, if I walk up to someone go, “Hey. I was just out. I don’t know. I would like to just be kind to you. Here’s a free cup of coffee …”
People are swinging at you or grabbing for their mace right? You’d come across … just really weird. You have to walk up to people and you’ve got to have enthusiasm, you got to have passion in your voice, you got to have positive energy, you’ve got to radiate that positivity that love, that kindness, that compassion, and when you do that, people feel it. People are so hungry for this in the world that they immediately perk up, and they’re like, “Okay. I want more. What’s going on here?”
That’s not to say … from time to time, there is going to be a person that will say, “No. Get away from me. I don’t want what you’re selling,” because we live in a world where nothing is for free. When I’m out there doing things for people, they’re like, “That’s got to be too good to be true.” It’s like, “No. Really, we’re just out to promote this message of kindness. All we want from you is to pass it on. Just pass it on to someone else.”
Although I did have a man in New York City, I was doing the “24 Hours of Kindness.” It was so funny. In Time Square, He’s got his whole family and all his kids, himself, his wife, and they’re in an ice cream truck. I run up to the ice cream truck and I tell the driver, I said, “Hey. I want to buy ice cream for this entire family.” I gave them some money. The family is like they’re all excited and everything. The dad was just big, kind of tough guy. He’s like, “What’s this all about? What are you doing?” I said, “No. I just want to make you happy. Just want to buy you some free ice cream.” He still like didn’t get it. I said, “I tell you what, all you got to do, make it even …” I said, “Just give me a hug, man. Just hug me and we’ll call it good.” He’s just, “I’m not hugging you, man.” He grabs his wife. He throws his wife at me and says, “Hug her instead.”
Funny things happen. It’s always interesting. He didn’t hug me, but he did take the free ice cream. Yes, he was cool with that. It’s always an adventure and it’s … Yes. I don’t know. I’ve just got the world’s best gig. I don’t feel like I have a job. I just am so blessed to do what I do every day.
Dr. Lisa: How is this all impacted your son?
Michael: My son is an amazing young man. He’s become a deep thinker, very philosophical … He’s not your typical 22-year old that is drinking, partying, doing crazy stuff. He’s got some great friends, and that makes a big difference.
Yes, he’s just … I don’t know if I can take credit for it, because I’ve really tried to go by that philosophy of what Gandhi said, “My life is my message.” I don’t have to tell my son every day, “Be kind. Do this. Do that.” I don’t want to walk that path, because any time you tell a kid to do something, they want to do the complete opposite anyway. I just live my life, and I hope that he’ll be watching and mirror some of the things that I’m trying to put out there. He does. He’s a beautiful, beautiful soul. I love him so much.
Dr. Lisa: How about that wife of yours who’s encouraging you to do the crazy kindness thing?
Michael: I couldn’t do this without her. When I told everyone that I was going to close down the photography studio, which by the way was … the business was half hers. She was an award-winning photographer for 16 years. I had my epiphany that kindness was the secret to happiness. I said, “Honey, I want to close down the studio. I want to go out and teach kindness.” She just said, “I can see you doing that. Let’s do it.” It was incredible. Just like that. There have been major obstacles …
It’s not like we … We closed the business, but we didn’t have a surplus of money to start this whole thing. It was on faith and it’s been incredible how she just … every day, no matter what. If there were times that … and they were. There were times that we literally could not put food on the table in the first couple of years of doing this. I said, “I can’t do this anymore. We’ve got to do something different. Maybe I should go back to photography. Maybe I get a job …” I don’t know.
She just looked at me. She got tears in her eyes and she was very emotional. She said, “You will never give this up. The world needs this more than ever. I don’t care how many days we go without groceries. The world needs this and you will never stop.” That’s the kind of love and support that I get every single day.
My wife is … She’s like my best friend and we work together too. She’s a huge part of this, so I’m very blessed.
Dr. Lisa: People can read about the profile you’ve done, the Q&A with Sophie Nelson in the ‘Wellness issue’ of ‘Maine Magazine’, so I encourage anyone who’s listening to do that. How else can they find out about you?
Michael: The website for the Kindness Center of course is thekindnesscenter.com which is also the same site as Michaeljchase.com. We also have a very large Facebook community, and it’s been wonderful that the people there are just doing beautiful things trying to promote the message and helping me to share kind acts all over the world. We always love people to join that Facebook page too and share what they’re doing and inspire us.
Dr. Lisa: When does your next book come out?
Michael: The new book, it comes out this May. It’s very different than the original book. The first book was very much a self-help type of book. This one, it has that same tone of …
My goal was to help people and to definitely transform as many lives as possible with the new book. This one is really very unique. It’s a spiritual journey with my insanely, crazy, yet unconditionally loving dog. We are so excited about this. It’s already had a lot of reviews by some other authors, so yes we’re expecting some great things from that this spring.
Dr. Lisa: The title is?
Michael: ‘The Radical Practice of Loving Everyone: A Four-Legged Approach to Enlightenment’.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Michael J. Chase who is the bestselling author of ‘Am I Being Kind?”, and also a founder of The Kindness Center, and also husband and father. We’re very fortunate that you spent this time this morning with us talking about kindness.
Michael: I’m so grateful for your time. Thank you so much.
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Dr. Lisa: As a physician, I’ve had the opportunity and privilege to spent time with people who have dealt with some very significant issues in their lives. Grief, death, loss … these are things that come up often in conversation. Of course, this is a conversation between a physician and a patient. It’s not always a conversation that makes it out into the light of day, and yet I think it’s one that’s very important to have.
I am honored and humbled by the courage that Sandra Fisher has exhibited courage by coming into the studio today to talk about a very difficult subject that I think is one that we all need to think about. Thanks for coming in and being with me today.
Sandra: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Leanne … Next to Sandra, and I’m going to call you Sandy.
Sandra: Okay.
Dr. Lisa: We have our friend, Leanne who works with ‘Maine Magazine’ and ‘Maine Home Design’ and is/was a friend of your son, Scott. Scott is not with us anymore.
Sandra: No, he’s not. No.
Dr. Lisa: This is the difficult topic. I think this is the most difficult topic that we’ve ever addressed, and that is when a person takes their own life and how this comes to happen and how it impacts the people around him or her.
Sandra: Yes, it is. Scott took his life almost eight years ago and it’s still not easy. It never will be.
Dr. Lisa: He had just finished school at Deering?
Sandra: Yes, he had graduated in 2005. He was at Rensselaer Polytech Institute in Troy, NY. He had been there for three weeks. He had had to go earlier than the other kids. He had a full navy ROTC scholarship and he had to go for the boot camp the first weekend.
He was struggling. He told us before he went that he thought he might be depressed. We immediately took him to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist wasn’t sure whether it was just because of all the changes in his life that he was on depress, but he thought they should put him on medication and told them to see a doctor as soon as he got to school. We did. He did exactly that, saw the medical doctor and saw our counselor and psychologist while he was there. He was struggling. He an allergic reaction to the medication, and I told him to go to the emergency room.
He did. They took him off the medication and they sent him home, sent him… not home, which they should have sent him home. They sent him back to school. A week later, he took his life. It happened very quickly. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been dealing with a mental illness for a long period time or depression even for a long period of time. It happened very quickly, and people need to be aware of that, that it can happen very quickly.
Because I didn’t know anything about suicide or suicide prevention, I didn’t realize that he was screaming for help and even to the psychologist after we got the records from her, I was really angry because she should have known. He tried every way possible to tell her without coming right out and telling her. After taking the training … I have taken quick a few trainings on suicide prevention, I’ve read everything there is to read about depression, and now I know. The warning signs were all there plain as day. Everyone should be educated about it so that they’ll know.
Dr. Lisa: What were some of the specific stressors that Scott was encountering?
Sandra: I think one of the biggest ones was homesickness. Scott, he loved his life. He really did. He had some of the best friends that anybody could ask for. His friends are all still a part of our lives. They invite us to their weddings, they come and visit us … He had a wonderful girlfriend who is still a part of our lives. He loved his family. He seem to have it all, he really did. I don’t think that he wanted to go away to school. I tried to talk him out of going, but he also had a lot of pride.
Dr. Lisa: Do you think that part of this pride had something to do with being a man?
Sandra: Yes, probably. He was just that kind of kid. He was very, very intelligent, and he didn’t think that he was intelligent as he really was. Although I think at the end, he was starting to realize and I think that also had something to do with it. The reading that I’ve done says a lot of very intelligent people take their lives.
Dr. Lisa: Why is that?
Sandra: I think because the world sometimes or even their intelligence becomes overwhelming for them. He always used to say to me, “Mom, I’m not as smart as you think I am.” I said, “Scott, you are really smart.” He wasn’t a vane kid or he didn’t need recognition for anything, but he was 15th in his class at Deering. That was without working really hard. He just was smart.
Dr. Lisa: We’ll return to our interview in a minute. First, let’s take some time to explore the connection between health and wealth, something that I firmly believe in and have tried to promote on this show.
Joining us is my friend and personal financial adviser, Tom Shepard.
Tom: The first tool we used to get what we wanted to cry. The first thing we used to make others feel good was to smile. Born into a world of complete dependence, we eventually find our voice and begin to talk about independence. Over time, we learn to do for ourselves while the support gets slowly taken away, or so we think, “I’ve always been struck by the disconnect of a life that is benchmarked against time instead of experience.”
Our currency is not the time that goes by and never to return, but instead, the relationships, connections, skills, money, resources, and knowledge that builds a foundation underneath us, they can’t be destroyed.
We may be learning to live on our own, but it should never be the goal of living alone. If you need something, cry out. If you have something to give, let the world know with a smile.
You may have many ways to trade for more value in the world. If you’re having trouble seeing it, then send us an email to [email protected].
Speaker 1: Security is offered through LPL Financial, member of FINRA SIPC, Investment Advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Flagship Harbor Advisors and Shepard Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial.
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Dr. Lisa: Do you think that kids feel a pressure to live up to some unattainable standards?
Sandra: Absolutely. I think our schools put way too much pressure on them to go to college. Some of them are not ready to go to college, and some of them are never going to be ready to go to college.
College isn’t for everybody. Then this world today, if you don’t have a college education, forget it. You’re not going to go anywhere. That’s not true. Kids need to know that whatever choice they make, it has to be the choice that’s going to make them happy, not anybody else happy. They’ve got to make the choice that’s going to make them happy. Not that I think that Scott would have never go into college, but I don’t think that Scott … especially Scott should not have gone away to college. Scott was accepted to every college he applied to, and the reason he chose to go there was because he was going to Aeronautic Engineering, and they were the best school for it.
Scott could have been anything he wanted and could have gone anywhere he wanted and still become anything he wanted to become.
Dr. Lisa: Is it possible that we put too much value on the academic intelligence of our children, and maybe miss out on the emotional intelligence of our children and nurturing that and growing that?
Sandra: Absolutely. Absolutely. We had all of that in our lives, like we never pressured Scott as far as school went. Scott was the one who pressured himself. If Scott did not do well, Scott was very hard on himself for it, not that I can ever remember him not doing well, but we never had to say to Scott, “Did you do your homework?”, it just wasn’t that way. He was hard on himself.
There’s my husband, myself and my daughter, and we’re originally from Rhode Island. We’ve been here for over 20 years. All of our family is in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It’s always just been the four of us. We were very close the four of us. We all had a lot of love for each other, and so he had all of that in his life. It’s the pressure of the school and society telling them, “This is what you have to do,” and not thinking about their emotional, and is this what’s good for them emotionally which is why his friends, so many of them came to me afterward and said, “You know, Mrs. Fisher, everybody told us it was going to be the best time of our lives when we went to college.” They’d all been together since kindergarten. All of a sudden, they were all alone in this big place and didn’t know anybody. We don’t prepare them for that. it’s all preparing them for the education that you got to do well.
You got to prepare them emotionally for this. I did. I worked with the guidance counselor at Deering High School to develop a transition program for the high school seniors, to prepare them for anything no matter what they chose to do, but for their transition after they graduated from high school, and to let them know it was okay not to go to college., it was okay to do whatever it was you wanted to do. If you decided you weren’t ready yet, and you were going to get a job, that’s fine but prepare them for what that transition would be like as well. Then we worked with Maine Suicide Prevention Program to develop a formal program, which we did develop.
Since NAMI has taken over that and works with that, and I have been out of the loop so I really don’t have any information on what is happening with that program right now.
Dr. Lisa: NAMI is?
Sandra: National Alliance of Mental Illness.
Dr. Lisa: If people wanted to find out information about the Suicide Prevention Program and they could find that information from that organization?
Sandra: Yes, and all of the prevention programs – Suicide Prevention Programs. They do all the trainings for. I can’t stress enough how important it is that people do be educated because you also can’t rely if your child is struggling, and you get them help, you cannot be sure that that position or that psychologist or counselor is educated about suicide prevention because that’s not always the case, as was not the case with the psychologist my son was seeing. I have to believe that because otherwise she would have done something.
One of the most important things is if you think someone is suicidal, you have to ask the question. It’s a very difficult question to ask, but you have to ask it and you have to come right and ask. You can’t ask someone with thinking about hurting themselves, because to someone who is suicidal, they don’t think of it as hurting themselves, so you have to come right out and ask the question, “Are you thinking about killing yourself or taking your life?”, because a lot of times, they’re just waiting for somebody to ask that question.
Dr. Lisa: Hey, encourage anybody who’s listening to do whatever is necessary, look into the National Alliance for Mental Illness …
Sandra: … of Mental Illness.
Dr. Lisa: … or the Suicide Prevention Program or talk to your doctor, push through, talk to a psychiatrist, talk to a psychologist … whatever is necessary to get the help that your child or anyone around you that is contemplating a suicide meets. It’s very, very important. We’ve been blessed to have you in the studio talking with us about this very difficult subject, and also blessed to have sitting next to you who hasn’t said a word, but hovering her support to you, Scott’s friend, Leanne Ouimet who works here at ‘Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design’. Thank you for joining us today, Sandra Fisher. I really wish you all the best.
Sandra: Thank you.. Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 79, ‘Emotional Intelligence’. Our guests have included author and founder of the Kindness Center, Michael Chase and Sandra Fisher, Suicide Prevention advocate and mother.
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 shows, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. You can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest, “Doctorlisa” and read my take on Health and Well-Being on the bountiful blog, “Bountiful-blog.org”. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows.
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This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, hoping that you have found our show on ‘Emotional Intelligence’ enlightening and beneficial. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you embrace your bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors; ‘Maine Magazine’, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at RE/MAX Heritage, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists, Booth Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Apothecary by Design, and the Body Architect.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded at the studio 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. Our assistant producer is Courtney [Tibej 00:59:19].
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