Transcription of Joy #14
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine, in Portland, Maine and broadcast on 1310 AM Portland. Streaming live each week at 11:00 am on wlobradio.com. Available via podcast on doctorlisa.org. Thank you for joining us. Here are some highlights from this week’s program.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the generous support of the following sponsors: Maine Magazine, Tom Shepherd of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard & Eaton, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at Re/Max Heritage, Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine, The University of New England (UNE) and Akari.
Dr. Lisa: Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle. This is the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, number 14th, which is airing on December 18th, 2011. The theme for this show is Joy.
Today on our show we’ll be welcoming guests Mike LePage, Katie West of the Levity Institute, and Lucy Bangor of the Children’s Museum and Theater of Maine.
We believe that the theme of Joy is especially important during this holiday season. We think you’ll learn a lot from listening to our guests, especially the first guest, Mike LePage as he talks about some of the trials and tribulations of his own life, throughout which he’s manage to maintain a sense of joy.
We believe that you will be inspired and able to go out and create joy in your own life.
Thank you for Listening.
This week we begin the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast with a reading from our daily tread. Our daily tread was written in honor of our late friend Hanley Denning and proceeds benefit her organization Safe Passage.
I was fortunate to visit this past Thanksgiving week. Safe Passage provides approximately 550 children with education, social services and the chance to move beyond the poverty their families have faced for generations at the Guatemala City Dump. Visit them online at safepassage.org. Learn more about Our Daily Tread at Islandportpress.com.
This quote if from John B Sheeran. “Happiness is not in our circumstances but in ourselves. It is not something we see like a rainbow or feel like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.”
Read more quotes such as this in the book, Our Daily Thread. Again, available at Islandportpress.com.
Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we are pleased to present a segment we call, “Wellness Innovations”, which is sponsored by the University of New England.
This week we found information about laughter, which we thought was appropriate, given that we’re going to be speaking on the theme of Joy. According to the New York Times health page, laughter is regularly promoted as a source of health and wellbeing but it’s been hard to pin down exactly why laughing until it hurts, feels so good.
The answer is not the intellectual pleasure of cerebral humor but the physical act of laughing. The simple muscular exertions involved in producing the familiar “ha-ha-ha”, trigger an increase in endorphins, the brain chemicals known for their feel-good effect.
The results of recent study is build on a long history of scientific attempts to understand a deceptively simple and universal behavior. The findings fit well with a growing sense that laughter contributes to group bonding and may have been important in the evolution of highly social humans.
Learn more about the health benefits of laughter on the New York Times health page or at doctorlisa.org.
Learn more about the University of New England at une.edu.
Speaker 1: This segment has been brought to you by the University of New England, an innovative health sciences university, grounded in the liberal arts. UNE is the number one educator of health professionals in Maine.
Learn more about the University of New England at une.edu.
Dr. Lisa: This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast our theme is Joy, which we thought was pretty appropriate for the holiday season. One of the reasons we thought it was fairly important is because we understand that during the holidays, although the message is joy everywhere, all around us, we’re all supposed to be joyful, sometimes we’re not feeling quite so joyful.
I know in my own life, having gone through some transitions, what I’ve found to be important in creating joy is surrounding myself with the right people. One of these right people is right here with us, right now. This is Mike LePage, he’s a dear friend of mine for many years. He is so highly capable of creating joy in a life that others might have gotten discouraged by.
But let me introduce Mike.
Good to see you.
Mike: Good morning.
Dr. Lisa: Good morning.
I am going to read a little bit about you and then we’ll have a conversation.
It’s a privilege to have you here.
Mike: Thank you. It’s great to be here.
Dr. Lisa: Mike LePage is the broker owner at Re/Max Heritage in Yarmouth.
Over the past 12 years he’s been helping buyers, sellers, and investors with their residential real estate needs. Over that span, Mike has served as a board member of the Greater Portland Board of Realtors, serving as president in 2008 and as a board member of estate multiple listing service, MREIS and as a board member of the Maine Association of Realtors, where he’s currently finishing a term as president for 2011.
Prior to joining the residential real estate world, Mike worked for KeyBank of Maine in private banking and for Gows Capital Management, Acadia Trust. Over those years, Mike assisted clients in financial matters, which has helped him in his capacity working with clients in the real estate world. He has always been active in civic activities, having served on the boards of the American Heart Association, The Friends of Casco Bay, Portland Stage Company, Bowdoin College Alumni Council, a founding member of the Kennebunk Portside Rotary Club, and as an active member of the Sacred Heart Church Choir.
A 1978 graduate of Bowdoin College and 1974 Graduate of Morse High School, Mike’s roots are right here. He graduated in the Kappa Class of the Institute for Civic Leadership and often lends his experience and expertise on things civic.
Most important to Mike is his family. His wife Meg and four children Burgess, Catie, James and Liza are the pride of his life and the source of inspiration and fun. Because, as Mike would put it, “it’s supposed to be fun”.
Mike can be reached at Re/Max Heritage, 765 Route One in Yarmouth.
We’ll link people back in so that they can find you more easily. I know they’ll be able to find you because you’re one of our long term, long time supporters, one of our first supporters for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour in fact.
Thank you for that.
Mike: It’s a privilege to serve in that capacity.
Dr. Lisa: Well, it’s a privilege for me to know somebody like you Mike because I know what you’ve been through. At least some of the things, yet whenever I see you you embody joy. In 2007, something really important happened in your life. Tell me about that.
Mike: That was the year that my oldest daughter graduated from college but I don’t think that’s what you mean.
It was in late 2006 that I was diagnosed with cancer, so 2007 was that period knowing which I went through chemotherapy.
That was sort of a life changing thing.
Dr. Lisa: How old were you then?
Mike: I was 50 when I was diagnosed, so 51.
Dr. Lisa: 51. This was right after you had made a fairly big move in your life which we described in your bio, right?
Mike: The move into real estate? Yeah, I did that in 1999 to 2000 and then two years later ended up purchasing the agency, Re/Max Heritage.
All of that happened sort of in that the same timeframe of change. Most people say, changes inherently good but I don’t think the diagnosis of cancer is that kind of change most people are looking for.
Dr. Lisa: No that’s not an inherent goodness that most people would think. However, I think it did have a positive impact on your life in a strange way, is that so?
Mike: Right. We always try to look back and people say, “No one has gone through cancer without it changing them”.
I’m not sure it really changed me. It’s a sort of deepened my perspective on how I try to live my life and what I believe in. I look back on the whole cancer experience as an opportunity to help other people that are going through similar challenges because at the beginning of that process, you have choices as to how you want to deal with it, who you want to tell, if you want to keep it to yourself.
I made decisions then to share it with anybody that wanted to hear about it. At the same time I decided that I wanted to sort of control the way people dealt with me which is something I’ve really never done before. That control was to sort of invite those people that really had a good spirit about them rather than those that came up to me crying and said, “Oh my, I hear you’re sick” because for me I never thought I was sick. When I was diagnosed, I was actually perfectly healthy. It was the process of chemotherapy that made me less so.
When someone come up to me sort of almost crying and say, “Oh, I hear you’re sick”, I would say, “Actually, stop. No, I’m not sick. I’m feeling not great because of the chemotherapy but if you’re going to cry, it’s not making sense to me because of I’m not crying”. If you have to be that way, I don’t need you around.
Dr. Lisa: Did you have the sense that maybe they’re projecting their own feelings of sadness and using you as kind of an excuse to be sad?
Mike: I don’t know.
I think, when you’re going through stuff like that you become a little more self focused. I think that they’re just projecting to you, how they’re feeling about you, “Oh, you’re going to die”, sort of a feeling that you get.
Dr. Lisa: Just not a very cheerful and healing thought now is it.
Mike: That’s not, at the end of the game you do realize through the process that mortality is real but not now or sort of the way I approached it.
Dr. Lisa: You told me a story once when we’re sitting together that impacted me and I thought about it often. It’s something that happened earlier in your life that really served to be … Again, I guess you’re just a guy that gets to have lots of pivotal moments. How lucky are you?
This one is not a pivotal moment I would want or wished on anyone but it’s life changing.
Tell me what that was.
Mike: You’re referring to the event that happened shortly after we returned to Maine.
Megan and I moved to Seattle and lived out there for four years and when we returned we’re living in the Wells Community, in Drakes Island and we had our first daughter, who’s almost two years old. She was two at that time. Almost two. We’re baby sitting for my sister-in-law and her husband’s first child. They’ve tried for a long time to get pregnant and were finally successful and part of the reason we’re moving back to Maine was her family.
The tragic event that happened was when Megan and I and Jessie were babysitting the child died from SIDS. I was the one that went in and then checked on her and it’s felt wrong as I looked at the child and I picture out when she was limped. In retrospect she was dead at that time.
Having trained through swimming in such lifeguarding and CPR, I know what to do. I was in the kitchen floor doing CPR and the poignant event for me in that whole process was I looked up in my nearly two year old daughter who’s standing there with the bottle because the baby needed something. It must be a bottle.
That’s sort of one of of those pictures in my life that will never erase. The EMT’s came and we went to the hospital and I had the unfortunate experience of greeting the parents, coming down the hallway to let them know that their baby was dead.
A tough moment in life.
Dr. Lisa: It’s tough and yet you somehow transformed it.
Mike: Well, you’ll learn a lot when you go through hard times I think. One thing you’ll learn is how great people tend to be and Bobby and Mary Ann, the parents, were pretty amazing. Not one minute from that moment to now, have they ever made me feel guilty.
You feel guilty. That’s part of what you’ve to feel when something like that happens but you … understanding your brain that you don’t really … you really shouldn’t feel guilt because there was nothing that could be done. From the parents perspective they’re actually grateful that it’s me that found the baby in this situation because I knew what to do. I think the guilt would’ve been pretty profound for someone to find the baby and not know what to do.
At the end of that part of the story, it was comforting to them that it’s me and not them because it would’ve been much harder to live with otherwise. They’ve had two kids since then … One of the things people tend to say to people when something tragic happens is, “Oh, don’t worry about it. You can have other kids”, or things like that in other situations. It’s sort of a wrong thing to say because the event that happened is real and you’ve to sort of get your arms around it and whatever happens is next to something else.
The real end of that story is they did have two sons after that. Their original plan was to hopefully have two kids. Their younger son actually has a tattoo with the birthday of Larin, the child who died. He realizes that if that hadn’t happened, he probably wouldn’t have been born.
There are always ways to look at things to lift them up to a new spirit but at the end of the day tragedy is tragedy and you’ve to find ways to move forward. The best way to do that is with friends and family.
Speaker 1: We’ll return to our interview after acknowledging the following general sponsors: Akari Salon, an urban sanctuary of beauty, wellness and style located on Middle Street in Portland, Maine’s old port. Follow them on Facebook or go to akaribeauty.com to learn more about their new boutique and medispa. Robin Hodgskin Senior Vice President and Financial Adviser at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Portland, Maine. For all your investment needs call Robin Hodgskin at 207 771 0888. Investments and services are offered through Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC, member SIPC.
Dr. Lisa: For people who might have suffered from cancer or illness, or tragedy but would simultaneously like to be experiencing joy in this holiday season, or in their lives, what tools can you … What thoughts can you offer them? What tools … Worked for you in your situation?
Mike: One of the things that I just sort of reflect back to my cancer diagnosis, I was defiant at the beginning of that process which is just the choice people make. Some can make other choices but my defiance included a realization that I needed to stay healthy through the process and therefore I swam which is something I’ve always done. I made it a point to make sure that if I could swim an event that I’ve swum every year with Peaks to Portland. I did that between my third and fourth chemo treatments with the permission of my oncologist.
Part of that was keeping a focus towards goals that would help through the process. I think when people are going through hard times they kind of need to do similar things to go do those things that they like to do. Maybe it’s a movie, not a depressing movie but a seasonal movie like Portland Stage we’re talking about has a great play going on right now which I think you just saw.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. The snow queen. I went and saw that with my daughter, Abigail.
Mike: Yeah and it was great.
Dr. Lisa: It was great. Yeah.
Mike: You get out. I think, the hardest thing to do is sit and mope. It’s an easy thing to do because it’s hard to go out and face people. You think everybody is looking at you as “Oh, he has cancer”.
I reflect on the thing that I was most concerned about at the beginning of the process was being perceived as “Oh, poor Mike has cancer”, because I was going to lose my hair. After I lost my hair, no one once came up to me and said, “Oh, Mike you’ve cancer. Oh, you’re not well”. They said things like, “Oh, big swimming coming up. New hairstyle?” And it’s like, “Huh”.
The things you dread the most sometimes are irrelevant and you need to get out and sort of force yourself to interact with people because they’re really ready to help you in most cases.
Dr. Lisa: At that time, wasn’t there a soccer team that shaved off?
Mike: That’s right. I forgotten that. My son was playing on a premier soccer team with kids from various towns and most of them shaved their heads which was pretty cool.
It’s a little embarrassing too because like, you guys look awful.
It was nice of them to do it.
Dr. Lisa: It’s that sense of community.
Mike: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: I’ll mention to people who’re listening that it might not only has worked, because the supporter of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and has been from the very beginning sort of without question he just signed right on and says, “I believe in your vision. I believe in what you’re doing”.
He also supported our daily tread and in fact still has a copy of our daily tread which we read from every week in the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour on the desk at his work.
I mean, he’s a guy that sort of does what he says he’s going to do and sticks with you.
Mike: Our daily tread it’s pretty cool because first of all most calendars have a date on it so it’s not useful the next year. Our daily tread doesn’t do that.
It actually is at my office for three years now I think.
Year four is coming up.
It’s pretty cool. Some of them or hokey.
Dr. Lisa: Hey, come on now.
Mike: Sorry. Most of them are pretty cool.
One of the hokey or cool if you read them as you go to the front desk, that conversation starts and then sort of people share things that are important to them and I think that’s what it’s cool about that.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Our daily tread-
Mike: Gift that you give to the world.
Dr. Lisa: Well, it’s a communal gift and that’s why … Actually, we read from our daily tread. These quotes sometimes are a little hooky, these came from around the world.
After Hanley died, we asked people what inspired them. See as more quotes … we came up with necessarily we called through them, we put them into themes and every month has a theme. This was … everybody contributing.
That’s what our daily tread. Again, it’s sort of surrounding yourself with people who embrace the values that you embrace, whether it’s joy or hope or any of the themes that you’ve talked about today.
Mike: It is a daily tread.
Dr. Lisa: It’s a daily tread and I…
Mike: You have choices everyday when you wake up.
Dr. Lisa: We absolutely do.
Mike: The first choice I make is what pants then what shirt then what tie and I’m wearing a tie for you today.
Dr. Lisa: I see and it’s has a Bowdoin … there’s a whole bunch of Bowdoin polar bears.
Mike: There you go.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, go you bears. Mike is just a little ahead of me as a Bowdoin alum.
Mike: This just doesn’t look right.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, right.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
See, he’s always thinking. He’s always thinking of the other person.
Mike: If that’s what I’m saying. You wake up every day and you have choices. It’s the choices that you make that sort of determine what your days going to be like. If you start off like many people today have seasonal cold, I’m hearing lots of coughing and I have one too. You wake up and you decided, am I going to stay in bed and mope about myself today or I’m going to get up and make the most of it.
I think, once you get moving things get better, I couldn’t talk when I first get up this morning.
Dr. Lisa: Well, we’re glad you got your voice back.
Mike: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Thank you so much for being a part of what we’re doing here … For being here today and being on the air and sharing your story.
I know it’s a very personal story and I’m hoping that people who’re listening out there, who may have had similar experiences can take something away from your experience and be perhaps inspired by your own sense of joy.
Mike: Well, thank you.
Dr. Lisa: It’s good to have you Mike.
Mike: It’s nice to be here.
Dr. Lisa: This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. We have our regular feature, we call Our Maine Magazine Minutes and sadly we’re without our friend Genevieve Morgan who’s the host of Maine Magazine Minutes. We wish her well. She’s out joyfully doing things in the world.
I’ve the great opportunity to interview Katie West of the Levity Institute.
Hello Katie.
Katie: Hi there.
Dr. Lisa: Maine Magazine Minutes is all about inspiring people doing interesting things within the State of Maine and Katie is one of these inspiring and interesting people.
She’s the director of the Levity Institute. An organization dedicated to awakening the buoyancy within us. The Levity Institute offers one-on-one sessions, classes and retreats exploring the four practices of intentional light heartedness: laughter, play, celebration and wonder. Katie is also the founder of the Levity Project, an award winning social movement creating change by expressing joy in public places.
What a great … and she’s laughing already, we haven’t even started. This is … it’s so … All of these things are so great. They’re so perfect for this holiday season in our theme today which is of course joy.
What was interesting is when you came in you said, “I don’t really know exactly why I’m here”, but then you gave all these reasons why it’s good for you to be here.
Tell us just a little about … I read this thing about the Levity Institute but why the Levity Institute, why are you doing it and why is it important?
Katie: Those are great questions.
Well, I’m doing it first, because it’s something that’s very meaningful to me. Secondly, I’m doing it because I fell my way into it. Kind of perhaps with all great things. I had been noticing … I’ve been working one on one with people for some time in the realm of coaching and I began to notice that at the end there’s always the same quality that they said, “Oh”, it’s lateness. That began to … It just started this passion of what is it that makes us feel light, what is it that birds like heartedness within us.
Then, I was on a subway train a few years ago, and I just had this moment of looking around and just I was smiling, had my eyes closed and I was listening to some music and when I-
Dr. Lisa: Wait, you had your eyes closed in a subway train?
Katie: I know is that not smart?
Dr. Lisa: No judgment here. Okay. All right.
Katie: For me it sounds okay.
Dr. Lisa: Okay, all right.
Katie: I opened my eyes and I wasn’t doing anything weird except smiling. When I look around, people are frowning at me. Like frowning, like actively like “errr”.
It’s this very powerful moment in which I realize that it’s not until we see people in their joy because I wasn’t doing it as an act of anything. I was just feeling joyful that it highlights that we’re not feeling the joy. It made me realize how much suffering there was at that moment. How weird each an agent of change is by how we live.
I wasn’t saying anything. I wasn’t having any particular great ideas that days. I was just smiling. In that it began to really started deeper questioning of how do we affect change in the world and what does that mean to live like heartedly all the time.
Dr. Lisa: Was there some particular moments in your life prior to the subway that made you recognize the importance of levity, of lightness, of joy, of laughter.
Katie: Yes, actually it’s … with the practice of laughter yoga I had on a date a few several winters ago now my husband and I went out for the night and we went to this class that was called laughter yoga. I had no idea what it’s. I had just seen it advertise.
We showed up and the woman explained that it’s just the intentional practice of laughing. Just for no reason, just “ha-ha-ha-ha”. Half way through the class, I turned to my husband and I was like, “I hate this. I truly dislike this entire experience”. I felt so foolish. I had always been a good player. I love to have fun and I’ve realized that it’s always on my own terms.
Hiding behind, I’m not a particular performer. I felt so naked and then there’s this very small petite woman and the exercise, we’re supposed to shake someone’s hand and hum laugh, like “Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm”. Again, for no reason. She shook my hand and she wouldn’t let go. She just like, she keep going until she could tell I wasn’t. I don’t know if she could tell or she’s just so amused by herself.
Finally, I just started cracking up. I fell on the floor laughing. She finally let go of my hand. It was in that moment that I was like “Oh, oh, this is what it looks like when I’m not getting in my own way”.
This kind of buzz energy lasted for like three months.
That practice of laughing intentionally for no reason. In spite of myself released, probably launched an opening to the importance of this in our lives.
Dr. Lisa: Do you think it’s particularly important for this area, for this part of the world where it’s maybe a little dark, it’s a little cold, Maine has this perpetual winter?
Katie: The perpetual winter. That’s nice.
There’s a little blip of warm for the summer
Dr. Lisa: I like winter.
My birthday is in the winter.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it. I’m just saying.
Katie: I completely agree and we actually … I talked about this when I teach intentional laughter classes and laugher yoga classes because I’ll travel to other parts of the country and people are so ready to laugh or even be kind of goofy. At times here, there’s this reservation. I’ve asked in many classes like, “what do you think this is about?” Often people say, “Oh, it’s hard to look into someones eyes” or it’s hard to just … I know you feel kind of bare like I did that first time of feeling outside your comfort zone.
What we finally came up with is the kind of compilation. The people here really treasure their authenticity and their kind of groundedness. I really love how here in Maine, we really honor what we believe. There can be an element of going within. Not wearing ourselves right on our sleeves where maybe some of our western counterparts we have taught and it’s a free for all and it’s fun.
It takes that warm up time of being more opening with the laughter and why it’s important is because that laughter to me is the kind of the glue that makes all of us wonderful principals of being grounded, of really being deep thinking, of really being authentic. It’s what brings the lightness. We just don’t kind of while ourselves down into a depression of the state of the world.
Dr. Lisa: Describe some of the activities that John C. McCain audio guru, we call him. He was saying he stumbled across something that you’re doing on the internet.
Katie: That sounds weird.
Dr. Lisa: That sounded really weird but I mean something that the Levity Institute is engage in that, whilst startling and fun.
Katie: Okay.
Dr. Lisa: I know there’s so many definitions here. I hope you edit this out.
Katie: I know-
Dr. Lisa: Of course you won’t. Still embarrass me, but go ahead.
Katie: That’s the fun of it. You can just laugh.
Dr. Lisa: That’s right.
Katie: The Levity Institute has … I guess it’s a project or it’s something we do. I was just telling John just for our own amusement. Its the Levity project.
It’s this idea that goes back to the subway, that ride of … If we’re … fearless in expressing joy, when we feel it, not faking joy. By just fearless when I feel joyful about complementing someone or smiling or even, heaven forbid dancing as I walked down the street, what would the world look like? I think, the point then became … as I was thinking that after the subway ride, I got very fascinated by these kind of micro changes.
The Levity project is about both our individual change and also gathering people who want to have fun together.
We have both traveled across the country, around the country and organized groups of people to do what we would call flash mobs out in public.
Dr. Lisa: This is we, meaning you and?
Katie: Me and the Levity project team.
The other half is Ina Lucas. She came on board very early, was very taken with it. She’s out in San Diego until we’ll meet up and travel around.
What’s different in most flash mobs is it’s not for performance. It’s not street performance, it’s street engagement. It’s not that we’re trying to force people like, “Hey, come here laugh with me”. It’s just the nature of people want to be a part of it.
If we’re throwing a laughter party where we have a box of lays and people put on lays and start laughing. We’re in Chicago, last when we did this, it’s just … people just start appearing up the street and grabbing lace and laughing with strangers.
All the way to now we’re doing micro movements where this what you probably saw online is we asked people to do something and then they, we compile the video for them.
Our most recent one that came out in November was grocery store dancing.
Dr. Lisa: People go into grocery stores and dance and somebody videos this?
Katie: Yup. It’s different.
Dr. Lisa: What for-
Katie: Sounds quite funny when you say it like that.
Dr. Lisa: I don’t know. I’m totally in for this but how would people get involved with this? I don’t understand how do you find this happening?
Katie: If you go … you can go to our website, the Levity Institute. From there you’ll find the Levity project.
What we do is we’ll put out a request. This 2012 , it’s going to about every eight weeks.
Dr. Lisa: Is this email, is this Facebook, Tweeter, how is this request filled up?
Katie: You’ll see that both through our news letter and also just on the website.
Really, at the rate it’s all going it’s starting to kind of spiral just by probably some friends sending it to you and saying, “Oh, this is what they’re asking for”. We have done car dancing, we’ve asked people to smile and said in their videos, I wont give away what January is going to be but that grocery store one has been so popular that we invite people to send in.
If you’re so inclined to grab yourself or your family or friends and go to the grocery store and have someone film you, send it into us and we’re going to make a sequel.
So many people want in on it now.
Dr. Lisa: Okay.
Katie: They want to show us their real moves.
Dr. Lisa: Okay. All right. The first one is just a warm up but now we have the real…
Katie: I guess.
Dr. Lisa: grocery store dancing moves.
Okay.
Other things you have going on in January?
Katie: Also in January the Levity Institute which were based out at Willard Beach. We’re going to be offering a series, that the single class starts laughter and meditation. Laughter and silence I think is actually what’s on our website.
Really, what’s the practice? Laughter yoga is a very social practice. I teach that in different places around Portland. I wanted to start bringing laughter to that deeper place.
A lot of people have contemplative practices but again they find that they’re weighted down and so how to bring that levity to that place of our own inner presence.
There’s also a Levity retreat which will be a day long retreat and it’s all about laughing and playing and celebrating and bringing that element of wonder into our experience.
Dr. Lisa: Katie, with all the serious things that are going on in the world around us, some might question whether it’s appropriate to laugh or to participate in Levity, what would you say to that?
Katie: That is … I hear that actually a lot. That question of I’m kind of, am I being disrespectful by experiencing joyfulness or laughter? I actually … we can’t afford not to because we’ve all experience significant amounts of stress and there’s a study by the Harvard Medical review that says that when we undergo a short period of high stress, or a prolonged period of moderate stress our cognitive abilities are reduced by up to 50%.
Given what’s going on economically, what’s going in our world and for those of us that think about it and take time to absorb it, we’re probably stressed.
What good does it do to allow ourselves to function less and less.
To me if we really want to be the agent of change that we say sometimes we want to be, then it’s very important to have practices that make us feel lighter.
We know that laughter helps to reduce our stress hormones. It boosts our Serotonin levels and has lots of good health benefits.
Speaker 1: We’ll return to our interview after acknowledging the following general sponsor. Dr. John Herzog, of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine. Maker of Dr. John’s Brain-ola cereal. Find them on the web at orthopedicspecialistsme.com
Dr. Lisa: Have you found there to be challenges or people who might be a little skeptical with what you’re doing? Any-
Katie: No. Not at all.
Dr. Lisa: Not at all. Okay. This has all been a 100% full forward. Okay. Sure.
Katie: No. My favorite statement is, “But Katie can’t be happy all the time”.
I find it a very interesting statement and so I got to really mull us over. This August I got spinal meningitis.
While I was in the hospital room, in a very dark room for many days, I thought about this. I was like, “Well, I can’t be happy all the time”. Once I was over the kind of the initial really difficult time, I actually found this funny.
I wasn’t laughing when I was in great pain but there’s lightness that never left, because rather than letting the anxiety and I have two small children, “What’s going to happen? Oh, my gosh, Am I not going to be here anymore?” It was really just this lightness of I’m just here experiencing this, what will happen.
Then, once I made it through that I realized, I mean, there’s such kind of a stir around me. Yeah, as I was in a zero pressure room kind of thing. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is like out of a sitcom this is funny”. The doctors came in and I nicked name one guy the meditation doctor, because he’d be like, “Just remember joy is with you wherever you go”. He had no idea what I did for work. No idea.
Dr. Lisa: The doctor said this?
Katie: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Wow. Like a local doctor?
Katie: Yes. A local. Maybe you should have him in here.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, I guess maybe we should.
Katie: I was like, “okay”. By not … when people say we can’t always be happy, I think what they’re actually saying is there’s a fear that we wont allow ourself to really immerse in an experience. Just that make sense?
I was really immersed and it’s very painful. It was a very hard experience. I didn’t start telling a story of how hard this was and “Oh my gosh, what’s going to happen”. Instead I was just truly just experiencing it.
I don’t think that means I was at this peak of happiness. I think we have a weird relationship to that.
Did I feel light hearted? Yes.
Did I feel lightness that things would be okay in some way? Does that … I’m not sure if that makes sense.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. I think it definitely make sense. What suggestions do you have for people who’re attempting to experience joy this holiday season.
Katie: I think that coming to the point of what this season is all about, for people and without looking at it with individual belief systems, it’s like that often what people are intending is to celebrate.
There is this deep desire to celebrate each other, this season, the experience, some memory. What I often talk about is that the very base of celebration is the idea of noticing. That’s what we’re doing. When you look up the root of celebration, it’s original meaning has to deal with to frequent, to make known. The idea of what are we making known? What are we noticing in our lives? Because then that’s how we’re going to end up feeling, come January. After it’s all done it’s …
I’ve been inviting people to really notice each moment whether it’s the grand who … everybody is over at your house or you’re simply going to get the mail.
In that and allowing yourself to bring that celebration of the noticing to everything that you’re doing.
Dr. Lisa: Pretty profound stuff and yet also fun.
Katie: Very fun.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. It’s always fun. There’s no point in that having to be fun.
It’s really been a pleasure to have you come in and talk to us today.
How can people find out more about you?
Katie: They can go to the levityinstitute.com. They can pretty much Google Levity and Katie and I’ll come up. We’re in Maine.
Dr. Lisa: Levity is L-E-V-I-T-Y.
Katie: Yes. Just to speak about that. If you look it up in the dictionary after this broadcast, you’ll probably see right that it says, inappropriate humor, lack of appropriate seriousness, frivolity and fickleness but the definition I’m working with was in a dictionary about a hundred years ago and it’s a buoyancy, being lighter on that which surrounds us.
That’s what I wish for people is that sense of, as I was describing earlier, I’m just feeling that we can be lighter than whatever is going on around us. If you’re stuck in that traffic jam this holiday season or gosh that thing you wanted wasn’t on the shelves, it’s just allowing ourselves to take a breath and realize that we can still be light even amidst the chaos or whatever is going on.
Dr. Lisa: Absolutely. I completely agree.
Katie: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Thank you so much for coming in and being part of Our Maine Magazine Minutes and Genevieve Morgan of course with us here in spirit.
I highly encourage people to go to your website and find out more about all the wonderful work you’re doing.
Katie: Great and dance in grocery stores.
Dr. Lisa: Dance in grocery stores. Any chance you get. Yes.
Katie: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Please visit us online at the mainmag.com. Our November, December 2011 issue features new articles on other inspiring artists and entrepreneurs living in our state.
Subscribe at mainmag.com, we’ll pick up an issue at your local news stand.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we read from the bountiful-blog.com.
We linked to the bountiful-blog everyday on our Facebook page, Dr. Lisa.
Like our Facebook page and read our blog entries. Let us know what you think.
This week’s blog post is called Deliberation and Joy: Re-entry.
Before I left for Guatemala, I had tea with a friend who had herself visited the safe passage sites several times. Jane, one of the foundational members of the group that created our daily tread had known our late friend, Hanley Denning well.
Jane told me that re-entry after my trip might be interesting which it’s been. It’s been interesting to return to a land of relative peace and prosperity knowing that I’m a fortunate lass. It’s been interesting to return to the life I have cultivated for 40 years and realized that there are few things I still need to change.
It’s been interesting to return to my friends and family feeling changed already. The most interesting thing it’s been to remember what we originally wrote in our daily tread in 2008, “Live with joy, live deliberately. Share what you have and who you are with others”. These words printed the year after Hanley’s death continue to ring true. I know that I must continue to live each day as if it’s the only one I have been given life as my dearest one reminds me often is not a dress rehearsal.
Happiness and joy are within our grasp if we keep this notion in mind. At the same time, I’m cognizance of the fact, they must continue to work deliberately toward the future. I have a radio show that’s among the most important thing I’ve ever done.
I have patients I value highly. I have three children whom I call beloved. I have countless friends and family members who enriched my life daily. I know that even as I am enjoying the present I must be making necessary changes to ensure the sustainability of my joy and the joy of those around me.
Finally, I know now that ensuring what I have and who I am, I must be highly realistic of what I actually have to give. Guilty in the past of giving just about everything away to my own detriment. I no longer have that luxury.
I am just one woman. I don’t need to save the world. I simply need to show up and be who I am. Treasure what I’ve been given. Do what I can. Be the best the person I can be at any given moment and if I stumble or fall short of the expectations I have set for myself, treat myself the way that I attempt to treat others with compassion and love.
These are my re-entry thoughts.
Life is simultaneously long and short. We must live deliberately and with joy.
We must share of ourselves and we must continue to realize what a gift each day truly is.
Read more bountiful-blog entires on bountiful-blog.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possibly by the support of the following general sponsors: Tom Shepherd of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard & Eaton, and Ameriprise Platinum Financial Services Practice in Yarmouth, Maine. Dreams can come true when you take the time to invest in yourself. Learn more at Ameripriceadvisors.com, and by 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 ourheritage.com
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we feature a segment we called “Give Back”, in recognition of the fact that health is more than simply the individual and the way the individual works within the world but also about the health of the family, the community and the world at large.
This week’s give back segment is about the Children’s Museum and today we have, joining us Lucy Bangor from the Children’s Museum of Maine.
Lucy: Hi there.
Dr. Lisa: Lucy joined the Children’s Museum of Maine staff in January 2008. As a lifelong theater buff, she was excited to be on board for the merger of the Museum with the Children’s Theater of Maine later that year.
She delights in the museum & theater’s hands-on, collaborative culture , where staff, volunteers, visitors, actors and audiences all use their creativity to engage children in learning through play.
Lucy particularly enjoys the holiday season at the museum & theater, where the space comes alive with performances and celebrations.
Welcome.
Lucy: Thank you. Good to be here.
Dr. Lisa: It’s an interesting thing to be kind of in the holiday season full swing and know that there’s a lot of joyful stuff going on and I really hadn’t thought about the Children’s Museum at all.
I know there must be joyful stuff.
Tell me what is happening at the Children’s Museum this holiday season.
Lucy: This is a great time and I think, especially last year as when we really started establishing traditions. Things that we … We wanted it to be a seasonal celebration play.
Last year we did our first ran of Santa’s Reindeer Revue in the Children’s Theater, one of our main stage productions for this season. The concept is really funny. There are other reindeer jealous because Rudolph has been such a star for so long. They’re sorry, they bullied him. They apologized and now they want to move on and get some attention too. It’s that they put on their talent show to get everyones attention.
Huge hit last year, really gives each kid a chance to shine and we get it to tailor to the actors who’re in the show. We’re doing it again this year with a new cast and coming back with new talents and magic and comedy. That’s really exciting because I think that sort of brings a lot of energy to the space.
People are really excited to see it come back. It’s our first repeating show that we’ve done. We tend to do new shows every season so that’s exciting. We also have Santa on site. He’s coming four times to do photos with children which is great.
I love the idea of bringing that back to downtown. It’s something that people used to come downtown, get dressed up, go to the major department store and with that sort of having disappeared from American Culture in most cities it’s nice to see that back in downtown as part of sort of a family day.
We started that last year also and Santa’s coming back this year. He’s been kind enough to make time for us.
Dr. Lisa: Very nice. Yes. He’s busy this time of year.
Lucy: Absolutely, I know.
Dr. Lisa: stop at the Children’s Museum.
Tell me about the Children’s Museum. How it came to be? Why the Children’s Museum in Portland, Maine?
Lucy: It was actually the Junior League of Portland that started it and it started in Cape Elizabeth in the 1970s, in a brutal one room essentially and a lot of people remember Stevens Avenue. When I talk to people my age a lot of the times, “Oh, I remember going to the little one. I really loved the little one”.
Dr. Lisa: Right. They used to have, I remember like the fireman’s hats and the fireman’s jackets.
Lucy: Fireman’s are sort of … Fireman, firetrucks all of that are sort of-
Dr. Lisa: You still have those-
Lucy: Quintessential showed in those museum.
Dr. Lisa: Right. Of course.
Lucy: Of almost any Children’s Museum you visit a lot of times they’ll have some element of that. It’s just endless fascination with that whole idea.
It begin there and really it’s just about wanting children to learn through play. I mean in the 1970s and Children’s Museum has been growing ever since then. Really, since Brooklyn begin Children’s Museum over a century ago I think, but just the idea of childhood and how much you can learn through playing and research has born that out.
I think as people discover more and more that play is not just silliness, it’s not of by any means a waste of time for children of any age, from infancy into school age that the play is extremely valuable for problem solving skills, for cognitive development, for language development and they need a place to do that. Children’s Museum is all about sort of unstructured play time as a complement to sort of more structured things that they might be doing in school.
Dr. Lisa: How did you come to be part of the Children’s Museum? What was your path?
Lucy: I’m from Falmouth originally and I was living in New York and working in finance. I didn’t find that personally very rewarding. It’s … lovely people to work with but it wasn’t something you could get excited about everyday. I wasn’t helping anyone. I guess as cliche as that sounds but you do start to realize that some things are missing when you’re not doing that.
Knowing sort of the cost living in New York and how difficult non-profit … balancing, a non-profit job might be there, I decided to come back home to Maine. I found this job almost right away in January 2008, beginning at the development department at the Children’s Museum & Theater or the Children’s Museum at that time. Started there, and I’ve been there. Now, it’ll be four years in January.
Dr. Lisa: I assume you must like it because you’re still there.
Lucy: I sure do. The culture there is amazing because it’s so collaborative and it’s so hands on.
I get to meet the actors who are in the show. There’s nothing sort of being in a marketing, publiv relations is an office job technically but all of us are within the whole museum all the time. We’re up and down the stairs. We’re even … I mean from my office you can literally hear the laughter of children in my office.
You’re really involved in everything all day. It’s a small staff and everyones’ solutions and ideas across departments are really valued and so I have moved from development into the marketing department and so there’s just … it’s a place that’s really open to transition and growth and collaboration.
Yeah, it’s a pretty amazing place to go everyday.
Dr. Lisa: How many children are served … children, families by the Children’s Museum every year?
Lucy: Our visitors numbers nearly a hundred thousand each year. About 1700 member families. We also serve about 3500 teachers and students in outreach programs when our educators to classrooms and bring things like Ishtar the inflatable humpback whale which is an absolutely amazing experience. Ishtar is a permanent fixture in our big gallery right now.
Dr. Lisa: See now, I’m a little sad because my youngest is almost 11. I don’t know that I was thinking about going to see an inflatable humpback whale but I might have too.
Lucy: I think even at 11 it’s worth … just a visit. Just try. I think there’s still so much they can get.
I mean, because you’ll see when you see kids probably maybe of middle school age passing by outside. I mean you see the eyes kind of wide and there’s a little bit of a sense of longing. Especially I think if there’s a younger neighbor or friend or a sibling or cousin, anybody who they can come with and how that sort of-
Dr. Lisa: It’s an excuse to go in.
Lucy: Right. Have that sort of be there entry point and then it’s a little bit bigger kid. It’s little, I’m helping it, I’m mentoring but they also get to just have fun and they get to be the cashier at the grocery store while the little one brings up the groceries.
I mean, there’s so much for them to do, get their hands on play but then upstairs also we have some … they get something different out of it. I think some slightly more sophisticated material in our wheel’s exhibit inside Ishtar and then also on our second floor where we’ve more science programming and we’ve the We Are Maine exhibit which has video clips of families who live in Maine now but have roots all over the world and that’s accessible to young children but also I think older children can get usually peer level. A lot of the kids in those videos are around 9, 10 or 11 and so they can get something special out of that too.
I think it’s worth the try, even at 11 …
Dr. Lisa: Right. For people who’re interested how will they learn more and what do you need from the community?
I mean, it’s a Give Back segment and we assume that there are things that you might need. What is that look like? How can people help you out and how do they find out more about your organization?
Lucy: There are a lot of ways to get involved. The membership is certainly one for families. That’s the great option. It’s supportive but it’s also free admission for an entire year or so.
As a family it can be a life saver on a lot of winter days. We have a terrific volunteer program. We have the on-site volunteers who do programs that you may have seen when you come visit the museum. They do science programming, art, which is wonderful and those start in their teens, we have a great program for that, Jamie Andrew is our community engagement coordinator. We have great training for them.
There are other volunteer opportunities that I think people aren’t as aware of like our auction committee which is really great for parents because it’s something where you can really make your own hours and commit the amount of time that you feel comfortable with and you don’t have to be making it to our hour building everyday in order to be making a difference.
Dr. Lisa: The auction takes place when?
Lucy: That’ll be at the end of May this year and in a new location which is very exciting. We’re moving to Ocean Gateway. The team is really great.
That’s a great way to meet other parents and pretty would it give back without having to … especially for any parent working or not working committing to specific hours can be really challenging and this is nice because it’s more flexible. Then of course our donations, our membership and admission actually makes up a little less than half of what we need for an operating budget every year. The rest of it is all contributed support foundations and individuals and businesses, local businesses.
It’s an enormous part of being able to deliver what we do. The programming that we do every half hour. The theater productions in order to keep our cost low we need a lot of contributed support.
It’s the season.
It’s the great time for that.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, indeed it is. Before at the end of the tax year.
Lucy: Yeah. You can give gifts to another peoples names … you can scholarship memberships and someone else’s name which is a really nice idea.
We distribute those to very worthy families in the community with some really heartbreaking and amazing stories about what they’ve been through but also how much joy they find when their family comes to the museum and theater and how having access to that would mean so much to them. Just having a safe place to play.
Scholarship memberships are really amazing way to give back also.
Dr. Lisa: How do people find out more?
Lucy: kitetilles.org is our website. Our Facebook page is very active so that’s a fun place to start of communicate with us and you’ll find out about insider things, last minute schedule changes, all that stuff.
You can sign up for our email list on kitetilles.org and call us. We’re there. We love answering questions, it’s a huge part of what we do. We try to be very responsive. Extremely open to suggestions and communications and ideas and unconventional donations and we really try to respond to absolutely every inquiry we get.
You can always call us at 828 1234.
Dr. Lisa: Lucy, is there anything new, or particularly interesting that you’d like to tell us about that’s happening in the Children’s Museum?
Lucy: Well, all of our exhibits are always evolving but right now it’s an actually exciting time.
Actually even as you and I sit here, members of our staff are meeting with engineers from Fairchild Semiconductor and we’re working with them to create a new engineering exhibit which we’re so excited about.
It’s a really new concept for us and sounded very overwhelming. How do you do engineering for children? How do you do that for our audience? What we’ve discovered in this really collaborative process that we’re doing with Fairchild is that engineering, of course there’s math, of course there’s science but in it’s essence it’s really problem solving.
Children have great instincts for problem solving. They’re really need to do that, that’s what they want to do. That’s really going to be the core of the exhibit. It’s just presenting problems and asking them to come up with creative solutions and ultimately the goal of that is to not just have a really new exhibit that can engage maybe slightly older kids also, but to also then provide new generations of engineers ultimately as a long term goal.
Companies like Fairchild really struggle to fill the positions that they need because a lot of children find engineering intimidating early and then never pursue it.
This is about sort of offering them an entry point.
Very exciting.
We don’t have an opening date yet but that will be something to look for in the next few months.
Dr. Lisa: Well, they can check that out in your website-
Lucy: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: Then keep up-to-date with what’s going on in there.
Very nice.
Thank you so much for the work you’re doing with the Children’s Museum and bringing joy out into the community at large.
We know that adults and children benefit from this. We encourage people go to your website and we will link through on Dr. Lisa website and Facebook page and have a happy holiday.
Lucy: Thank you. You too.
Dr. Lisa: This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, our theme was joy which we undertook because we understood the importance of joy in the holiday season.
What we found over the course of recording this show is that joy is possible in just about any circumstance. We began the show with the “Happiness is not in our circumstance but in ourselves. Happiness is something we’re.” This is something we found to be true as we had our conversation with Mike LePage as he discussed problems he had encountered in his life and how he had managed to overcome them and create a sense of joy. We had a conversation with Katie West of the Levity Institute who brought laughter into the conversation and then we went on to discuss the Children’s Museum and Theater of Maine with Lucy Bangor.
Each of these individuals helped shape our perspective a little bit when it comes to the notion of joy. In the end it’s about perspective as I mentioned in the bountiful-blog greeting. Wherever you are, look around you and see if you can find the rainbow. See if you can find things about which to be joyful. No matter what’s happening in your life it’s always possible.
We hope that Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast continues to serve as an ongoing source of joy and inspiration for you this holiday season and beyond. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle.
Thank you for being a part of our world.
Let us know what you think on the Dr. Lisa Facebook page and the Dr. Lisa website, doctorlisa.org or something giving us a call at our office 207 847 9393.
Thank you for being a part of our world.
May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the generous support of the following sponsors: Maine Magazine, Tom Shepherd of Hersey, Gardner, Shepard & Eaton, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at Re/Max Heritage, Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine, The University of New England (UNE) and Akari.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded in downtown Portland at the offices of Maine Magazine on 75 Market Street. It’s produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Editorial content produced by Chris Kast and Genevieve Morgan. Audio production and original music by John McCain.
For more information on our hosts production team, Maine Magazine or any of the guests featured here today visit us online at doctorlisa.org.
Tune in every Sunday at 11 am for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour on WLOB, Portland, Maine, 13:10 am or streaming wlobradio.com. Podcasts are available at doctorlisa.org.