Dr. Lisa Belisle

Girl Power (#20)

Wise women come from great girls! This week we explored how girls become great, with the help of a bevy of very wise women.

Our guests included

• Robin Hodgskin of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Margaret O'Keefe of Pierce Atwood
• Joanne Arnold, Body, Mind & Sport Strength Trainer and Consultant
• Tara Treichel of Coastal Studies for Girls

The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast airs weekly at 11 am on WLOB radio 1310 AM (Portland)/streaming online. Listen to the Podcast or click on the link below:

Girl Power: Dr. Lisa # 20

This week our "Wellness Innovations" segment, sponsored by the University of New England, described recent studies on women's longevity, from the Scientific American website.

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Our featured guests were Robin Hodgskin of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Margaret Minister O'Keefe of Pierce Atwood.

Robin Lin Hodgskin, CFP® is a Senior Vice President, Family Wealth Director with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MSSB). She has fulfilled roles as Complex Business Development Officer and as Branch Office Manager of the Smith Barney Portland, ME office for 13 years, as well as serving on the CEO’s Diversity Advisory Board.

Robin has worked at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and its predecessors firms for over twenty four years, ten of these as a Financial Advisor in Boston before moving to Portland as the Branch Office Manager in 1996. Robin has a Bachelor’s degree from Bates College and an MBA from Boston University.

As a Family Wealth Director, Robin is among a select group that has access to the vast resources of a world-class financial powerhouse to help meet the complex, and often unique, needs of families with wealth. The specialized wealth advisory services include family governance and dynamics, philanthropic services, wealth preservation and investment management.

She is very active in the community and her outreach work has taken her to Honduras and to Guatemala where she worked with Safe Passage to support the education of children living in the Guatemala City garbage dump. Working with BuildOn, she and her family also built a school in Mali Africa. Robin has served on the board of the Maine Women’s Fund and the Ministerial Fund and as a Deacon at First Parish Church. She lives in Yarmouth, ME where she enjoys singing, skiing, golf, hiking, biking, kayaking, and the many other wonders of Maine with her husband Art Bell and their three children: Becca, Geoff, and Chris.

Margaret Minister O’Keefe is a partner at the law firm of Pierce Atwood. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Margaret's practice focuses on copyrights and trademarks, brand and product licensing, software and new technology licensing, privacy and data security, intellectual property asset management, and intellectual property protection and enforcement. Margaret was recently featured in the January/February 2012 issue of Maine Magazine.

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Our Maine Magazine Minutes featured Joanne Arnold. Joanne Arnold may be best known for her work as a strength trainer with swimmer Ian Crocker, Olympic Gold Medalist. Joanne Arnold is the country's first Body, Mind & Sport Strength Trainer and Consultant , certified by John Douillard, author of BODY,MIND & SPORT.  She trains individuals of all ages and abilities focusing on core strengthening,proprioception, balance and postural alignment.

As a trainer she believes "We all work too much and need to remember the lost art of play." Joanne operates on the premise that "The body and mind are inseparable partners...who often need relationship work."  She believes consciousness is the competitive edge and awareness our most powerful tool for developing strength and transformation. She is interested in disfranchising the stress recover modality of conventional training and supporting a program to create a body cell by cell, thought by thought.

Joanne will appear in the March issue of Maine Magazine.

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Our "Give Back" segment featured Tara Treichel of Coastal Studies for Girls (CSG). The country's first science and leadership semester school for tenth grade girls, they are now offering residential and wilderness programs in the Summer of 2012 for girls, women and educators. CSG is dedicated to those who have a love for learning and discovery, an adventurous spirit, and a desire for challenge. Follow the adventures through their facebook and blog links on the homepage of their website.

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As part of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour we read our weekly quote from Our Daily Tread, the book created to support the organization Safe Passage. Our Daily Tread has raised more than $22,000 since 2008.

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Click here to read this week's featured Bountiful Blog post: Summer Girl.

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Join us next Sunday, February 5 at 11 am for the next Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast on WLOB radio Portland 1310 AM/streaming online. Our topic will be "Health Wealth" and guests will include Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Susan Conley, author of The Foremost Good Fortune, and Linda Varrell and Frankee Chapa of Maine Youth Leadership.

Support for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast is graciously provided by Akari, Maine magazine, Tom Shepard from Shepard Financial, Mike LePage & Beth Franklin from ReMax Heritage, Robin Hodgskin of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Pierce Atwood, Booth Maine and Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists.

For the Children

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published September/October 2011, Parent & Family

Some of the most painful discussions I have ever had with my children came in the aftermath of my separation from their father.

Not surprising, of course.

But for a different reason than you might think.

Uncoupling & Understanding the Relationship Dyad

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published July/August 2011, Parent & Family

It is difficult to know exactly why any relationship fails--difficult enough from the inside, certainly, and particularly troublesome from the outside.

In many cases there are clues.  Warning signs.  Patterns that seem dysfunctional to the casual observers.

But sometimes there are not.

Parenting the Man-Child

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published May/June 2011, Parent & Family

We are never quite sure where the parenting journey will take us when we initially embark.

People tell us stories, of course.  They warn us of sleepless nights and heartache.  They promise us moments of quiet--and sometimes not so quiet--joy.

But every parenting journey meanders along its own path.  As parents, we are bound together by one thing, and one thing only: the fact of our offspring.

Beyond that, similarities cannot be guaranteed to exist.

I have been parenting for almost 50% of my life.  My son, conceived when I was 21, turned seventeen last year.  He is scheduled to graduate from high school in June. 

If one adds the years of “sibling parenting” I have done, an argument could be made that I have had a hand in the raising of children for fully 75% of my time on this earth.  With nine younger brothers and sisters, I challenge anyone to dispute this claim.

Yet, each of my nine siblings, my son and my two daughters has required a slightly different approach.  Parenting, like medicine, is an art.  It requires a certain degree of know-how, but more importantly, it requires finesse.  It requires judgment.  It requires flexibility of thought.

It requires us to acknowledge that, like our children, we are works in progress.  We are simply doing the best we can at any given time with our energy and resources.  Sometimes, with luck and a bit of hard work, things turn out as planned.

Sometimes they don’t.

Either way, it truly is the journey that matters. Because we simply cannot know the endpoint. There is no appreciable destination. 

My children have, thus far, allowed me to join them on a wholly satisfying and worthwhile adventure. My daughters, ten and fifteen, will continue to adventure with me close at hand for a few years yet.

My son’s adventure will soon take him out of my direct care. College beckons, and beyond that adulthood.  His independent life is unfolding before him.

My feelings about this are admittedly mixed.  I would no sooner hold him back from developing independently than I would have attempted to stop him from learning to walk. His life was never mine to keep: only to hold.

Now his life is mine to observe, and to cherish.  I will offer him love and support, and (when warranted) advice.  But he must be free to pursue what is his.

I know he will engage in this pursuit wisely, and well.  I know this because I raised him.  I raised him in the way that my parents so skillfully raised me.  I raised him to be kind, and good.  To have a sense of humor in all things.  I raised him to do his best.

I raised him to care for those around him.  To be simultaneously gentle and strong. 

All of these qualities make my son the type of person I am proud to know.  He is the type of person with whom I enjoy spending time. He is the type of person who makes others happy.

I completely adore this man-child of mine.

Which is why my feelings about letting him go are mixed.

But even as I am losing this once-little-boy to his bigger life, I know I am gaining something of even greater significance.  I am gaining the wisdom to continue a parenting journey of a different sort.  I am gaining the wisdom to “parent” a newly-minted adult. 

Which is its own unique flavor of wisdom.

Parenting my son will continue to require finesse.  It will continue to require judgement.  It will continue to require flexibility of thought.

People will no doubt persist in telling me stories of heartache and joy. They will issue warnings and make promises.

But I know that, as always, my parenting journey will meander along on its own path. 

And because I love my children, that journey will be ever worth its while.

Working Mothers, ALL

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published March/April 2011, Parent & Family

It has been said that all mothers are working mothers.  This is certainly the case.  Mothers are incredibly important. At the risk of offending my feminist friends (or fathers, for that matter), I’m going to suggest that mothers are the lynchpin of the family. They tend to be the ones who keep things together; make sure things are done.  This is the case regardless of whether they choose to stay home with their children, or have outside careers.  Moms just get it done.

(By the way, fathers are equally important, in their own very special way.  But this column is dedicated to mothers.  Dads, you’ll get your turn.)

A few months ago I had an important conversation with a woman I had only just met.  After recognizing me as a Parent & Family contributor, she told me she had begun reading Dr. Lisa/Dr. Mom (November/December 2010) but couldn’t bring herself to finish it.  After scanning a few sentences, she thought I was going to talk about how I had tried to juggle working and medicine, but ultimately decided it was impossible and chose instead to stay home with the kids full time.

I didn’t, of course, which became clear as the article progressed. My choice was indeed to continue engaging in the juggling act.  I had many reasons for this--I liked being a doctor, we needed to pay back our professional school debt, etc. Equally as fulfilling may have been the stay-at-home-mother route, but it wasn’t the direction I went in.

Why didn’t this woman want to read about the stay-at-home route?  Because she had taken the have-a-career-outside-the-home route and was finding it incredibly challenging.  She was desperately seeking a way to make it tenable, and couldn’t bear to read another story that denied this possibility.

She wanted to hear information that supported her situation.

We all want to hear information that supports our situation.  So, today, I will offer you some.  I offer this information to all mothers, of all sorts: stay-at-home, career-outside-the-home and every variation in between.

The information I have to offer is this: IF we are mothers, we are ALL working, MOST, if not ALL, of the time.  The way we choose to work is the only thing that divides us.  And, really, it shouldn’t.   We should support one another in whatever choices we make.  We should support one another because we know that working is hard, no matter where it is done; mothering is hard, no matter how it is done.

I have been a doctor for almost fifteen years, and a mother for seventeen.  During that time I have cared for mothers across the spectrum: every age, every approach to working. I have seen happy career moms and happy home moms.  I have seen miserable versions of each of those as well.

The difference between the happy and the miserable moms?  Their commitment to going in either direction.  The only way to be a happy mother, of any variety, is to be happy with how you mother.  If it makes you happier to stay home, please do so.  If it makes you happier not to, please don’t.

Why? Because miserable mothers make miserable children.  We spend our lives telling our children that we want them to be happy.  If we aren’t happy ourselves, what message are we sending?

There should be no value judgement associated with staying at home, or not.  Mothers are, first and foremost, people.  People learn in different ways; they love in different ways.  They are intellectually, physically, emotionally and socially stimulated in different ways.  If, in order to be stimulated, you must work, that’s OK.  Likewise, if you would rather stay at home, that’s OK, too.  Either approach--if done in a balanced, reasonable manner--will yield balanced, reasonable children.

Honoring ourselves, and the way in which we learn and love, is the best thing we can do for our children.  Our children learn best by watching us.  If they see us honoring ourselves, they will honor themselves as well.  They will trust themselves.  They will value themselves.

Then, someday, they will teach their children to do the same.

And that, my fellow home and career moms, is the only information you need to support your situation.

Believe me, I’m a mother.  I know how things work.

Birth of Self

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published January/February 2011, Parent & Family

Death and birth exist along the same continuum.  One cannot exist without the other.

When a woman becomes a mother, she loses the body she once had.  When a man becomes a father, he loses the life he once had. 

If we are lucky we experience multiple births, and rebirths, in our lives.  Not only of children but of ourselves.

And what typically happens is the more stunning the rebirth, the more difficult the birthing process.  Change is challenging, and major changes are extremely challenging.

I found this out the hard way.

Dr. Lisa/Dr. Mom

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published November/December 2010, Parent & Family

I am not your average doctor.

I am very qualified to be your average doctor--or even your above-average doctor.  I have an undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College and a medical degree from the University of Vermont.

I completed three years of residency training in family medicine at the Maine Medical Center.  I am board-certified in that specialty.  I also did two years of fellowship training in preventive medicine at the University of Massachusetts, and spent three years on (and received) a Masters Degree in Public Health from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Given all of this education, you might expect that I would be a very good doctor.  And I am. But I am not your average doctor, for three very good reasons.  Their names are Campbell, Abby and Sophie.

Parenting 103: Share What You Have

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published September/October, Parent & Family

“Live with joy. Live deliberately.  Share what you have, and who you are, with others.”

~ Our Daily Tread: Thoughts for an Inspired Life (Aerie River Books, 2008)

This past summer in Parent & Family, we addressed the importance of living--and parenting--deliberately and with joy.  In the July/August issue, we discussed deliberate, or “ego-syntonic,” living, in which we make an effort to have our actions reflect our life priorities.  As mentioned in the May/June issue, we are best able to behave deliberately when we acknowledge the joy in our daily existence:

 “When we parent with joy, we are cultivating more joy to share with the world.  Joy is infectious.  It spreads quickly from one person to the next.  If we know joy, those around us will know joy.”

When we know joy and live deliberately, it follows that we will want to share our good fortune with others.

Parenting 102: Live Deliberately

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published July/August 2010, Parent & Family

These are the days of sunshine and sandcastles...sailing, surfing...feeling free. Our kids are out of school and our life is distinctly different from the life we live in the cold Maine winter months.  These are days of joy.

These are also days of deliberation.  The word “deliberate” comes from the Latin word “deliberatus,” which means to balance, consider or weigh. To live deliberately is to pay attention to all that is happening around us--to not grow complacent in the warmth of the summer sun.  

Parenting 101: Know Joy

By Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH

Originally published May/June 2010, Parent & Family

Dance.  Sing. Paint. Swim. Run. Read.  Do any of these, or something else entirely--as long as it brings you joy.  If you know joy, you know how to live.  

Knowing how to live is the first, most important part, of knowing how to parent.  Know joy...hold joy...grow joy.  Begin here, and other parenting tasks will fall into place.

Each of us is learning how to live and how to parent simultaneously.  We are growing up along with our children.  This can be a bit unnerving.  Perhaps we imagined that once our children came into our lives, we would immediately know what to do with them. We imagined a certain amount of control over the situation.  After all, isn’t that what being an adult means?