Dr. Lisa's Bountiful Life

Do YOU Matter?

Do YOU matter?

One of my radio show guests this week told me that she ends each day by asking herself three questions: Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?

Her purpose in doing so is to see what she has done well, and what she might improve upon the following day.

The question of "mattering" is an interesting one.

By virtue of our very existence, we matter. We are comprised of particles that give us a physical structure in the world. We are matter.

I worked with a vocal coach recently who had me do an exercise related to "mattering."

First, he asked me who I was. He asked me to define myself. He asked me why I was important.

Because we were working on the idea of "finding voice" as relevant to the radio show and my medical practice, my first responses had to do with my professional roles. I defined myself as a doctor, writer and radio show host. I told him that the work I was doing was important because I was able to give other people a metaphorical "space" in which to find healing.

That wasn't the answer. I was unable to project these ideas adequately across the room to the coach.  My voice was weak. I was too much in my head.

The coach told me to go deeper: to find my true voice from within. To use my diaphragm and utilize my  breath to send words out into the world.

Then he repeated: Who are you? Why do you matter?

I tried again. And again. I wasn't getting it right. He kept pushing me. He wanted me to get to the core of the question.

Who are you? Why do you matter?

Frustrated, I blurted out, "I am Lisa." 

He smiled. Finally. 

He had me do the same thing several more times, reaching uncomfortably deep into my body and virtually shouting my response in a loud, resonant voice.

I am Lisa. That is who I am, and that is why I matter.

That is why we matter.

We matter because we are alive.

We have, through some miracle, come into being. We exist.

With our existence comes the opportunity to live fully and love much.

We can choose to treat our bodies with kindness and respect.

We can choose to treat others with kindness and respect.

These are the lessons from our radio show guests this week--author and women's health expert Marcelle Pick, Cheverus High School Safe Passage Support team members Emily Mander and Michael Komich, and naturopathic physician Dr. Masina Wright.

Each, in their own way, shares how we can build on this gift of vitality that we have been given; this gift of existence.

Do YOU matter?

Yes.

We all do.

 

luminary trio

March 2013

The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast airs each Sunday at 7 am & noon. Download the podcast through iTunes. 

Mother, Becoming

I have many roles, and many titles, but mother is the one I take most seriously.

It has caused me to approach medicine in a different way.

It has caused me to approach many things in a different way.

My son, now nineteen and a biochemistry/Spanish major at the University of Maine, is home on college break this week. Every time he returns to my house, I am afforded the chance to reflect on parenting.

Conversations with mi hijo (as I affectionately call my son, in homage to his love of Spanish and year spent in Guatemala) remind me of the person I once was,  and how that person has merged into the one I will always be in the process of "becoming."

We are, all of us, constantly "becoming."

As a college student, I spent years doing research on cancer and a blood disoder called monoclonal gammopathy. This complemented well my pre-med courses and my interest in understanding biology.

My son learned yesterday that he will spend this summer doing biology research at Maine's Bigelow Lab, through a National Science Foundation program for undergraduates. 

I see in mi hijo the fascination with how things work that I myself have always had.

More accurately, perhaps, it is why things work the way they do that fascinates us both.

As a college student, I may have thought that this fascination would wane by the time I had reached adulthood--certainly by the time I had a college student of my own.

Perhaps I might finally have found wisdom and a thoroughness of knowledge.

And yet I have found so many more things to learn and experience.

Which, truly, is the wisdom of living: that life is vast and endless in its multiplicity of connections.

My son is at the beginning of what will no doubt be a long and interesting journey.

He may follow in my footsteps as a doctor, or not.

He will approach the world in his own unique way.

His becoming enriches my becoming.

Mother I am, and student, both.

 

Central Park, NYC

February 2013

The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast airs each Sunday at 7 am & noon. Download the podcast through iTunes. 

Connecting Kids with Food

Last year I visited a school where children had one choice when it came to food: eat or don't eat.

There was one meal, shared by faculty, staff and students alike.

The children of Safe Passage, many of who did not have access to nutritious meals in their Guatemala City homes, were happy to have what was placed in front of them.

Our American culture has some of the same problems.

The children of our country experience their own version of scarcity.

This scarcity takes the form of disconnection.

Our kids, plied with sugary, processed 'faux food' from their earliest years, often have difficulty discriminating between what is real, and what is merely a food creation.

They have difficulty tasting the rich complexity of simply prepared vegetables and whole grains.

They have difficulty knowing when their bodies have had enough.

We adults often have difficulty with the very same things.

We need to reconnect with our food, and help our kids do the same.

As pediatrician Dr. Kevin Strong suggests, we need to "Dunk the Junk" and replace sugary, processed faux food with real food.

We need to embrace the ideas put forth by Maine's Let's Go program: 

5 – servings fruits and veggies daily
2 – hours or less of recreational screen time
1 – hour or more of physical activity
0 – sugary drinks, more water and low-fat milk.

We need to teach our kids tasteful discrimination, even as we are limiting their choices to foods that are better for their growing bodies.

The children of Safe Passage in Guatemala City have one choice: eat or don't eat.

Our children truly have one choice as well: eat well and live longer, or eat poorly and don't.

Let's help our kids re-connect with their food. 

Where there is scarcity, let abundance take root.

 

Safe Passage

Guatemala City, 2011

Listen to Dr. Lisa's conversation with Dr. Kevin Strong of Dunk the Junk  and Dr. Michael Dedekian of Let's Go, this Sunday on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast.

Schedule an office consult with Dr. Lisa at 207 774 2196.

 

Bright Side Son

There is always a bright side.

Always.

Though sometimes it is only through the strangest of life's juxtapositions that we might see this. 

Today  is my son's nineteenth birthday. I've written often about mi hijo. He is an exuberant man-child, with a thick head of dark hair and hands as big as bear paws.

After spending a year in Guatemala, volunteering for the organization Safe Passage, he has returned to Maine. He is studying biochemistry and Spanish at the University of Maine (Orono), the alma mater of his grandparents, his aunt and many of his great-aunts and uncles.

Mi hijo returned from Guatemala both changed and unchanged.

He is the same loving, charismatic, thoughtful son I have known for almost two decades.

He is the same loving, charismatic, thoughtful son--intensified.

He is, after a year spent away, highly aware of what he has: a family that loves him. The opportunity to attend college. Good health. Relative financial stability.

He understands that he was afforded a life-altering opportunity by spending the year in Guatemala.

The juxtaposition between Guatemala and Maine convinced him that there are many things about his existence which represent a "bright side."

I have always seen Campbell's existence as a "bright side."

Campbell is, in fact, my very own "bright side."

I hadn't intended to be pregnant at the age of 21, or give birth during my second year of medical school.

I hadn't intended to co-mingle parenting with doctoring from the very beginning of my career.

People told me that it would be a challenge. And they were right.

But it was the best kind of challenge: one with an incredible bright side.

I've done nothing better in my life than give birth to my son and his sisters.

Nothing better, that is, except raise my son and his sisters.

And watch them become exuberant, loving, thoughtful people.

Happy birthday to my bright side son.

Thank you for the opportunity to be your mom.

A strange, wonderful juxtaposition this all has been.

 

Feliz cumpleaños, mi hijo!

Listen to my Dr. Lisa Radio Hour interview with Campbell on our "Higher Education" show here.