It was the spring of 2022 and was Dr . Roark ’ s first chance to draw a breath since A2 , the DHHS mess , MS , and the pandemic . I think every healthcare worker was shell-shocked after COVID , but to survive it as a small-town doctor , she had some breathing to make up for .
“ They had singing bowl yoga . In an environment of self-care that weekend , I realized what I had been doing in the massage room in my office was yoga ,” said Dr . Roark . “ I called Griff and told him I needed singing bowls , and there was a full set waiting for me when I got home .
“ But how ? How do we influence people to make better choices in their lives ? And that is when it hit me ; we show them . I was journaling , and I wrote in really big letters in my journal — SHOW THEM !” We are , after all , the Show Me state .
I was looking for a common thread on our paths to Joy . At some point during this retreat and the need to show her patients a better path , Dr . Roark realized that self-care must be at the top of that path . Letting her staff and patients see her work herself to death was not setting the example she needed to set . That is where our paths to joy started to intersect .
I found my path that same year in February 2022 , when I listened to and wrote about Wajahat Ali ’ s book interview with Sam Samuelson on It ’ s Been a Minute , PBS , January 25 , 2022 .
“ I don ’ t want you dead . I don ’ t want you to be a martyr ; I want you living a life of joy !” Ali told Samuelson . “ I don ’ t want to be Daffy Duck , always at the bottom of the pile ; I want to be Bug ’ s Bunny ! The guy who always wins in the end , gives you a big kiss , kicks his heals back , and asks us , ‘ What ’ s up doc ?’” He also explained the responsibility of joy in that interview . “ We have a responsibility to live a life of joy as an example to the young . Just as anger is contagious , so is joy .”
Dr . Lisa Roark and Griff .
Dr . Roark ’ s hair began growing back in , and she didn ’ t like it . “ My hair looked like a head of black pubic hairs . As I looked in the mirror after I got back from the retreat , I thought to myself , how can I love this woman more ? The new Lisa , butterfly Lisa said , ‘ So give it some bling .’ That ’ s when I started wearing hippie headbands .” They are her superpower ; she wears them well and never leaves home without them .
Dr . Roark is giving herself a kinder and gentler path these days . She has dropped the number of patients she sees and just completed her certification in Lifestyle Medicine through the American Academy of Family Physicians . “ I am preparing for what may be the collapse of healthcare in the United States . I can ’ t save the world , but I am a damn good physician , and I can save my little corner and my patients ,” she sighed .
Julia Denbo , the young reporter who wrote about Dr . Roark supporting medical marijuana in 2018 , asked me , “ Isn ’ t there an oath doctors have to take about caring for their patients , The Hippocratic Oath
calling for doctors to ‘ Do no harm ’? As such ,” Denbo reflected , “ do they not have a moral and legal responsibility to keep up with current changes in medicine ? If they are too busy , perhaps they could adjust their schedules to allow more time for self-study , annual sabbatical , or do more continuing education . The public is weary of only being offered a drug with dangerous side effects . I am curious , now that MM is legal , if some of those other docs would be willing to speak to me today .”
Denbo is no longer a reporter and is finishing her master ’ s degree in sociology . She is still looking for the answer to that question — marijuana can save the lives of children ; we have known this for too many years for physicians not to be criminally liable for not using medicine we know works , so why aren ’ t they ?
Yes , ma ’ am , they are . Strong words from a strong woman .
In comparison to butterflies and snakes , humans differ in that these stages of metamorphoses for us are a choice . Not so for the animals . Instinct dictates their next move .
We are more like baking a loaf of bread . Good bread has five key components — flour , water , yeast , salt , and time . From these components , there is no limit to how creative we can make our loaves . In self-healing , we are the flour , and we are the time . Salt is the adversity , and water is the life force . But we must go outside of ourselves at some point , we must introduce yeast . We must find a tribe — support . Even for old farts like me that dislikes people , I have found I need friends .
For Dr . Roark , her yeast came when she took the path to lifestyle medicine . And from there , along with her husband , children , and her clinic staff , she has made some really good bread .
Dolores Montgomery Halbin , RN , BSN , and Ordained Nurse Minister , resides in SW Missouri . After her husband passed in 2015 , she retired from nursing . She worked with the 2014-2018 Missouri campaigns for legalized medical marijuana . She continues as a cannabis reform activist volunteering with
Dr . Lisa Roark
Canna Convict Project and working toward Federal decriminalization through educational speaking and freelance journalism . Dolores Halbin , doloreshalbin @ gmail . com .
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