Archways' Threads

Narrator 00:02
Welcome to Archways' Threads, a show focusing on the threads of family and recovery support services that help make up the tapestry of life in recovery. Join us as we share stories from peers and participants in the field and practice of peer recovery support and family support and strengthening. And now your host, Archways CEO Michelle Lennon.

Michelle Lennon 00:28
Hello, everyone. My name is Michelle Lennon, and I am the host of Archways' Threads, the podcast that focuses on peer recovery support services and family support. I am here with Cara LaPlante, who has turned into this kind of rock star for recovery in the college community for Plymouth State University. She has recently kind of joined the Archways team. And I think you know how we met is pretty much, you know, the puts the peer in peer. You know, you want to talk a little bit about how we met?

Cara LaPlante 01:04
I would love to, yeah. Hello. I'm Cara LaPlante. It was the beginning of the fall semester, so August, late August, I was in the local coffee shop in Plymouth, talking to one of my old professors about my senior project that I'm really excited about. I had a idea, but no real meat and potatoes to the idea yet. So I was explaining to her, my old professor, that I had this vision of hosting, organizing a series of community wellness workshops, relaying information to as many people as possible and gathering community. And Michelle Lennon was sitting at the table right diagonal to me, and was brave enough to speak up once my professor left, and was, "Oh, I didn't know if I should say anything, but I overheard your project, and I love the idea, so let's collaborate." And then it really just blossomed from there. Yeah, say, yeah.

Michelle Lennon 02:08
And one of the things that I didn't know about Cara, obviously, when we first met, because I was very interested in what she was talking about for the recovery community and family that we support was the idea of teaching things like stress reduction and mindfulness and using some really concrete examples of ways we can help individuals kind of build that resilience, you know, building in that kind of coping mechanisms that they can do anytime, anywhere, and then also working some of those skills right into their everyday lives, from everything from nutrition to breathing techniques.

Cara LaPlante 02:48
Absolutely. Yeah, that was really the goal was, you know, wellness is getting a lot of spotlight right now, and I think that's fantastic, but I feel like a lot of times when we talk about it, it's very general, broad scope, and it can be intimidating to try to implement things into your already busy, chaotic, you know, full, full lives. So how do we make this information digestible, relevant to people, and encourage them to address wellness in all aspects of their lives? And the community part of the community wellness workshops is two parted, inviting as many people from the community as possible, but also recruiting experts from the community to engage and to share their knowledge with people, which was great. So it wasn't just me teaching all these classes, but it was me gathering really knowledgeable people and, yeah, creating a pretty sweet learning environment.

Michelle Lennon 03:49
Yeah, I attended the workshops and just found some things really fascinating that was, like, really easy to, like, incorporate into everyday life. And one of them was, was foods that improved mood. Who knew, you know? I mean, I think, you know, improve my mood. You made some chocolate cake and, you know, a coffee, you know, but not the best thing for long term wellness. And there was, like, a whole list of foods that one of the individuals brought in about, you know, how they could impact mood and improve, you know, just everyday life.

Cara LaPlante 04:23
Totally, yeah, the stress busting foods were fun, so we had some out for all the participants to try really accessible foods, milk, oranges, spinach, dark chocolate, which is always a hit. Yeah, cahsews, yeah. Those were a good one.

Michelle Lennon 04:40
Yeah, I think about how they sometimes, these seem expensive at the grocery store, but like, I think about how oranges or citrus, very often the food pantries have them, you know, by the box. You know, I know one of the food pantries that we work with, that we access a lot for our participants always has oranges. They always have apples. You know, certain,certain foods that you know, where people may not always access them first, because you know, it's not always convenient to peel an orange at work. You know, as much as it is to rip open a granola bar or say, you know, but when you have that extra knowledge, it gives that extra value, I think, to kind of, you know, incentivize people to maybe, you know, think about their food choices a little bit more if they deal with stress on a on a regular basis.

Cara LaPlante 05:31
Totally. Yeah, and that your food choices are so much more than just the count the calories that you're putting in. That they do have a an impact on your mood and your feeling, and like you said, your long time wellness. And you mentioned the food pantries, and that's really something I wanted to focus on is giving information that was applicable to people across the socio economic scale, that no matter what your situation is, there are small things that you can implement to validate yourself.

Michelle Lennon 06:04
I was excited too to to find out the Plymouth market will take food stamps, you know, for for families, and they have like, set ups that they do, that they provide to buy those fresh foods, which was kind of cool to hear. We recently checked in with them, but it was thinking like any community has food pantries for the most part, you know, or, or communities can access some food pantry that is responsible, like for that area to provide that service. So, you know, just something to think about, you know, as we are working with with participants. Uh, the mindfulness piece, breathing exercises, I love that, you know, we, we find out that you can trick your parasympathetic nervous system. Like, there is science behind that stuff. It's not just, I went to UMass like, forgive me, but we used to talk about the crunching, granola folks that used to do meditation, you know, and it was kind of going, "Oh yeah, right, yeah, you know," you know, 20 years ago. Now we have the science, so the backup, a lot of these, you know, you know, being mindful of your present moment and, you know, the breathing. We talked about, body scans. Muscle clenching to kind of reduce stress in the moment. You want to talk a little bit about that.

Cara LaPlante 07:23
Yeah, absolutely, it is so interesting, because we a lot of the times when we talk about mindfulness, it's almost coming from a perspective that your brain and your body are two separate entities, when in reality, they're, they are, we are the same.

Michelle Lennon 07:39
The brain is an organ.

Cara LaPlante 07:40
Exactly, exactly. It all works as one. So there, that stress reduction doesn't have to be this massive task where you're meditating for an hour and sitting in a perfectly still spot and in a quiet room. You know it really is just takes two minutes to just check in with yourself, and that's really all you need. It's really powerful and underrated how applicable and effective it is for people.

Michelle Lennon 08:09
Yeah, I was thinking about yesterday, we were in a group together and talking about trauma informed practice. So trauma informed care and like, how we can change our state of being by doing some things like that, just a quick breathing exercise when we're torqued up, or we're frustrated, or, you know, pulling my hair out because nothing's working when I'm trying to set up the podcast room, right? It just kind of remind myself, you know, in the scope of eternity. What does this matter? And you know, and just going to play through the problems until I get to the other side and deep belly breath, you know, it's all good, okay.

Cara LaPlante 08:49
Absolutely, yeah. And I think also understanding the impacts of stress and what stress does to the body is also makes those mindfulness techniques even more relevant, because you know the processes that you're mitigating. You have an understanding of what's happening in your body. So I feel like that adds a lot of context to like, why are we doing box breathing?

Michelle Lennon 09:13
Right, right. Now, box breathing, you want to just give an example of what that is?

Cara LaPlante 09:18
Yeah, totally. So for my understanding, box breathing is taking a deep breath in for four seconds, holding it for four, releasing it for four, feeling the emptiness for four, and then refilling your lungs again for four.

Michelle Lennon 09:35
Yeah, and that's again, it's a tool that I know I've used with participants who may be sitting in a courtroom, are very frustrated, they're anxious, they are terrified, sometimes of going to prison. And, you know, I can remember just doing that over the phone with her, and she's like, "Okay, I've got this. I've got this," you know? And we can, we can literally trick our physiology by, by doing some of these things to just settle down in our moment, you know, to get through the next moment, you know. And I think we, we talk a lot in recovery about one day at a time, but I also think everybody goes through stress of this life, you know, not just people in recovery. And, you know, I think of some of the parents that we work with that, you know, a lot of times they're with us because they are going through one of the most stressful times of their lives, you know, job loss, housing loss, you know, losing their their temper in a moment because of stress that affected their children. So maybe DCYF will be involved trying to, you know, maybe support the family to get the resources they need. But a lot of times it feels like, you know, they're the enemy, you know. So there's that stress, you know. And so to have those kind of things in our toolbox to share with the participants can be really helpful. And I know, you know, for a while, all we did was talk about self care. And you know, my staff was like, "Oh my gosh," rolling their eyes. You know, "if I hear about self care and supervision one more time," you know, and, but, but there's importance to that. But I think, you know, one of the things that we've talked about, too, is how some of these concepts, they seem so nebulous and, or, you know, it cognitively, but it's like, what do you do in reality when life is so fast and so busy? And, I mean, let's face it, everybody, and it works in any type of mental health work or family support work or medical at this point, you know, everybody's overworked. Nobody's got time for anything. It feels like, and it's like, you know, we're, we're frustrated because we want to help the person in front of us, but we're responsible for this data, and we have to rush you out of the office because we got the next person coming in, like, we see it like, throughout the field, really. So, so I know, like for us, we're taking steps to, like, build in wellness in the workplace, you know. And, you know, I just think about these little things that we can do for ourselves, but we have to take that initiative to do it, you know. Like, I know, I just got a walking path for my office because I was thinking, "How many times am I sitting in a Zoom meeting or relistening to a meeting I missed or something that I can be just walking while I'm doing that work?" And while I bought it for myself, like we're already in conversations about having different things available to staff that the agency will pay for, you know, and we have somebody that's got a little balance, it's not a balanced board, but one of those round things, and, and a stand up desk for, you know, a couple people now,. A few people have tried that, you know, just kind of, see, you know, what can we incorporate that's going to work for the individual? Because I think that's another important thing that, like, I'm not somebody who's ever going to sit and meditate for an hour, just letting you know.

Cara LaPlante 09:35
Absolutely, yeah, and I think, like, self care is, is, it tends to be a overused term. It's very general, like when we talk about, you know, addressing individual's wellness and then wellness and general wellness in the workplace, it's really important to understand that it's going to look different for everybody. So it does take that initiative to A, recognize that it's important, but B, be willing to explore that. Just because you try one thing doesn't mean it has to be the only thing you're doing. That there's so many options, and to really find what rejuvenates you and what makes you feel good is really important.

Michelle Lennon 13:26
Yeah, we talk about that, you know, in the recovery world that there are multiple paths to recovery.

Cara LaPlante 13:32
Yeah.

Michelle Lennon 13:32
They get very frustrated when people are blamed for not recovering because they tried something and it didn't work. Or, you know, unfortunately, I think even some of people I really respect in like, the 12 step community have really, like, put a lot of blame and shame, like, "Oh, if you don't work it, it's your fault." When, for some people, you know, not for nothing, if you struggle with severe anxiety, walking into a church basement with a bazillion people in there that you don't know when to be expected to speak can be wicked anxiety producing, you know,? We've had participants that have had reoccurrence of use because somebody from an a meeting, you know, was willing to sell to them so, you know. And then I have, you know, two of our management team that that's their pathway, you know. And I feel like, no matter what the system is, people are people, you run into good, good, and then, you know, do things exactly right, and then you run into other situations where it's not right for you. And you know, we need to know that there are multiple pathways, you know. And just as there are multiple pathways for recovering, multiple pathways for, you know, taking care of yourself, you know?

Cara LaPlante 14:42
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And the awareness and education around just your options in general is really what's going to allow you to explore those options.

Michelle Lennon 14:51
But you got to make this step to explore them too.

Cara LaPlante 14:54
Right, yeah

Michelle Lennon 14:54
And I will say, you know, and I, in this is one of the reasons why we're doing a lot of work around this, like in our agency right now is that you cannot lead, will you want, will, where you won't go, you know. So if, if you're experiencing, you know, a lot of unhealthy habits, or, you know, I don't even like the word habits, because my, my, I have a coach that I have, you know that, you know, I think about, and I have a coaching team behind her, and, you know, is thinking about that, that, you know, it's, they talk about getting 1% better every day, you know, from, you know, the book, "Atomic Habits", great book if you haven't read it, and how if something doesn't work for you, well, let's move on to the next thing. And, you know, we talk about, you know, having an interest based nervous system. When it's shiny and new, I'm all in, you know, then, you know, a year down the road, it's like, okay, you know. And I that has happened to me time after time with health plans, you know, I did karate for a while, had a personal trainer for a while, and went to the gym for a while, and then it was like, I did yoga for a while, and it's like, okay, so, and it was interesting, because one of the coaches that I was working with, he would say, "there's no judgment." If you know that, just try to get ahead of the the drop off. You know, what's going to be shining a new this month? You know? What is going to give you that drive, you know, to keep going. And talked a lot about identity, you know. And I think about that, you know, like identity because, you know, I think when we do peer support, recovery support services, family support services, we tend to think in terms of consequence based goals. You know, that I need to get my, I need to get a job. So what do I need to do to get the job? I need to get my birth certificate. I need to get my license. I got to get the $10 for the replacement ID. I need to get a ride to the DMV, you know, or whatever it is, you know, we, and we think in the consequence is like, I've got a job, you know, I went to the interview will be, you know, assuming that you've done everything you need to do, and then you've got the job. So there's a consequence. Okay, now what? You know, you know, and, and it was thinking that if, if that's all we do, eventually we're going to tick the boxes and be done, and people will be on their way. And, you know, thinking about the people that have had the most success incorporating things like self care into their lives and goals and in growing beyond like the checklist, so to speak, it's all been about identity, you know. And I think for me, the stage in my life, you know, health and wellness is a thing, you know, I'm getting, you know, into my 50s, my body's starting to fall apart. It's like, okay, what am I going to do here? And which is why I joined this program. It's called The Fitness Project, and they have a program called Fit to Lead, that's specifically, specifically for leaders that don't have time, you know, to have a personal trainer on a regular basis, or get to the gym every day and on all of that. And working with them, like I've learned so many different things about how we can coach better in the recovery space, you know. And one of the things that they talked about was tying your goals to your identity, and you know, so for me, it's not the 10,000 steps, it's not, you know, checking off that I did this workout every day, because honestly, the shiny and newness is wears off for me. But it is about, I want to be a fit person, you know. So then it's like making choices in the immediate that tip towards wellness versus unwellness, you know? And I was thinking about that as we, as we've done this workshops and and then it's kind of okay. Where do we go from here, both as an agency for ourselves, for our staff, and for the people that we work with? Because wellness does not have to be this awful big thing, you know, and that's one of the things that I'm really learning from from these coaches in this fitness project, is it's like those everyday actions that we talk about building the building blocks in family support of the protective factors, wellness can be that way too, just the everyday actions, you know, of, of kind of choosing in favor of a healthy choice versus a unhealthy choice, which can tie back to the identity of, hey, I want to be a fit and healthy person. And I was thinking for individuals in recovery, for people who are want to be a good parent. You know, all of that is really identity driven, if we get to the heart of it.

Cara LaPlante 19:40
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Like this brings us, me back to the conversation we had recently about values and how you know your values attribute to your identity. Your values correlate with strength based programming, the strength based coaching approaches and so yeah, knowing what's important to you, you can, that, that's your, your path, that's your guide. You know, what is important to me, if, if your family, you know, is important to you, you want to be there for your family. You want to be able to participate with your family, so making choices that are going to assist you on that path.

Michelle Lennon 20:20
Yeah, when I think about that, like my daughter, my son, like I, I have goals for 2025 like the, you know, I go through the domains of wellness, and I kind of look at the areas that I really want to focus on. Usually I want to focus on five or ten. But one of the things, you know, that I am, we're learning, you know, I, you know, doing this other program is just focus on a couple of areas, you know. And it's funny, because when you do that, because everything is tied to my identity, everything is tied to my values, all the other areas of my life are benefiting too, you know. And, and that's pretty awesome, you know. Like, I'll just share, you know, one of the areas was reconnecting with my husband. He's been in solid recovery now for a couple years, and I was really unaware of this cognitive dissonance I was living with, of being really resentful and angry still for things that had happened in the past. But it's like I also have this faith value that I'm never going to divorce my husband. You know, I might get mad and say something like that, but I never would. And because I firmly believe addiction, I mean, I know how it all happened with him. You know, it's definitely not his choice, you know, to be addicted to opiates. And you know, he hasn't touched him in a couple of years, and since his last major surgery. And you know, he's doing really good right now. He's doing a lot of good things. And, you know, achieving his own goals, which has been really powerful to see him start to work in his gifted areas again. And you know, just thinking about how the focus on that meant we were going to go out and spend time doing something other than going out to eat, because that was the fitting, like we were spending a ton of money going out to eat. That was like our date night, and physically, he's also feeling better. So we went out dancing, and we danced together for the first time. And I was thinking about how it also hit my fitness button, so to speak, or that fitness goal but without even me recognizing it, because I'm dancing all night to 80s music. I'm just gonna say it with a lot of fun for me. Brought me back to my, you know, teenage years, in my early 20s, basically, and had such a great time. And I was thinking, you know, that's the kind of thing that I think about when we work in wellness, into, like, our plans, you know, I was like, what can you do that... Because really, something like that could have been just the cost of a few Diet Cokes, you know, to go do that because we were listening to a friend's band in Maine, actually, we were visiting. Doesn't cost a lot, you know, you know, time, you know, a little bit of travel. We had a great time, you know, had a great time together and and I think about how sometimes we get caught up in you've got to do this, you've got to do that, you know. And when we think about wellness, if we think kind of globally, you know, and then get down to what are the small things, or the small changes we can make going out and not just eating and and, you know, in my case, I generally don't drink, you know. So that's really not an issue, though. For some people that I know, that can be an issue because it has a ton of empty calorie, you know, on that end. And of course, the folks that are covering a lot of people stay away from it regardless, but, you know, but there were things like that that that we could do. Somebody talked to me about pickleball. I'm enthralled. Don't know where I could do that around here, but you know, just thinking of wellness differently, you know that it's not just you gotta go buy a gym membership.

Cara LaPlante 23:52
Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that story about you going out and dancing and spending time other than going out to eat aligned so well with people in recovery. You know, I think about when in my really early recovery, how to spend time with my partner without just going out to a bar and having drinks. That was how we spend most of our time. So how do we still get that quality time without, yeah, without drinking, and so it has evolved into doing little stuff like that, you know, going to little shows, or just spending more time outside, because that's something that's really important to the both of us, and how it just kind of evolves into quality time as well as elevating our wellness, like you said, without even really considering it. So I think focusing on wellness in the recovery space is such a natural thing, because you're displacing time, and what an incredible opportunity you're changing the way you spend your time, then you have a. million, like, a million different ways that you could be spending your time and also benefiting your wellness, the environment, the people around you. It's a really incredible opportunity.

Narrator 25:18
Thank you for listening to Archways' Threads. If there is a topic you'd like to see us cover, email us at podcast@archwaysnh.org or call us at 603-960-2128. Visit our website at archwaysnh.org to learn more about the Archways family of recovery and family resource centers.