The only thing was I didn't get better and I
continued to cough more. So I went to see my
primary care doctor. After a while, I could hear
the voice of my wife in my left ear telling me
that I had acute respiratory distress syndrome
or I think it's since COVID -19 cytokine storm
that was on life support and that I was starting
to show signs of improvement. After I was taken
off the life support and was able to breathe
on my own, I still was struggling, but I didn't
need to be on life support. I had a mask, but
it became pretty obvious examining me that I
couldn't move. Couldn't move my arms, my fingers,
my toes. That's paralyzed. I don't know if you
remember that movie The Mummy when Imhotep sort
of inhales the life out of the grave robbers.
It just feels like everything is being just pulled
out of you. And I felt my muscles become rigid.
And then it was over. And I was drenched in sweat.
After one of these events, you're going to get
to where you want to be. It doesn't matter whether
or not it's how you deal with heart attack, stroke,
cancer, loss of a loved one, any health issue,
any life issue, you can put it into perspective
and find a way forward. Be a part of the journey.
Let us know you're here. Do us a favor. If you're
listening on the podcast platform, download the
episode. And if you're watching on YouTube, you
know what to do. Hit that like button, subscribe,
and turn on those notifications so you never
miss an episode. And as we always say, let's
make thriving our new normal. Today we're looking
at your health as a tool to achieving your purpose.
And our guest today has a story that may leave
you speechless. Dr. Michael Hesschen, a top cardiologist
and seasoned physician, faced death twice and
came back with a whole new perspective on life,
purpose, and healing. What happens when a doctor
becomes a patient? And how do you rebuild your
life after facing the unimaginable? So get ready
for a powerful conversation and resilience, transformation,
and really what truly matters. Dr. Hesschen,
thank you for being on the show today. Thank
you, Mr. Burke. Appreciate it. You're welcome.
You know, when I first heard we started looking
at your story, I was like, this is this is very
interesting. Like it's I'm sure you have a lot
to share. And so before we get to the meat of
it, I really want to kind of set the stage. Like
before your near death experience, how would
you describe your outlook on life and medicine?
It's very positive. I was very happy with my
life. I was very happy with what I was doing.
I was working hard. And, you know, things are
things are going well. And our kids are both
I graduated from school, had good jobs, and my
wife and I were focusing on traveling and just
enjoying our life and our life together. And
this illness, I guess, like just about any illness,
really kind of blindsides you. Nobody really
gets to pick what it is that's going to befall
them or when, but you just hope that you can
get through it and survive. One thing I learned
out of the gate, it's much harder to be a patient
than it is a physician. I can imagine. What was
the illness that brought you to your first experience
that you had? The middle of December 2013 I got
a cold. It didn't seem particularly unusual.
The only thing was I didn't get better and I
continued to cough more so I went to see my primary
care doctor and examined some blood work and
a chest x -ray and the chest x -ray showed I
had a small area of pneumonia but I had no fever,
my oxygen saturation, all my vital signs were
normal so it was felt that an oral antibiotic
and just taking it easy should all that would
be required to get better. except it didn't.
The cough got worse, I got sicker and sicker,
and early morning hours at December 31st, 2013,
I woke up unable to breathe. My wife had already
been awoken by my labored breathing, and she's
a nurse. you know, we both realized I was in
trouble and that I needed to go to the hospital.
So we called 911. I was brought to the hospital
I worked at for three decades, a social hospital.
And by the time I got to the emergency room,
after the x -rays and the exam and the lab work,
it was pretty apparent that I was in severe respiratory
distress and would likely need to be on a ventilator.
First, they started me on BiPAP, which is a mask
that goes on the top of your head, it's under
your chin, held in place with sturdy straps.
Oxygen is forced under pressure into your lungs.
By the time I got to the intensive care unit,
my oxygen saturation had not gotten better. I
was still struggling to breathe. And at that
point, it was decided that I needed to be intubated
and go on life support. I vaguely remember a
family asking me if I wanted to be on life support.
And I said, yes, I want to live. And so they
sedated me heavily and started me on life support.
And that was the beginning of a very difficult
period of my life. I can imagine. And you, what
type of medicine do you, did you practice or
do you practice? I'm a cardiologist. Cardiologist.
Board certified internal medicine and in cardiology.
I just want to put that, I mean, I know from
my notes, I just want to put out there so that
just kind of flow with the questions here. Did
you ever think about mortality in a personal
way before your experience? Honestly, not really.
I mean, it's something that I have to acknowledge
that I knew someday I was going to die. We all
die. I didn't. I was familiar with death. Both
my parents died when I was young, my mother when
I was 13, my father when I was 24. It was a terrible
experience, their death. I experienced death
many times as a physician. It was quite frankly
terrifying. But it was not something that I worried
about. It was something way off in the distance.
Nothing that really seemed to be of concern up
until the day it did. Yeah, I can see that. So
as a physician, you saw that on the other side
for your patients and things like that. So you
had to help people in that situation as well,
correct? Absolutely. I had a lot of experience
taking care of patients in intensive care units
on ventilators. And it was always sort of taught
that with the sedatives that patients are given
and the pain medications that allows you to tolerate
the in a ventilator, the tube going down into
your throat, into your lungs, it's very uncomfortable.
But it was a common wisdom at the time that the
sedatives, benzodiazepines, induce a sense of
amnesia for most people and that opioids you're
given help relieve the pain. It was quite a surprise
to me actually how much awareness I had of what
was going on day to day. how much I could hear,
how much I understood. Being a physician and
taking care of critically ill patients over the
years, I knew I was in very deep trouble. My
chances of survival were very poor, probably
closer to 25%. As you're explaining or describing
your situation, I remember I had a stroke. And
I remember up until a certain moment. And then
I don't remember anything. And then I woke up,
I woke up swearing at people. My hands were cuffed
to the sides of the bed, you know, I guess to
keep me you know, safe or keep other people safe.
And I don't remember, like, much of anything
in in between those times. But I do remember
after waking up, I would go to sleep and I would
just have these weird like visions and it was
be you'll be extra like extremely crazy. And
I know many people describe like near -death
experiences in vivid detail. Did you experience
anything of that nature? Yes, I did. One of the
treatments that I had to undergo on a pretty
routine basis was called sectioning. You can't
cough or expectorate sputum to clear the pneumonia.
So it has to be done for you mechanically. So
they would place a tube down your throat into
your lungs and just suck out all the junk that's
there. I'd seen it done many times. I had no
idea whatsoever just how amazingly unpleasant
that was. I don't know if you remember that movie
The Mummy when Imhotep sort of inhales the life
out of the grave robbers. It just feels like
everything is being just pulled out of you and
I felt my muscles become rigid and then it was
over. and I was drenched in sweat. After one
of these events, I don't remember waking up.
I just felt like I was drifting as though some
force was pulling me away. I could feel my body
becoming very cold. It didn't make any sense.
I'd never felt that experience before. But I
could feel my body just inexorably being pulled
away. And in the background, I could hear crying,
deep, mournful wailing. A term I remember is
called keening, which is a Gaelic word. used
to describe the crying after the death of a loved
one. It really didn't make any sense to me why
I would be hearing that. Somehow I've ended to
look back and I saw the faces of my tear -stained
faces of my wife, my sons, my siblings, and then
it hit me. It was me that that morning was for.
I was dying or had died. Then I felt myself continue
to drift away and then I could hear nothing.
I could see nothing. After some period of time,
I became aware of a light, a bright light in
the distance. I kept being drawn toward that
light. And as I got closer, took on the image
of a person. And finally, I could see that it
was a woman in a glowing white gown. And she
said, Michael, it is not your time. You must
go back. There is much to do. I don't know how
long a period of time that was, but after those
words, I began to feel my body becoming warm
again and I was still floating. The floating
was a very peaceful feeling, surprisingly peaceful,
not terrifying at all. After a while, I could
hear the voice of my wife in my left ear telling
me what had happened, that I had acute respiratory
distress syndrome or I think it's since COVID
-19 cytokine storm, that was on life support,
but that I was starting to show signs of improvement.
I didn't know at that time what had actually
happened. I didn't know if I'd had a dream, but
about a month later when I was in Spalding Rehabilitation
Hospital in Boston, my closest friend and his
wife brought me some gifts, some good well cards,
some books, and a candle. The candle was from
Notre Dame in Indiana. There's a grotto to Our
Lady of Lords there, a miniature of the Our Lady
of Lords in France, and it was a candle from
that grotto. And they told me that when I was
brought to the hospital, my wife had called all
my family and friends and asked for prayers.
And so they were students there and they went
to the chapel at Our Lady of Lords and asked
that everybody pray for my recovery. And it hit
me at that moment that what I saw was an image
of Our Lady of Lords. I couldn't explain it from
any kind of scientific standpoint. it was just
something that you had to either have faith and
believe that the prayers were heard, or it was
just something that can't be explained. But that
was a very powerful feeling, a lot of emotion,
but it's something I've never forgotten. You
know, I can attest that on my side after the
stroke and, you know, in the space of, you know,
the living and feeling like I'm not alive, there
was a space that I really can't describe. or
get someone to understand that there's a beyond
the words kind of emotion and feeling that I
was experiencing. So I can imagine for you, that
was probably even deeper and a higher sense of
something that you experienced. After you woke
up with such a profound experience, what was
your first thought? Well, when I had found out
that those prayers had been said, the Guarantor
Lady of Lodz on the campus of Notre Dame, I began
to realize that the prayers that were said must
have worked. I grew up, both my parents filled
a family with faith, and it was a part of my
upbringing. I remember praying very hard that
my mother would survive breast cancer. She didn't.
Those prayers were not heard. I prayed for my
father. He had lung cancer. He would survive,
but he didn't. those prayers were not heard.
So I knew prayers, not all prayers are heard.
But, you know, there's a line from a book on
World War II, I forget exactly who it was from,
but it was a chaplain in the army, I think it
was in the Battle of the Bulge. He basically
said, there are no atheists in foxholes. I would
add to that, there are no atheists in ICUs. The
urge to pray was primal. And I realized that
even though not all prayers are heard, some are.
Why? I don't know. I can't explain. But I knew
deep down inside, somehow the prayers that were
said for me were heard, and I survived. It was
a struggle. But I do believe that the experience
can only be understood from the vantage point
of faith, because there really is no scientific
explanation. at least that I have been able to
find. Yeah. I mean, in that moment, did you,
you really caught a sense of there was something
greater than you that's that pulled you through?
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. After that, I know that
for me, just to keep it related, I had a lot
of physical challenges, trying to thinking I
could walk. I remember, I remember trying to
get out of the bed. They had the little guard
rails up, but the bed was low. And I remember
thinking that I could walk and it just didn't
happen. What was the biggest physical challenge
that you faced in your recovery? Well, after
I was taken off the life support and was able
to breathe on my own, I still was struggling,
but I didn't need to be on life support. I had
a mask, but it became pretty obvious examining
me. that I couldn't move. I couldn't move my
arms, my fingers, my toes. That's paralyzed.
And at the time, we were really quite sure what
it was from. But after some testing, it was decided
that I had Guillain -Barré syndrome, which can
happen after viral illnesses. It's not common,
but it's well described. And it can take six
months or longer to get to the point where you
can walk again. So I would look at my fingers
and try to make them move, they wouldn't move.
I tried to wiggle my toes, they wouldn't move.
It was really a feeling of my brain just exploded
like a cluster of fireworks going off. Time had
ceased to become a dimension for me. So I had
no idea how long I was in the intensive care
unit on life support, but I was on life support
for 11 days. And then they watched me in the
intensive care unit for a couple more days after
that to be certain that my breathing remained
stable. And then they decided I didn't need to
be in the hospital anymore. They needed long
-term care. And they initially thought I should
go to a chronic care hospital. My wife and I
refused. We knew that my best chance for recovery
was that a facility like Spalding Hospital, which
does intensive physical therapy, I was otherwise
in good health. And so it wasn't like I was 90
years old and demented and it wasn't going to
likely come back to active for life. And so we
refused the chronic care facility and really
said I wanted to go to Spalding. They accepted
me. And I remember being taken there by ambulances
and the end of February is very cold. And I got
up to the floor, the sign on the floor said,
spinal injury floor. And it hit me at that point
that I was entering a whole new world that I
had no idea what was to come. I'd taken care
of patients on life support ventilators, critical
illness, but being paralyzed or Guillain -Barre
syndrome was not something that I had any knowledge
of or any experience with. So I was really out
of my depth and I was terrified. Actually, that
was my next question. I know you deal with the
physical aspects of your recovery, but what about
emotionally? What was the hardest thing to process
for you in this process of surviving and recovering?
Well, I knew that I was going to live. I think
that vision from Our Lady of Lords convinced
me that I was going to survive. But I wasn't
sure what my life was going to be like going
forward. Whether I was going to be paralyzed
forever, what I was going to be able to do, whether
I would ever be able to walk again to make it
home, to resume my practice as a physician. I
was terrified, terrified beyond any experience
up to that point in my life that I'd had. It
was overwhelming. It was hard to process. everything
that you're saying, I'm really intently listening,
because it's not necessarily reliving, but I
can, I can definitely, I'm getting the experience,
I had the experience that you're having. So that's
where all these questions are coming from. And
I know for me, for a good amount of time, I struggled
with understanding purpose. Did you struggle
with a sense of your purpose after either trying
to return back to normal life? Or, yeah, I'll
leave it there. I'll ask that question first.
Yes, deeply. My sense of meaning and purpose
was tied up with being a physician, with being
who I was, being a husband, a father, being active.
The thought that I might be alive, but never
be able to work again, or to walk again, feed
myself again, it was just beyond understanding.
I really had no idea what the shape and contour
of my life was going to be. But my experience
of spalding on the spinal cord floor, everyone
there had a spinal cord injury, whether they
were paralyzed, neck down, the waist down, or
paralyzed from like what I had, Guillain -Barre.
But the staff was amazing. They inspired hope.
They instilled you with hope and it really encouraged
you to fight. Their motto the Spalding Hospital
model is find your strength. At the time, I mean,
it's in a big plaque in every room. It's in all
the literature. You couldn't miss it. And I was
thinking to myself, what's my strength? I realized
that my strength was inner strength. The belief
that I would never quit, that I would find a
way to somehow survive. It's the way my father
brought me up. He was an immigrant. He came to
the the country from Ireland in 1929 at age 17
with a sixth grade education and $50 in his pocket
that he had borrowed from his mother. And I asked
him when I was young, why did you decide to come
to the United States in the middle of this cataclysmic
economic depression? He said, as bad as things
were in the United States, they were far worse
in Ireland. And he said, if I had a chance of
surviving, it was in the United States. And the
only thing that, even though I had no education,
I knew that I was strong and I would never quit.
And he instilled that belief of never quitting,
believing in yourself, fighting back no matter
how hard it was. Even if you would knock down,
get yourself up, if you didn't know the direction
you were going in, walk a few steps and then
after a while you would find a direction. And
I remember those words, those conversations and
I just focused on that. I had no idea what was
in store for me, but I knew I had that inner
strength that my father instilled in me, and
that I would never quit in trying to fight my
way back. I just focused on that. And somehow
I knew I would find meaning and purpose again
in happiness. I didn't know how, I didn't know
when, but I knew that if I kept going and didn't
quit, that I would find those things. Meaning
purpose and happiness and this is where you currently
are in your life right now. Yes. Yeah What advice
do you have for someone facing a critical illness
or near -death experience? Don't give up Even
though you may not know what life has in store
for you If you do not quit if you get up every
time you knock down Eventually, eventually you'll
find a way forward in the readings that I did
when I was recovering I came across a lot of
quotes on how to find meaning and purpose and
happiness again. And one of them was from Confucius,
and the glory in life is never falling, but every
time you do, get up. And I found that to be very
true. It mirrored the words my father taught
me. And the staff at Svalding Hospital found
ways to motivate their patients because they
knew everybody was struggling with these existential
questions of what their life was going to be
like going forward, because it was not going
to be what it was in the past. And over time,
as I got stronger, I realized that I would be
able to, in some way, find meaning and purpose
again, that I would get home to my wife, to my
family, and that somehow Some way, some time,
I would get back to seeing patients, which I
ultimately did. What's up, Thrivewell Journey
listeners and watchers? Look, if you're someone
with big dreams of entrepreneurship, but need
a flexible way to earn income while building
your business, let me tell you about the Oriens
Group. Through our partnership with Arise Virtual
Solutions, you can become a customer support
professional, AKA CSP and start earning from
home on your own terms. Arise offers a streamlined
certification process, getting you trained and
ready to work with well -known brands all across
America. You can set your own hours, choose the
clients you want to work with, and create a work
-life balance that fits your entrepreneurial
goals. The best part, you don't have to choose
between your side gig and your business dreams.
Being a CSP with the Orion's Group means you
can bring in extra income, while have the flexibility
to focus on growing your own venture, much like
I did. Whether you're looking to supplement your
income or need a bridge while building your empire,
this is the opportunity for you. You interested?
If so, head over to www .TheOrientsGroup .com
to learn more about becoming a CSP with The Orients
Group. Look here. Support your entrepreneurial
journey while supporting The Thrabull Journey
podcast at the same time. All right, one more
time, www .theoreansgroup .com. All right, we're
done with the spot. Let's get back to the podcast.
I think never quitting is really the key. As
bad as things are, as hopeless as things seem,
never quit. I saw that on the faces of so many
people who are paralyzed, the neck down, paralyzed,
the waist down. You could see the people who
were able to acknowledge the situation, accept
it. they would find a way forward. And it became
really what I define my message to my patients.
Acknowledge, accept, adapt. If you can acknowledge
whatever life issue you're facing, whether it's
a heart attack, a stroke, diabetes, paralysis,
you can't change it except getting angry doesn't
help. Denying doesn't help. Then you can move
on to adapting. I found ways to adapt. My first
victory was learning how to swallow again. I
had to be taught how to swallow. My next big
victory was being able to get up into a wheelchair.
I had to be helped into it. They gave me an electric
wheelchair. And I realized in that moment when
I was able to move around with electric wheelchair
how amazing that must be when you're paralyzed
to be given that gift of mobility. It never occurred
to me how powerful that is. So I think that if
you can acknowledge the situation that you're
in, not get lost in looking to the past that
can't be brought back or overcome by the horror
of the situation you're in, you can find a way
to move on to adapt and find meaning, purpose
and happiness again. Yeah, as you were saying
that, that's the thing I got behind me. It's
not over when you lose. It's not over when you
lose. It's over when you quit. So exactly. Definitely
don't quit. What is what do you think most people
forget that if you have five minutes to share
a message that is would that be the message that
you need to share with someone? I think everybody
gets something. It's part of the human experience.
I think that if you continue to mourn the past,
whatever loss it is, you're going to get sucked
down into a very dark place. Yeah. As you can't
change, you can't change the past. If you're
overcome by the horror of the current situation,
you can't move forward. It's the people that
can look to the future, that can find hope in
the future. Those are the people that survive.
I remember in one of the books I read was by
Victor Frankl, A Man's Search for Meaning. He
talked about as an experience at Auschwitz that
it was a unique trait that the people who survived
were those that could look to the future, that
found hope. The people that got stuck looking
to the past or overwhelmed by their current experience,
they gave up and died. Admiral Stockdale, in
his book describing his time as a prisoner of
war during the Vietnam War, experienced frequent
torture and solitary confinement. And he and
the men he was in charge of just talked to each
other, helped one another with the emotions they
were feeling. And when he was interviewed, When
he got out of prison at the end of the Vietnam
War, he was asked, how was it that you and the
men you were in charge of did so well psychologically?
He says, oh, that's easy to answer. The ones
who didn't survive were the optimists. They became
convinced they were going to be home by Christmas.
They were going to be home by Thanksgiving. They
were going to be home by the Fourth of July.
The dates would come and go. And eventually,
they became despondent and gave up. It was the
people that never lost sight of the fact that
someday, that they would prevail and never gave
up hope looking to the future. Those are the
ones that got through relatively intact compared
to those who couldn't. And I found those stories
to be very true. Is that why you wrote Physician,
Heal Thyself? Or why did you write it? Good question.
It was during the January, the pandemic, I started
writing. I went back to work and I had to have
my hip replaced and I was recovering and then
basically everything was shut down and I couldn't
go to rehab. So I was just sitting with nothing
much to do. And I had come across some notebooks
while I was at Spalding. They had encouraged
us to keep notebooks of our thoughts and I started
reading through them. And, you know, the thoughts
and paragraphs became chapters and then ultimately
became a book. And I felt a need to share my
story. It was pretty overwhelming to watch the
nightly news. the story, the stories of all the
death and suffering, people in intensive care
units on ventilators, a national shortage of
ventilators, and how difficult it was for these
people and their families. I felt like I needed
to do something. And the something that I thought
of was I could share my story, what it was like
to recover from acute respiratory distress syndrome,
what kind of storm, the strategies that I used
to navigate that path, the strategies that helped
me rebuild my life, how it affected my family
and my friends. I thought that in normalizing
it, sharing my story, that could help others.
I talk about the post -traumatic stress that
I experienced. That was kind of a shock. I had
known PTSD as a consequence of combat, of violence,
but it really wasn't known at the time. that
PTSD can be a consequence of a critical medical
illness. I did a lot of research and found out
that it was, but it wasn't very well known. So
I talk about it in my book of how I was shocked
and embarrassed actually to admit that that happened
to me. I struggled with like, why should I be
embarrassed? But I think there was always a certain
stigma about people who couldn't just suck it
up and gut it out and get back to what they were
doing. And I began to read more and more about
it and how to overcome it. And I read a lot of
books on PTSD and also corollary of that called
post -traumatic growth, how you can get through
something that alters your life, fundamentally
alters your life and forces you to face a new
reality that you're not going back to the life
you had. You're going... onto something new and
that whole process of post -traumatic growth
is how you survive and recover from the unimaginable.
So it was really to kind of use my story to normalize
the experience to show other people, their family
members, their loved ones that this is something
that is to be expected and this is something
as a caregiver you can help your patients with.
As I said a few moments ago, if you can't acknowledge
what you have, you really can't move forward.
So part of the problem was there wasn't a lot
known about PTSD and critical medical illness.
So I spent a lot of time talking about that in
the book and that if you develop the symptoms,
you need to speak to your physician about what
can be done to help that. And really the best
treatment is called cognitive behavioral therapy.
It's really talking through the negative thoughts
you have about the experience that is so overpowering,
they crowd out every other thought. But it takes
time, just like it takes time to learn how to
play golf or play baseball or throw a football
or play a musical instrument, you have to work
at it. But it is a successful strategy and it
helped me move forward. And in my book, I wanted
to show people that these are normal things that
you can expect to happen. And if they do, this
is how you deal with it. And also, it affects
your loved ones and your family and your friends.
I think it also affected a lot of COVID -19 also,
I think, affected a lot of health care workers.
I mean, estimated to be 20 % of the health care
workers in this country, nurses, physicians,
therapists, quit because they were just overwhelmed
or burnt out by the horror of what they went
through. I think it's something the country is
still reckoning with. Yeah, there's some aftermath,
definitely. And would you say that your book
was a sense of therapy and healing for you? Absolutely.
The writing of the book helped me process a lot
of the emotions that I was feeling. And that's
one of the treatments in cognitive behavioral
therapy is to write down your emotions, what
you're feeling, and it helps you to recover.
And it was therapeutic. It was not an easy book
to write to share all the emotions and relive
the experience. But it helped in many ways get
me through what I was struggling with but didn't
know I was struggling with. You know, it was
impeding. Even though I had gone back to work
and had found meaning and purpose, I was struggling
to find happiness. And I realized that one of
the fundamental errors that people make in not
being happy is they're constantly comparing their
life to what it was in the past. or to someone
else's life, that will never work. You'll never
be happy if you do that. You have to basically
acknowledge the situation that you're in, accept
it, not get angry about it, and then adapt. Figure
out a way forward. The way forward may not be
obvious, but it'll become clear. Yeah, and that's
the mindset that you talk about, which is acknowledge
and accepting and adapting. Correct. If someone
is in a dark place, feeling lost or hopeless,
is that what they should do? Go ahead, acknowledge,
accept and adapt. It'll help. I think, you know,
they may be able to do it themselves. They may
need to seek some guidance from, you know, a
therapist. But if they find themselves in a dark
place, having suffered a critical medical illness
or a critical loss, it's normal to feel lost.
It's normal to feel disoriented and hopeless.
But if you can acknowledge the situation and
learn to accept it. not deny it. Denial doesn't
help. Anger doesn't help. You can get to the
final step, which is adapt. That's a good mindset.
That's a good perspective. It's good to maintain
that. I like those steps. I'm sorry. I'm just
thinking it's a lot of questions I have for you.
We'll wrap it up soon. How do you maintain the
sense of perspective though that that experience
can give you? I think it's part of the process
of survival and how you get through the unimaginable.
As Viktor Frankl and Admiral Stockdale said,
you have to have a belief that if you look to
the future, it'll be better. And if you can truly
believe that somehow, some way, you will find
the path forward. It may not be obvious at first,
but Alexander Solzhenitsyn said the same thing
when he was in the locked away in the gulag.
You know, after so many years there, he realized
that in the midst of a lot of reading, none of
these things I'm talking about today were insights
that I gained overnight. They were just, it was
a process of rebuilding my life and rediscovering
meaning and purpose and happiness. And the realization
that you can find meaning and purpose, but that
doesn't make you happy was kind of a shock. As
I started reading about happiness and how to
find it, you know, going back thousands of years,
going back to Aristotle even, it meant the primary
purpose of man is to find happiness. And he described
happiness as two paths. One, the eudaemic or
the hedonistic. The eudaemic is one who has a
life filled with morality and caring for others.
Hedonistic, which is just... self -pleasure and
that when you go through life and you look at
a problem or if you have a branch point of decision
you look at it will this choice make me happy
or will this choice bring me pleasure which may
just be transient. If you choose the path that
will bring me happiness it will help you to move
forward in a positive direction and so I began
to lead my life choosing to find happiness every
day and I came across a course It was offered
at Yale online by Laurie Santos. And she was
the head of one of the colleges at Yale. And
she was a psychologist and was amazed at how
much unhappiness she saw in her students and
decided to come up with a course that would help
teach her students how to find happiness. And
overnight, it became the most popular course
ever offered at Yale. The first semester, the
first year was offered one quarter of the entire
undergraduate student body enrolled in the course.
It's still one of the most popular courses held
and you can actually gain access now on Coursera.
She said there are five lessons. You find happiness
in being with other people, not spending time
on social media, which really isn't proven to
cause unhappiness. You can find happiness by
keeping a gratitude journal, finding five things
to write in your journal each day that make you
happy and how your life would be less happy without
them. And to make time for prayer or meditation
and to make time for personal growth, whether
it's reading or exercise. All of these same things,
fairly simple, but it's hard. to actually do
all of them. But if you can do all of them well
and learn to prioritize what will help you be
happy, you will succeed. I think people sometimes
get caught up in the struggle of their job, working
harder. They want to make more money, so they
work harder still. They don't have time for their
friends or their family. They don't have time
for the other things in life, even things unknown
to help you, such as exercise. But if you can
really be disciplined, and force yourself to
be accountable, that you can find meaning, purpose,
and happiness in life. I like that. I love that,
actually. Gratitude is one of the things that
we definitely take on around here. And so, it
is key. It's key. It really is key to us as people.
That's one of the practices that I take on every
morning. You know, three to five things, you
know. Even if it's just simple, I'm happy about,
you know, that I have breath. You know, just
as simple as that. um, and really have it at
the core of your being, you know, that, that
gratitude, emotion, um, or just being alive.
Um, if this conversation could change, I know
people say that one person's life, but if this
chat conversation could change someone's life,
um, what do you, what do you hope that they would
take away from it? Well, I would hope that they
would take away the belief or the hope that no
matter how terrible their current situation seems
to them. Don't despair. Be hopeful for the future.
And I use the term acknowledge, accept, and adapt
as a little acronym to help people keep those
three things in the forefront of their thought
process. Because if you can do those, you're
going to get to where you want to be. It doesn't
matter whether or not it's how you deal with
heart attack, stroke, cancer, loss of a loved
one. any health issue, any life issue, you can
put it into perspective and find a way forward,
then it'll get better. Acknowledge, accept, and
adapt. Dr. Hesschen, I appreciate your time being
here and sharing your life with me and the audiences
that will be watching. How does one get in touch
with you or connect with you? So I have a website.
It's www .acknowledgeacceptadapt .com. That's
my website, my biography, a lot of links to podcasts
I've done, blogs, and my book, which I think
is a distillation of all that we talked about
today. I tried purposely not to make it too long.
frighten people away. It's very readable in a
weekend. But I have a pretty extensive bibliography
of people. If people are so inclined, they want
to learn more about some of the concepts that
I talked or some of the books that helped me,
it's there for them. And I highly recommend starting
with the book, Physician, Heal Thyself, Nearly
Dead and the Journey Back to Health. It's available
on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It's a short
read. But it's a powerful book, and it really
puts together all we discussed today. And for
anybody who wants to dig deeper, there's an extensive
bibliography of things that will help you get
more nuanced understanding of what I talked about.
And the website has a lot of blogs and quick
discussions of topics that I think people may
find helpful, but that's how you can get it.
And of course, we'll have all that information
in our description. And again, thank you. Dr.
For being here. Absolutely. Thank you very much
for having me. You can always connect with us
on Facebook and Instagram. And we are getting
our website up pretty soon. So stay tuned for
that. And as we stay, I like acknowledge, accept
and adapt. And as you're doing that, make sure
you make thriving your new normal. See you next
time. Bye bye. Thank you. Bye bye.