Mindset Connection

Mindset Connection Episode 41: Karen Burr

• Jennifer Clearwaters and Cynthia O'Connell • Season 1 • Episode 41

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Welcome to the Mindset Connection Podcast. We are grateful to do
this work and to be able to showcase people who truly are on a
mission to spread love and healing in the world. For our 41st episode,
we sat down with attorney, mediator, and community advocate, Karen
Burr. Karen is the owner of the Burr Law Group, and her grounded
and genuine energy told us right away she fully connects with her
clients. Karen grew up in a musical household. Both her parents were
concert pianists and Karen also played several instruments-including
the harp! Her parents founded Music for All Seasons-a program that
brings live music to undersourced communities, and is helping
people to heal and connect all around the country. Karen also talked
with us about her own healing journey after losing her partner several
years ago, and how she trained to become a lead facilitator at
Common Ground Grief Center. If you don’t know about Common
Ground, check out episode 3 with Lynn Snyder to learn about this
wonderful place! Karen amazed us with her energy, her passion, and
her excitement to keep bringing music and songwriting to those who
need it most. At the time of recording, Karen was also training for the
HYROX competition in June, and we wish her the best of luck!

The Changemaker for Using Live Music to Heal the World

Contact Information for Karen Burr

Social Media: @musicforallseasons

_____________________________________________

Contact Information for Hosts, Jennifer Clearwaters and Cynthia
O’Connell:

Jen
www.mindsetnj.com-Website
@mindsetjen-Instagram
@mindsetconnectionpod-TikTok
@jenniferclearwaters-YouTube
@mindsetconnectionpod-YouTube

Cindy
www.mindfulnessconnection.com-Website
@mindfulnssconnection-Instagram
@mindsetconnctionpod-TikTok
@mindsetconnectionpod-YouTube

@theelevationprinciples-YouTube channel for the book, The Elevation
Principles

The Elevation Principles is available on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1665307099?ref=myi_title_dp


PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW!
Podcast available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube


This podcast is produced, recorded, and edited at Black Swallowtail
Studios in Eatontown, NJ.

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to the Mindset Connection podcast, and thank you for joining us for our 41st episode. We are your hosts, Jennifer Clearwaters and Cindy O'Connell. And if you're new to us, welcome. And at every show, we are featuring amazing people doing great things in mental health and wellness. So one note that Cindy and I keep forgetting to say when we do our intro is if you have not subscribed to our podcast, please hit that button and do it. Uh we often are not doing we're doing the same thing and sometimes we forget. But if you like our show, please subscribe. It does help for us to get our message out. And additionally, I forgot to say this last time too. We are now accepting sponsors for our podcast. So if you did want to support our work, please let us know. Find us in the show notes, give us a contact um shout-out, and we would love to work with you. But anyway, back to our show. Today we are welcoming Karen Byrd to our podcast. So thank you for being here. And Cindy's gonna start with her bio.

SPEAKER_00

All right. So Karen is an attorney, a mediator, a dedicated community advocate whose work reflects a deep commitment to supporting others, both legal guidance and meaningful human connection. And Karen, uh, just a little shout out to Lynn Snyder from Common Ground, where I don't know how she does it, but we'll hear about it. Karen is the facilitator there. And uh Lynn said, Oh, you have to have my friend on. She'll be perfect. So Jen, Lynn, and I decided that was a dot. Heard us talk about it before, it means it's a connection. So there it is. So uh she's equally passionate about her role as a member of the Board of Trustees for Music for All Seasons, which we're gonna hear about. And she is the owner of the Burr Law Group, which has offices in uh Rumson and Hoboken Bayonne. I want to say Hoboken for some reason. And uh her practice focuses on family law and mediation. And she can explain about that for those of us that are unaware of what that is. So she um also uh, again, is a facilitator for common ground. She is involved with music for all seasons. So she definitely has uh a compassionate heart and is willing to just give her everything to uh the community involvement as well as her own business. So she also has extensive experience in litigation and high-stakes negotiation, and she was in the past um a senior claims analyst with multi-million dollar cases. She has a doctorate from Seton Hall University of School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, no surprise there, um, from the University of Rochester. Uh, she has a core belief in helping others and making a lasting positive impact on their lives. So thank you so much, Karen, for joining us today.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you. So nice introduction. Let's talk about the law stuff first, because there's so many different things. You're here, just being a lawyer is a full-time job. And then we have this all of the stuff at Common Ground and then the music programs, wondering how you're doing all that. But how did you go from working in law to then deciding to just start your own firm? That's gotta be hard.

SPEAKER_01

It it was, but it kind of was a natural progression. So I was working in insurance defense in a law firm, and then I actually transitioned to working in AIG, to at AIG uh in an insurance company. And that was when I was a claims analyst, and we worked in the excess department. And so that was handling multimillion dollar lawsuits and claims and basically analyzing the claim and how to resolve it on behalf of the insured. And I worked at AIG for a few years, and then I worked at Liberty International Underwriters. And at that same time, I was starting my family. And I had a young child, and I then was um pregnant with my second child, with my second daughter. And it was becoming difficult because that kind of work in the claims business uh entailed a lot of travel. And I loved it. I loved what I was doing there. I loved the claims world, but it was just a lot for starting my new family. And my sister-in-law was also in a transitionary period, and she had just left a firm that she was working at, that she had worked at for a while doing real estate, and she was looking to start her own firm. So she was going out and doing real estate and a little bit of family law and a little bit of estate work, wills and things of that nature. And she asked me, Did I want to join her? So I said, Okay. So it was kind of a leap of faith. I didn't, you know, know exactly how it was going to work out. But I started working with her and she taught me everything I knew, everything she knew in family law at the time. And then she also started to work with me for real estate, said, Oh, we can, you know, both do real estate and family law. But we quickly learned that that was not the way to go because I just real estate wasn't for me. There were so many moving parts, there was so much that I really didn't know about it. And that had been what she did for her whole career so far. So it was, she was really, really good at it. And it just came natural to her. And she also figured out I hate to be in court. I don't want to go to in front of judges, I don't want to argue anything. And I liked that. I didn't mind that. So I took over everything in family law and she took over everything in real estate, and that's what we've been doing. And we joined uh together in 2010. So it's been fabulous. See, you took a leap of faith, and what do they say?

SPEAKER_03

Leap and the net will appear, right? So it worked for you. Thank you. Congratulations. That's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

So that's why her last name is Burr as well. Yes, and my sister-in-law, yes, we figured that out. All right. So, you know, prior to having a guest on the podcast, we always like to, you know, meet with them. And um, so Karen was kind enough to spend some time with us, even though she had to sit in her car to talk to us because it was one of those. Doing anyway network. So um tell us how you became a board member for music for all seasons, because this is a wonderful story about your parents' careers in music and how that influenced you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thank you. Um, this might be a long answer. So if you've got a lot of people, it is no, we don't want to. It's truly a beautiful story.

SPEAKER_03

It's a beautiful program, and we didn't know about it. Yeah. So we want our listeners, okay, viewers to know about it.

SPEAKER_01

No, I appreciate that. My so I grew up with music. My parents are both concert pianists. So I grew up with every day hearing some type of music around me, and um, that influenced our family. I mean, I used to play, I played the viola when I was very little, and then I played the piano a little bit just because they were teachers also. And then I played the harp in high school and college. So um, and then my brother is a cellist in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. So he started playing for his career, and obviously that was born out of the music in our household. But my parents, um, during, you know, they my father was a um teacher, a professor at Temple University, and he taught music theory. And my mother did a lot of uh performing and she was also a writer, she was a music critic at the New York Times and the Home Tribune. Oh my goodness. And so she's such accomplished people. So she, because she was um playing a lot, she was playing concerts, she was preparing for a series of concerts in California, and she called a um nursing home and she said, Do you mind if I come and play this? Because I would like to practice it publicly, you know, play my pieces publicly. So they said, Of course, come in. So she went into the nursing home and she played this concert, and she said that she was blown away, as was the staff, at the reaction of the residents and how some people really hadn't moved much, hadn't they weren't very happy, and they were sitting there humming, they were dancing in their seat. There was this reaction that she was seeing to the live music in front of them. So she went home and she said to my father, there's a need here. I think this is an idea. And that's how Music for All Seasons was born. In 1991, they started and they said, uh, you know, we're gonna start bringing music to people who are confined. So the populations that they began working with were nursing homes, convalescent centers, children's hospitals, prisons, women and children that were victims of domestic violence, living in shelters, at-risk teen facilities where the teens were living in the facilities. So anywhere where people couldn't get out to hear live music, they would bring it to them. So and they brought it to them. They were professional musicians. They believe in paying all of their musicians a living wage. And uh, so none of them were volunteers, but what they did was they would create these maybe music series, and here's a series at a nursing home, here's a series at this prison. And the performances that they did were interactive, they were educational, they were fun. So the people, I mean, you had people in the prison saying, That's classical music. I didn't know that's classical music. That's amazing. You know, they were just teaching and opening people's eyes to different things. And also in the process, of course, there's a level of healing. And that's what they believed so strongly in that healing power of music, yeah, which is why they started it. And then um, fast forward, they began working with, they said, you know, we'd like to work with different populations because they really saw such a change in the populations that they were working with. So in about 2011, my father and a prior board member, Ellen Kulka, they decided that they wanted to work with the veteran population. So they created a program called Voices of Valor. And Voices of Valor is just amazing. So what they did was they brought a professional musician and a songwriter, a lyricist, along with a psychology mentor. And they asked a they would go to maybe veteran facilities to um work with the different veterans, and they would ask a group to volunteer to be involved in this. They really had no idea what they were volunteering for at the time, you know, because it was a pretty new program. But they would have between 10 and 15 veterans, and they would create a song about their experiences. So the idea is that the veterans could create a song about whether it's, you know, what they experienced at war, what they experienced, what they're experiencing now through PTSD, what they experienced just trying to reintegrate into life and having trouble with that, not being supported enough, things like that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And it was a collective experience. It was one song with 10 or 12 or 15 people. So all of their experiences came into one culmination of a song together. And it's amazing. Yeah. And the cool thing is that the people that are involved in the voices programs, they don't have to have any musical experience, no musical background. So you have people that um once they're done creating the song, which is generally a seven-week series. That was going to be my question. How long would that take? Seven times once a week. Yep. And then eighth week they go into a professional recording studio and they record their song. And they have people that are singing that have never sung before. So not only is it healing just to talk, you know, to sing about their experiences, and to also have people that have experienced it together, right? To form a community.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Ah, what a great so they and they've done um, I'll tell you the just the two um other voices programs that have been born out of this, also, is uh the voices of empowerment. Voices of empowerment, and they worked with um teens at juvenile detention centers. That's great. So they did a few of the programs there, and the voices of valor, they've now completed almost 90 songs of the voices of valor. It's all on YouTube. I was gonna say, where can you find all seasons? Okay, musicforallseasons.org. And then Voices of Change is the newest one. And that one was created really post-COVID out of a need that uh my parents were seeing, and the Board of Music for All Seasons and the um facilitators were seeing that there was a need for a connection. Yeah, the teens, especially the younger people that were really missing out on that connection. And so they went to the Boys and Girls Club and did Voices of Change and did a program there. And we're so proud to announce that they're they've just started a Voices of Change program at Common Ground Grief Center. So they have a group that's in the process of creating their song now, whether it's about the grief that they're experiencing or missing their person or something of that nature. It's really whatever the group decides as a whole to put together. And they are uh creating that now, and they're going to be premiering their song at the common ground fundraiser.

SPEAKER_00

The clam bake.

SPEAKER_01

The clam bake on June 11th at Martel's Tiki Bar. So we're so excited about that. So is it the teens that they selected, or is it a combination of the teens and the kids? It was whoever wanted to volunteer. Yeah. The thing is, when you start these programs, people don't really know when they're not sure.

SPEAKER_03

There's a little hesitation.

SPEAKER_01

So there's right, like the Voices of Valor programs. I think people are now clamoring to get into it. So voices of change and common ground, they didn't really know yet. So we chose from the 6 and 12, you know, and the team. Well, they chose themselves, they volunteered to do it. Yeah, but they're absolutely loving it. And uh we're really, really excited because it's just three weeks in and they've already got almost a whole song. And I'm amazed. Wonderful. That's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00

So uh and and still the musicians are being paid in order to do that.

SPEAKER_01

They are being paid. The facilitators are paid to go and do these series with common ground, with voice of change, voices of valor. All of the musicians for music for all seasons are paid. Isn't that what it's really wonderful? We were just talking about that. I know what you've got on the point. But but we understand how you got there.

SPEAKER_00

So you you fundraise, it's a nonprofit, obviously. Yes, and you fundraise so that you have the money to pay your own.

SPEAKER_01

So music for all seasons is is just like common ground is it's all based on uh grants, sponsorships, fundraising, and there's always a push annually for fundraising. Um, and we're actually uh we'll have a tribute to the founders that's gonna be in November, and that's November 9th in Jersey City at the Liberty House. And that's gonna be a really big fundraiser, also, to try to bring more uh funds to the organization and they're really uh expanding the programming as much as possible.

SPEAKER_03

And you gave us flyers on that, so we'll we'll make them and make sure that we put them out for you.

SPEAKER_01

We're really excited because uh Bo Derek is gonna be the chair of the event. And that's really great. And you want to see Bo Derek City's conversation. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03

Let's talk about we're we've been talking about common ground. And for anyone who doesn't know Common Ground Grief Center here here in Manisquan, uh or Lynn Snyder, she was a a guest on our podcast. So you can flip back to, I think she was very early on. She might have even been like she was the third FPR. Yeah, so if you don't know about common ground, go back and listen to uh who she is and what she started. But you're a head facilitator there. I think tell us about how you became involved in Common Ground and what your experience is like there. Because anybody that goes, then you know. Yeah, it's just an amazing place.

SPEAKER_01

It's such a special place to be. Lynn Snyder is such an amazing person, everything that she does there. Um and Common Ground itself, uh, for anybody who doesn't know, they provide peer support for kids who have lost a parent or a sibling. And so it's broken up into young groups, six to twelve, teens, and then young adults. And then while the kids are in the group, they also have a group for the parents, which you can go to or not. And so I found common ground because in 2018 my partner passed away. He died unexpectedly. And I was um and I I was dealing with the grief at that time, obviously, and he had lived with me and my children for several years. And so they were very close to him, and they were eight and eleven at the time. So my mother started to try to figure out as she does, how can I help? And she researched and found Common Ground Grief Center, and we met Lynn and started going there. And my kids, they were in the six to twelve group at the time, and they just got so much out of it. They absolutely loved the experience because they were able to be with people who understood them, people who had dealt with the same traumatic loss, people who, you know, really got what they were going through at that moment, and they made a lot of friends, like lifelong friends from that, which is really cool. And um, so when they stopped going, because they went for a few years, and then they said, Okay, you know, they were getting into other things. And uh I said, I don't want to leave common ground, like I want to continue to do something. And uh, so I ended up joining the fundraising committee, and that's the fundraising committee that helps with the annual fundraiser. And I was on that for a few years, and then I decided to train as a facilitator, and they do an annual training also for facilitators because they're all volunteers, and the facilitators, the facilitator training took uh a few weeks, and then I've been doing that for about three years. The first two years that I facilitated the groups, I facilitated teen groups, and I was so lucky because I got paired with Lynn. Yeah, I got paired with Lynn Sider for the first two years. So I mean magic. Yeah, like who's better to learn from? Oh, and so that was amazing, and then this is my third year, and then she went on to a different group, a different night, and so she put me as the lead facilitator for the teen group, and then I now facilitate with another, another woman named Lynn who's fabulous. And yeah, I mean, it's just such a special place, and it's so fulfilling to be there with the kids. Yes, it's such a good place, it's a wonderful place.

SPEAKER_00

So let me ask you about the training because like we hear it from Lynn's side. Yes, yes, what about it from your side? I mean, it you know, it's several years ago, but still, I'm sure it, you know, it's two weekends.

SPEAKER_01

It's funny because the the children at common ground, when you see the way that they connect with each other so quickly, it's always amazing. And I I was like, how does that happen? You know, because there's there is of course some hesitation with getting to know people as a child still, but they really open up within that even first group. Yeah. The facilitating was like the training was the same. I mean, I got to know these adults so quickly. I was like, I feel like I'm in the kid group, you know what I mean? Like just in the way that there was this amazing connection. And it was such a fabulous group of people because they're here. There were people that were spending their time volunteering for two weekends in a row. It's you know, a long period of training. And I was like, these are we we we joked at the end, it was like we found our people, find my people. There's a song sometime later. You did find your people, yes. We found our people, and it's like we all had a common common ground. Yeah, we all had we were all looking to help others and do something to um give back also to common ground. Yeah. And it's how you're helping yourself too. Yeah, oh yeah. And you learn how to talk to people too, because the issue with grief is that um a lot of people don't know how to talk about it. And you get nervous, you don't know what to say, what's the right thing to say, and it's you start learning, it's not about the right thing or the wrong thing, it's just about talking, it's about being open to hearing what that person is dealing with. You know, and people, a lot of people say nobody wants to talk about the person who died because they're gonna be like, don't want to be afraid we're gonna make you cry. And there's nothing wrong with crying, like it's kind of nice to and you and it's nice to talk about the person who's gone because that's something that is so near and dear to you. So you think about it. So there's nothing, you know, and you think about the funny things too. You think about the funny dances they did or whatever, you know. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The memories, you bring up those memories that always make them feel like the person's still with us in a sense. Exactly. So give us an example. I'm really putting you on the spot here. Give us an example of something that you would have done in the training that was different, that you were like, wow, I didn't think of it this way.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I remember one thing was that they had asked us about what we would want our funeral to look like. Oh, I've heard that before. Yeah. And I thought that was an interesting thought, and just to think about how others, maybe how others would think about you after you were gone. Yes, you know. Um, and that was it, it's just the way that she talked about things and when in the training just turned things around a little bit, you know, you things you didn't think about.

SPEAKER_00

Because death is a no-no, we're not gonna talk about death, but death is a reality and it is just part of life. So why aren't we talking about it?

SPEAKER_01

And I know we did uh different training activities, like um we would pair up with each other and and try to talk about things and get to know. Each other quickly, and that was that was one of the ways that she connected us so quickly. It was us to ask questions about the other person. And we also went through some ideas of how you would respond to things that people would say in group, like that kids would say in group. Because a lot of it the kids the kids talk about what are the things that you hate to hear.

SPEAKER_03

You know, we heard that from the panelists when you were at the event this year that you know the wellness event. Yeah, the wellness event, because they had yeah, they had a number of.

SPEAKER_00

And in Lynn's book, she writes a lot about that too.

SPEAKER_03

And you do see a difference because I remember in the panelists, there were there were several of the girls, there were several, several people that talked about, you know, coming to common ground and being able to speak about it and then having friends that would just allow them to share. And I remember there was one panelist that said, like, uh, he was saying, Well, you know, my friends at school, you know, don't really ask, so I don't really talk about it. Yeah, and I can only save it to really talk about here. Yes. And you could definitely tell there was a difference. Right. Yeah. We said it, we were like, huh, we could see a difference because he was waiting for it. There was more of a sadness. There was a sadness to him because he was saying his dad had passed when he was younger, so his friends didn't really ask, and nobody talks about it. But here is the only place that he could really see like that. There was some.

SPEAKER_01

I had in my teen group not too long ago, there was a one of the girls who was crying about her dad and about how much she missed him. And she was talking about what she missed and some of the things, but she was really, really upset. And not one child just sat there and said, I'm sorry. They they listened and they asked questions. And one girl said, and I'll never forget the way she she just looked at and she said, Can you tell us about your dad? And I was like, Wow, it's like it works. That is a well.

SPEAKER_00

That is a well. But going back to you, Karen, you're you're a perfect fit for this because as an attorney, I have three my son's an attorney, my sister's an attorney, her husband's an attorney. And if you're going into court, what is the most important thing? You gotta be a good listener. Yeah. So you and you have to know what question to ask next. And what not to not to ask. So isn't it interesting that your profession is actually linked to this job as a facilitator?

SPEAKER_03

It really is. But it's still heavy, you know. Like talking about grief is heavy, and you know, you've been through loss, and like you now you're with people. We we ask Lynn the same thing, like you're with kids and families who are experiencing loss all the time. Like, how do you how do you handle that?

SPEAKER_01

It's funny because we talk about that, in fact, before and after the group that night there's a pre-group session where you're supposed to come in and kind of clear your mind of your day. And be present. Because it's right, you might have had a really stressful day dealing with a lot of other stuff, and you don't want to bring that energy to the kids, you don't want to bring that energy to the teens. So we do that pre-group meeting, and then a post-group meeting is supposed to get rid of that heaviness. Talk about what happened during group, maybe talk about, you know, you can talk about it a little bit later, you know, however it is to try to get that out of your mind also. And it really does work to have that, you know, post group meeting to just try to get into a little bit of a a a better mindset before you walk out the door. But I have to say, I mean, as far as uh I said that a bit funny because when even when you're in the group and you deal with the heaviness, you realize like I really get something out of it from the idea that these kids are they're letting this go in the room. You know, they're putting so much out there with each other that they can be lighter. You know, they're they sat there and cried for, you know, a long time and they have people talking to them and consoling them and being there for them. And that's not what they're getting at school, or you know, and that might not even be what they're getting at home, depending on their situation, where you have new parents involved, and maybe they don't want to hear about the parent that's that's not there, you know, as much. So it's a it's there's a lot of different layers to it. Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_03

And Cindy and I always talk about that just in general, that like we always say there's like a check-in, right? You check in before you start the day, and then you're like check in again before you check out.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, because because nobody knows. I mean, even the three of us sitting here, no one knows what our morning was like or evening was like or what's going on in our personal lives. And you know, like we have this conversation, you know, are people doing the best that they can?

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And you know, my immediate thing is yes, they are, because we don't know what's going on with them. Whereas Jen I said this was when we were researching our book.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, are people doing the best they can? And Cindy, I said, absolutely not. And Cindy was like, Well, you don't know. That's why we're such a good team. Yeah, right. Yeah. And there's no wrong answer. No, there's no wrong answer. But then you can turn that question into yourself and say, Are you doing the best that you can? Because that's really where the honesty and truth comes from. It's like, do I know, is there something that I know I could be doing better?

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

You know, and usually I link that back to self-care, is because when people, you know, everyone that's come on our show, they all have busy lives and doing all these things and they're making magic for the world. And how many of them have actually struggled with that question? Where we'd ask them, like, that is one of the biggest questions. What do you do to take care of yourself? And then they go, they're like, uh, you know, there's a little pause, there's a little pause. Yeah. Yeah. So because we always say that, how are you going to be doing all these wonderful things in the world if you're not starting with you?

SPEAKER_01

Well, and and just to go back, when you talk about self-care, especially when you're going through grief, when you're going through things like that, you know, that's one of the reasons that I found common ground so amazing because I was trying to figure out I'm going through my own severe grief, and I have these kids going through it, and how do I help them and continue? And common ground was amazing for that, you know, with the adult group and also just seeing them deal with it was was fabulous. But now self-care looks a little different, you know. I still experience the grief and the loss, but it's totally different way, you know. Yes, it's not as heavy, it's it's present, but exactly. And and I'm very, very close with um Brian, who passed. I'm very, very close with his family and his daughter. And so my self-care is first of all, being really connected with my family, with my friends, my kids. I have two wonderful kids. They're 16 and 19, both girls. And um, I do spend a fair amount of time with my family and with my kids, with Brian's family, who is my family, I consider them. And um, and then I go to the gym. I need that. I go to the gym. It is medicine, yes. Yeah, yes, I probably right now. I'm I'm pushing it more. You know, I've been going more, so I've been going like five, six days a week, and I do that early. So that's the first thing of the day, generally. So it's my same thing with gossiping. Yeah, the day can't get you.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly. You can do it first and more. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So, you know, I I'm I'm thinking to myself, like, what is the is there a difference in your law practice since you started to be a facilitator at Common Ground and since you got involved with music for all seasons?

SPEAKER_02

That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00

You maybe I don't know. I definitely do have more understanding.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I do have more understanding. There's a lot of empathy in my practice in terms of what they're going through because some people obviously are have dealt with loss, so I see that. Uh a lot of it has to do with um some substance use, substance abuse, whether they're dealing with it themselves or their partner has it, is dealing with it. And that's something that I've I'm very empathetic about. And so in terms of music for all seasons, I think it's just the idea that um of giving back and watching what my parents spent almost their entire life doing, you know. I grew up with them giving back and and and they never judged people, you know, they didn't judge their no matter how different you were domestic violence centers and prisons they were in all different places, and I never saw them judge people for who they were, where they came from, their background, their financial status, their education.

SPEAKER_03

Like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But you're also using the healing power of music. Yeah, you know, it doesn't matter where you are, what's going on, like it can heal you.

SPEAKER_01

And it's cool because it's there's so many different programs that they've brought into these facilities. It's not just classical music. I mean, there's all different varieties and uh it's really exciting for the people that are receiving that uh those programs. I'm sure that I'm sure it is.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So you know, I I can't help but think that even, you know, we we talked before this, but then when I saw you in the parking lot and I was right away, um I had this sense of warmth and passion about you. So I can't even imagine how lucky your clients are, because how many attorneys are like that? You know, there's very present.

SPEAKER_03

There's a there's a there's a presence about you, and that's why we always tell people about being in the present moment because most people are not, right? But there's definitely something that is calming and in you're like you're here giving us your time. Right. Right. You know, and that's something, honestly, when we link it back to common ground, like those kids, you know, and as we know, Cindy and I were public educators for what so many years. If you're not on point with the kids, yeah, they know in two seconds if you're not paying attention, and they also know if you're not genuine and they can sense it. And that I I saw as being a school counselor, they'll just close right up if they're not gonna they don't want to talk to you if they feel like they can't trust you. Yeah, you know, and those kids are trusting you with all of their emotions and maybe things they can't say at school or at home, and yet they need a safe space to to be able to share.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And you know, what you see in me uh extends across all of these volunteers throughout common ground and obviously music for all seasons. But in the common ground, you've got there's 68 uh volunteer facilitators and they uh growing. Yeah, yeah. And Music for All Seasons, the facilitators that started the Voices of Change program there just you know a few weeks ago, they uh were so blown away by how open these children were in their first uh session. They said it usually takes a few sessions to really get to know them and to open them up so that we get an idea of what themes do you want to work with, what kind of music do you like. And they said immediately first session, they were so open, and that's what these kids learn, you know. That's that's what they're doing every week. So it's such an amazing place.

SPEAKER_03

It's wonderful, and that that you that you also see in Lynn's book. You know, if you have if you haven't picked up Life on Pause, Lynn Snyder, it's all the collection and artwork from the music element. And now we'll have the music, yes, but yes.

SPEAKER_00

Uh you know, all I'm thinking about is there's a lot of musicians out there who this would benefit them so much. Yes. Yes. So are you looking for musicians? Where do you find your musicians? Yeah, yeah. How does that work?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, um, I'm not as involved in that part of it, but I do know that they're always looking for, they're always open to um meeting musicians that are interested in a certain like New York, New Jersey area because they're actually in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California, and they just started in Massachusetts. That's great. So there is a lot of area for um involvement, a lot of yeah, a lot of and growth. And musicforallseasons.org is the website. So yeah, obviously, just you know, reaching out if you say, Hey, this is something I would love to do. And, you know, it's paid work, but it's so meaningful because you're doing something where you're giving back and you're interactive. You know, there's a specific way that the musicians work with the people that they, you know, go into these residences or the facilities. So are they trained as well? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think it's a great opportunity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

From colleges or is it uh like students and music programs, like who is the case?

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's funny because Music for All Seasons is actually working on uh training the next generation of musicians to be able to give back in this way and also to be able to work with people in the way of um being able to interact with their audience. And they're directly working with uh a Cali Collective, which is a graduate program, and that's through Montclair State University. And they've been doing that for a few years now. That's yeah, because I would say that's a great opportunity to start training the students. And they the kids really learn so much from it, and yeah. That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00

That's great. So, what's a takeaway you would like our listeners to know?

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, words of wisdom. I know. I I would I would like your listeners to think about, you know, giving back. Like I think that it's so important to give back, to volunteer, to look locally, to see who you can help. A lot of people feel that they might not have the time or they might not be able to, or maybe they don't know where to go, right? Um, where it's best to give back, that type of thing. But there you just get so much yourself, even from giving back to others. You learn so much about yourself. And I, you know, I just I I would say, I guess, in the sort of paraphrased words of Gandhi, you know, be the change you wish to see in the world, right? Because that's so important right now, especially when you look at the division that we have in this country, to be someone that focuses on making change locally, making change right. You know, people are losing friends over things that they think and politics and stuff. So just you know, doing something different, I think that's really important. And if you don't know where to look, go to musicforallseasons.org or common groundgriefcenter.org. We have plenty of volunteer opportunities.

SPEAKER_03

And it doesn't matter. Sometimes people with giving, they think, okay, well, I don't have any money, but you don't need to give money exactly. Your time. Oh, the time for anything.

SPEAKER_01

You can facilitate and work with groups, you can yeah, there's lots of ways to do it. Lots of ways for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So these are some final questions. And if you watch the podcast, I don't know whether people that have watched it are like already preparing for this, but we'll probably not. Probably not. So, how do you view failure? Oh failure. I know.

SPEAKER_03

I know. We've all been there.

SPEAKER_01

I haven't failed before. Um well, it's funny because in my business, failure can be a loss of emotion. You know, we we lose emotion or we lose something. Obviously, that's you know, but I view failure as a way to uh learn, you know, because obviously, let's say if it really is at work and it's a loss of emotion, I'm gonna figure out, okay, what do I need to do next time? How do I need to present this in a way that the judge really understands? Or maybe this was something that was really difficult to win, and we did our best, we made our best shot at it, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Great answer. Yeah. What are your three most important strengths? We know you have a lot more to recreate. Don't overthink it, just boom. What comes to your head?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, compassion, empathy, and um presence. See, you you do have it. You've got that presence.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And I kind of feel like you never sleep.

SPEAKER_01

I I don't sleep a lot, but I've started to I've started to really push it. You picked it up. I picked it up. I was like, this woman does not sleep. The training, you know, because I have started working with um Advice Unfiltered, the podcast that I mentioned, and they help people to achieve whatever it is that you're looking to achieve. And one of the things that I'm training for is the HIROCs uh you're gonna do HIROX challenge. I think it was just or it's soon. There's one June 7th in New York, and that's the one I'm gonna do. So in training for that, um, one of the biggest things they're saying is you have to sleep, you have to sleep. So I'm trying to get to sleep at a better time. That's what I'm saying. Sleep is your foundation. If you don't sleep, you know, you're not gonna be good for it.

SPEAKER_00

So, what's going well in your life? I mean, you're practically bubbling over, so I'm gonna say there's lots.

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, I mean, my kids are fabulous, and that's really exactly. Yeah, she is fabulous. And I didn't mention that she is um also a facilitator at Common Ground Center. She talked about it. I mean, and she's 19, and I'm so impressed with the fact that she's doing that. Yeah. Yeah. In between her other jobs. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then uh honestly, I mean, work is going well, it's very busy. I have um, you know, uh uh great clients. Um, some are really tough, some are really, you know, the cases themselves, and you have adversaries and um the other side of the divorce that are really difficult to deal with. But it's all, again, I guess I have to take that as a learning experience. How do I deal with this one? It's very difficult, and moving on to the next. So that's going well. And then um, I am very, very passionate about common ground and music for all seasons, and I just love promoting it and doing what we do with um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You've got a nice offshoot, like you have like your very stressful, yeah, you know, law career and what that entails, and then you have these two beautiful programs that you're doing outside. That's true.

SPEAKER_01

It gives you it gives you purpose.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, it gives you something different to focus on, too. Yeah, that's how we feel. Yeah, coming here is definitely different than what we're doing the rest of the day. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

So this is also from our book, The Elevation Principles, but is there something in your life that you'd like to change? It's a yes or no.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Kind of like that's a hard one.

SPEAKER_01

That's a hard one. No. Honestly, I'd just like to be a little more organized at home. So that's a yes. So that's a yes. There you go. It doesn't have to be what's holding you back? Uh, time. That is time. That is time. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So what's one step that you could take towards moving forward so you're more organized at home. Right.

SPEAKER_03

Doesn't have to be like you're gonna be super organized today. Right.

SPEAKER_01

But what's I mean, honestly, it would probably be like, don't look at the phone when I'm at home, things like that. Bingo. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

One of the things that we did when we were researching the book, because time that's what everybody said, right? I don't have time. Yeah. So and the phone was the biggest issue. It's a it's a distractor. So we did a 24-hour challenge. We we did actually we asked people to do it for 24 hours. Okay. And they couldn't even do that. We did it for 24 hours for a whole week to really say, like, what are you doing every day? So write it down. Yeah, it's in in the book, there's a little like log too. So, like, but what are you doing every day? You know, that you can't get your stuff done. And when you after a week of time, you'll see that there are gaps in the day where it could be the phone, or it could be you're watching the news, or it could be you are doing whatever. Yeah, and then you make changes from there. Like that was the first thing that I got rid of. I stopped watching the news because I would come home and turn it on and and school shootings and this and that, awful things. And I was like, I don't want to watch this. So there I got half an hour got back. So maybe you know, the scrolling with the one the one scroll leads to two hours of scroll. And you're not alone, you know, even though we we blame it on kids, but yeah, we're the adults are just as bad. So yeah, maybe you can find a way to become more organized and we're gonna hold on to that, Karen. Okay, I'll check back with you. Yes, we will see you. So, what do you think is next for you? We'll put everything for all the programs in the show notes, and I have the flyers, but like what's next for you?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, for me, honestly, in the short term, what I'm looking forward to is, you know, continuing with my practice the way that I am. But um, training for the high rocks, doing the high rocks, I'm excited about that. And I'm really excited about the two fundraisers that are coming up. Those are really what I'm focused on in the next, you know, four to six months. And the yeah, Martel's Common Ground fundraiser, June 11th, and then the Music for All Seasons one is November 9th. So it's a lot of exciting things. Yes, I love it. And high rocks is gonna be in June.

SPEAKER_03

So you have a couple weeks, so you have to sleep. Yes, if you don't, you're not gonna make it with the burpees and the jumping and the sled pushing and know all about it's a lot, but look what an accomplishment that is to go and actually say you did it. So it's wonderful. So okay. Well, we are into our last minutes. So we always say thank you for sticking it out with us. And again, if you haven't subscribed to our podcast, please do so. And we will be back again with another amazing person doing things in mental health and wellness that should need to be showcased. And as always, Cindy has our final words of words.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so remember to pause, breathe, and then respond. Do not react. Take a minute or a seconds, even seconds. And always do hard things. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you, Karen. Thank you for taking your time. Thank you for being here. Thank you for everything you do for everyone else. Yes.