I Survived the Loss of My Mom and a Spinal Injury
Navigating life after a devastating spinal injury can feel insurmountable, yet it is entirely possible to discover a profound new sense of purpose. In this episode, Irene Weinberg welcomes Karen Olson, founder and CEO emeritus of Family Promise, to explore the beauty of resilience and the power of service. Karen shares her deeply personal journey of transforming the heartbreak of losing her mother at age twelve into a life dedicated to uplifting homeless families. She also discusses her inspiring new book, Meant for More: Following Your Heart and Finding Your Purpose, and how her recent spinal cord injury has deepened her spiritual perspective on compassion. Join us for a heartfelt conversation about how rupture can lead to rebirth, and how each of us can act as a North Star for someone else.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- How childhood loss, specifically the suicide of her mother, created a “hole in the heart” that simultaneously heightened Karen’s sensitivity to the suffering of others.
- The transformative power of a chance encounter with a homeless woman named Millie in Grand Central Station, which sparked the creation of Family Promise.
- How Family Promise’s innovative “rotation model” mobilizes local congregations to provide housing and community support to families experiencing homelessness.
- The profound shift in Karen’s healing journey that occurred when her father finally embraced her during a hospitalization, highlighting the power of connection over talk therapy.
- How Karen’s recent spinal cord injury served as a second “rupture,” forcing her to reinvent her life again and deepening her spiritual perspective on resilience and vulnerability.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS KAREN:
- How did losing your mother at such a formative age shape your early identity and create that instinct to reach out to others in pain?
- Can you walk us through the moment you met Millie outside Grand Central Station and why you knew you had to stop and help her?
- How did your father’s embrace at the hospital shift something inside of you and finally help you begin to heal from the trauma of your childhood?
- In what ways has your recent spinal cord injury redirected your life’s purpose and reshaped your advocacy work?
- How do you manage to find joy and maintain an expansive heart in the wake of such significant life challenges, and what is your tip for others trying to do the same?
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I Survived the Loss of My Mom and a Spinal Injury
Navigating Early Loss: Understanding the Impact of Childhood Grief
Everyone, I hope the semester finds each of you very well. I am speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey, and I could not be more delighted to welcome my fellow Jersey girl, Karen Olson, who is joining us from Springfield, New Jersey. There are moments in life when loss cracks us open long before we understand what it means to heal. For Karen, who is the founder and CEO emeritus of Family Promise, the national nonprofit that has mobilized more than a million volunteers to support homeless and low-income families, that moment came at age twelve when her mother died by suicide.
That rupture reshaped Karen’s world, leaving what she would later describe as a hole in her heart. Yet even in that early darkness, something quiet and resilient began to take root within Karen, a sensitivity to suffering, a deep instinct to reach towards others in pain, and the first glimmers of the compassion that would define her life’s work. As Karen grew, that early grief became the emotional undercurrent of her identity. She built a successful career as a manager at Warner-Lambert, but the ache of her childhood loss never fully receded.
Instead, it shaped her into someone who noticed the invisible, who felt the weight of other people’s stories, and who carried an unspoken longing for meaning and connection. That longing would rise to the surface in 1981 when a chance encounter with a homeless woman named Millie outside Grand Central Station in New York City awakened something profound in Karen, a sense of purpose that would change not only her life, but the lives of countless families across the country.
From that moment on, Karen entered a new life chapter defined by service and renewal. She went on to found Family Promise, and her leadership has reshaped communities across the country, earning her national honors such as the Points of Light Award from President George H.W. Bush, the New Jersey Governor’s Pride Award in Social Services, and the Jefferson Award for Public Service. Even as her impact grew, life delivered another profound turning point. A spinal cord injury that ushered Karen into a deeper vulnerability, mirroring the same cycle of rupture and rebirth that had marked her journey since childhood.
I am looking forward to talking with Karen about the defining moments that shaped her life, the loss of her mother, the unexpected encounter with Millie that directed, that actually redirected her purpose, and the injury that demanded yet another intervention and another reinvention. Each rupture became a doorway into deeper compassion, deeper service, and deeper humanity. Karen’s journey reminds us that resilience is not a single act, but a continual becoming. Heartbreak can quietly usher in a new beginning, and the hardest chapters often guide us toward the purpose we were meant to find.
Karen, while I can relate to your story, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Irene. I am delighted to be here.
It is my pleasure, truly. We are going to help a lot of people today. Your story is very amazing and inspiring. A lot of people should become very inspired by what you have to say. I am looking forward to sharing you with everyone. The first question I have is, let us have everybody understand your beginnings. How did losing your mother to suicide at such a formative age shape your early identity? Creating what you describe as a hole in your heart, but it heightened your sensitivity to suffering, and it awakened your instinct to reach out to others in pain. You were very young. How old were you when your mom passed?
Twelve.
At such a formative time in your life, too. You want to talk to us about that a little bit?
I was very close to my mother. My dad was an alcoholic, so that made me even closer, I would imagine, to my mother. She was my best friend. We went to the beach, we swam together, and we ice-skated on that pond at the end of my street. She was my best friend. I loved her very much. I know that she was depressed because when I would come home from school, I would see that she was actually crying over the sink, and her eyes were all swollen, and this went on for some time.
She was seeing a doctor, but she did not get the treatment she really needed. I did not know what to do about that pain in her other than just tell her that I love her and so on. I got a call when I was in homeroom having my lunch. This was in seventh grade, one of the women from the office came into the lunchroom and whispered something to Mr. Luce, who was head of the lunch, and he said, “Karen, when you are through with your lunch, go to the office because they need you for something.” I thought, “I have not done anything wrong. I do not know what that is.”
I got up to leave, and he said, “No, finish your ice cream sandwich,” which I had not even begun. I gulped that down, and then I went into the office, and the woman said, “We were going to drive you home, you are needed at home.” They said, “Okay.” I saw that she was very nervous in the car, talking to me, asking me questions. Anyhow, I arrived home, and my grandmother was on the walkway.
I wondered why she was there because my dad had dropped her off at the train station earlier that morning to go to New York. My grandmother worked in Macy’s. She said to me, “Mom had a nervous breakdown, but she will be okay, and she will be home. She is just in the hospital now.” I thought, “I was not too worried because I had heard the phrase nervous breakdown before, and it seemed like maybe a lot of women in Darien had had nervous breakdowns. I expected her to be okay.”
A few days later, I was sitting on the sofa where I usually sat with my mother watching TV. My dad came in. He just stood there, and he said, “Mommy died.” I became so upset. I just started pounding him on the chest, and he said, “Stop it.” He gave me a pill and a Coca-Cola. He said the doctor said to take this. Just like that, I was out of it. It must have been a very strong pill, which was not the thing to do.
They are doubling the pain.
Yes, exactly. Hiding the pain.
The other thing, by the way, you and I also have in common is that I was a buyer for Macy’s. We also had that something. I really related to your mom’s story about your grandmother because I spent many days working for Macy’s as a buyer, and I worked on the 14th floor and the 15th floor in New York City. I had all these employees in these departments at a time when Macy’s was only ten stores. I can remember walking all over the city and all of that. I relate to your story. It was like I was reading my own story in a way.
I worked at Macy’s for a while during the summer at the little shop. Do you know the little shop?
I remember it.
I enjoyed that.
I became a corporate buyer. I traveled to the Orient for them. I did. I sold my departments, I think, which were laundry, blouses, tops, sweaters, footwear, and stuff like that. Let us go back to you. Did your mom’s death become this emotional backdrop for these later turning points that you had? The moments of shock or loss that ultimately deepened your compassion and sense of purpose. You had an encounter with Millie, and then you had to reinvent yourself again. How did your mother dull your pain, but in what way did her death provide the backup for what would come next?
When my mother was alive, I was just a happy-go-lucky kid. At her death, I experienced a great loss and sadness, and it did not feel good, to say the least. I became sensitive to other people’s pain. I went through something, and I was really hurt. I could sense the pain in others. Right away, I always wanted to help fix their pain. One of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to become a nurse. That was my plan to help people. I wanted to become a nurse, but my dad was married, and my stepmother said to me, “Karen, you do not have what it takes to be a nurse. You will never be a nurse. I was a nurse.” Right there, later, it turned out well that I did not become a nurse.
She discouraged you from becoming a nurse.
She persuaded my father not to send me to nursing school. Just like that, my dream was shattered.
Just like that, you had the evil stepmother, too, in addition to all of your other problems.
That is true. She did not show the world that she was an evil stepmother. That was another face she wore when she was outside. I was very sad not to be able to become a nurse. I later studied business administration. The first job I got was with a printing firm. From there, I got a job with Don Jagoda Associates in New York City, which was a promotional agency. I enjoyed that. I went to Warner-Lambert.
All the while, I am enjoying my career, and I am being promoted, and I enjoy working with my colleagues. I enjoyed the creativity, but I was yearning for something more in my heart. My dream of becoming a nurse was not there, but still, I wanted to do something more. One day, my life changed. When I was going to a meeting in New York City, and I was about to pass a woman who sat outside Grand Central Station in a crate, and I had seen her before, and I passed by. On this particular day, I felt I just could not, I would just get her something.
I ran across the street into a deli and got her a ham and cheese sandwich and orange juice. When I came back to her, she was frail and elderly. She was probably in her late seventies. I gave her the sandwich, and she said, “Thank you so much. I have not had anything to eat since yesterday.” I ended up staying there, and immediately, it was just two women in New York City on the street talking to each other. The fact that she was homeless, that all disappeared in my mind.
The Catalyst of Service: How One Encounter Changed Everything
She was just a woman who was hurting. From there, I told my two sons about Millie. They said, “Mom, let us go into New York and find more people like Millie and give them sandwiches.” We did. We first made 25 sandwiches and went to Central Park, rollerbladed, and gave out the sandwiches, but we gave them out all too quickly. The next time we went next Sunday, we made 75 sandwiches. That became, I realized, a vehicle to say I cared because how, when you see homeless people, can you say you care?
I needed the sandwich as a vehicle to say I cared. We met people by first name, Lucille, who lived under the escalator with her little kitten, and Abe, who was a photography salesman, and John, who was a World War II veteran, and they became our friends. At that point, I was living in two worlds. I was living in a world that is bustling and making money, and for me, for me, for me. I lived in another world where the real world for me was relating to people and trying to ease pain.
That is beautiful. The other thing I want to ask you is that you also had a moment, you were married. You had a moment in your marriage where you were battling depression and anxiety, which sounds to me like a lot of unresolved grief. How did you come to realize that you had never really grieved your mother’s death?
I do not know. I felt the pain all over again.
In your marriage, you were battling depression and anxiety, and you were hospitalized. How did you come to realize that you had never truly grieved your mother’s death?
I am not sure I ever did realize. I do not know. Still, I have overcome it, but there is still a part of me that has that pain. That pain, though, is creative because it sensitizes me to reach out to others. I have overcome it, but there is still some scar tissue there that is actually very creative because it allows me to sensitize. The grief or sadness that other people are going through.
That pain, though, is creative because it sensitizes me to reach out to others. Share on X
Which is a beautiful thing because you can employ that experience to help others, to have compassion for others, but I would also like to know how to talk to you about how you began to heal a bit when your father came to the hospital to see you and embrace you. Do you want to tell us that was the story, and how that shifted something inside of you? I think that is connected to when you started to deal with your grief.
That was like being in a dark room with no windows and then all of a sudden all the blinds go up, and the sunshine comes in, and it was just a complete change. He embraced me, which he never did. The doctor said that there weren’t any plans for me to go home. “Karen, I think it is time for you to go home.” They said, “Yes.” I felt like I was instantly healed, really. It was not through any talk therapy or any kind of medication, the embrace by my father made for something I was looking for my whole life because he had always been very critical of me, like, “For God’s sake, Karen, cannot you do anything right?”
Finding healing was like being in a dark room with no windows and then all of a sudden, all the blinds go up, the sunshine comes in, and it was just a complete change. Share on X
That is so just negative and destructive to a child.
Yes. I tried it. I cleaned that coffee table, and I thought it was beautiful, and I used Pledge to shine it, and he would find one little problem with the table and say, “For God’s sake, Karen, cannot you do anything right?” I was always trying to win my father’s approval, and so here he embraced me, and that meant the world to me. It was like coming home to myself, really.
Did he say anything to you when he embraced you? Did he acknowledge or own anything that had happened before?
No. It is hard for him to put words to it, I guess, but it meant a lot to me.
He finally saw you, and he saw what you were going through, and he was witnessing you. I am sure that was really important. How did your encounter with Millie lead to Family Promise?
It is also a purpose, a big purpose. That is how I am wording it. I then began to volunteer in New Jersey. That is where I met homeless families who had been living in their cars. They were in shelters. When you say the word homeless, you think of that man on the street lying on the subway grate. You do not think of families because you do not really see homeless families. They are not living on the street.
Building Family Promise: Empowering Communities Through Compassion
I met them, and I realized that the main issue was low incomes that resulted in losing their housing. They were then doubled or tripled up with friends or family members, or staying in shelters. I thought, do the religious community know about homeless families? If they did, would they want to help? The answer is a resounding yes. I planned a conference on family homelessness, and I expected about 100 to come, but 200 people came to the all-day conference on family homelessness.
That really kicked off what I was going to do because we then looked for a building for shelter, and not one building was available, and not one church or synagogue could provide a full-time shelter. We decided to come up with a plan, which was to house homeless families in our places of worship for a week at a time on rotation with each other. That meant the Presbyterian Church in Summit, New Jersey, would house homeless families four times a year, not a burdensome responsibility.
That drew so many people to this program, and not only did they offer care and support, of course, we had social workers too, but it was the healing and acceptance of having the families come into the place of worship, and that is where they would stay for a week. The volunteers brought their children, so it was very much like a home-like atmosphere.
Other communities were interested in Essex County and in Morris County. We helped them develop their program. I got calls from Columbus, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was a good thing. There were not only people experiencing homelessness who were hurting, but there was hurt in people’s hearts who wanted to make a difference. That allowed them to make a difference in their own religious congregation.
See how you inspire people, like one person does something. I am experiencing it with this show. You do something out of your kindness, and people resonate with it, and it helps so many people. It is such a blessing.
It grows. The thing is that people really want to help and basically are compassionate, but they need to be shown a way to serve. You provided a way, and then it grew more and more. I was able to hire a staff, and I had people go out. We did needs assessments, and college interns would do those needs assessments. We would go to a community like Sacramento and introduce the program to the clergy. After that, there would be a big community meeting, which I would speak at, and then we would help them organize. It happened all organically. It is like when you’re going down a path.
It is like you’re birthing, you’re birthing a child, and the child grows, and they have their infancy and then their toddler, and then they, and you were birthing this beautiful Family Promise. I know that you have two stories. One is about someone named Hope, and another is about someone named Pace, who captured the heart of a lot of the good that Family Promise did. Would you like to tell us about those two stories?
Hope lived in Cranford, and she was a waitress, and she had a daughter, Olivia. One morning, Hope woke up, and her eyes were all blurry, as if she were looking out of a windshield that had been frosted, and she could not see. After a while, she had to stop working, and she was not working, so she did not have any money coming in. She got behind on her rent, and eventually she was evicted. That is when she found Family Promise, and she received their hope, looking forward to a brighter future.
When did she discover she had a bacterial infection that was making her eyes bleed?
I do not know what that was, but it was an infection, and it went away. She also met some wonderful people in the program. She met two volunteers, Lou and April, who helped her eventually find a job. They also became Olivia, who were her daughter’s godparents. If you say this is just about shelter, that really is not the whole story. It is really about relationships and the healing that comes when caring people can help one another. That is really the beauty.
It is a two-pronged approach, it seems to me. You are helping people, you are protecting them by finding housing, which is taking care of their basic needs, but you are connecting with them relationship-wise, which is feeding them and taking care of them in many other ways, right?
That is very true. It grows.
That is right. Other people see that, and it redounds in all different ways.
This one volunteer would come and do haircuts for everybody, and another volunteer would repair cars. Within the ministry of Family Promise, other ministries are created by volunteers.
Pace is an example of that, right?
The Ripple Effect: Real Stories of Hope and Community Transformation
Yes. Pace, he said, he only had time for three things in his life. Work, church, and family. On this one particular day, he was driving, and he saw a woman who was stranded on the right side of the road, and she could not get her car started. Pace stopped and helped, and she was then on her way. That is something. First of all, she was getting very panicky as she sat on the right side of the road with the cars whizzing by her, and then this car pulled up, and a man got out, and she recognized him as Pace from work because Alice worked at the same place, Sandia Labs, and he changed the tire.
He was on his way. He did not think anything of it until he was given a going-away party because he is going to change departments. A lot of people gathered, and Pace said he became so bored with all the suits coming up there and saying the traditional stuff. Alice got up there and said how much it helped her by his changing the tire, and showed that he really did care.
When Pace heard how much of a difference he made in just changing a tire and what it meant to her, he had to take another look at how he was and what he was doing. He began to volunteer in his church, the Methodist church. It happened to be a Family Promise participating congregation. He started out as a volunteer, and then he became a coordinator. He did more. He had some of the guests in the program back to his house, and they built a zip line, which boosted their confidence. He and his wife took them on all different kinds of outings. It grew and grew.
Your purpose helped to grow his purpose. “I wanted to do that for many other people.”
That is a ripple effect.
You inspired him, and look at how many more people he helped thanks to you. What happened to you?
You said in the end that he had a renewed heart, and it changed him, and then he changed other lives. There is a tremendous ripple effect when you do something. You never know where it is going to go.
There is a tremendous ripple effect when you do something. You never know where it is going to go. Share on X
From Injury to Reinvention: A Journey of Continued Resilience and Healing
We are two examples of that, perfect examples. I really want everybody, if you were listening to Karen’s story, you understand that she has a pattern of she has a loss, she reflects, she reinvents herself, and she goes towards service. Now she had a second major loss. The spinal cord injury that she has been dealing with explains how that deepens your understanding of your first loss and reshapes your advocacy, your purpose, and your message because losses differ, but they all involve grief and coping and all of that. Would you like to tell us about that part of your life that you’re now grappling with, your spinal cord injury, and how that redirected your life even more?
Are you familiar with cryotherapy?
No, tell us about that.
Cryotherapy is a cold. It is cold air therapy, and you enter a chamber, and it gets very cold. The treatment is supposed to last no more than three minutes.
What was it for you? Why were you using this therapy?
I felt good, but I thought it would make me feel even more energetic.
I had heard about it, so you’re going to try it.
I had heard about it, so I did it about 30 times between Summit, New Jersey, and Miami, and on this particular day. On this particular day, I was in Miami Beach and had a cryotherapy appointment. When I went to the desk, the woman at the desk said, “You will have a new therapist today. She has been on board for four weeks, but she has been very well trained.” I accepted that, which I probably should not have. The temperature got so cold, unbearably cold, colder than it is supposed to be. Later, the EMT said I had hypothermia, but I just kept saying, “I am so cold.” I do not remember that. It was lost.
She left you in too long, it sounds like.
She made the temperature too cold. For about a minute, I said, “I am cold.” She went to help me out of the door, she opened the door, but she stood behind the door, and I was frozen. I fell out like a popsicle. I hit my head on a raised ledge. I was still conscious, but I could not feel anything from my neck down. Everybody was screaming, and then the rescue squad came, and they took me to the hospital.
When I fell, I had the presence of mind to ask for my phone, so I called my two sons, and they came down right away. I had surgery, and that was just in the nick of time, so I was not fully paralyzed. I am better today, and I can even take some steps with a walker and the help of my therapist, but my right side is not good, my right arm I cannot lift, and my right leg is a little weak. I was just glad to get the help and come out of it. The thing is, when I came out of it, I was met with an extended family.
I have an amazing team of aides who are just wonderful, like therapy, and then Aunt Jan Rustum, whom you just met briefly. She is my assistant and does all kinds of amazing things well beyond her stated job title, beyond what she is supposed to be doing. She says, so I came out to this wonderful extended family on the other side. I still had my family, my two sons, and my five grandchildren, but I was blessed with this extended family. I just felt loved and nurtured all the time, I felt that.
It feels like all the love you gave out and all the ways you helped all these homeless people. In a way, spirit returned it to you, and with all the kindness and all the help that you have been getting after this happened.
That is true.
You are getting back what you put out and more, which is beautiful. It is just wonderful.
People, but I am still caring. The only thing that has changed is that I cannot walk, but I am the same person, and I just experience a lot of joy.
The Power of Forgiveness: Letting Go of Blame to Find Inner Peace
That’s beautiful. Did you have problems blaming the woman, who must have felt terrible?
She did, but no, I did not blame her at all. Not for one second. I am glad that she called. Do you want to know how I was doing? I said, “I am doing fine. I am making progress, and I feel good.” She said, “I am so glad because I was blaming myself.” I said, “No, do not blame yourself at all. You weren’t probably given the training you needed, but I am fine.” She felt so relieved because she had felt so depressed up until the time she called me, which was about three weeks after my accident.
You were not completely okay, and you could have carried on with her, but you did not, and that was a loving choice that you made.
What would that serve? I did not feel any of that in my heart, really. I was just thinking about someone who felt guilty, and I wanted to help her.
“Meant for More”: Defining Spirituality Beyond Religion
Once again, you reached out with love, and you let her off the hook, which is beautiful. Tell us about your book, Meant for More: Following Your Heart and Finding Your Purpose. It is called for others to discover meaning through helping others. Would you like to tell us about it?
Meant for More: Following Your Heart and Finding Your Purpose
It is a book, a little bit about my life, and just what we talked about. Overcoming the hurdles and experiencing extended love and joy. It is also about others’ pace, but it is also about guests in our program, homeless families, and volunteers. It just helps you think about being happy with who you are, but knowing that you can overcome trials, you can. I guess I have always felt a certain spirituality. I have considered myself a religious person.
Spirituality is not about religion. It is about a belief that we have purpose, that our bodies die, but our souls go on. It is not about religion that way at all. Now we are all the same, which is that you’re helping the homeless, is such an example that we are part of a collective. That is what spirituality is really more about.
I have this spirituality. I really feel like I am a spiritual being having a human experience.
You are.
I am very in touch with my spirit, and that is my home. I am here in human form. It sounds like I know all the answers.
That is why we have this show, because with all the people I am interviewing, people will get many of their answers that have been unanswered. When I interview grief and trauma specialists and healers and mediums and people like you who have gone through so much and come through your role models for getting through the trauma and still being able to have joy in your life again and doing your healing. That is what this podcast is all about. It helps.
That is why it is just like what you have done for the homeless. It is helping people, and anyone who is curious about the world of the homeless and wants to be inspired should get Karen’s book. It is a beautiful book. I had the privilege of reading parts of it, Meant for More, and it is really wonderful. Karen, speaking of healing with all the pain you have been through. You say that it has a silver lining. For you, what has that been?
The death of my mother, my accident, but there is a silver lining in those, especially from the silver lining of my mother’s committing suicide. That was very painful, of course, and still is at some level. There was a silver lining, and the silver lining is that you are part of a family and you have more in common with people than not. Give and love, and I do not know, it changed my life.
The silver lining is that it gave me purpose, and the purpose was like I wanted to be before the nurse, and that door was closed wider, a bigger door opened, allowing me to care for others because I was sensitized to the hurt that I experienced when my mother died. It was the silver lining that it opened up my sensitivities to help others. One thing after another, and then giving the sandwich to Millie, and that opened another door and another door. I found a silver lining.
Finding Joy in Daily Life: Painting, Connection, and Continuing the Legacy
Which is beautiful, which I can also say I relate to you because I had a terrible car accident, my husband died next to me, and all of that, and look at it, I got the messages. I had a spiritual awakening, and look at what has opened up as a result of all of that. In many ways, we are on a similar path. My important final question is, what is your tip for finding joy in life? With all you have been through, you can still find joy and be happy and not dwell on your problems. How do you do that? You have a tip about that?
It is not how I do it. It just happens. I take joy in the little things. There is a park near my apartment, and I ride around the park. I say hello to people that I know. I also enjoy painting. You can see some of the paintings on the wall. Behind me, I did those before my accident, but I am right-handed, and I cannot use my right arm. I found a way that I can paint with my left arm. I enjoy painting.
That is marvelous. You get joy from that, and it is wonderful. You get joy from all the people you continue to help because I know you are still involved with your organization. In closing, Karen, I want to share this poignant passage from your book, Meant for More, with our compassionate audiences. “Looking back on my life, I can see my spirit has been made stronger by my family, our guests, our volunteers, and all the selfless, compassionate people and organizations in this world. I know myself as Karen, a spiritual being. I challenge you to respect that we are all connected.
Take the path to your destiny. Be a North Star for someone. See the problems in this world and still help fulfill your longing and have an expansive heart. I dare you to take a different road. Find your Millie, your catalyst to be the change. Be a kind individual. Give someone a fresh start and offer unexpected healing.” Karen, thank you for reminding us that grief does not just mark an ending. It can also open us to a deeper, more compassionate way of being in the world. Loss, when met with challenge, can become a doorway to profound service and rebirth. From my heart, I wish you good health and abundant blessings always.
Thank you, Irene. I have enjoyed our chat, and I hope others who are listening have enjoyed it as well.
I am sure that many more from tuning in will be inspired to find a new path for themselves or to heal the current path that they are on.
Thank you so much.
You are welcome. My pleasure. As I like to say, to be continued.
Guest’s Links:
- Karen Olson
- Karen Olson on LinkedIn
- Family Promise
- Meant for More: Following Your Heart and Finding Your Purpose
- Connect with Karen Olson on Instagram
- Connect with Karen Olson on YouTube
- Connect with Karen Olson on Facebook
About Karen Olson
Karen Olson, the founder and CEO emeritus of Family Promise (www.familypromise.org) has dedicated her life to transforming the futures of homeless and low-income families. Her journey began in the mid-2980s when she first committed herself to the noble cause of advocacy for the disenfranchised and homeless. Karen has rallied more than a million volunteers nationwide, fostering an extensive network of support for the vulnerable.
Before her remarkable transition into the realm of social advocacy, Karen demonstrated her leadership prowess as a manager at Warner-Lambert. However, her leap into the world of nonprofit truly underscored her compassionate spirit and steadfast determination. Karen was awarded the Annual Points of Light Award by President George H.W. Bush for her remarkable social service contributions.
