Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Beth Cameron
Hi Mary Beth, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I am a local entrepreneur and attorney here in Katy Texas. As the founder of Goodnight Law Firm and New Roots Training, I’m fulfilling my calling by serving professionals and families full of broken people and equipping professionals throughout Texas to do the same. Throughout my career as a business, estate planning and family attorney, I’ve discovered the number one contributing factor to litigation is an inability to address and resolve conflict in a healthy way. The top 3 contributors of a trauma filled conflict are as follows:
1. Attacking the Other Parties Involved.
2. Avoiding the Issues.
3. Losing Sight of the Issue at Hand.
In every conflict, our minds and bodies have a visceral response. Here are a few of these stress responses: defensiveness, anger, hopelessness, unfairness, passionate sense of justice. These responses are absolutely normal throughout conflict, and many are wholly justified. However, once the physiology of these emotions takes over, it becomes very difficult to think of practical solutions to any given conflict.
Attacking the Other Parties Involved. Our stress response can trigger “firefighter” psychological responses which often times lead us to attack the other parties involved. Blaming, for example, is as old as humanity. Look at the Garden of Eden. When God arrived back on the scene after Adam and Eve broke his one rule, Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and none of that led to a healthy resolution. If we allow our brains to take us further down that road, we can become perpetrators of verbal, psychological, or even physical abuse. This is typically where attorneys enter the scene, which often times makes conflict worse. Conflict just got gasoline dumped on it.
Avoiding the Issues. It has always fascinated me how two people can be so convinced they will spend their lives together, only to end up years down the road not even able to be in the same room. My husband and I have an analogy for a damaged marriage. Every time you have an unresolved conflict with your spouse, it’s like putting a brick in between you. The first brick is easily avoidable. You can step over it, walk around it, easily move it out of the way from time to time. But if this conflict remains unresolved, the brick stays. The next time you have an unresolved conflict, another brick separates you. As this carries on over time, you eventually have an entire wall of bricks preventing you from healthy communication with your spouse. It will feel easier to walk away than to deal with an entire brick wall of unresolved conflict. However, I say to many of my clients, if you took $10,000 and 1000 hours to do individual and couples therapy, date, go on vacation, and have fun with your spouse, would you still want a divorce? Just some food for thought. Side-note, if you are in an abusive relationship, leave. Your spouse can do 1000 hours of individual therapy while you and your children enjoy life from a safe place, away from your abuser. I digress.
Losing Sight of the Issue at Hand. Often times in conflict, the neural pathways in our brains will recall other events in our lives that have provoked similar feelings. This happens, not only in personal relationships, but professional relationships as well. Whether the sky is baby blue or royal blue has now turned into an entire dissertation on dichotomy, physiology and anatomy of the color spectrum. Often narrowing the conversation to only one issue at a time can help people get to a resolution more quickly.
Life is too short to live in constant conflict. When we are in stress mode, we aren’t in creative or learning mode. Our lives and our communities will thrive if we find better ways to solve conflict. I’m on that mission by assisting clients through litigation and training professionals, like mediators and family facilitators, to do the same.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When I graduated law school 15 years ago, the economy was flat. Even the district attorney’s office was on a hiring freeze. The $150,000 student loan was due and I found myself unemployed and pissed off at the promises of higher education. I considered walking away from the law altogether. After a few months of giving up on my dreams and questioning my competency, a family law firm in Katy, TX offered me my first job as an attorney. I thought I never wanted to do family law because I didn’t want to push families toward divorce. I was extremely naive at that point in my career. I sat down with my Pastor’s wife from Crossings Community Church and shared my woes. She looked me straight in the eye and said, when my loved ones got divorced, I wish they would have had an attorney like you. That’s when I realized family law could be a ministry: a calling.
Since then, I’ve had the honor and privileged of helping domestic violence survivors find freedom, dad’s get rights to their kids they wouldn’t otherwise get, and watched women be empowered to support themselves though they never had before.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Goodnight Law Firm & New Roots Training?
At the Goodnight Law Firm, we understand the legal process can be expensive and overwhelming. We want you to enter the next season of life with peace of mind. To do that, you need a legal solution that gives you a clear plan on how to move forward. Our boutique law firm focuses on business law, family law, and estate planning. We chose these areas of law to best serve the personal and professional growth of our local community. We consider it a privilege and honor to work with our clients to achieve their goals.
New Roots provides training courses for Parenting Facilitators and Mediators all throughout Texas. New Roots believes resolving conflict through litigation is a traumatizing experience. Through alternative dispute resolution techniques, we are protecting people from financial and psychological trauma, while keeping their money in their own pockets.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I was in a movie with Chuck Norris.
Contact Info:
- Website: GoodnightLaw.com & NewRootsTraining.com
