Break The Silence Because Together We Heal

0

A Conversation with Jordan Lally and Tara DeCapite

Founder & Director of School & Family Programming of the Ed Lally Foundation

Listen on AppleSpotify, and other platforms.

Harford County Living presents Conversations with Rich Bennett, coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union studios.

On this episode, Rich is joined by Jordan Lally and Tara DeCapite of the Ed Lally Foundation.

From the Ed Lally Foundation website:

With the support of his family, Jordan Lally started the Ed Lally Foundation (ELF) after his beloved father Ed lost his battle with clinical depression to suicide. Jordan, who has navigated his own personal challenges with social anxiety and depression, spoke openly about his family’s struggles, for the very first time, at his father’s funeral. The next day, with nothing more than an earnest desire to understand and to heal, he turned to meditation.

With no experience and no teacher, just the memory of his father held close to his heart, Jordan embarked on a daily practice of meditation and mindfulness. Slowly and surely, he garnered an ability to cope with his anxiety and depression, and with his continued practice, he began to realize a tremendous amount of healing. As friends and family inquired into his well-being, Jordan would share vulnerably about his mental health struggles, as well as the meditation strategies and breathing techniques he was using to heal. Organically, these conversations led him to help individuals and families who were also struggling. As he continued to give voice to his journey of truth and meditation, he began receiving requests to speak, and Big Infinite, his band, began receiving requests to play, at mental health related events. A turning point arrived when he was invited to serve as the Plenary Speaker at the Life Matters Suicide Prevention Conference in Harford County, Maryland in 2018.   Given his history of anxiety, the thought of standing on stage for an hour giving a standard plenary speech, with powerpoint, sounded dreadful. So, Jordan vowed if he was to accept the plenary invitation, he would do so by expressing himself as authentically as he could – through music, storytelling and guided meditation. His Big Infinite bandmates DJ Fritzges and Andre Toney, joined him at the event and that plenary served as the beginning of the Power of Expression program.  After the conference, schools began reaching out and the mental health outreach started to take off – school presentations, meditation classes, support groups, and more.  The time had come to formalize the ELF and work towards a more sustainable model for the mindful mental health outreach.  In 2018, Jordan Lally, current Board Chair, Pete DeCapite, and Board Member, Megan Lally established the ELF as a 501c3. 

The ELF fills the void in the mental health service community when it comes to proactive solutions that are independent, affordable and accessible.  The proactive solutions that exist are often ineffective, too expensive and, not to mention, the long wait lists to see a therapist.  The ELF wants to empower individuals to take their mental health in their own hands with accessible peer-to-peer support groups, and research-based practices of meditation and mindfulness proven to heal the brain and improve the ability to cope with, and to heal from struggles with mental health.  

Recommended podcast – Truth & Levity with Jordan & Candace

Sponsored by UM Upper Chesapeake Medical Center and Klein Family Harford Crisis Center

If you have an idea or something or someone you would like to hear on the podcast, let us know by sending an email to [email protected].

If you would like to be a guest on Conversations with Rich Bennett, click here.

Please follow our Facebook Pages at Conversations with Rich Bennett and Harford County Living

Hosted on Buzzsprout

Recorded through SquadCast

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.