In the Spring of 1999, I was alive with fear and trembling, dead with despair, and desperate for any help for my struggling teen and family. I had the amazing good fortune to be introduced to Maria Gomori, a long-time member of The Haven faculty, who was covering for our family therapist. The connection with Maria was instant and profound, as if we had known each other for centuries.

With her not-so-patient coaxing, I signed up for Come Alive with Ben Wong and Jock McKeen, The Haven’s founders. I had met them already in Winnipeg, visited Maria at The Haven during the previous summer – and decided that Haven programs were definitely not for me! Sometimes desperation leads the horse to water…

Come Alive was transformative for me, as it is for so many people. Within hours of completing the program, everything started to shift. With the brilliantly intuitive support of Marilyn Rossner, who I also met through Maria, we started down the path of healing. Our daughter went to a wonderful wilderness program in the US. My other daughter, my husband and I each went on our own Outward Bound expedition, and then my daughter and I did Phase I together at The Haven. All of us, in our own way, had the chance to joyfully “shout at the sky.”

My own journey continued down a new and unfamiliar path. Well, not entirely unfamiliar. I admit that I am a “fixer.” I love to ponder how something could be better than it is, from the arrangement of furniture, to a meal, to a program, to how a country is run. Although I loved the program our daughter was in, I kept thinking of ways to make it perfect. I am also a “doer” – I find it energizing to be able to build new programs, fix existing ones, or just get things done that no one thinks can be done. This is both my gift and my burden.

By the time our family was happily reunited in Toronto in 2000, I was already deeply committed to finding a solution to the desperate gap in treatment for troubled teens and their families in Canada. I was searching for a group in Toronto to which I could contribute my energy to help make this happen. One fateful afternoon, my younger daughter and I were in a shopping mall, and a well-dressed gentleman walked by and put a $20 bill in her hand. He then disappeared into the crowd. She looked at me in surprise, and said that as she did not earn this money, she would have to give it to charity. We divided it into two ten dollar bills, she scanned the homeless people panhandling on Yonge Street, and gave her money to an old man “who would probably never get better, and this could make his sad life a little easier.” I put my ten dollars in a donation box I found about a week later, for a group that provided support to parents of troubled teens. I also took their phone number. From there, I started down a path that cascaded into a myriad of connections and opportunities.

The “volunteer” work I now took on alongside my professional career in international relations was exciting, interesting, and challenging. How to create a holistic, family-centred program in Canada, a haven for teens on a downward spiral, and for their frightened families? As I become more involved, I was increasingly consumed, compelled, obsessed. In a good way! It was exciting to try to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Before long, what started out as our little “Letters to a Streetchild Task Force” evolved into an incorporated charity with a board of directors. I took on the role of Managing Director, and raised the money and the expertise to roll out an implementation plan for a new treatment centre, which would become Pine River Institute.

My next job was to find a Founding Executive Director. At that point, the other board members asked me to take on the implementation of the new treatment centre. That was 2004, and decision time had come! I wanted to explore my gut and headed out to The Haven for Living with Passion with David Raithby and Sandey McCartney. My family was very much in support of this project, and deeply involved themselves, but they were divided about what my ongoing role should be. And I was dependent on their opinions!

As I reminisced about my experience in that program almost four years ago, I had reached the “top of my game” professionally. What used to be exciting and compelling in the field of international relations had become routine. At the same time, I was passionately interested in the Pine River project – I was deeply committed; I read everything I could about adolescent development and mental health; connected with dozens of people; and constantly thought about how I could make this vision a reality. My fear of leaving my profession, taking the risk of entering a new field with little prospect of financial remuneration, and no guarantee that I would be successful, had me in a quandary. I knew I had to find a path to express my passion, to use my abilities, to create something – and I had no idea what that path would be. Middle-aged and fearing that my inner light was dimming, I wanted help in bringing the fire within to the outside – to feel OK with being as big as I can be.

Living with Passion was a wonderful opportunity to slow down and stop running in circles; to tune in to all the messages I was receiving from my intellect, body, feelings, and others – about what was important and exciting, what I could let go of, and how powerful I could be. David and Sandey created a safe and respectful space for me to try out a new way to be – open, fearless, vulnerable, and vibrant – in the supportive presence of everyone in the program. And I responded with a jolt to Jock’s offhand comment one day at lunch: “Why not? What else are you going to do?”

In his Listening with the Third Ear (1948), Theodor Reik asks his teacher, Sigmund Freud, for help making a decision. Freud responds: “When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of our personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.”

The Haven has been a wonderful and vital part of my life and growth. I experienced a personal unfolding to being more willing to risk failure, and more willing to express my powerful self more fully. I learned to appreciate my workstyle – thorough, persistent, strategic – as an asset. It took months after each program to “percolate” the experience. I have not looked back. I changed careers, am taking the risks and reaping the rewards of turning a vision into reality, experiencing my fears and enjoying my dynamism and strength.

We often talk about passion at The Haven. It is both joyful and agonizing. It is most fully expressed when we create. It requires the complementarity of creativity and discipline. I also learned how much fun it can be to take a risk, to let go, to express myself fully. And I learned that at the same time, it is agonizing to care so much about something, and know that it could fail. Creating Pine River Institute has been a wild ride, and I have learned that this is truly what being at the “top of your game” is about! Today, Pine River Institute is a thriving centre which, since it opened its doors in 2006, has served over 100 young people and their families. We have a vibrant research network and amazing outcomes. The Haven Communication Model is at the heart of the program, along with “5 Principles”: Compassion, Courage, Respect, Integrity, and Self-Accountability.

From a high-risk venture funded entirely by private donors and tuition fees, we have catalyzed a change in public policy. Government not only funds Pine River, but has also extended funding to other programs which serve adolescents. Personally, I have experienced fear and trembling, exhilaration, exhaustion, despair, gratitude, contentment. For me, passion encompasses all these. As of today, I have no regrets about what I did not do. I am grateful for the gentle and not-so-gentle nudges from my family, teachers and friends, many of them at The Haven, who encouraged me (literally, gave me courage) to follow my passion. And it has been a joy to share this journey with my family, in whose struggles the adventure began.

Karen Minden