58. How Can Music Help Us Understand Grief? With Samora Pinderhughes

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In The Healing Project, multidisciplinary artist Samora Pinderhughes processes the raw emotions of grieving and explores the sociopolitical issues that fuel his abolitionist vision. Samora joins Claire to discuss what he learned about grieving while making his album Grief and how he and others have found healing through both music and community building.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Samora Pinderhughes, Claire Bidwell-Smith

Samora Pinderhughes  00:00

The reason that I titled the album grief is that I wanted the album to be kind of a portrait of the time period that it was written in, which is basically like the last three to four years. I guess we’re in a certain way, kind of out of where we were. But it’s like, in a lot of ways, there’s not really an acknowledgement of what we’ve been through, you know. And so for me, like I wanted this album to be somewhere where a person like you’re saying, if they needed somewhere to go in and feel it, they could feel it.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  00:28

Hi, I’m Claire Bidwell Smith. Welcome to NEW DAY. We’ve talked a lot about grief on this show, and how it can shape our lives. We’ve shared tips to help you understand grief impact on our bodies. And today, I’m excited to talk about how music can help us process grief and open new paths to healing. My guest is the talented, multidisciplinary artists Samora Pinderhughes, he’s a California Bay Area raised composer, pianist, vocalist and filmmaker. He released an album this year called grief, which he describes as a sort of musical portrait of how our society has embraced grieving in a period of multiple crises and a pandemic. Music, Samora says, create space for people to explore new expressions of grieving to really feel the spectrum of emotions and maybe even channel spiritual guidance. Samora joins me to talk about what he learned about grieving while making his album, and how he and others have found healing through both music and community building. Here’s our conversation.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  01:47

Hi, Samora, nice to meet you.

Samora Pinderhughes  01:49

Nice to meet you a pleasure.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  01:52

I start every episode of the show asking my guests How are you doing today? But how are you really doing?

Samora Pinderhughes  01:57

I’m doing well today. Yeah, I mean, you know, every day is a journey. But I’m, I’m feeling I’m feeling very good. And, um, part of it is just being able to be here and have this conversation is very exciting. I always love talking about, you know, emotions and process and all that. So looking forward.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  02:18

Awesome. Well, about six weeks ago, maybe it was I started getting all these texts and emails from everybody I knew who was like, oh, my God, did you hear the KQED piece this morning on these Bay Area musicians who were, you know, doing stuff around grief? And I was like, no, I didn’t. And all these people sent me links, and I listened to it. And there you were. And now here we are. And I’d love to kind of touch on everything you talked about there and get into even more. But if you could maybe just start by telling us a little bit about who you are and your music.

Samora Pinderhughes  02:50

Yeah. So my name is Samora Pinderhughes, I’m a multidisciplinary artist, composer, pianist, and vocalist, and songwriter. And I am usually focused on delving into the things that are usually underneath the surface or even hidden, but on like an internal and external level. So often, I also, you know, deal a lot with history and a lot with, you know, the structural realities of oppression in the United States, particularly, and, you know, bringing the realities of different people’s experiences to the fore, but also emotionally, I like to talk about, I call it the things we don’t talk about at parties, like you said, How are you really doing, like things that are really going on, and the realm of the artists is so wonderful, I feel so privileged to be an artist, because I’m able to be very complicated and complex about things and hold things with the two hands and say, it’s actually not really just this one way, you know, I’m dealing with all these things at the same time. So that’s what I like.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  03:55

I love that. Do you feel that you feel like music allows you to do that in a way that you wouldn’t normally be able to?

Samora Pinderhughes  04:01

Yes, definitely. I think music allows you to do that for multiple reasons, particularly music with language. Although, you know, music without language is still storytelling, but particularly with language, I feel like storytelling is an opportunity to do that. Because life is that. But also, you know, sound allows you to do that, because sound allows you to express things that you can’t express in words. Hmm,

Claire Bidwell-Smith  04:28

yeah, that’s definitely true. What? What is your background with music? I know you’ve been a musician since a very young age, and I’ve read a lot of different articles about you and you’re incredibly talented and where did it all come from for you?

Samora Pinderhughes  04:41

I’ve basically been playing music since I could, you know, walk like I started when I was two years old. I was literally in the preschool and this woman named Jacqueline Rago, who’s like a legendary Venezuelan musician. She came to my preschool and I was literally like running around falling her chasing her […] so she went to my family and said, you know, he’s definitely a musician. And she was my first teacher, which was just an amazing gift. And ever since then I just kind of ran with it. I never stopped. So I’ve always been doing music. First with percussion when I went to the piano, and then voice came last. But yeah, it’s always been just something that’s like breathing to me.

Samora Pinderhughes  04:44

What a gift to have had that teacher, I always love stories of, you know, teachers who just recognize that somebody has something and makes that effort to help them. Samora, let’s talk about the healing project. This was the big piece I heard on KQED. And, and your album called grief.

Samora Pinderhughes  05:42

Yes, so the healing project is something I’ve been working on for about eight years now. And it started, because I wanted to create a kind of multifaceted, communal artistic peace, on the realities around the country of trauma and healing from what are called structural violence. And when I say structural violence, I mean, all the different circumstances, environmental and personal, that are created by the environment of living in this country, that lead to, you know, everything that people are dealing with some. So some of that is experiences with the prison industrial complex, some of that is living in, you know, environments with lots of environmental degradation, with low access to opportunities, and housing, and education, and, you know, all these different things. And also, a lot of it is, you know, things that are a little bit harder to quantify, like living in this time period, have high levels of violence, high levels of clarity and insecurity, high levels of having to grieve many people who have passed, you know, especially during the post pandemic, so, you know, I really wanted to create a collective kind of moment around being able to ask those questions with people. And so I went to 15 different states around the country, and did audio, interviews and conversations. And out of that kind of like, process came this basically like blooming of a project, like I call it kind of like a universe of a project, because there’s all these different planets around it. So there’s the sonic component, which is really containing these interviews that I kind of stitched together. So it’s almost like people around the dinner table, but they’ve actually never met, and are set to music. And then we have all these other pieces, which are collective pieces, film, sculpture, fabric pieces, drawings, that are both created together, and also kind of brought in and curated from many people around the country who are a part of this project, including folks who are currently incarcerated who send me their pieces through the mail and different things like that. And so it just became kind of this huge thing that is ongoing. There’s an exhibition, that’s a part of it, there’s also a digital archive. And then there’s also this album called grief, which is just the first of multiple sonic versions of the piece, which can kind of hopefully hold all the different stories and all the different emotions in the project.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  08:14

That’s incredible. It sounds like it must have been and continues to be just like a life changing experience for you. I’m curious, you know, going into a project like that, I’m sure you had goals and ideas of what it was going to be like, but I’m sure so much more happened and transformed. Do you what did you learn that you didn’t know going into at all?

Samora Pinderhughes  08:33

Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. And then like, we could just talk about that for so many things. But I think there’s two things that I think really stood out that I think about, like pretty much every day. One is, and this is particularly the reason why I called it the healing project is that there are so many ways in which people heal themselves and others over time, because obviously, the healing process is never done. It’s always ongoing, but there’s so many things that people do, and many of them are so subtle, that we never really get a chance to talk about. And that also, particularly because people are doing them in unnoticed places, often in the home, you know, with the family or with their community. And because they’re not famous or something, you know, we just never talked about them. And as a result, so many people don’t have access to those tools. And so through this process, I found so many different ways that people were doing things that were you know, absolutely incredible. And that really run counter to a lot of the ways that we’re told how to deal with things. You know, I’ll just give one example. I’ll try to be quick about it. But there’s this incredible woman who influenced me a lot. It was one of the first people I interviewed for the project. Her name is Sharon Hewitt. She since passed away but you know, she was basically like, kind of the mother of San Francisco, like you would go around San Francisco, everybody would know Sharon, and she also was very well known for basically being somebody that when a person lost their son, or their child to violence, she would bring the mothers of those children together, and she would be a support for those mothers.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  10:13

I have chills, that’s amazing, incredible person.

Samora Pinderhughes  10:15

And like I said, like, this is a person that has sustained transformed, I’ve done so much for so many people that in the community, she is a hero. But you know, nobody, just not like she’s famous, or anybody would know her name, but to me, she is a hero. And she talks a lot about that process. And she tells this story in the healing project, about, you know, going to, to a person who is going through a grieving process and saying, Here’s the money, give it to, you know, all these different situations, go and get some toilet paper for the house, because all these people are going to come to your house. You know, call me if you need me, call me if you need me, call me if you need me, you know, grabbing this doing this, obviously, there was the spiritual and the emotional support needed. But there’s also showing up for a person can also just be these very small, physical realities of like, in this situation, you’re going to need this, and I’m sure you have it. So you don’t have to think about that, because you’re dealing with this. And in situations like a grieving process, when you’re a person that actually wants to be there for a friend of yours, or a family member or something. We’re not taught how to be there for them. And so oftentimes, you get these, you know, very people reach out and say, let me know what you need, you know, I don’t know what I mean, you know what I mean? And so it’s like, these are the small things that I hope people will take away and bring actually not take away but bring keep with them. So that when you know you’re in a situation where you need to take care of somebody, you know how to do that.

Samora Pinderhughes  11:23

What did you learn about grief that you didn’t know?

Samora Pinderhughes  12:17

That’s another beautiful and deep question. And I think there’s two ways that I could explore that, because I learned so much about it, through talking to people, and then I also learned about it, you know, from my own processes, and I think they echoed across each other. And that’s actually goes to your previous question, too, which is that, because I’ve been working on this project for a long time, grief became a much bigger part of the project in the last three years than it had originally intended to be. Because, you know, it was such a heavy time where so many people were losing people. And grief was in the air. And so, you know, it became a very central focus of the healing project. And I think if I had to say what I learned about it that I didn’t know, one is, I learned a lot about the fact that its nature is so multifaceted. And it’s everything at once, you know, no, like, depending on where you are in the process. And when you’re gonna be laughing, you’re gonna be angry, you’re gonna be bitter, you’re gonna be happy, you’re going to be missing the person, you’re going to be loving the person, you’re going to be, you know, going through different rituals to try to honor the person.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  13:44

So many people think grief is this like, hard? awful thing, but it’s actually you’re right. It’s so many things in so many of the things that it is are beautiful, and transformative and incredible.

Samora Pinderhughes  13:55

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s obviously I mean, that’s very hard to talk about, particularly when someone is, you know, going through it, because you’re gonna be like, Oh, it’s all these things. But I think it’s really important. And I think the other thing that I learned too, is that there’s just no timeline on it. Like, I think people always want other people to be over faster than you actually are. Particularly somebody that is very close to you. And that’s just not how it works. And I actually think that it’s much more healing for a person to be able to be held through that process, pretty much do the rest of their life than it is for them to go through a very strong process of it for like two weeks, and then everybody kind of pretend that it’s done comes from everything to just support networks, to rituals, anything like that. Like those things probably should be continuing for a long time, if not forever.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  14:52

I agree. I agree. Everyone kind of drops off after the first month or a couple of weeks and yet, some of the really deep grief hasn’t even begone for someone who’s going through a loss at that time, I heard one of the musicians, the KQED piece that you were that you were with said something about how there are a lot of songs that talk about death and loss and trauma, but they don’t address healing, right. So they, they kind of talk about how, you know, we acknowledge all the loss and the death. But where’s the where do we find information about healing? Or how do we heal? Or how do we come together to heal? And it seems like this is really what you’re trying to create? Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Samora Pinderhughes  15:33

I’m a person that I want to talk really honestly about what is happening. And I also want to talk really, honestly about what to do about and with that, because you only talk about what is happening, a person is just left with that. And then that next step, what do we do with that next step? And oftentimes, I think we stopped short of that next step, because that next step involves many more questions than answers. Because, like, you know, sometimes we don’t know what to do. But we have to try. And so I think, you know, for me, that is definitely a big element is the question of healing. And I think oftentimes, when people come to view or experience, the healing project, they’re often surprised, because they think it’s going to be like, I guess more, quote, unquote, positive than it is, I think, is very positive. But, you know, it’s about people that are inside of a process. It’s not about the process. And so I think that, you know, when I think about, about healing, I think about that every day, like, I think about what are the things that we’re doing every day, to be present with the healing process, some of those things are necessary for a period of time and then not necessary anymore, some of those things are things that we always should or would have to do. And those are the things that that I carry with me. And I think, also, to me, healing. In some situations, what I think I learned from this project is that healing can also be reckoning with the truth of what has happened, you know, that also in and of itself, can be part of the healing process. I agree. And then the part that I’m only now getting to which other people can speak even more deeply than me about is the part having to do with the physical body. And the fact that sometimes even past language or emotionality, whatever, there are things that the body holds that need, they need their own rituals and their own processes.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  17:40

Can you talk to him about that community aspect of healing, because that seems like it’s an important part of not only your work, but just the healing that you’ve done for yourself, and that you’re trying to create for others?

Samora Pinderhughes  17:51

Yeah, community is a major thing for me. I think there’s definitely a part of that, that, to be honest, is a selfish part in that like, I need community like I am a person that in general, I can tend to, you know, self-isolate, I think that’s the issue that a lot of artists have particularly, you know, songwriters and composers or, or writers of a certain kind, because a lot of the process is very isolated. But for me, that means even more that like, I need that surrounding of community, for me to feel whole and to feel seen in a certain way. And I also think that just as an as an ethic in my life, I really believe in community. I think that in our modern world, and particularly our modern capitalist world, there’s such a focus on the individual. That oftentimes community gets lost in that process. And particularly when it comes to this linear conception of success or something that’s always defined by the individual. It’s always defined as how much money can you make How big can you be? How much recognition can you receive? Instead of how can we move forward as a collective together? There’s a There’s a principle in Kwanzaa, which I practice with my family that they say to Columbo, which is to make your community more beautiful and more beneficial than when you inherited it. And to me, like that’s what we should all be striving that should be the definition. But often it is not presented as that. So I think that community for me, it represents all those things. It’s a very intimate and emotional process of being held by other people through whatever you’re going through, and the ups and the downs and the good and the bad in between.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  19:40

I think we particularly really need it to when we’re grieving, I think that grief can be really isolating and really lonely. And you can feel like you’re the only person who’s gone through that loss or the only person who’s grieving and especially, you know, when you look at the world around you and the way that everyone presents themselves, you can just feel so lonely to so to create that kind of community where people are feeling part of something while they’re grieving feeling held by that community is just really, really beautiful.

Samora Pinderhughes  20:06

Yeah, I also, and I actually have never thought about it this way, but it just hit me that, like, grieving is also a relationship, because grieving is a relationship between you and the person that has passed. Sometimes grieving isn’t even a person that’s passed the thing or the whatever it is that you are grieving. And so where the people come in around you is they have to fill in the space, you know, they have to be able to do whatever is necessary for you to be able to honor that relationship.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  20:40

Yeah, I can see that that’s beautiful. What have you seen, that happens when people can’t grieve when they are not supported in their grief? Or they’re not giving themselves permission to grieve? What are you seeing what happens when that happens?

Samora Pinderhughes  20:57

Yeah, that’s a really important question, too. I’m really glad that you asked that, especially because I think people don’t acknowledge when that is happening, they don’t see it. And actually, they mistake it for other things. Because I think oftentimes, the ways that that shows up can be oftentimes very, very difficult for others and very, like uncomfortable in the sense that sometimes it manifests as anger, manifests, as you know, like I said, bitterness or like a hardening process. I guess I would call like building a shell so that you don’t have to feel those things because it’s so hard to feel them alone or not have the tools or the space to grieve. I think sometimes it looks like a pushing away of emotions or emotionality.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  22:06

Do you think music can help someone his not able to grieve access some of that emotion?

Samora Pinderhughes  22:12

100%, yes, I totally do. I think that that’s one of the spaces where you can enter into any emotional place. If you find the right song.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  22:23

Yeah. Tell us about your album grief.

Samora Pinderhughes  22:27

Yeah, so my album grief was a it was an outgrowth of the healing project was inspired by that process. But in a certain way, I guess it was the most personal part of the process in that it started. And I would say about half of the songs on the album are stories that come from relationships and people that are part of the healing project and telling their stories through the album. And then the other half are my stories from you know, my emotions and things that I went through during the process of making the project. And the reason that I titled the album grief is that I wanted the album to be kind of a portrait of the time period that was written in, which is basically like the last three to four years, I guess we’re in a certain way, kind of out of where we were. But it’s like, a lot of ways, there’s not really an acknowledgement of what we’ve been through, you know. And so for me, like, I wanted this album to be somewhere where a person like you’re saying, if they needed somewhere to go in and feel it, they could feel it. And they could feel like this is a safe place for me to just, like spill out and be recognized in that spilling out. And so that’s why I made that the title of the record.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  23:38

I’m so grateful to you for putting it out in the world. It’s I think it’s really needed. I think you’re right, there’s there hasn’t been enough of an acknowledgement of what we’ve been through which, you know, lends itself to people not recognizing it for themselves and not allowing themselves to grieve and there’s still so much grief, you know, floating around in all of us right now. What kind of role does ritual and spirituality play in your personal life but also in your music?

Samora Pinderhughes  24:05

It plays a big role for sure. I have a very specific kind of personal relationship to spirituality and ritual in that I didn’t grow up inside of one specific say, like religious tradition. The tradition that I personally have practiced the most and been the most connected to is Santeria, which is originally from the people of Nigeria from the Yoruba people have called ephah. But I found it actually while I was living in Cuba as a young person, and I found the music because I would actually go and play the drums in the spiritual ceremonies. And just like it just fit with me and then later you know, I like I was kind of already part of the rituals because of that and then later I found, you know, the spiritual practice. But you know, outside of that, I think that I pretty much really entered into that personally through my mom and my mom is a very a deeply spiritual person who builds altars, all throughout the house. And just you know, she does a lot of rituals around those altars and just surround practice. And then as I said, also, we would every December instead of Christmas, we would celebrate Kwanzaa. And so through that those that are practices plus somebody, that’s kind of how I learned about ritual and about spirituality. And I think what that allowed me to do is that I learned about the power of ritual, without necessarily tying it into one particularly religious practice. And I think in this moment, it can be very difficult for us to talk about spirituality and ritual, because there’s a lot of, you know, charged conversations around religion, for a lot of important reasons, because that’s the complicated thing about religion is that it does so much for so many people. And at the very same time, it’s dominated as everything else in our, you know, world by these power structures that just oppress and abuse and take advantage of people. And so as a result, you know, religious doctrine and religious language can be at the heart of some of the most oppressive prospects now. And so, I think as a result of that, there’s ways in which that conversation dominates the conversation about spirituality. And as a result, we’re not able to have a conversation about the necessity of spirituality and ritual in people’s lives for these very reasons. And my particular hypothesis around it is that there are elements that people receive through a religious practice, but they’re not tied to religious practice. And the ones that are important to me are spirituality, ritual, and community. So you’ve already pulled out all those things. And I do believe that those three elements are key in all of our lives. Those are the elements that we need, and where we get them from, you know, that can vary.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  26:55

I think ritual is so important. And I, I noticed during the pandemic, that a lot of people were stripped of their ritual, because they weren’t able to go to the usual places and do that things. They weren’t having funerals, or sitting Shiva, they weren’t going to church. And it was interesting to realize how we have, we have a real lack of personal ritual, I love hearing about your mom’s ritual, because I wish we all had more of a, you know, sense of freedom to do that, and to create our own rituals and to create rituals throughout our days, rather than leaning on structures outside of us. Because we need it. Absolutely. And during the pandemic, I saw a lot of people kind of starting to get a little more creative, because they had to, you know, they were stuck at home, yet, they still needed that sense of ritual, to move through a lot of what they were processing. So I think a lot about ritual, especially when it comes to grief.

Samora Pinderhughes  27:46

Yeah, and I think the other thing too, is that, you know, we have rituals, whether we like it or not, is just a matter of are those rituals serving you or not, you know, if you do it every day, it’s pretty much you know, it’s a practice, it’s a ritual, but a lot of those things are not healthy, you know, and so, you know, the, the purpose of intentional ritual process is like, to, in a certain way, both honor you know, the spirits and honor the connection with spirit or nature, whatever you call it, and then it’s also like setting your intentions and your practices for your life and for the day, and for everything like that. And that’s so important for all of us. Because so often, we’re always in response mode, you know, and, you know, there’s always a million things going on. And so, if you don’t have that space, where you can set those practices and intentions, then, you know, that becomes a lot more difficult.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  28:40

Do you feel connected to people that you’ve lost?

Samora Pinderhughes  28:43

Deeply. Yeah, I feel deeply connected to people that I’ve lost. And also, the other part that’s hard to talk about that is that I also feel deeply connected to people I’ve never met, that don’t that are not around fifth in the physical body, but that I do believe I have communed with through the musical process.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  29:01

Oh, wow. It sounds difficult to talk about, but can you say any more about it?

Samora Pinderhughes  29:07

Yeah, I mean, I believe that the veil between worlds you are able to travel and have come and kind of communication with spirits or ancestors are, however, you know, different. Different religions have different ways of thinking about it. But, you know, I’ve definitely had artistic processes of you know, writing a song or being in a certain process, and literally having a Spirit speak to me like in my ear, and I will write the song from their perspective of having multiple times like, There’s a song called for those last for those taken, which was on my EP black spring, which is a song about Sandra Bland, who was murdered by the police and jail officials in Texas. And I literally, you know, that song came to me through her talking to me, and I even talked I talked to her mother like about it and Then also the song grief on the album, The title track, that’s another one where like, actually don’t know the name of the person. I don’t even know who it is. But like, that song literally just came to me through this person’s experience.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  30:15

That’s amazing. What a gift. What do you most hoping happens with the healing project,

Samora Pinderhughes  30:22

I have a lot of, you know, big dreams and visions for the healing project. I mean, I think the most important thing for me of what I hope happens with it is that it makes the lives better of everybody who’s a part of it, that’s the most practical level of it. And there’s a lot of people in it that, you know, are in prison, there’s a brother of mine, Keith Lamar, who’s on death row right now that we’re trying to free him. So there’s a very practical levels of like, I want to bring attention to their cases, hopefully get them out. And also, I want to show the world, the genius of their work, which is a big mission of the project. And the other hope is just that were able to bring it to as many places and people as possible so that people can receive these tools that I believe are embedded in the project, particularly in the interviews. You know, I give you that one example. But there’s like 100, that I could I could tell like 100 stories right now that are in their interviews, that’s literally like, you could take this thing, and it could transform your life, you know. And so, you know, my hope is that for those who are going through whatever they’re going through, that the healing project can be a resource for them to receive these tools that then they can share with their families, their communities, and when they’re in those situations, it can assist them.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  31:42

Amazing. I’m so profoundly glad that you’ve put this out in the world. And I hope as many people find that as possible, where can we find more about you and the healing project,

Samora Pinderhughes  31:53

the healing project, you can find at healingprojectarchive.com. Also, you can find the album grief on wherever you get music. And I would also encourage people to view the films that accompany the music, which you can find on YouTube, there’s a piece for masculinity and song, and also for the song process.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  32:14

Samora, thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure. And I just really think that what you’re doing is really beautiful.

Samora Pinderhughes  32:20

I’m honored. Thank you so much. really grateful to talk with you today.

Claire Bidwell-Smith  32:31

I hope you learned as much from smart as I did in this interview. One of the many things I take away from this conversation is how we embody grief in different ways. Also, I think a challenge for myself and our listeners is to really interrogate how we honor the grieving process, and perhaps how we can expand that through ritual or music or some other method that calls to us. We heard Samora say, sound allows you to express things that you can’t in words. And for me, that’s what the healing project and the grief album are an expression of. Thanks again Samora for this album and for sharing your wisdom with us. That’s it for today. But don’t forget that there’s more New Day with Lemonada premium where subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content. Coming up on Sunday, you’ll get a chance to hear more of my amazing conversation about helping kids cope with shame with Mark Brackett that will be available in your feed on Sunday. So subscribe now and Apple podcasts.

CREDITS  33:29

NEW DAY is a Lemonada Media Original. The show is produced by Kryssy Pease and Erianna Jiles. Kat Yore is our engineer. Music is by Hannis Brown. Our VP of weekly content is Steve Nelson. And our executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova Kramer, and me, Claire Bidwell Smith. NEW DAY is produced in partnership with the Well Being Trust, The Jed Foundation and Education Development Center. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow us at @LemonadaMedia across all social platforms, or find me at clairebidwellsmith.com. Join our Facebook group to connect with me and fellow NEW DAY listeners at facebook.com/groups/newdaypod. You can also get bonus content and behind the scenes material by subscribing to Lemonada Premium on Apple podcasts.  Thanks for listening. See you next week.

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