Changed With Tirro

In doing so many of these podcasts, I couldn’t possibly admit to favoritism, but I will say there are some people who have stuck in my memory and the thought of them instantly makes me smile wide. Nausheen is one of those people from the class of 2003.

Back in the early aughts, when I was still a young teacher, I remember this bright-eyed young woman, whose birthday was July 4th, who loved discovering new talents in the performing arts. She was a gifted clarinetist who played in two of our jazz musical classics, Crazy For You and Guys and Dolls. But, since she took so much enjoyment learning modern and jazz dance in class during the school day, she decided to pursue her latent passion for performing onstage.

In her senior year, she was also cast in Kiss Me Kate where she sang the “Too Darn Hot” duet with Marie Casimir (episode 31). I actually have a particular sense memory of her from rehearsals, standing in the front of the stage, dancing her heart out with a look of both determination and glee. That seems to be the running theme of my memories of her.

She was also one of those brilliant, eloquent kids; a high-achiever who we all knew would move on to great success. We weren’t wrong. After graduation, she attended Cornell University, majoring in Industrial & Labor Relations with a concentration in Law & Society. While she graduated a semester early, she spent that last spring on campus working since she would be starting her next steps at Brooklyn Law School in September.

Following law school, she started her career as a management-side labor and employment lawyer at Proskauer Rose, a global law firm and leader in the field. After a few years developing her skills, she moved in-house to VNS (Visiting Nurse Service) Health, where she has spent the last eight years, and now holds the title of Vice President, Associate General Counsel. She married her college sweetheart and they have a beautiful brood of three that keeps her on her toes as a working mom.

Nausheen looks back to high school

I was beautifully normal, and nothing that anybody said to me at the time would have convinced me of that.

The adolescent experience feels far from “normal.” Rather, it is like being in the middle of a hurricane. Teens reckon with a confusing present and an uncertain future, mixed with a healthy dose of wavering self-esteem. Being a mom to her own teenager now makes Nausheen look back at her own experience and realize just how normal she was; only now, she’s weathering the storm from the outside.

I definitely felt anything but normal at the time and I try to remember that. There are plenty of times where I still feel; I question whether what I’m going through or how I’m reacting to something is normal.

Despite the storms, Nausheen remembers her adolescent self as being more fearless, adventurous, unafraid and eager to try new things that life had to offer. She also acknowledged her sensitivity; she both loves and hurts deeply. The adult version of herself has developed some more effective emotional regulation strategies: it’s an active work-in-progress. It helps when you are have children of your own and you are doing to work to learn how to teach them to effectively self-regulate.

The best is yet to come

This is the advice that she would have offered her adolescent self to help keep her to centered. While it is never a guarantee, the hope that it brings may have helped her to recognize that her experience, while sometimes uncomfortable, was in fact completely normal. She also offers this thought to her own kids, but she acknowledges that it may not land the way she would hope.

Whatever is keeping you awake at night right now matters, but it’s not going to be keeping you awake at night five years from now. One day, whatever this is that is weighing on [your] heart right now, is going to be lifted. I don’t know how, I don’t know exactly when, but if you can just trust that it’s going to happen, take some comfort in that.

Nausheen, by nature, has always been a planner. Sometimes, that organizational spirit clouds her ability to enjoy the present moment, and was compounded in high school as she was preparing her future beyond Spring Valley, away from the home that she knew and loved. She relates strongly to her astrological sign, Cancer, the crab; tough on the outside, soft and squishy on the inside. She is also a creature of habit and craves the comforts of home and family, the familiarity of which keeps her centered and strong, and something she doesn’t part from easily. I’m a crab, my shell comes with me.

How does the crab play into the law?

Let’s face it: when we think of attorneys, we think hard-as-nails, not soft and squishy. When she is working, Nausheen must be mindful of her sensitive nature, especially when she has to deal with the more difficult aspects of her job, but she acknowledges that it has made her more empathetic.

There’s a part of me that’s always gravitated towards the law because I appreciate the spirit of the law; there’s intent behind most laws. Most of the time, the intent makes sense to me. Figuring out what society views as a desirable goal, and then drafting laws that enable society to get there is really hard. I try to keep that in the back of my mind. I’ve tried to educate my clients so that they don’t just view the law as a “bad thing” that is going to hold them back or prevent them from making progress.

The soft crab interior helps Nausheen to bring more understanding to the table when she is dealing with clients who are frustrated with the law. I was curious as to her approach to her work, representing the management side of healthcare. In an environment where nurses, such a crucial component of our healthcare system, who struggle with the myriad challenges associated with the field, I asked Nausheen about her approach when advising her clients from that side of the table:

There has to be trust across the table. This is true in any environment where you’re going to have a productive relationship. We are ultimately on the same team. Our nurses – they are the backbone of the business. It’s really, really important to come to the negotiating table, not just with an appreciation for what they do day to day, what it actually entails, what are the day to day challenges that are keeping them back from being able to do not only what we want them to do (on the management side), but from what they want to do. Ultimately, we want the same thing. It’s taking the time to learn and to understand the broader landscape for nurses in the industry.

Ultimately, by looking out for the well-being of the nurses in the industry, they are looking out for the well-being of the organization she works for. Rather than being adversarial (as we often think about attorneys), Nausheen values the building of healthy relationships amongst her colleagues. I would count on any one of them to take care of me.

What does Nausheen grapple with now?

Being rooted firmly in the strength of her family unit, Nausheen is now starting to experience the challenges associated with being in the “sandwich generation,” where she has both aging parents and young children. She, like so many of us, has always viewed her parents as being invincible. We spend out entire lives with our parents being there for us, and when they start showing signs of the natural aging process, the tides start to turn. Just over a year ago, her dad, who is otherwise healthy and vibrant, had a massive heart. Thankfully, he is now recovered and stable, largely due to the family rallying around him to give him the support he needed. But, it is a solemn reminder of the shift in her new reality:

People who I have relied heavily on my entire life, are not invincible, that our time together is always limited, which is really hard to grasp. It’s a real kick in the gut.

That shift is slow, but a little insidious as we grow into our adulthood. Though our parents’ strength slowly chips away over time, we still see them, in large part, through the eyes of a child. It doesn’t matter how much adult responsibility we own in the real world; when it comes to our parents, we will always be their kid. Nausheen embraces the vulnerablility she still has in their presence; she feels safe, even as she takes on a more of a protective and helper role towards them. Even though she naturally does that as a mother of three children, it’s just different, and it’s new for me.

Stepping out of her comfort zone

Back in high school, Nausheen really loved playing the clarinet in the pit orchestra. She would watch the performers from behind her music stand, awed and amazed by what she saw, and was happy to support the show as a musician.

I never thought I’d be on the stage. It seemed so daunting, just trying out. But I forced myself, and I got there.

In her junior year, I think she wanted both the challenge of doing something very different and a chance to bask in the glory of sharing the spotlight. She finally auditioned for Anything Goes and got her chance to transition to the stage. I was always so impressed by her wide-eyedness; how she absorbed every moment with a sense of joy and wonder. That’s what I remember most about her. Though she may have been apprehensive at first, once she made the decision to try, that fearless determination kicked in. From that point forward, it was about doing the work to get the job done.

The Gypsy Robe

Nausheen remembered receiving the Gypsy Robe on opening night for Anything Goes. On Broadway, the honor (now called the Legacy Robe) goes to the ensemble member with the most Broadway credits. In our school, the honor is given to the ensemble member who demonstrates the most work ethic, grit and dedication to the production. It is an honor that our students highly value, because it is an acknowledgment of the importance of kids in the back; the chorines and dancers who don’t get the solos and primary spotlight, but who are necessary to create the whole picture in a production. Their work is honored through the Robe, and to me, Nausheen was the obvious choice.

Carrying it forward

Nausheen’s freshman year of college was a bit of a shock to her system, being so far from home and away from her comfort zone, she didn’t do as well academically as she knew she could. Reflecting on her high school experience, she remembered thriving most while pursuing arts activities. Playing music and performing onstage were exactly what had helped to keep her balanced and regulated while she tackled her school work.

I know myself and I know that I do best when I am elbow-deep in doing other things that I love. My academics, I tend to do well when I have that balance in other areas in my life. After that first year, I channeled exactly that feeling of ‘wow that looks really cool; could I ever possibly?’

She sought out some performance opportunities on campus and decided to try out for a bunch of dance teams; she made two of them. Adding these performance activities to her academic schedule, her grades shot up.

It unlocked that motivation, drive, balance; I don’t know what it is, and I’ve seen this pattern replay itself enough times where that balance is so important to me. I just know that it’s an important part of my ability to do well in my primary area of effort, whatever that may be.

That balance between academic and participating in satisfying life activities was Nausheen’s key not only to success, but keeping herself on an even emotional keel. By filling her cup, she draws contentment and as a result, has so much more to give to the world around her.

Our shared 9/11 experience

I haven’t spoken too much about that day or time on this podcast. Frankly, it’s a time I’d rather forget about. But, Nausheen brought it up as one of the experiences that helped her to center and regulate herself in high school. So, I’ll tell the story of that day.

It was the first day of school in 2001. I was on crutches after breaking my foot chasing after my dog that weekend. I hobbled into my first class in the gym, a dance class that young Nausheen was in. I was sitting in a chair, addressing my first class of the year. One of our security guards came in and whispered something in my ear, a moment which Nausheen remembers. She recalled my face changing, a gasp, and then everyone in class being ushered into the locker room for safety. In that moment, she and everyone else knew that the world had changed.

We spent the rest of the day in a school-wide lockdown, listening to the news on the radio, trying to wade through the confusion and horror of that day. My husband was working downtown on the east side, so I was naturally preoccupied with his safety, but I had spoken to him around 10 am before the cell service went down with the towers. I had faith that he was not in immediate danger and I spent the day tending to our students in real time.

There’s no positive spin on the experience or the memory whatsoever. But I am so grateful; if I was going to be with any one adult in that building, I could not have picked anyone else.

What compounded the horror of the experience for Nausheen is that she was Muslim, and we all know how tortured Muslims were after 9/11. In the days that followed, once we were back in school and trying to find our way back to normal, Nausheen had given me a single-spaced, type-written letter. It was just over a page long, and served as a platform to vent her feelings of fear, anger, guilt and utter helplessness. As though she were speaking for all Muslims, she tried to put into perspective for me (and perhaps the rest of the world) the shame of how the fundamentals of the Islamic religion had been twisted and weaponized in such a horrifying fashion. She was, quite literally, carrying the weight of the world on her adolescent shoulders.

In a desperate attempt to educate someone who would listen, she expounded on the political history of Pakistan, her family’s homeland, and the impossible situation they were in following the attack. She wanted to reverse time, expressing both her fear and indignation to the threats her family had received following the attack. She reinforced her strong sense of being both a proud American, born on the 4th of July, and a devoted Muslim. It was probably one of the most earnest, well-thought out expressions about that time that I had ever read. And, it was written by a teenager.

It goes to show the enormous power of acknowledgment, understanding, and care. We have such capacity to heal, even when the worst of humanity rears it’s ugly head. And yes, I’ve kept that letter for over 20 years.

Nausheen’s sage advice to teens now

Aside from her very wise counsel of “the best is yet to come,” Nausheen had some very practical advice for the adolescent set that I found hilarious.

Eat a vegetable.

Knowing the dietary habits of today’s high school students (Doritos for breakfast? Yuck.), I couldn’t agree more.

Nausheen’s self-care strategies

Busy, professional moms don’t have nearly enough time to take care of themselves, even though they are the ones who need it the most. Even so, Nausheen has a few go-to self-care strategies that she enjoys when she can.

• She loves reading, although it is too easy to fall off that bandwagon. Finding the right book, having two hands to hold and turn pages, and making the time and space to sit and dedicate to such a solo activity often requires more effort than she is willing or able to spare. She has a bunch of books on hold at her local library at any given time, so when her penchant for reading does connect, she takes advantage of that resource.
• Praying helps her to ground herself. Though her spiritual practice has ebbed and flowed through the years, she has leaned more into her identity as a Muslim-American as she has grown into her adulthood.
• She still loves dancing, although her performance opportunities are now relegated to the latest TikTok trend with her kids.
• I love a good massage. (Who doesn’t?)

Thank you for tuning in!

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