GBC TV recording Client Testimonials at Amber Law
It was a pleasure and an honour to be invited by TV personality and host Anna Cavilla to take part in a series about the practice of Mindfulness, called ‘Are We Aware?’ but the most rewarding part, was to hear the heartfelt, authentic and powerful testimonials of former clients.
Daphne Galia (former client)
“My emotions were… I was very angry at that time, I was very sad, I was overwhelmed with everything, so it was very difficult to speak, very difficult, because pain doesn’t allow you to talk… it was very easy to speak to Amber… I left home… and Amber said at 3 O’clock you have an appointment with a counsellor, so as from that day I started going to counselling … it helped me go through the process of the divorce and helped me emotionally … I describe counselling like a basket… balls of wool, when you bring out one ball from the basket everything comes with it, everything is tangled. My mind was that tangled… and the counsellor, all she did was take a ball out, mend it and put it aside… take another one, mend it and put it aside and that is how I felt my mind cleared up…
When things started going wrong with the other party, I remember calling Amber very distressed…she calmed me down and I learned how not to bring out the anger and not to think in a negative way… divorce is always very painful and there is pressure on your emotions… Amber always gave the best advice because when she decided to do something it always brought out a positive result… Amber worked with … positive emotions… positive feelings and positive energy… her input was amazing. She carried me throughout the process. She’s a lawyer but at the same time she is like a guide and a leader but in a very gentle way”.
“When Amber spoke to me about holistic law, mindfulness and positivity, I said I want to go down that path”.
Joey Baglietto (former client)
“… Me and my former partner had just split up and it was messy, heavy and a difficult time of my life. I had never ever gone to a lawyer for anything so for me it was all new and a big mountain to climb… I just couldn’t find how to approach it. It was all so difficult for me. Everything was black… I went to a cousin of mine and she advised me to approach Amber Turner... as soon as I approached Amber I could see this is where I wanted to be and that she was the person that I wanted to help me through this … ordeal… it was like climbing Mount Everest without an oxygen bottle on my back.
Amber was very sensitive and human with me from the first interview which was very emotional. She treated me like a person, like a friend from day one… not like a client. She gave me reassurances, she helped me to think positive and she made me feel strong and at the same time to open up without being scared to come out and if you have to cry just cry over it and if you want to say your thought in the moment and you would not say it to anyone else, just say because it is what you really wanted. Amber helped me a lot through the initial process when the ball has to start rolling. I remember coming out of my first interviews with her with a smile and positive.
… Being a man is difficult because you don’t know how to open up to people and you don’t know how to talk to people. If you open up a lot and you talk about what your feelings are sometimes you think you are showing some weakness or that you are too fragile and you don’t want people to see that… I hate crying in front of people, hate showing my emotions. But yet again … I was able to tell Amber what my fears were about not having a home, going back to my brother’s to live, my relationship with my sons… mistakes that I had made in the past and how to confront and how to tackle them, how to address them. Getting to a route and staying that route without falling apart.
… Thank God I was going to a counsellor at the time. So, what I would do is tell my counsellor what I was talking with Amber and tell Amber what I was talking about to my counsellor… like a triangle, teamwork and I was in the middle…
… At the end of the day I’ve managed to come out of my divorce quite well mentally and personally which is the most important thing… I believe in karma and although I made mistakes in my past, now I try to be positive and try to be a good person and I think that a lot of that good will come back to me. A lot of it has come to me because of Amber’s relationship with me, her friendship with me and the way she treated me at that moment.
That ordeal became a process, and that process became a journey and that journey became a way of life…and you have to say well, this happened to me like to a lot of people and it’s up to you, you want to make it easier or more difficult. Amber’s approach was very comfortable, informal and I am very happy for it. She approached my anger because sometimes I was very angry; both sides when you have a divorce are very angry with each other – I am no saint, the other side was also very angry… but with Amber she addressed my anger, my questions, my fears. She’s a friend of mine now.
What I learned from Amber in this process is that the way I was helped by her, I have to help others. I’ve given advice to other people going through divorce, stress, anxiety or depression. A lot of this comes out in divorce. It’s not the other person, you are not blaming the other person, it is you all your fears come out. It’s a triangle where fear goes to anxiety, anxiety goes to stress and stress goes to fear and it’s up to you to break that with help, advice, counselling, mindfulness, it’s up to you. You have to start the ball rolling and then help will come to you”.
Asia Dimitrova
“I met Amber through a course and we became friends. She is a very ‘sparkling’ person, very clever, very intelligent and very human. I was going through a very difficult time. I was going through a divorce. The war… Amber could not take on my case because I was living abroad but as a friend I was on the phone and every single call she helped me to calm down and focus on what was really important… I would say my lawyer suggests we have to answer this way but it was like missiles flying around… Amber told me, ‘The war cannot happen with only one person- just get out of the war. Do what you have to do, you have responsibilities and take care of the physical things that have to be done, but step out of the war’. It was a process with Amber taking me through analysing and seeing what is actually happening, why the other person feels hurt as well, helping me understand the other point of view. Seeing where my hurt comes from, why I am reacting the way I am reacting… a few of the times it was hard news for me to hear because I did not like some of the things I had to hear about myself, but it was all for the best.
One thing I would never forget and is always in front of my mind is when Amber said: “When parents fight, the children are the battlefield. Even if you try to be gentle, you don’t tell them anything, there is still a battlefield. So where are the missiles going to land? In your children. So stop the war now. Leave the other person to his own devices. He cannot clap with one hand. Let it go. Take care of the children”.
The process Amber led me through was to take care of myself, to grow as a person, to learn from what is happening to me… Amber asked me many times, ‘The divorce is going to be resolved one day, what are you going to do after that? You have to build your life from now through this and if you want a good life you have to focus on the good things and positive things and start building from now… We do this now. Leave the war there raging and you focus on what you need to build now”.
It helped me so much, it helped me grow, it helped me calm down and whatever was happening, all this energy, the frustration and anger, to channel it into something good that I wanted to achieve and which serves me until now. Every time there is a conflict now, I go through the same process: What is important? Never mind the war. Find peace. It has been so good.
I am so blessed to have known Amber… I wished all the lawyers were like her. If all the lawyers take care of people as people, the legal problem as something that is happening to them not only on paper, but on all the levels and to help them through this gateway, life would be much better, families will hold on better, society will be better…
Doctors when you are ill carry you, why can’t lawyers. I went to two lawyers and felt like I was attacked by dogs. I thought, ‘You are meant to be defending me and you are shooting with guns'. They were very good people but the only way they knew how to do their work was this- war, guns, battleships. ‘You tell your son this’ and I would say, ‘Why? Leave him out of this’. Whatever Amber was setting up in my mind I had to transmit to my lawyer … so we could do some positive work. It was a long process because the other side could not understand what I was doing! … When you go to your centre in a good place… the other side thinks there is a plan! I said, ‘I just want to have peace with you…’. It was Amber speaking in the back of my mind, ‘What is important? Peace’.
It has been fantastic for me and I use the process until now for many things in my life because things in life repeat on a different scale. Even at work, with my kids, there is always some conflict going on. At first it gets on my nerves and then I go through Amber’s process! … It’s a transformation. I feel very blessed to have met Amber and had her support”.