I Nearly Burned Down My Music Therapy Practice. Then I Rebuilt It Using Systems, Nervous System Regulation, and AI.

I'm Jaime Lawrence, MT-BC. I've owned Harmony Garden Music Therapy for 20 years. In 2022, I was in fight/flight/freeze - drowning in operations, exhausted from wearing all the hats, and ready to quit. I rebuilt by learning to lead instead of just operate. Now I help other music therapy business owners do the same.

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Jaime Lawrence, A woman with blonde hair, wearing a white tank top and a blue skirt, playing an acoustic guitar in front of a colorful, geometric mural (Brightwalls Jackson, MI).
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My Story: From Burnout to Breakthrough

In 2022, I wanted to burn it all down. Not literally - but I said it enough times that I scared myself.

I'd built Harmony Garden Music Therapy from the ground up. Twenty years. A team of seven board-certified music therapists. Hundreds of clients. From the outside, it looked successful.

From the inside, I was operating in constant fight/flight/freeze. I was the bottleneck for everything. I couldn't see a way forward that didn't require me to do it all.

Something had to change, so I started doing internal work - sound healing, Guided Imagery and Music, nervous system regulation. I joined a local entrepreneurship program and started talking to business owners outside music therapy who were adapting AI at lightning speed. I realized I'd been trying to be both the visionary and the integrator. And I was failing at both.

So I rebuilt. I stepped away from all clinical work in 2024. I built systems so my team could operate without me. I used AI as a thought partner to get out of my own head. I learned what it meant to lead a business instead of just running one.

Now I take clients again - because I want to, not because I have to. I choose the work. I set the parameters. My nervous system is regulated. My business runs without me being the only one who knows how things work.

And I want to show other music therapy business owners how to do the same.

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Three women walking down a narrow alley, playing guitars and smiling, in a black and white photo.

Who is this for?

You're a music therapy practice owner who's exhausted from doing everything yourself. You've built something meaningful, but you're the bottleneck. You can't take a day off without everything falling apart. You're paying your team (or trying to), but you're not paying yourself enough. You've thought about quitting - not because you don't love the work, but because you can't sustain the way you're doing it. You're curious about AI but you're not sure where to start. You want to lead your business, not just operate it. You're ready for something to change.

If that's you, you're in the right place.

Owner of Harmony Garden Music Therapy Services

Music Therapist with a young man laughing and playing guitar, with a drumstick in the foreground.
Children and adults in a Harmony Garden Sprouts early childhood music class, sitting on the floor in a circle, playing musical instruments and engaging in a musical activity in a casual indoor setting.
Two smiling women, one with brown hair and another with gray hair, playing musical instruments in a room with beige walls. The woman with brown hair is sitting in a wheelchair and holding a blue maraca, while the woman with gray hair is sitting on a chair and playing a drum.
Young boy smiling and looking down at a small robot or electronic device he's holding, wearing an orange Gildan hoodie with a gray and blue logo, sitting on a dark-colored floor.
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