Talks

In 1969 I was a little girl in South Sumatra in Palembang, and my father was CEO of a big company. But at the time, parents would spend time to have lunch with the children. So my dad would go home at twelve and have lunch with us, all the children. And then he would go back to the office.And in my surrounding neighborhood, there were still forests, there were still rivers, and there was still a lot of poor people. There was a beggar who would come from house to house, bringing ragged white sacks, and each house would give him a cup of rice. Not money, only a cup of rice, so maybe he would not be starving. Of course, he would come to our house too. And my mom would prepare a special plate, with a special glass, and special food for my father. That's how we respected our father—special food for him.I saw the tukang minta-minta—the beggar—come and the cook would go with a cup of rice. But then I saw the food on the table, and I thought, Oh, he might be hungry. Why don't I just give it to him? So I put it in a big tin can. I put my father's food there with the rice, with the fish, with everything for him, and gave it to him. And I can still remember his eyes like disbelief and sparkling. That old man, now I still can imagine his face. So he ate there, but when my mom found out, she was confused and furious because there was no food for my father. There was no restaurant. There was no café. She had to cook and said, "You don't do that again because we can give a cup of rice, but not your father's food."I did the same thing the second day. And I did the same thing the third day. On the fourth day, maybe my mom thought this little girl cannot be told. So she told the cook to hide all the food on top of the kitchen cabinet. I was so small. I couldn't reach it, so that food was safe.I had my own lunch. What did I do with that? I gave it to him. And my mom said, "Maybe you don't understand Bahasa Indonesia. Which part is it that you don't understand? Do not give food because we give rice." And I was not sad. I was not angry. I was just feeling like I felt him, and my mom said, "No lunch. It's okay. You can give yours, but no lunch for you." I was not crying. I just walked to the neighbor and, you know, went into the kitchen talking. I had a very, very, a very loving neighbor, Basri. And they fed me. "Have you had your lunch? Come, come, come eat with us." So I had lunch at my neighbor's, and the big sister was a dancing teacher. So after lunch, I got a free lesson in dancing, and I danced. I danced and danced. My mom didn't know about it because she's like, "Oh, she finished her lunch." And that I had then gone to my neighbor.And I still remember that feeling. And I'm happy that I could keep that feeling because then I became an activist. I was the chairwoman of the Legal Aid Foundation for Women and Children. And I also established Kapika, the independent commission against corruption—like the Indonesia Corruption Watch. With the feeling of that little girl, I knew that in my heart, I'm an activist and I had a long career. I was in investment banking. I was in the biggest advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson. I was in first class on planes, in hotels and everything. But I knew deep in my heart I've never stopped wanting to become an activist. That was my story in 1969.And 1999. This is what I want to share with you. I went to Durban, South Africa, for the OECD conference on anti-corruption, so delegates from all over the world were there. I went with Professor Emil Salim, the former Minister of Environment. He became an activist after retirement. And I helped him to prepare the presentation. 1999. We did the presentation with slides so he could do it with his handwriting. And I was the one who suggested him to use slides with his handwriting. And he would talk in the plenary session. The plenary session was the biggest session. There were like 2,500 delegates there. There was James Wolfensohn, at that time the director of IMF. And the president of Transparency International. There was also the CEO of OECD and, of course, Nelson Mandela because it was in South Africa.And Prof. Emil said, "There will be the plenary session. And after that, there will be questions and answers." I said, "Oh, I really wanna ask a question. How do I do that?" "Sit next to me," he said. There would be hundreds of hands. So after the plenary session finished, there would be questions and answers. And "Okay. Who wants to ask a question?" I raised my hand like hundreds of hands also, but Prof. Emil was right. And somebody said, "That girl." "Me from Indonesia?" I was so happy but also shocked. Oh, I better have a good question because maybe they chose me because first I'm a woman. Second I'm from Asia, from Indonesia—very famous at that time because we were the champions of corruption. That was 1999, just one year after Suharto stepped down. I think, Well, this is my chance. So I raised my hand, and they asked, "Okay, who do you want to question?" I said, of course, "Nelson Mandela." I said, "Mr. Mandela, would you share with us what were the biggest obstacles when you became president? What do you think was the most difficult thing?" Because we know he won awards for housing when he put all the people from the slums into housing—he won so many awards.He then said, "That's a good question, Miss Irma Hutabarat." I was so happy. My name was mentioned! And he answered, "I have built schools. I have built housing. I have built infrastructure, but the most difficult thing, and the most important thing to me, is to heal my people. They have a lot of wounds, anger, insults, disappointment, you name it, from apartheid. And it's not easy to overcome that. I can't build this nation if they are not healed because they're not ready. So that's what I did. I sent a psychiatrist, a psychologist, public figures, and the people in each and every village would pay special attention to the wounded person that was allowed at that time." And I realized that he's not only a big name, but he has a big heart.And the evening after that, there was the closing party, the farewell party. And everybody was there. I was there too. And somebody came to me and said, "Miss Irma, what about you? You were the one who asked the question. Would you like to dance with Nelson Mandela?" "Do you want me to answer? Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course I want to dance with Nelson Mandela," and he escorted me and I was dancing. I was dancing. If you asked me how I felt, I saw a very compassionate person—peaceful and very gentle. And I was dancing with him. I felt honored.And I remembered my childhood. I remembered my mom before she died. She told me, "Now I understand you. I shouldn't have punished you because you were a kid. You've got a golden heart. We had lots of food on the table. Why would I punish you?" And that was the nicest thing that I heard from my mom. "And yet you learned how to dance?" She didn't know about it. And I told her that the punishment was like a blessing in disguise. So when I was dancing with Nelson Mandela, it felt like I was dancing with life. And this is the message that I want to give to you all—keep dancing, keep dancing with life.

I was a boy during the 1995 Galungan ceremony. I think it's the biggest ceremony in Bali. It's an exciting moment for a boy because he knows a lot of food will be there! Sometimes your father will give you new clothes. I was just excited. But before that, I had a responsibility. I needed to dress up my temple. So I walk to my temple. I prepared my temple. Just a sad moment coming. In Bali, our temple is the one thing to be proud of. Without coming into your house, everyone can see it from outside. When I put the last touch to my temple, all the time, it's falling down because all the wood is broken. I looked down at the middle of my temple. I was like just a young boy at that time. "One day, when I have a good job, I will fix you. I promise." My father actually is a builder. When I was a kid, I still remember because my body was not like a Balinese - big enough to help him to work. I didn't have my Sundays free. Every Sunday morning, my mom packed food for us. I was like, "No, Mom, I wanna stay home. I wanna play with my friend. "No, son, go help your dad."So every Sunday, I go to help, but the question keeps coming. I help my father build everyone's house. Why doesn't he rebuild my house? What's wrong with him? And I have an uncle. He joined the army, and he's the youngest in the family, and he's supposed to have the responsibility to fix the temple because, in Bali, the youngest one has the responsibility to continue helping the family. As he is in the army, he has duty in Jakarta. Every time he comes home, he promises, "Next Galungan, we will have a new temple." I'm excited again. We have hope. "Galungan coming, Galungan coming, Galungan coming." We never had a new temple. So sad.And then one day I finish college in 2003. I have an interview in one of the resorts in Ushawada. The question they ask me is, "What is your goal?" "I want to fix my temple." Everyone was laughing at me. "It's not about that. What is your career plan? What do you want to be? Do you want to be a chef? You want to be a . . ." "No, no, no, no. I want to fix my temple." "Okay. It's up to you." In 2005, I got the opportunity to go to the US, thank God. To find a job. I needed to borrow money - about US$4,000. The first three months I worked in the US, I worked so hard. I did everything. I told my manager, "Give me a job. If you put me in the dormitory, I will cry every day. I miss my home. Give me a job." Three months later, I repaid all the money I borrowed to go to the US. One day, I called my dad. "Dad, be ready to fix the temple. I will send you the money." "Okay, we will do it." Why did he answer so fast on that day? On that day, I realized why my dad didn't fix the house, didn't fix the temple before. He wanted to build me first. He wanted to build me, to become the man of the house. Phew.In 2006 I was about one year in the US. Every single month I sent all my money home. Finally, in August 2006, they sent me a picture of the new temple. I was so proud of myself. And I realized again everyone is waiting. So I needed to jump in to lead the action.To be the leader, there's no need to be the oldest one, no need to be the youngest one, but anyone can jump in and start to do it. And, finally, my uncle's coming to help. My grandpa is coming to help. Everyone's coming together, and they built the temple together. And from that spirit, it brings us to today in our village and becoming the leaders of the village. And the spirit of togetherness is coming to us again. We are together. We can do more, but without somebody starting, everyone will wait, and the time will never come. So don't worry. You need to start. When you start, even if it's wrong, even if it fails, don't care. The results will come in the end. I never dreamed to be standing here today to speak about my story and stand with all the experts that live in Bali. And again, COVID-19 teaches us Balinese a lot now. Being together in the fields, helping each other. Just as we do now. As you know, stories are important in Bali. And we have, in fact, the most stories in Indonesia. I think because we place our lives too much on tourism, we forget what was sustainable before. Today everything is coming back to bring us a new hope, new spirit. As a leader as well, the question's coming "What do you think is sustainable?" One day it's stories coming back, and everyone goes back to their jobs. Don't worry about it. At least what has been asleep for twenty-five years is awake now. Someone who has never experienced this before knows it now. The new generation understands about the spirit that's been built in our village for a very long time, and they had forgotten about it. So, together we can bring the spirit up. Togetherness happens in Bali. Thank you. Thank you for listening to me. I'm Made Astawa. Goodnight.

There I was, sitting in my new apartment, and I start shouting out loud. "I am free. I am free. I am free."Rewind. I'm twenty-one years old. And I wanna find the man of my dreams. And my friend at the spa that I'm working at, she looks at me, and she says, "I have the perfect man for you." I get really excited. My heart just starts to beat fast. We go out on this boat trip that weekend, and five margaritas later, we fall madly in love. You know how that goes.As the relationship progressed, I realized this wasn't a typical relationship. This was toxic. There were many ups and downs, lots of fights. There was abuse, manipulation, control—the whole thing. I was losing myself. And one night, we get in a raging fight, and I'm shaking. I've got mascara drawing down my face. I'm feeling broken. And he looks at me and screams at me, "Don't come home until you bring another woman home for both of us." I'm devastated. I still go out that night cos I didn't think I had another choice even though I knew I was so disrespected. So dishonored.So I'm sitting at the bar, and I'm getting drunk. And I look and feel into, Is this really my life? Is this really what I came here to do? Is this happening? Am I gonna end up just like my mom, living on the streets, choosing alcohol and drugs, and being a prostitute? Am I gonna end up just like her? No, no, no. It's not supposed to go like that. No, no. Until one day, I woke up drunk for the last time. I woke up, and I'm sitting on my bed, and I reek of alcohol. I'm shook up. I'm dying awake.And with God's grace, I was shown two paths. One path; if I was to continue that path and go down that route of self-destruction, what my life would look like. And guess what? It was just like my mom's. And then I was shown this other path; if I was to awaken and choose myself and sobriety, and it was heaven on earth. That day I called every single family member and told them I had a problem. I told them I needed help.And so, as I climbed my way in sobriety, the lights started coming on. I started to awaken who I truly was. I started taking empowering steps. I went into yoga teacher training. I almost changed my name - Anandi. (Yeah. That's where it comes from.) I wanted to change myself. I started running, I started yoga. I started all the things that I loved. It was a full month—my first month of sobriety—and I felt joy for the first time. And I go, Can I feel this good? Can I feel this free? Yes, yes, yes.But I still couldn't leave him. I was hooked. I was hooked. So he agreed to go to therapy with me. And that's when it shifted. That's when things really shifted. His name was Greg—the therapist. He was an expert in his field, amazing with addiction. And he started to give us tools. He gave me tools. As I started to peel back the layers of what I thought was me madly in love with this man was just my compensation for the love I didn't have for self. And Greg started telling me it was my inner child trauma that was keeping me going back and back and back to this man. And so he asked me to create a boundary, a boundary that I knew I was gonna keep.And that boundary? I'll never forget. I was sitting with our therapist, and I say to the therapist as a witness, "If he does this one more time, I'm out that door." And he did. We were driving to the airport. We're in another raging fight. We get to his gate as he was leaving. And he says those words, and there was the boundary being crossed. There was it. I got home, packed my stuff, and left him. And I never went back.The gift that Greg gave me from that boundary was the gift of fatherly love. Because at the time, I didn't have my father in my life. I didn't have my mother in my life. So I had to start to father myself and mother myself. See, when we have trauma from our childhood, we typically have these stories that are wrapping us into attracting partners and things that keep us locked in prison. And we need to start to heal these inner traumas, to allow us to awaken our own inner sovereign power, to bring us back into our inner parent and our inner union. Especially if you're dealing with a narcissist. See, if you're an empath like me, we have a lot of motherly love. And the narcissist and the empath, they go hand in hand. They're a perfect recipe for disaster. But you know what? That man—my partner—was my guru. He was my teacher.So remember the mirror and the blessing in the lessons. They're showing you what is still unhealed. Let it be a reverence to continue your path to awaken to who you truly are. See, this is why I show up every day, supporting men and women all around the world, helping them heal these inner traumas from the physical, mental, and emotional body to bring them back into their sovereign divinity, their sovereign power.It is such a blessing that I get to support women and men. Watching them blossom, awaken, and remember who they truly are. From that boundary, I've been able to achieve quantum leaps. And I continue to surprise myself like here I am surprising myself showing up. I would never have been able to do this years ago. Let me be an embodiment of how liberation can be. Let me be an example that you don't have to live in that pain. Let me show you that going from that much density brings you into this much light. See, women, I'm talking to you.We need to shift this. See, when a woman follows her intuition, she is free, and they are free. When a woman walks away from a relationship that's dimming her light, that's causing her pain, she is free, and they are free. When a woman says no, that sacred no, even if it's hard, she is free, and they are free. See, when I started to awaken myself, he started to awaken, and that's how it works. Here we are awakening ourself to awaken others. From that time period, I've been able to connect to my dad. After ten years estranged, he sends me text messages, "I love you." It's amazing. It's a miracle. And that's what happens. You become the miracle. So let me leave you with this. Remember, you are the medicine. You are the one that you've been waiting for. Remember, freedom is your birthright. Thank you.

I hear his footsteps going down, down, down the stairs. The front door opens and closes, and I'm alone. Holy crap. I can't do this, but I can't do that either. It was 2010, and I had just asked my husband for a divorce. I thought I'd feel free once I told him. In reality, I was freaking terrified because I had never been alone. Instead, I had spent my life building my cage and squeezing myself inside of it. I had hushed the whispers that said, "This isn't it. You don't fit. You're made for something more." And when I ignited the affair that burned down my marriage, I thought I'd burnt down the cage with it. I thought my time in the cage is done, but I couldn't have been more wrong. And I tumbled into the next relationship. And once again, the cage appeared, and that cycle repeated over and over because, I'm just gonna be real right now, I was not a fast learner. And with every relationship, that cage was getting smaller and tighter and more impossible to exist within until a pivotal relationship born out of a swipe right on Tinder.We fell instantly in love. I loved him. He loved me. We were each other's one. We declared our love to everybody that we knew. Got Facebook official. And six weeks later, it was me that was being asked to walk down those stairs and out that door. And that was the pain that saw me bawling my eyes out on a table after a chi energy release massage, where all the ghosts of my relationships past had revealed themselves to me in a vision. I realized, "It's me. I'm doing this to myself. I'm trying to play all these roles, and they're not working out for me. And I'm just the good girl. And I'm trying so hard to look good enough, to feel good enough, to be good enough."My healer friend, who essentially is my Yoda, was holding me in her arms, and the pain was so much. It was the lowest point of my life. And I was desperate to get out of that cage. I want to ask you something. Have you ever been presented with something that in the past, you just would've said "Absolutely hell no, no way" to, but right now feels like the perfect solution? Yeah. That's where I was at. So when my Yoda mentioned ayahuasca, I didn't ask too many questions. I just said yes. And what opened up for me in that moment was my rebel side. What if I did something that back in 2014 would be a radical action for a regular person to take? What if I took on that ayahuasca journey?What if I decided that all of that societal conditioning was just a bunch of BS and that trying to live an appropriate life is just the cage that we put ourselves in? Because really, I mean, who really wants to live an appropriate life, right? Like, ugh! And yet, we're all so busy trying to be appropriate. So I really only had the very vaguest of ideas of what I was getting myself into. I had heard that you needed to dress all in white. And as the taxi pulled up to the ceremonial space, I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, I'm gonna be with my people. Finally, I'm gonna feel like I belong. And I walked into that space in all my new whites, and everybody else was just dressed in normal clothes. And I realized in that moment, here I am again, just trying to fit in, just trying to be appropriate.Well, I just had that one outfit, and it was a weekend-long thing. So I really just had to style it out. And that was Rebel Initiation Round One. But the ayahuasca journey? That was pure love. I was a baby held in my mother's arms, and I felt so safe, and I felt so beautiful. And I felt so connected. And I cried for all the parts of myself that had forgotten how to love. And I knew what I had to do. Over the next eight months, I gave up my addiction to people-pleasing. I let go of being the good girl.I stopped laying myself out on the sacrificial altar of somebody else's desires. And I gathered all the fractured parts of myself back together and loved them into feeling worthy. And then, as Yoda's do, my Yoda reappeared to help me unlock the last door to the last cage. She showed me that I needed to stop being a servant to a corporate agenda. That I needed to become the queen and put on my freaking crown. And I needed to leave my old job and my old life behind. Through all of this, I have learned, or I have created, in fact, some personal truths. I am here to be a rebel. I am here to be a queen. I did not come here to live in a cage and be dulled down. I came here to command, and we have all been fed a lie that if we play by the rules, we'll be taken care of. But in my experience, it's when I don't play by the rules that love, passion, vibrancy, and luxury become available to me. Thank you.

2005. I'd never seen my father so happy like that before. His eyes were bright, sparkling. He said, "Finally, I have a son in my life." In Bali, we use the patriarchy system. It means the son is like a king. A son can do everything. Everything.My mom only had daughters. She wasn't able to give my father a son. That's why he married again. He married another woman. A Balinese man can marry another woman at the same time. My mom did everything for my dad. As a wife, she was the best wife. A Balinese woman is Wonder Woman. They can do everything. They can do cooking, washing, working, offerings, take care of the children, take care of the husband. They even have to take care of the husband's family. Even with all of that, my dad still left.I was ten years old. My mom said, "I have to go. I have to go to Timor-Leste." I'm like, "What? Timor-Leste? Where is Timor-Leste? And why?" Timor-Leste is a small country. Before, they were part of Indonesia. Right now, they are an independent country.She left quickly. My mom left. My dad left. I only stayed with my sister and my grandma. I looked at all of that. It was not for me. I had to grow up quickly. I had to take care of my sister. And when I had to go to my sister's school, I had to sign her report records. People around me were like, "Hey, what are you doing here? Where is your mom? Where is your dad?" I was like, hell, a little girl. I was like, "Shut up. None of your business." They're like, "Hey, what are you doing here? Where are your parents?" "They're working." And "None of your business. Shut up." I was so mad. I was so mad because why did this happen to my life? Why me? Why? I looked at all of them. It's not for me. I'm not destined to have a life like that. It wasn't for me because of my comment to not become my parents.I went to university. I had a scholarship because I was the national champion of shortboard. Even though I had a scholarship, I still had to pay for my college—for my books, living costs, and gas. And do you know who paid for that? It was my mom. She paid for me and my sister's college to make sure we got an education.In college, I started learning English. I read English books even though I didn't understand. English books, listening to music, watching YouTube because I wanted to improve my English. I even signed up to Tinder. Oh my God! How can I improve my English? How can I speak English very well? Because I just want to. Okay, I didn't learn anything on Tinder! Because of my comment to become an entrepreneur, I'm a modern woman who will marry with modern man. I started writing it down into my dream book. Oh my God. Excited. Modern man will come to my life soon. He's from a different country, from another country. He's tall—180. I know exactly what I want! Sorry. He has a beard and glasses. Oh my God. He's older than me. (Hi!) Why not? He's ten years older than me. I'm twenty-four. And he's sweet and will treat me like a queen. Oh my God. And then the most important thing is he's not stingy. Hell no. Please. No, he will treat me like a queen, right? Not stingy. And I believe he will come to my life soon. He will find me here in Bali and say, "Julia, will you marry me?" Oh my God. So excited. Woo-hoo!I'm a university graduate. My mom had to come home because of COVID-19. And then, for the first time, I looked in her eyes, and I asked her, "Hey, why did you leave me? Why? Why did you leave me like this?" She just held my hand. She started crying. "Darling," she said, "darling, I always knew there was something about you. I always knew you were different. I always knew you are a leader. I had to go to Timor-Leste. In Timor-Leste, they have US dollars so I could make money for you and your sister. And I had to make sure you got an education and not end up like me. I want you to be a strong woman, a smart woman—not like me. I just accepted everything that my husband did. My husband tried to kill me. My husband threw a knife. My husband hit me, punched me in front of you. I don't want you to end up like me. You deserve to have a great life. That's why I had to go to Timor-Leste for fifteen years."And I was crying. Oh my God, I used to judge my mom. I used to just think, Why did you leave me like this? I used to judge her. And then for me, she made a hard decision to leave me, to leave her family for fifteen years just so me and my sister got an education.And I just realized the best part of me is because of my mom. The independent woman that you see in front of you is because of my mom. This is the best gift that she has given to me. I just wanna say to you guys, Balinese women, we are strong. We are like Wonder Woman. Please. It's not time to be silent anymore. You have to say something. Please say no. If you are not safe, or don't feel safe anymore, or don't feel comfortable, say, "I wanna divorce." Say it like that. This hard decision might break the culture, but can you stay in a jail for a long time? No. Hell no.And because of that, I don't want a Balinese woman to have a life like my mom, because I saw my mom cry every night and then had to leave me and make a hard decision because she just wanna do the best for me—for my future. You have to do something. A hard decision might break the culture. But it's now or never. Today isn't too late.My mom sits here. I invited my mom. I never said I was going to speak in public. No, I just said, "I just wanna invite you for dinner, Mom." Sorry, Mom. Sorry. I don't wanna cry. I don't wanna mess up my makeup. Sorry. She is here right now. Hi Mom, and my sister. Thank you so much for everything. I will do everything to make you happy. I'm a woman, but I'm more strong than ten men. I am, please! I'm your daughter. I'm your honor. I love you so much, Mom. I love you so much, Sister. Don't cry. Don't cry.

Lombok, September 20th, 2018. It has been one and a half months since the terrible earthquake of August 5th struck the island claiming 563 lives and made half a million people homeless. I was driving up this hill in northwest Lombok. Our mission was to bring water filters to this village, quite isolated. The road was winding and quite steep. Our car had to get back in first gear a couple of times. What I just saw was incredible. There was no house standing anymore. We saw only rubble. There's bricks, bricks, rubble, metal bars. No house. Like a war zone. Finally, after forty-five minutes and the last bend, the village appeared. As soon as we got out of the car people were very happy to see us. Came and almost hugged us. No COVID time then! It was a very isolated village, so people hadn't seen other people for a long time. The wind was blowing very strongly, and a lot of dust on top of this hill. On the left hand side, I saw a communal kitchen. And then I was asking the people, "What has been your main issue? What happened since the earthquake?" "Well access to water, to clean water." And then the terrible news struck. Two babies had just died from diarrhea. That night back in my hotel room in the city in Mataram, I was still devastated. I couldn't sleep. I found myself crying, actually. And suddenly, it all made sense to me. All these questions I'd been asking myself for so many years. "How can I give back? How can I be of service?" It just all made sense to me suddenly. I did the right thing. Well, this year's transitioning well, this month, transitioning from corporate world to social entrepreneurship, all these doubts, these fears was just a process to go through. I realized that was the right thing to do. I'm not a doctor, but I save lives.Two weeks later, we went back up to that village to check on the kids and the babies, and they were fine. So water is life, and access to clean water is a human right. I'm privileged to be able to bring this beautiful gift to the communities here in Indonesia with my filtration systems.Right now, since the pandemic started, there is another disaster. It's more like an economic disaster. A lot of people have lost jobs. So when the pandemic struck a couple of months ago, I was just wondering, "What can I do to help the communities in need, or what would be the thing to do?" And that filters were the answer once more because with them you just save money. You don't need to buy water, and you also basically don't need to boil it. It's just basically free and, in these difficult times, every penny saved counts.So I decided to launch a fundraiser end of April early May, a couple of months ago, for the water filters. It's been quite successful. I raised about 30,000 plus dollars until now, which represent fifteen hundred units for fifteen hundred families. But yeah, that's all nice, but then comes the most difficult part. It's the execution. So where to bring them? Who really needs them most on this beautiful island? So I believe in the power of collaboration, and together we are stronger. So I reached out, and I've worked since the last four months with about twenty different organizations, which are mainly supplying food or seeds to grow vegetables or some people who provided land plots, and together we bring food or the seeds and the water filters. So people can save money and basically don't have to buy water.I have been to places that I've never imagined would exist on this island to, let's say, houses and dwellings that I thought, "How can that exist?" People were actually a little bit shy to show their places. So it's a lot of places. These are for sure in Bali, in the west of Bali, but also in the city in Denpasar and people, not only Balinese people, but also people from Java, from Sumba, from Timor, which have jobs where they have all lost also income due to COVID like for instance, waste pickers, street food vendors, and drivers. So, these people have all been through this. And now the other day, actually it was one and a half weeks ago, I went to Denpasar to Padangsambian together with Crisis Kitchen, which is one of the organizations I work with. And this lady was there. This old lady was there sitting. And so I sat next to her, and I started to ask her how she was doing. And she was like having a smile and saying, "Oh, thank you for bringing some food and water so we can go through a couple of more weeks." And then what she said struck me, like she said, "You know, I had a stroke four years ago. I don't want to depend on my son the whole time. I have no friends. Thank you for being my friend." And I was like, wow. So then I realized that small acts of kindness can really change people's life.I hope my story inspired you. And I'm just asking you to do a bit more small acts of kindness every day. You never know what it means to people. Thank you.

It's March 2014, and I'm standing in the middle of Sanur Bypass. It's Bali's busiest road. And I'm praying that a truck runs me down. I've lost seven members of my family, and the recent deaths of my niece and my sister have devastated me. I've been suicidal for six months, unable to eat or sleep. And I just snapped.But nobody would guess that to look at my life now. I've had a really charmed life. And I think most people just assume that I've breezed through it, sort of leaving a trail of golden bubbles in my wake. Some of you know I'm a jeweler, but the truth is, and I'm taking a risk to say this, I've struggled with the label of mental illness all my life. And I say label for a very important reason, which you will find out. Society has stigmatized and shamed us by saying we're crazy. We're bipolar. You've heard it all. It's still a really scary thing, as you can see, to say this just in front of this small group. At twenty, I was diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder. That spells SAD, and that must be some kind of cruel joke, right?About half of every year, I looked good on the outside, but I was dying on the inside. On a depressive scale of 1 to 10, I was a suicidal 10, but only in the fall and the winter. In the spring and summer, I was carefree, happy-go-lucky, energetic, very creative, very productive. A psychiatrist blamed repressed trauma and genetics because all my family was also depressed. When it came on every fall, it felt like someone was injecting me with a feel-bad drug. And I told the psychiatrist that, but their answer was always medicine, prescribe. They were incentivized to do that. So they dosed me with pharmaceuticals to dull the pain rather than investigate possible causes and perhaps even find a cure. I'm just gonna take a moment and ask how many of you in this room have been affected by somebody's mental illness, yours or anybody you know, depression, anything? That's all but one person.I'm just gonna give you a few statistics. Here's a reality check. Globally depression is epidemic. In January 2020, the WHO claimed that 17 percent of Americans are clinically depressed. And that was before the lockdown. Imagine what it is now. Economic losses are $210 billion annually. That's more than Jeff Bezos is worth. While the medical mafia reaps the profits, which have doubled from 14 billion last year - let this sink in - to 28 billion in the first eight months of 2020. Yet, there's no discussion about the cause. And there's no talk of any cure. Why do they say it's incurable? Sorry. I digressed. Back to my suicide attempt. Obviously, I was not killed. The cars went around me as the Balinese do - very good drivers. Nobody even honked - seriously. I stood there for five minutes, waiting. Didn't happen, thank God. That winter of 2014 was a total blur.I can't even tell you how I survived it, but I am so glad I did. That April, like clockwork, my depression lifted. And I got back on social media and found messages from friends. Some who were in my childhood neighborhood saying how sorry they were that I'd lost my family. And that a large part of their family had died too. And also, almost all the neighbors on the street had had cancer. And I started thinking, "That's weird." It was really rural and beautiful agricultural land in the San Fernando Valley, outside of Los Angeles in the fifties and sixties. What happened? Was there a pesticide dump or something? So I just went on Google, and I typed in San Fernando Valley cancer clusters. And up came dozens of stories that shocked me to my core. Six miles from my family home, there was America's first nuclear plant, which had been kept secret from the public. From 1959 to 1969, it had three partial meltdowns. The first one was the worst. It totaled more radiation than Three Mile Island by 450 times. They didn't have any containment facility. They just opened the doors and let it all out over the population.Sorry. It's really emotional for me. So I just sat there cold and shaking. I now understood the mystery deaths of my parents, my sister, her daughter, my grandparents, and why my only remaining family member had had cancer, including thyroid cancer, when she was twelve, three times. The next day I went down to a holistic doctor, and I got a provoked heavy metal test. We had to use a binding agent called a chelator to pull out the toxins to get an accurate reading. Our bodies are so smart. They encapsulate toxins that we can't eliminate in specialized fat cells. And they store them there to protect our vital organs. My tests showed cesium, strontium, plutonium, many other radioactive nuclides, and glyphosate, on and on, you know the list - mercury, lead. But the mystery thing was my manganese levels were completely off the chart. There's a red column, which indicates really bad levels - danger danger. My manganese levels were in the margin of the paper. They were literally outside of that. The doctor said, "Well, this only comes from mining or welding." I said, "I assure you I've done neither." He said, "Well, there's no other cause so . . . it doesn't come from nuclear accidents." We got online. I said, "There has to be another cause." We scoured the internet. Didn't come up with anything but mining and welding.The five things that happen when you're manganese poisoned are Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, seizure disorder, autoimmune disease, and guess what? Chronic depression. So there was my poisoning that I'd always felt I'd had, and I'd told the psychiatrist, "I feel like I've been poisoned." And I was, but now the mystery was how. For months I didn't give up. I scoured the internet. I asked every doctor, every medical professional. I followed rabbit holes of scientific journals. I couldn't find an answer. And then, in 2016, a fateful trip to Bangkok where I met an American man who was also a victim of conspiracy. His name was Brian Dardzinski, and he owned a little clinic there next to Bumrungrad Hospital.He was a vaccine researcher, and he'd been drummed out of America. But that's another story. He said to me, "I do know one other source of manganese poisoning. Did you live in Arizona or New Mexico?" I said, "No. Why?" He said, "Because rocket testing produces manganese in the fuel particulate that people can breathe." I got chills again. I said, "I lived in the San Fernando Valley where there was Rocketdyne, which was right next to the secret nuclear plant." And he said, "That's it. How long did you live there?" I said, "Twenty years. And I remember as a kid, every night the sky looked like opals." He said, "Those colors represented all the toxins that were floating down on you."He said, "The good news is we can get those toxins out of you. And you'll likely be cured of your depression. But the bad news is it'll take two to five years to do that." So off I went back to Bali with my detox kit, and I own a far-infrared sauna, which is the single most important detox item a person can have. I highly recommend it. I knew that sweating was a way to eliminate toxins. So I added two sessions a day of infrared sauna. And I also added twenty minutes on my rebounder jumping up and down for twenty minutes, which works your lymphatic system and cleanses your tissues that way. So guess what? In seven months, I went back to that clinic. I had a friend who was going through some cancer therapy, and I said, "Brian, I feel great. I think I'm done." And he said, "No, no, come back in fifteen months. You're not done yet. No way." "Please take my test." He wouldn't. So I went to my friend's clinic. They took my test. All clean. Everything, clean, clean, clean. I went back to Brian. He said, "How'd you do that?"I told him how I did it. So he said, "Congratulations. Now you can get yourself off your meds." In one month, I weaned myself off medication I'd been taking for forty years. This month is my five year ‘sanity-versary.’ No meds, no depression, five years. Thank you. So I'd like to inspire all of you into action today to become an advocate for your own health and your own sovereignty. Even if you feel perfectly fine, you can enhance the quality of your life, your energy levels, your stamina. I'm sixty-four now. I feel like I'm twenty-four. I have never felt better in my life. Especially the strength of your immune system. It's super important right now with COVID-19 to strengthen your immune system. And that can happen when you rid yourself of the toxins that you acquire from life and hidden poisons that we can't even see. So my message is twofold. Listen to your intuition and never ever, ever give up looking for the truth. I'm actually grateful for my . . .oh, God, I just got chills all over. I'm actually grateful for my experience with the nuclear accident, which led to my new purpose in life. I'm currently creating awareness with activism and satire - humorous songs, but I'm also building a detox and wellness center in Ubud called Lumina. I want to help other people achieve optimum health. Thank you so much for listening.

I will take you on a magical journey into the womb of creation. After this, you might start hanging out with your unicorn, have your spirit team make you breakfast, swim with mermaids, or ride your golden and silver dragon into the sunset. Would you join me? And even if not, you can plug in your ears and listen in. It will do the trick anyway. It was the day of my birthday, and I was in Australia, and my womb said "Adventures." The womb is the part of the lower belly where the ovaries are, where women bleed from, where babies grow, and believe it or not, even you men here have a womb - not physical but energetic.So she said, "Adventures." I was like, "Okay." I knew something powerful, and fun, and mystical was about to happen. A few minutes later, I set on a mission to find a tea tree lake. This lake is said to be an ancient sacred Aboriginal site where women would give birth. Aboriginals are the native Australians. And one of my dear friends, who is also an Aboriginal, she said, "It's women's business there." And my womb was like a puppy's ears when you say a treat. I'm like, "Yeah. Okay!" And like this, I learned to follow her to the most amazing places all around the world, and like this, I followed her to meet the most incredible people on this planet. Some are sitting right here.So there I went. That day a soft drizzle was touching my skin as I 'Lara Croft' my way through the Aussie bush. It was beautiful. The whole space was silent. It was a vacuum silence. I could only hear my steps through the mud and stepping on the branches. Otherwise, deep, deep silence. I followed the path of the ancient trees that I could smell. And then I saw the lake, and I was like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's here." I also was really well aware that this was a sacred site and that I was not there alone. I dropped down on my knees, and I put my hand barely touching the surface of the water. And I asked, "Can I come in?" Do you know what I heard back?"No!" "Hey, like what do you mean, no? I'm so wet. I have leaves in my hair. I have branches in my hair, and I came here for my birthing ritual, and what?" Well, I did my next favorite thing. I got butt naked. I sat down by the bank of the lake by a tree, my root chakra tickled, and I started to take deep breaths. I took a breath into my vagina. If I was in a male body, I would take a breath into my testicles. Then I took a breath into my womb, into my belly, into my heart, into my throat, into my forehead, and my crown and back. And slowly, little by little, my body started to soften. I felt the support of the tree, and then I felt vibration rising up my body, bubbling up."Ooh, ooh," I sounded, and it was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard in my life. Waves of joy started to flood my body. Bliss and love. And every cell of my body was remembering. I was in these waves, receiving the song of my soul. And as I was enjoying myself, I heard the lake whisper, "Thank you for your offering. Now you can come in." So I did. I'm like, "Okay. Yes." Well, I jumped right in. It was this deep, so it wasn't much of a swimming party, but it definitely was a pleasure party. I dropped down. I covered myself in blood . . . blood too different time . . . with mud, blood only when bleeding, mud when I'm in the lake. And I danced, and then as I was leaving, just gently touching the surface of the water, I felt so much gratitude.I walked out, and I was born again. On the way home, I remembered a story from Africa, from tribes in Africa, where women, when they are three months pregnant, they go and sit by a tree. And it is said that at that moment, the soul enters the body, the baby, and the woman sits by the tree until she receives the song of this baby of the soul. How amazing is that? And then she teaches that song to her husband, and together then they teach that song to the whole village. And when the baby is born, they sing that song to the baby. And whenever there's a celebration, they all together sing that song. And when that human, if ever steers off the path, they take him or her, with her in the middle or him human, and create a circle. And they sing that song for that human to remember again where they came from, where the home is.Yeah. I was not born knowing or remembering my song. And the chances are, if you were born in any of the Western countries to a muggle family or into a muggle family, you were not reminded of your song either. I spent years searching. I have been to over seventy countries all around the world, searching for what? Love, freedom to fill in the holes of insecurities. For some, it might look like being in a job that they don't like or in a relationship, or it might simply feel like an imaginary eggshell that's around you. Right? Little did I know until then that I was searching for the orgasmic sound of my soul. And when I say orgasmic, what do I mean? Most of us were conceived by at least one orgasm. Hopefully, it was two. Yeah, exactly. So this vibration that we were conceived in, the orgasmic sound, is the sound that we can hear. And it carries with us along our life and along our journey. And it is very, very quiet deep within. Today I wonder what is the song that you want to sing?

Tonight I'm gonna talk about why togetherness matters. And I wanted to do that by telling you three short stories of journeys in my life and experiences that I've had and why I believe that. So the first of those stories begins in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1980 when I attended a survival gathering of the Lakota - the indigenous people of that area - on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. And this survival gathering was all about people from all over the world, environmentalists, activists, Native American leaders coming together to defend the land of the Lakota. The Lakota had experienced 200 years of colonialism. Four hundred and eighty treaties were made by the government, and every single one was broken by the government, not by the Lakota. So here they were in this situation. There was uranium under the ground, and that's what the people wanted. So they were there to fight for their lands. And when I was standing there, I was watching on the stage a young Lakota woman dancing, and there were some Lakota elders playing the sacred drum. This was an incredible sound. And this young Lakota woman was dancing, and her long black hair was trailing in the wind. It was one of the most beautiful things I've seen, and I still remember it very clearly today. But as she was dancing, this very scary thing happened.A B-52 bomber flew low over the top of the stage. There was an air force base nearby. And I think it was a deliberate attempt by these people to say, "We're the boss. We're gonna take your land." But I felt with that sense of togetherness with these people from all over the world, with the same passion, with the same desire to work together, to protect their land, that it was possible.I want to go forward about ten years to 1990. We'd just come through ten years or more of, I guess, the Cold War or America pointing nuclear missiles at Russia. And I was taught growing up that Russians were the enemy. And I could never quite understand that. I'd never met a Russian person. And I was always wondering "Why are they the enemy? What's so bad about these Russians. Why do they want to destroy us? Why do they want to blow us up and destroy our way of life and everything else?" But I realized that I had to go there to find out for myself.So I was able to organize a private invitation to visit the Ukraine, which was part of Russia at that time. And I was invited by a woman by the name of Mira. Mira means peace. And she was head of the People's Diplomacy club in this town. But before I went to Krivoy Rog, I had this crazy idea with my wife Steph, who's sitting down here tonight, to cycle from Europe to Russia and carry an Earth flag, which represents the Earth and oneness - that we only have one planet and together we must protect it. So we cycled through Europe and Eastern Europe, and we got to Russia. And then we took a train to Red Square in Moscow, and we unfurled the Earth flag. All these people looked at us kind of strange. "What are you doing?" "What's all this about?" So we explained that we had some media coverage.And then we went down to Krivoy Rog, and we met the family, the Russians, and we spent ten days with Mira, her family, her friends, and every day we got into these incredible conversations, explaining about our life, how we lived in the West. They told us all about life and Russia, all the difficulties they had, their dreams, their loves - all that was important to them. And we told them what ours were. And on the last day, they put on this lunch for us, and there were Cossacks, and there were World War II veterans. And there were young Russian people - Ukrainians - and teenagers. And we had this incredible experience. And when we went to leave, when we finished that lunch - we were leaving the next day - we embraced with the most incredible love and feeling and devotion and respect - respect for each other. And again, at that moment, I realized that togetherness really matters.And the third story is an experience in Indonesia about eight years ago. And I was traveling with six Australian men up the rivers of Borneo in North Kalimantan. We were traveling on canoes up this river with engines on the back. And we were going up to this village called Setulang up in the original rainforest of Kalimantan. 130 million years old, the oldest rainforest on the planet. So we were going to this village for the first time. We were gonna spend a few days with the Dayak people, with the indigenous tribes of that area. And as we were traveling up this river, and I want you to just kinda come with me on this part of the journey. So we're traveling up on these boats, the sun setting coming down through the trees, two hornbills, which are the sacred birds of the Dayak, flew in front of us, in front of our path, which is a very good omen.And then we came around the bend in the river, as we entered into the village. And there was about fifty of the Dayaks all lined up waiting for us in their traditional costumes. So happy to welcome us. These strangers from a country, Australia, New Zealand, whatever, they'd probably never heard of, but they were there to welcome us. And they were so honored that we'd come to their village. And then, for the next six days, they took us into the forest. We stayed in the forest. They danced. They sang. So much joy, so much connectedness, so much togetherness over those few days. And we got to understand about the way that they live their spiritual connection with the forest. And, of course, we tell them about our lives. And this was an incredible experience. And again, when we went to leave, we were like family. We were family.But we left with some sense of sadness because what future do they have? You know, palm oil. I'm sure you know all about that. It's coming into those areas. But I really felt then, and I certainly believe it now that together we can make a difference. Together we can save those forests. We can help them preserve their culture. So coming to today, I decided to sort of put all this together. And what do we do with togetherness? How can we make it really impactful? So I decided to start a project called The Togetherness Project. And part of the reason why we're here tonight, The Togetherness Project is all about working together with people from different countries, nationalities, cultures, Balinese, Indonesians, Bule, foreigners from many different countries like you all are tonight.And I really believe that if we can put our minds together, our creativity, our passion, our beliefs, we can do wonderful things. I think on this island in particular, during this time, it's such an incredible opportunity to do that, to forge a really powerful sustainable future on this island. And I think of what we've done so far with The Togetherness Project bringing back the traditions through the ikat, through the weaving revival, which you've seen tonight. That's probably one good example, where there's twenty-five women now in the community of Pesalakan, and they're employed, that stopped doing the ikat weaving twenty-five years ago, but have now brought it back and created some income during this time. The honey farm up in Karangasem. The traditional coffee in Munduk. We're supporting organic farmers here - indigenous farmers in Bali. If anybody wants to have their land turned into an organic farm, we're providing that service and supporting the local people as well. We're organizing events. The first one's gonna be next month in October.So I really, really hope that all of you can get involved in some way. I mean, just tonight, you can buy a Bag of Hope if you wish. These sell for 850,000, and all that money goes to support the communities.So I really believe that togetherness does matter and we can all play our part. Thank you.