Passion Is the Gateway Drug Playcast, Episode 77, "Co creating the Summit"

Being livestreamed. Got it.

There we go. I'll just record it too. I meant to record it then as well. It's a different view and it's easier to upload to YouTube and things like that. All right, we are now live on Facebook, but I'm doing some, uh, what you call it, um, I've got to share this into the— into our Facebook group because I had a glitch. So right now this is broadcast to my wall and I will introduce us in the show In one second, we're just live gonna sit here looking silly, looking silly, looking silly, Hillary, for one second.

I can do that. I can look silly real good. But silly, the original word for silly, what it means is blessed.

Really?

Yes, it means blessed. So I can— we can be as silly as we want.

That's, that's amazing. I didn't know that. You are a repository of the etymological—

Well, I love languages. I was going to be a linguist. A linguist. What's that word? Linguist?

Yeah, yeah.

And then I switched into sociology.

Okay, I'll be ready. One sec, I'm just, I'm just stuck trying to share this into the, uh, Facebook group. We went in reverse here. I can see us on my Facebook wall in delay. So funny. Oh, there we go. Share to a group. This is taking forever. My computer's slow and everything. Do a quick check-in, Hillary. How are you doing today? What's beyond—

Good. It's a beautiful sunny day here. It's Father's Day here.

And, um, I need to call my dad. It's a good thing you said that.

Yes. So, so when we get off the call, call dad. Um, and I, and I had a really lovely— I walked, did a lovely walk. I've watched a group of geese grow up. In the last number— last month. And it's just fascinating to watch them. So I would— I got them on my walk, and then I walked, and then I mowed my lawn, and I came in to have a lovely chat with you.

All right, perfect. I'm doing pretty good. We're gonna get going. I finally sorted that stuff out. Now we can concentrate on the important stuff.

Good.

All right, so yes, it is 10 minutes past the hour. I'm very disappointed in myself. I'm always on time, and I'm starting my play— our playcast at 10 minutes later than I said I was. Shame on me. Um, this is episode 77, I've decided, Hillary, of the— Passion is the Gateway Drug playcast. This type— this episode is entitled Co-Creating the Summit, actually. So it's a sort of special— not special, different, different special version of this playcast. So we've done 2 this week where Hillary and I have spoken to Chris Emerson and Mark Trans, uh, in the normal fashion of creating conversation and learning about each other. But tonight Hillary and I are going to talk a little bit about what led to this moment of catalyzing this Alternative Reality Summit for Mental Health Transformation, some of our story. And then we're going to also get into a live session of ideation. So instead of just doing it on our own, I thought it would be fun to actually broadcast the, um, the— what would people would call a working session or whatever, a co-working session. But I just can't stand using that word, work.

Play session. We're gonna have a play session. We're having a playdate. We're having a playdate with the, uh, with the summit.

Exactly, exactly. It's a playdate. So, and just for everyone listening who might tune into this who wants to help be part of the summit and co-create it, my general plan is for Hillary and I to deliver a minimum viable vision with minimum viable elements and all. So we come to the community with something embryonic enough that everyone can feel like they're part of it, but also not just a clean slate where we're all just chefs in the kitchen and it's starting from zero, which I don't want to do. And in my original video, I did say, actually, this is unusual because I do have an agenda. Like, it's not just Open to no end, or as they say in Spiral Dynamics, for folks that like that green meme, I'm not interested in, in flat hierarchy and everyone doing everything all the time. So we have a particular vision and some innovations we want to be part of that vision, and, and from there, really, we're hoping the village will raise the baby of this, of this thing. And with that said, Where do we start, Hilary Van Walter?

Well, I think we start— I think we start with what brought us into the Cult of the Mothers. And, and I think that it was a— it was probably one of the most amazing times at the beginning of the pandemic when we were all sort of frozen in time for a period of while the world just seemed to be going into a crazy tailspin and with shutdowns and, and, and social distancing and all of the different things that happened. And yet as human beings would, we said, okay, those doors are closing, what doors can open? And they opened up on the internet.

Right.

And they swung open on the internet. And therefore there was this massive amount, especially in the first 6 to 9 months, of sharing, of people putting up content that they had never shared before, forums that had never come together before, connecting people that hadn't been connected before. And I think that that's where started. And we started by being on a similar show together, talking about the, the real need to reform and reimagine mental health. And, and we got connected that way. And then we started a conversation between ourselves because of coming into the conversation with, we don't want to talk about how bad things are. We just want to be part of change, not, not changing things. actually creating a different reality for it.

Yeah, totally. And by the way, our friend Romila— how do I— I always say her name wrong. Is it— how is it the right way to pronounce it? I've— I noticed I've been calling— I call her Romy because, see, I'm used to calling her—

Well, I know, me too.

Our third co-founder is Romy, but that's not her full name.

I have to listen more carefully when she says her name because I've only known her 15 years.

So we have, we have license to, to tease. But yes, Romy is, Romy is the third, the third wheel of the Call to the Mothers project, and she may or may not join in future, uh, co-creating the summit conversation. She will be in the background, but she doesn't always want to come on live. Um, she's got other things to do and other commitments and other— not as extroverted maybe as me and Hillary are, so it's easy for us to come on and just Openly share things. So, but we love you, Romi, and want everyone to know that.

And she's Dr. Romila Verma because she is a PhD.

She is a doctor. She's a PhD in environmental science.

Yeah, she is our— she is our academic. We have every— every group needs an academic to be legitimate, so we have our academic to be legitimate.

That's true. That's true. And she's a woman, so she ticks that box. I mean, we've got really a lot of—

A mother.

A mother. She ticks all the boxes.

Yeah, grew up in India, so has a very beautiful cultural background.

We've met the woke quota. I know someone's gonna get on my ass for that, but whatever. We gotta have some fun. Um, and, uh, and I'm open for business on the woke conversation, but not here today. But yeah, I, I don't mind taking that on. I find it to be very interesting. Um, so yeah, so the 3 of us, Romy, Hillary, and myself, have been slowly, organically developing this project called Call to the Mothers. We, um, came together through friendship, like Hillary's saying, and synchronicity and mutual needs and desires and the good stuff that brings people together, really, beyond color, race, gender, and all that stuff, which is a shared— a shared meaning or shared calling. Um, so that's also why we kind of called it Call to the Mothers. And mothers meant anyone who nurtures things, really. It wasn't about gender, it was about the spirit of Of mothership, um, the spirit of the feminine, of caring and stewarding and nourishing life and taking care of things from a very loving, unconditional loving perspective. So that's why.

And it includes Mother Earth.

And includes Mother Earth and Mother Universe and—

Yep, Mother Cosmos.

Mother Cosmos, exactly.

The mother energy.

The mother energy, exactly. So we've been doing that for— how long have we been Uh, well, it'll be—

it's over a year and a half.

Wow.

Yeah, so it's over 18 months.

Yeah, it's so much more interesting, um, how these things develop when they're not traditional, like startups or projects. You know, there's a different course, um, and the people involved have different perspectives and values around manifesting things and realizing things. And the way we want to do it makes it sometimes more difficult in the world as it is, um, to launch these things because it's not as simple as just going to your local venture capitalist and knocking on the door and giving them a projection and getting the funds and things like that. So we've enjoyed taking our time and, you know, living life and all the ups and downs of life as it goes on. So now I don't know what happened. You know, Hillary, I guess I'll, I'll transition us here.

Yeah.

I was going to name this episode, um, We're All Mad Here, based on the Lewis Carroll quote.

Mm.

For fun around insanity and mental illness and all that. But I also was going to name it that because we sometimes would joke around like we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore kind of feeling around reform in mental health and addiction. So let's jump off the diving board from a fun, space of us like, we're mad as hell, we're not going to take it anymore.

Mm-hmm.

So what happened to me 2 weeks ago, uh, we continually are working on this called the Mothers Project, trying to figure out or let things happen and whatever. And we got a little bit of normal frustration, I think, here and there. And then I went out and made this video, and I was like, I just put out this 42-minute video describing this vision I have and that we have. Really, it wasn't a summit before the Before the moment I made the video. But it basically brewed from the disappointment and discontentment I feel when I look at a lot of what people call mental health summits and conferences and hearing so much effort and focus on what might be called awareness raising and destigmatization, which for me are beautiful steps in a journey. Um, but I feel like humanity is stuck in a sense in the groove of if we raise awareness and we destigmatize this, everything will be fine. So from my perspective, what I see is a bunch of people getting told basically to go to psychiatrists. Be vulnerable, talk about your feelings, don't feel stigmatized, and then go to your local friendly psychiatrist, which for me is a whole rabbit hole. So— Part of the energy of the summit, which is why we've also— I've alluded to Neale Donald Walsch's saying of a civil rights movement for the soul, and this action feeling relates to like a positive spin on being angry and frustrated. Obviously, that's where I want to go. You know, Buckminster Fuller's famous quote has been going around for a decade now, which is, you don't try to fight the existing reality, you create something new that makes the old systems obsolete. So let's just kick it off with some thoughts, Hillary, and some inspiration about Being clear and acknowledging, like all humans, we have moments and frustration and anger, but ultimately we are being— and I'll let you speak for yourself, of course— we are being driven by the essence of that quote of creating new things that make what we feel is not beneficial obsolete, rather than trying to fight it or get other people to convince to fund it or go to the governments, etc., etc. So we've decided to take the mantle for our part of the For being part of the solution. And that's the defining characteristic for Hillary and I.

And just to add to that, we had done research with our really unique process that we're going to use. We're going to look at how it can apply to the summit itself. But we had collected people to have really different and interesting conversations about where the breakdowns were, where the pain was, but where the new possibilities were. And so we had put proposals together and had submitted them to various, in Canada, mental health organizations. We had had success with piloting this process in Zomba, Malawi, in March. We knew it worked. And yet we were getting— it was just silent. Whenever we submitted anything, it was becoming silent. And so 2 things happened. One, for me in the last 2 weeks, one was I was living the nightmare of the current system. Like the nightmare of the current system, at the same time getting stonewalled in terms of being able to have any opportunity to be able to find some ways of helping the system look at itself and find it to deal with some of the nightmare that I and many parents are dealing with. So it was that anger, the fact of living the reality of the current system and being silenced on being able to and not having any, any opportunities to be able— and no return phone calls, no return, you know, nothing. It was just like Stonewall. And it was those 2 things happening simultaneously was like, we got to do something. But why are we asking for permission from the current system? And I was asking myself that, you know, why, why am I continuing to bang my head against the wall and trying to help the current system to change when, when it, you know, right now, that's just not a reality. And nor— and it may never be, but who cares? Let's go do— let's go play in the field that's fertile, as opposed to trying to scale the walls of a feudal castle that frankly, once we're in, we wouldn't want to be there anyway. So, you know, we're over here in the fertile fields now. That's open. That's limitless. That's got massive opportunity to be able to co-create. And what you've done, Bret, to put the call out is to call in those who, who do know there's another way, who don't want to sit and talk about statistics and what's wrong and all the things. It's let's get moving together on, on, on co-creating, um, a different pathway for, for this work.

Yeah, that's the Rocky scene from Hillary, written by Hillary. Awesome. Yeah, I mean, and I should say, Hillary, I guess you would probably have a sense, the same sense as— I mean, technically the summit has begun, right? I mean, the 2 calls we did, one with Mark and one with Chris, I was like, this is, this is the summit or the pre— whatever, who cares about the words? But we're doing it, like, we're doing it. And there was such valuable sharings in those 2 conversations alone.

Absolutely. And, and, you know, when you talk about The Civil Rights Movement for the Soul was— it's also been written by Dr. Insler, who wrote about healing the mental— healing mental health. And the system itself is that he believes and writes in his book that it's going to take nothing less than a civil rights movement to deal with the current mental health dilemma that everybody is facing, and that we can't keep driving people into the old system because it's not servicing the majority of people. So what we want to say clearly, there are people at services, and there are people that get well with it. And there are people that, that do very well with the current system. My experience has not been that, and many others haven't been that. And so it's, it's creating the alternative. And I think the other thing I want to say is those conversations we've had have just opened up so many other possibilities. I was listening to Chris, he was talking about And you were talking about systems design, and he was talking about his life as an artist and as a, as a dancer, and as a writer, and how he, he lives in an environment where it— where people have no teeth, no cars, no jobs. And he is, is in, in what he is, who he is as a human being, and his journey with bipolar, and now his journey in the shamanistic way. He's a, he's a system, he's a new system designer. And, and, and he is designing a different kind of system in how he lives and how he is a neighbor, in how he supports his neighborhood. And, and there was a saying by, by a fellow, by Daniel Pink, who wrote a book years ago called The New Mind. And he wrote, and I just want to, I just want to, because this quote came to mind when we were talking to Chris yesterday, and he said, the keys of the kingdom are changing hands. The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind: computer programmers who would crank code, lawyers who would crank contracts, and MBAs who would crank numbers. But the keys of the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: creators, empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people— artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big-picture thinkers— will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys.

Wonderful. If you've got that where you can copy-paste it, put it into the group later on.

Yes, I'm going to— yes, I'm going to put it into the group because it's that to me. Our conversation with Chris yesterday just brought that really, really clearly. And then our conversation with Mark about rehab rehab, about how, you know, wanting to rehab the rehab and, you know, that over billion dollars, billions of dollars going into an 85% failure rate. You know, this summit is to collect— its goal is to collect those voices to really mobilize a movement that says there is no one way this is going to happen. There are many ways, but we have one way we want to start moving it to as a start. So it's just not a whole bunch of actions everywhere. It is— we're going to hopefully— that this move, this movement will be that, but we're going to channel some of the things that we're doing into, into something specific. And, and that was something that also we talked with yesterday. Chris was also interested in creating something physical, something really physical with what we're learning now, and, and piloting something physical. In what we— where we see the possibilities being. Yeah, not just another app that's going to help you deal with mental health. Yeah, not to say they aren't good things to have.

Oh, I know there's a few different things. I'll see if I can hold them all in my head at once and then speak quickly to each of them. One of them is— and this will also be reflected in the document that we might screen share just to make it easier for us, Hillary— but You know, one of the sort of essences— I'm not even calling them values or principles at the moment. I'm just using the word like essence of the summit. I'm not going to say the movement because I think the movement's going to be much more broader, decentralized.

That's true.

Like, and it's not up to any— like, the history—

It'll be what it'll be.

Yeah, history will decide what the values and principles and mission of the movement, quote unquote, might be. But for the summit, as a more localized, or at least bite-sized, like you're saying, a bite-sized somewhere to start, Even though the more I do this, the more I go more grandiose and think, are we on a path here for something even awesome, like to kick things off? But one of the essences is cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, synergistic, whole system. So there will be plenty of space and room for people to bring to the summit more perhaps what I would call mainstream perspectives, um, and innovations and ideas like wellness in the, in the workplace and some of these applications.

Yeah.

Like, that, that's all well, that's amazing and great. Um, Hillary and I, you know, came through a different door, which is like, she has personal experiences right now. I have where we're— I'm, I'm specifically wanting to help and serve the people on the planet who are diagnosed or understand themselves to have mental illness and addiction. So it's not for the people who might have a breakdown. So for me, my first triage, like my first thing, the thing that matters to me because of my life experience is to serve those specific populations. So I just want to be clear. So that's where the multiple— what I like, multiple agendas come in. And we're carrying a certain perspective and agenda. And I would just say, thank God we'll design something that allows for everyone to show up in their greatest way and to be very holistic. And there's not going to be, um, you know, fighting or, or whatever conflict between the multiple perspectives. Just do what you love to do, you know. Um, so if you want to relate to that, that's one point I wanted to just be clear about. Because it's like agenda, no agenda, you know. It's like they're both and like I want to put on the table what's motivating and driving me, you know, and then us compared to what others— but, and also make it clear that I believe that's going to be very exciting, that there's space for all. Anyone who cares about mental health, wellness, and addiction recovery and people thriving, there's going to be a space for that.

Absolutely. And I think what's really lovely about this is that there is a space for them, um, for everybody to come into this conversation and to explore, because I think we are in the fertile field. I think there are so many things that are, but it's like the, it's like the underground mycelium network. It's all existing, it already exists, we just haven't seen it yet. And so this network of services, of approaches, of methodologies, of people that are doing really neat new things, it already exists, we just haven't brought them up from the surface to see them and to be able to interconnect. And I think that it is those in, you know, there's, this is a massive amount of, think of energy that has been happening around that. At the same time, it also reminds me that when first starting doing, you know, work around women 20 years ago, and, and the whole mantra was, if it wasn't about just, it wasn't just about women, it was as you helped women, you were helping humanity. And I think it is as you help those who are dealing with significant or severe mental illness and addiction, you're also helping humanity, because there are methodologies inside that. There are ways of looking at the world inside that, ways of, of, of, of, you know, radical reimagining inside that, that will help everybody. Um, that's just where we're starting.

Yeah, I mean, listening to Chris, it struck me when he brought up the point about authority and how Many of us who went through the system got a little bit trapped, or as, as, as is understandable, with looking up to people with degrees or fancy titles and just the general idea of authority anyway, that there's someone else or some other thing that is going to help and/or rescue us or all that. So it just struck me how— because I don't mind the word, I mean, I don't mind authority. It's nice to have people who are authorities on things. Um, it's just how you relate, you know, to authority, I think, more importantly than getting rid of authority or something.

Absolutely.

I was just feeling like a glee. I've never used that word, Hillary. I don't think I've ever used that word. Um, I was feeling a kind of glee about the new authorities. You know, the new authorities are the people with the lived experience. And like I was saying to you and Chris, Because I've been doing so much work the past decade in these other places, so to say, with software and systems design and doing this mental health work kind of in live with my friends and the people I meet on my travels, that I really hadn't clocked that there was the mycelial movement of people talking about obviously going beyond psychiatry, reframing mental illness, like all that. I didn't, I mean, I didn't— ever assume I had a special, uh, perspective, but I hadn't even— I just hadn't gotten involved or done research compared to all the other stuff I'm into. So I feel quite, yeah, a glee to, to think— ah, yeah, go ahead. I'll just, uh, keep going. So I feel, um, a kind of glee and happiness about all of us coming together to be considered What it means to be the authority.

And to let the super healer, the super healer, the super healer in the house, the dog, out.

Yes, right, right on. So yeah, so that was, um, one other thing, and that relates, Hillary. I thought before we go on, I wanted you to invite you again to speak your observation and perspective around people experiencing perceived mental illness and addiction as wayshowers. I think I don't think I actually, on one level, like, like totally get it and even would perceive myself to some degree like that. But I don't think I would ever really, to some degree, clocked exactly what the fullness, right? So I'm not saying I didn't get it, but there's always like a new layer sometimes of ideas and concepts. Like I was with you, but I don't know if I ever really fully clocked the significance of it for me, maybe just for me, you know. So why don't you share a little bit? You can relate it to Chris if it helps, but yeah, what about how you see it?

Absolutely. So I— what I sense is that there are, for many, for many of us, and I've talked about this yesterday, about as we start to see our society and our economy, you know, it is in massive transformation and transition. And there's a part of me that's really grieving. That because it was, it was how I grew up. It was what I knew. And, and there were people in that system that knew how to, who knew how to play the system. And they knew how to play it. And they were this, they were at the center. And they ran, it was a very, it's a very centralized system. So they ran everything. And as they ran everything, they pushed other people out to the fringes because they didn't belong. They weren't part of that decision-making. They weren't part of that society. They weren't part, you know, they're found in jails. They're found in, in homeless shelters. They're found on the They're found in institutions, and and it's because they've been gradually just pushed right out of their families, include including their families. And and when I think about innovation, I always think about it at the fringe, and I think about it that that those that have been sitting at the outskirts and the outliers are in fact with the right tools and environment. They don't have the same connection to the center, the same sense of of ownership, same sense of loyalty, same sense of you know. They don't. In fact, why would they? They've been pushed away from that. So they are sitting in a place of awareness about where the possibilities are. They don't have to let go of the old system because the old system let go of them. And so in sitting out in those outskirts and sitting out in those fringes, that is the innovative space because that's the space where if there's an opportunity now to say, okay, so being in this frame of mind in the outskirts, what do you see? What do you— where do you see the possibilities? Where do you see— and for many, I believe that they have a much better understanding of the connection to nature, connection to what's important, to the realities of, you know, the really important things in life that many of us rediscovered during the pandemic about the need for relationships, the need for nature, the need for simplicity. need for connection, you know, all those things. And, and so, at the same time, I think that many have been— who have been deemed to, you know, hear voices and, and, and different, different mental disorders, are in fact probably very gifted. And they, they do hear energy, and they do relate to energy in different ways. And they have skills that have never been deemed to be skills. Because they were, they were part of what the, you know, the capitalist consumer society. So it's in looking at individuals that have been pushed out from society as actually the— they're sitting at the, at the next evolution.

Mm-hmm.

As we start to, as we start to move again collectively into a different, into a different understanding of the world, a different understanding of why we're here, a different understanding of meaning for the world. And how do we come back into harmony again? Um, in a way that's really important for us all to come back in harmony, to really collaborate with nature and each other to find our way out of the mess we've created.

It's really an old story of civilization, isn't it? It's a normal psychological pattern that the archetypal vanguards of the next iteration of civilization are, like you're saying, the outliers and the fringe layers. And really, it's not complicated. It's related to what you said of getting pushed out or choosing to opt out. And then from there, we have a different vantage point. We see more of the whole, I would think.

Yeah.

I was even thinking when you said it, like, you know, pushed out, in the middle, like when, you know, a lot of us can identify, like when you're working on a creative project or something and you're this close to it, right? You start to lose context. Perspective. You start to lose perspective. You start to lose perspective about your whole project because you're just so in it. And really, that's the same metaphorically. I hear I hear you saying that, and it makes complete sense. It's actually not over— we're not really talking about overcomplicated social theories or evolutionary game theory here.

No.

I mean, all that stuff exists, and it all would relate, but it's really more fundamentally makes sense. And also why you will find many people, you know, the famous kind of inverse proportion of how much suffering or dislocation, disconnection people have in relation to their ability to actually innovate or have gifts of art, because they're actually— the pain, when it's able to be somehow transmuted, you often— I mean, everybody knows. I mean, how much great art and even invention, whether Tesla, anyone, is, is the result of, of the pain of life. I mean, just to keep it simple that we all can understand. So, and I think that's where it started to all make sense to me, like, even like anthropologically, spiritually, philosophy, if I add up all those things, like, integrally speaking, like, yeah, of course, the people who are perceived often as less than, like, you're like, less than goes with that, right? I mean, nonconformity.

Right.

Those people, of course, are the vanguards of what's next, because they've got a, an actual wider view and a deeper tapping into, like you're saying. And furthermore, what I thought when you were describing the, the things that give them that view, there's also a sense of I think timelessness, like, because they might not be on the clock and like living differently, because time is such an interesting big pressure thing in our civilization. So stepping out of time also gives you a massive ability, let's just say, to even time travel, to see other futures, because you're now out of time and you can kind of go through the back door. So it's all very intriguing, really.

And what's so fascinating is when I started going into healing work over 20 years ago and, and going into intergenerational trauma and, and how I would do that would be through a combination of Reiki, but also sacred psychology, and going inside and asking the feeling to become a character. And then the character would tell the story, and would lead you into all kinds of different realities that had existed either for the soul or for the lineage. And as the trauma was real, you got to— you really, you reframed the trauma. And this was with kids from 6 all the way up. And as you reframed the trauma to see that why, why it was a gift, as opposed to a curse, and you released it, the energy that got released at the same time was, was, was fundamentally amazing. It was beyond, you know, you could— the feeling you get. You could see these kids all of a sudden, and many of them were dealing— the ones that I dealt with, excuse me, at the beginning of my practice were ones whose parents had had sexual abuse. The children hadn't, but they were acting as if it had happened to them. But they hadn't had inherited memory. And so working with them to, to rewrite the scripts inside was— and we did it with so many fun tools. We did it with tarot, we did it with cards, we did it with dance, we did it with drawings, we did it with nature, we did it with all kinds of different tools that the kids helped me design. And, and watching them come alive again, in ways that were so beautiful, and to have the parents come alive again, was So it was just, it showed me that, and many of these kids had been isolated at school and had, you know, had been bullied or were the bullies, you know, they were, they, and so it was, again, in that very practical experience, seeing that what could get released when the trauma was not gone back into and talked over and over and over, but was acknowledged for what it was, and then, and then retired. We would have— we had a lot of retirement parties for traumas that we didn't need.

I love to hear that. I think in the healing spaces, which we're both familiar with, it's— for me, it's a breath of fresh air. It's like, acknowledge the trauma and find a way to use it and move it, like move on. Like this, the retreading of trauma, like of staying in trauma. I just, I mean, sometimes I lose my empathy in a sense. Like I don't, I don't get it. I don't enjoy it. I think it just doesn't make sense to me. But I understand I've done it and I still even in my own tiny ways will repeat a story in my mind. So it's not like I don't get it, but it feels very frustrating sometimes to not believe that we can let it go through acknowledging it. So I even sometimes get into hot debates with my wife. She thinks I'm talking about bypassing sometimes and I'm like, No, I don't mean bypassing. I just mean—

I don't want to live it again. Thank you.

Isn't it possible to let go of it somehow? But of course, letting go of it would have to include some bringing it to the surface, looking at it. And but maybe we can just look at it and say, oh, I understand now why it happened. I forgive everyone involved. And I'm going to— I would like to move on. And like, there must be ways to do that. But—

So I think when we come back to bring it back to the summit, the opportunity to to actually talk with and explore with people what these different modalities are, what these different ways are, and to start to look at creating this amazing inventory of people and tools and experiences that will all form part of this different way of looking at mental illness and addiction. And to bring it back, one other thing around— I was listening to Vandana Shiva this morning, and she was on World Unity Week along with Linda Tucker. And Linda Tucker has the White Lions organization in South Africa, and Vandana Shiva, of course, is very, very prominent in India. And she was talking a great deal about seeds and about the fact that we have, you know, we've lost sovereignty. Many, like Africa's lost sovereignty because— and India— because the seeds are owned by Monsanto and other organizations. And what Vandana Shiva was talking about today, which really struck me, was we spend so much time looking at the indicators of collapse, we don't even know what's being born underneath our noses. And I think that when I thought about the summit, when I heard her say that, and I thought about, we don't want to bash the system or say the system's wrong, we want to identify the cracks in the system, Because those are tipping points, and they're important to know. We want to know where the pain is, because that is the— then the vulnerabilities are, because that's the birthplace of innovation. And then we want to look at all these amazing possibilities that are being born now, that are all kinds of different places and people and perspectives and ideologies and techniques and trauma work. And, you know, trauma is massive now in terms of of both personal and collective trauma release and healing. So, you know, the healing modalities are very, very prominent now, as well as the social technologies around that. So, you know, coming back to the summit again, I'm really excited to look at what's being born that we don't even know about. We haven't even seen, we haven't connected them.

Well, note to Self with a capital S, I would love to see you and Vandana at the summit discussing some of this where she maybe also transposes, if that's the right word, you know, her understanding, her overall pattern recognition, and, and then would apply it to perceived mental illness and addiction, if she doesn't already maybe talk about some of this. If it's not her specialty, I don't know, but let's put that on the list, I think. Because this is the kind of talk we want to have. It's like activism, art, innovation. Again, bring— talking about the summit It's also striking me that when I hear you talk, like, so in my video, I said, this doesn't, this is not going to be like everyone's summit, like a normal summit in a sense. Like, this is not just about hand waving, you know, using it as a leverage to give our business opportunities and our plans for healing and people speak and then they leave and then they just, here's my website and here's how you join my mastermind or something like that. Um, there'll be some aspects of that, there's no question about it. We want people to shine, we want them to tell people about the world, what they want to do. But what you just said— how often have you left a summit or conference, let's say, where there was a live database afterwards? You know, not just a social network where the people then afterwards can go and stay connected, that's different. I mean an actual innovation being born, which is like you're saying, this holistic inventory/database/map of all of the, the pieces that would take to make a quilt that would cover planetary-scale mental health reformation. And that, that's awesome. That's awesome. And that's what people— we want to share. Like, that's one aspect of the summit. We're going to make sure we have the right outlook, technology, and a plan to really start this inventory, which I'm going to ask Hillary to share how that also— this inventory fits in the context of one of the innovations we're going to be, um, trying to bring to life through this summit and also using as a, as a collective intelligence and transformational tool called Taste of Wonderland. So I'm going to throw it over to you in a second, Hillary, with a question. Um, but yeah, so that's one, that's one key difference, like what's left over Leftover from the summit is then the, the soil or the seeds for me for a full-on movement starting. So like the summit's like a platform, it's a soapbox. Um, it's also going to give people great— this is where it's maybe like a normal summit, like just seeing the summit and hearing everyone talk is already super valuable. It's already giving the world a gift of all of that beautiful information. But really, it's always going to be that iterative, always birthing the next, the next, the next, the next version. So with that in mind, Hillary, so we have a couple— we're going to kind of turn now to— I'm not going to bring the document up, but we're kind of going to flow into the part of this session where people might tune in and think, what the heck's going on? We're actually now going to just— we're just kind of broadcasting a fly on the wall. And we're going to ignore the fact in a sense that we're, that we're live, in the sense that we're going to talk as if we were just on a private call about designing this summit. I guess we'll tweak our speech a little bit just because we know people might be watching. Obviously, that would be silly to not do that and take— use the opportunity to, you know, to speak to the community when necessary. But so one of the— so we're looking at really like 4 or 5 innovations that we are bringing to this summit. Now, again, after the summit, when this movement gets going, there may only be some people that carry the torch with us, you know, for these particular innovations, while other people do other innovations. No problem with that whatsoever. These innovations are not meant to dominate the aftereffect of the summit. They're just what we will be focusing on in our passions going forward. So that's how the movement and the summit serves us in that sense. And we serve the summit. So one of those innovations is called Taste of Wonderland. Hillary, can you just do a brief share about where it came from and, you know, give some love to Alex? And then we'll get— and then we'll share a little bit about it because we'll take, you know, we can't build Rome all today in this one call. So I think if we talk about Taste of Wonderland is one of, if not, if there was a linear sequence, there's not, of these 5 innovations today, we'll stick with Taste of Wonderland. Because it is a format that we can potentially use for the summit itself. It's also the collective intelligence tool. It's also something we might bring into the Facebook group. So when we host calls once a month, I want to get into that. And even when we do our playcast, Hillary, how can we do a session in an hour on a playcast without ruining the flow of conversation? So that'll be an interesting design. But so today, so for the rest of the call, we're going to kind of start from That with the Taste of Wonderland in the future, I think next time we'll also talk about some of the stuff I put on the document about the format. Is this a 1-day summit? Is it 2 days? Is it 4 hours? We'll leave that stuff for like a next time. Let's start with this and share a little bit about how Taste of Wonderland came to be.

Super. And, um, and, and just, just to finish off the loop on what you were talking about when you were talking about, you know, what happens during the summit and then after It seemed to me that there's 2 really important things that get created. One is a map, you know, where people and opportunities and different techniques, whatever, where they are, and to see how they're connected. And then maybe it'll be a geographical map, or maybe a totally different kind of map around social innovation, you know, that gets created, but it's a map. And the other thing is a whole bunch of ingredients and recipes. And and and that links. We'll we'll see what that means when I am now going to explain what the recipes might be when we when we come to what Taste of Wonderland is all about. So that Taste of Wonderland was created with a beautiful friend of mine, Alex Pantia, whom I met again on a in a in a chat on a conference on crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, and I made a comment that he responded to, and we met through LinkedIn and then continued. to meet every Sunday, at his Monday, my Sunday. And we would just talk about what was happening in our lives, what was happening in our countries. And one day I said, boy, it feels like we've fallen down the rabbit hole. And he said, well, just hang on a second. And he went and found a map of Wonderland that had been used for an exhibition of Alice in Wonderland 2 years before in the city of Melbourne, which is where he was. And I looked at the map and I said, this is a, this is a process map. Like, there's something in this map that's either a business development or something, but, but there's something else to this map. So I went away and it was— because I'd never seen Wonderland in a map. Like, talk about maps, right? It was— and, and so I pulled out 3 distinct parts and— well, 4 actually distinct parts of the map. that were laid out. The first, the first stop on the way was the hallway of doors, which in the Alice in Wonderland story, she falls down the, down the rabbit hole, and she faces these doors, and she's too big, and she's too small. And she eats this and drinks that, and gets incredibly frustrated because she can't get through the door. And she can't get through the keyhole. And so what we've done in our process was we've identified the frustrations in the forms of cracks and breakdowns that are happening. And so we have 12 doors, each with a different question that looks at the breakdown that is happening in the mental health system, in the community system, whichever the focus is that we want to use for the summit. That will be, you know, we'll decide what the context and lenses we want to use, but it's the breakdown in whatever that is that we will explore through 12 different doors. And, and how it works in the Zoom world is that people go and put their— there is a, there is a place for every car, for every door, and people go and put their, their Post-its up and answer that question, each one of those questions. And then we look and say, where is the major breakdowns happening? But it's, it's, that's just the one stop. And we don't analyze this stuff, we just share. And it's, it's just dropping that information and sharing where the breakdowns are and the stories that behind those breakdowns. The next stop on the way is the pool of tears, and in the story of Alice in Wonderland, she cries so hard she creates the pool of tears, which ultimately becomes the sea of tears. But we're stopping it at the pool of tears, and we look at what people are grieving and what we are, what's dying, and what is it that's making us angry and sad. So where the breakdown is happening is more of the you know it's it's the it's the it's the it is the you know the venting of what's going on. This is where the sadness and the pain is inside. But we also know that once we voice. And I found that this was incredibly important to do during the pandemic. And I've designed so many change processes, like I can't— over the last 40 years, I'd never included grief in a way that was really focused. And it's been amazing to see what happens when you share, when people are allowed to share what they're grieving. And that also with the pain points, which is where innovation starts to be able to come in, because now you're letting go of the pain and you're creating room for something new to happen. You're not holding on to it. The third section is, is, is the looking glass. And then the looking glass, of course, in Alice in Wonderland, it's the alternative reality. It's where the world is turned upside down. And so in this process, what we've done in the past is we've looked at all the different kinds of modalities that are alternative modalities. So be they bioenergetic healing, equine therapy, Sound therapy, wonder studios, which are looking at new new professions, new ways of new new inventions, new ways of of thinking. Anyway, a wide nutrition, a wide range of of different modalities. Right now we have sort of like placeholders for for major categories. But this is where the magic happens because this is where the new stuff. That's, that's, that's really exciting as it gets profiled. And then the 4th step along the way, so we have the breakdowns, the pain points, the new ideas, is we come into the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. And at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, the idea is to go and take a crack, take a pain point, take a new idea, put them together, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, what do you get? So this is when you start creating your own recipes of saying, here's a recipe for a different way to look at mental illness. Here's a recipe instead of that looks at recovery in a different way. Here's a recipe that actually reframes mental illness, and it doesn't even look like that anymore. So it's collecting all of these different recipes that have been made from the ingredients along the way of the process. that, that you— we end up with all these different recipes. We call them strange brew. And because it's a tea party, and, and that's when we start to see what are the patterns that people are pulling on? What are the patterns that are emerging? What is being born? Not just the idea, but the idea that's been taken and, and worked with the pain and the crack. It gives it some— it gives it some grounding. It gives it a reason. It gives it a purpose that is me, and it's the mixing and matching together that make the really creative ideas. So that's a taste of Wonderland.

That's so awesome. Thank you. So I got some creatives. So again, for anyone who might be watching now, we're also— Hillary and I are in a private ideation session as well as sharing live and things like that. Um, you know what came up for me, Hillary? You know, in my work we use this Barbara Marx Hubbard's, uh, Wheel of Co-Creation, which has the 12 sectors and you have the 12 doors. And I was thinking, I mean, I don't know now, this is when we get into the nitty-gritty of designing this, but we might need to go a little meta with the 12 doors and the questions because it's a big, like, focusing tool, like the wheel. So it might be interesting to have one question from in each sector, you know, how does this relate to justice? How does it relate relate to transportation? How does it relate to spirituality and media? That's just something that I was like, oh yeah, because it's also good for a database, to make a database. Like, which, you know, the Strange Brews and the 12 sectors can sometimes just be a helpful taxonomy. Like, I mean, people argue about them, but it's just, it's just the starting point. It's a way to help, uh, even help technology be able to, to slice and dice and, and pick up the different connections. But, um, I'm really enthusiastic about, I mean, I've heard you say this before, but you know that the looking glasses are the alternative realities. So when you said that, of course, I mean, I came up with Alternative Reality Summit like live in the moment, like just my inspiration. I was like, because I want to create an alternative reality. And just because I thought it'd be fun if some people tune in thinking it's about AR or technology and then, oh, it's mental health reformation. Now they're stuck. But the fact that the looking glass, and I, you know, I got that image of the like the looking glass vision, you know, alternative reality. That's such a lovely— what struck me is I think we can make The Looking Glass the live creation of this inventory. That's where like everyone has a piece of the puzzle, no matter what their agenda is or what lens they're coming through, what mental wellness, mental illness, addiction, psychic, it doesn't matter. I think that's the most ubiquitous, like inclusive— space for us in that day, in a sense, where everyone is clearly contributing to the building of that. Because I, I like what you said, it's a holistic or integral, you know, repository. It's not just innovations, it's also people themselves.

Mm-hmm.

You know, art piece— this is again where the 12 sectors to me comes in, like people working in justice to transform the laws around some of these things. That's not my cup of tea. I still think it's a waste of time personally. Like, that's just me to go to the laws because they don't seem to ever do anything. But I totally appreciate that other people, that's their actual gig and they're knowing, so they would be able to actually change the laws, I believe, because they know how to manipulate and do those things in that world. As long as they're doing it with, for me, the right reasons and with a different motivation, awesome. Like, we need everybody, all hands on deck, like from finance to medicine to justice and everything. So So I got quite excited about thinking about how, yeah, the Looking Glass is that inventory and it is the place where everyone's contribution is forever noted. And we can even get into later, like creating NFTs based on all those things. So we've kind of got this inventory of NFTs that can go around the world when people want to access some of those modalities or those people. It can raise money for the movement, all sorts of stuff. So, and it's very synergistic. And then I thought of the physical stuff, like how much fun is it going to be? Like when we start doing like 6-day events where each, each stop on the, on the Taste of Wonderland is one whole day, you know. And I'm still holding out hope that this summit can even get to that point where there is a physical event happening as well as the online things.

Well, I think there's ways of— personally, I think there are ways that if we wanted to, we would have the virtual event happen simultaneously with people downloading a package and running their own physical events, and that they would actually be running their physical event simultaneously while we're doing the virtual, and then feed in their experiences and feed into the inventories, the database. But it's the biggest— the plenary at the end of having people go through it virtually on Zoom, but also having physical experience with it, then becomes the, this, so what? So what now? What now we've got all these things, now what? What do we want to do with this? And that becomes, that becomes, well, all these wonderful ingredients from the various looking glasses, as well as now having that been worked through the process, the human creativity process of the crack and the pain and the new idea coming together. And the Mad Hatter is, I think, that Mad Hatter's tea party, Um, the so whats of the Mad Hatter's Tea Parties, I think, is, is, is the— is, is where we go. What— look at what is— what's being born. Look at what's in motion now.

Yeah, I love the kind of local, local, global perspective where I could see like NAMI, to be honest, in America, National Alliance on Mental Illness, actually being a partner where they help distribute that stuff and get local chapters to meet in person. Like you're saying, just like people do the, you know, the unified meditation, or there's other versions of this. But gosh, imagine a planetary-wide day where we're not just meditating only or whatever, we're actually hosting, and it's decentralized in that way and distributed. People are responsible for their own whatever.

Yeah.

And, and oh man, that just like mind-blowing. And it serves like if NAMI and hospitals were to do that, it doesn't— if they never even looked at the retreat or if they never looked at the database, the experience alone in their own space would already be massively valuable to them. So that was pretty exciting to think about that. And I really, I really want to go there. I don't— I certainly want to at least dream. I don't want to limit any of the possibilities. And I know in my own life as a visionary, sometimes I can get the scope creep, right? Where we like, now it's this, now it's this. And I don't— I want to find the fine line, but part of me is like, like, we're gonna do it, we're gonna go all the way. And I think we can actually find enough people that would want to be part of it, a team. I think we can even find sponsors and philanthropists to support a core team, not to have salaries so much, but to help people if they need, if they need financial support in order to be able to do a lot of this work, which is like time-consuming, like to make the packages and to organize events and broadcasts. Like, I would like to reach that for this summit, actually. I'd like to reach something significant, or otherwise it doesn't have really the impact that I want it to have.

Well, the interesting thing about the— what we've learned through the outcomes of seeing it done physically in a physical space, as well as doing it virtually through Zoom, is that not only is there hands-on research live, in terms of what's going on right now. But there's something about the camaraderie that is built in listening to the various stories, because it is intergenerational, it's cross-cultural, as well as it is multi-stakeholder. So you'll have somebody with lived experience sitting beside virtually someone who's never had any mental health experience at all, and listening to the stories. You know, it There's something really, really fascinating in that process. And at the same time, there's paradoxes all the time that are happening in this process where you've got the pain of the experience and what people have actually had to live through with the current system. At the same time, the joy that the possibility brings. And we have this constant, you know, like breakdown, breakthrough. We have the despair and grief and the rebirth. Like, that's the human experience of the process, which brings it to a totally different kind of level. It's not sitting down as a creative, like, let's sit creatively and design something. It's the human dynamic of those experiences, that roller coaster, that actually ends up creating something really quite phenomenal.

Right. I think Mental Health Awareness Week just happened. Do you know if that's the case? Was there some kind of, you know, mental health awareness?

I think so, but I think NAMI's also doing something at the end of the month. of the month, aren't they?

I'm not sure. I was just wondering, having a little bit of a time, like a time marker, like milestone, like I'm— because I was just thinking like, um, from the— in terms of right now, like I'm thinking a 1-day event because I don't want people to have to tune into too many, like over— it's overmuch. It's like 1 day But then I was thinking there is such a thing as Mental Health Awareness Week. I was so I started thinking, oh, maybe we have a one day because then like you said, everyone around the world on that day could potentially like it's not too hard. It's not over a weekend or something. It's just one day. But maybe we shoot for like Mental Health Awareness Week next June or whatever, whatever. And like six of those days could be like snippets and like conversations, and then there's the one. Day where it's actually the summit, you know. Um, so I want us to start thinking— there's no reason to, to nail it down, but let's just start thinking like, what is this? Is this a 1-day, 4-hour event, you know? Is it 2 days, 2, 4— whatever that is, I don't think— I certainly don't think we need to answer that now. But, um, and for people out there who have different ideas, again, like, what would you do? Um, I'm, I'm thinking 1 day just because I wanted to be like punchy and I think the first time round, it's one day.

I think the inaugural summit is one day. And we learn from that. And then we go and we— and what does the community want? What does, you know, what does the community say it would like to have after that one day? And I think we agree, it's an organic thing. It starts with— and I think we should now go to the real, the focus of what we wanted to utilize. We want to be able to create this process so that people can experience creating all kinds of different recipes and different maps and different— to get that inventory of what's possible. And so that anybody can use that and anybody has access who's participated has access to that. It's— that's their co-owners of the inventory having participated in it. But we know from where we sit, that what we want to do with that inventory is something quite specific.

Yeah, it's almost like we've done some of this, so we've had some strange brew ideas.

Yes.

You know, for us, it's a life— which we'll talk about next episode— life, a life park, a mobile crisis unit response. For me, a TV show, which we're going to get into as well in the next episode. So yeah, I think we've kind of— we're just saying, hey, right now there are some strange brews out there. And I do think they have value for the collective, like, because they're big ambitious type of strange brews. And I think a lot of people can see themselves in them. But no, no one will be— again, we will take those forward with the people that resonate with those pieces of the puzzle. But yeah, that'll be fun to at least have something there. So for people that might not want to be dreaming something new up necessarily, or they just simply are like, yeah, I like it, I would like to be part of that. Like, I think we already have that. And I also wanted to say, Hillary, um, when I first put out the video, like, my first thought was I would really like anyone who quote unquote presents during the summit day, like on the broadcast, as traditionally would be considered a presenter, like whatever. I don't know what that means yet. Like, I don't, again, I don't really want these dry people talking at people so much all the time. But what I really want is anyone who takes part as a presenter also invests more, a little bit more. Like they go through the process with all the other presenters as a group. Like they try, they at least have the intention to follow up to some degree. It's not like you have to be fully invested, but I'd like them to feel like they're not just what it's like one shot and done, you know, like just one trick pony. Here I am, I'm I'm a presenter. I come. I say my thing. I don't even meet the other presenters because I've done this, by the way. Like I'm guilty of that. Like sometimes, like the Design Science Studio, there's all these amazing presentations, but I get so focused on what I'm doing that first of all, I don't even see the other presentations. I don't even watch the damn thing because I'm so involved in creating my piece of the puzzle, and then I'm tired after. So I would like to us to consider. A middle path. Like, I wonder if we can get a lot of people who might be presenting that day to also participate as that— as a group.

Well, you know, here's what I think. I think that we— that it— that we use the format of A Taste of Wonderland. So we do— we, we, as a community, we look at the breakdowns and the— and the pain, and then the presenters are in fact, uh, part of— they're, they're the ingredients of the looking glass. And they pop up with, you know, they literally are an opportunity to say, well, this is my approach, this is what I've— this is what I do. So they become the content of the looking glass.

Yes. And self-evident.

And so, but they will have had to be part— have— it's important that they are part of the first 2 experiences because that contextualizes Yeah. How they present what they're—

And they will have their own stories. I want to know why they've gone into psychedelic research. It's probably because one of their cousins, husbands, wives, or brothers had— was, you know, diagnosed with bipolar, may have committed suicide or something. I want to know. And that stuff will surface. It's a journey together, um, you know, to go through that process. So yeah, no, that's exciting. I, I feel excited about that, like finding the right group of people that normally would have just shown up, shown their slides, and kind of walked away. But now it's like, no, go on this journey. Take a day out of your life. Go on this journey. Become a living part of the Looking Glass. Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, that's just wonderful. I mean, I think we're gonna rock this. Yay!

Yay! Let's see if we can get a couple of horses in. No, but you know what? No, but—

Horses keep coming up for me ever since you talked about equine therapy too. 2 of our connections, one in Glastonbury, loves horses. This other woman we're going to meet, she loves horses. So there's, there's something going on.

I think we have, you know, animal communicators come on, you know, an animal communicator comes on as part of it. A water communicator comes on.

Do you know any animal communicators? I know our friend, my friend Mark also knows some.

Well, yeah, we'll get— I think, you know, I think there's some really interesting people that we can call on for that part. So it is, it's taking it off of the slide that we've used in the past And bringing them alive with people. And I think we now— we have a living, breathing Looking Glass, and I think that that gets— that takes this to a totally different level.

Yeah, I mean, I kind of want to work from the original inventory we had, but I want to get rid of it. Like, I want to— like, yeah, like, we, we had some ideas, but like, I feel like this is the cake.

This is that. This is next. This is, this is, this is 3.0.

3.0. Yeah, cool. So, um, This has been very helpful for me. Let's just switch gears quickly to think. So we've been doing the 2 playcasts. Yeah, with— we did one more, one with Chris. Let's say playcasts are just about— I like 75 minutes. So like you've got like the 5 minutes settle in, 5 minutes settle out. And I— because I want a true hour. I'd like to get a true hour of the actual like dialogue or conversation.

Yeah.

Clearly we could You know, symbolically always start the conversation with cracks and then talk about grieving. And then what is their piece of the inventory? And then right there live, do a Strange Brew kind of thing, right? Like, but you're the better— I mean, that's just, I guess, again, is that how something you might— I mean, I want you to think about it anyway.

But what are your first thoughts on like— I think the format works personally, because I think it's because this— the cracks is normally the person's story, right? Coming in, what was the breakdown that would and where— what has been their reason for wanting to shift around, and what have they tried that's different, which is the looking glass. And then it's our opportunity collaboratively to say, what's our strange brew that we— like, my strange brew that I came out with on Friday from Chris was talking about— or yesterday talking with Chris was the whole idea of he's a systems designer. You know, like, that was my strange brew coming out of it. And I think that it's new, it's new aha, it's the place of the ahas, of creating something new from the conversation that we end with. And I think that, that, and we may get that early on in the conversation. I'm not saying you have to wait till the end for it, but I think if we, it does follow a nice little format in terms of the breakdown, you know, where the breakdown happened, the story, where the grief happened, what is this new, what is their pathway and what is exciting the most about their pathway. And then And then listening through all that to see, okay, now what are we hearing that's something that's putting some of these things together that are different because we're hearing it in a different way?

Right, cool. So what we'll do is we'll start trying to practice that. This one will just be fun and slow and organic because I actually like the idea of turning this particular Playcast that I've been doing into that. Like, it's like basically A Taste of Wonderland in an hour with 1 or 2 people. People, like, and us, where we might— we'll throw in a few stories about us so there's a little bit, you know, material there for the pain points. And like, we'll just join in. I mean, sometimes we'll say the same thing over many Playcasts, and for, for the sake of our guests and to build the picture.

Yes.

So yes, what— but I'm sure it'll be fresh. So I, I, at some point, I want to fully shift into that. Like, as based— as far as like the next couple Playcasts, if we don't have the time to really get clear, we'll just wing it until we have the time to make— to really— but we'll start practicing it. Um, I'll— we'll talk again, you know, before the next Playcast. Isn't actually till like the first week of July because I'm going to take some—

July.

Yeah, so we'll probably have time to whatever, and you can just write down some notes if you need to, you know, like what is it. I mean, it's all pretty intuitive now that you are the creator and I've gone through it, so it's, it's not much of a mystery, but there'll be some tweaks, you know, because of it's such a short amount of time. And like you said, it'll— we don't— I don't— I definitely don't want to like be so prescriptive.

No.

That we can't talk about them. But that's it. But that'll be a mastery though, in a sense, because I like the format. I like the format and I don't want to restrict it. So it'll be a little bit of an interesting dance. But I think ultimately, just as a general framework, so we're always talking about the cracks and the pain points and the new ideas and the strange brews at minimum. always presencing like, hey, this conversation is going to be around that, um, is cool. So that's cool. And then the last piece on— for, I think, for tonight on Taste of Wonderland is, uh, one of our community members, Les, you know, is really keen on hosting conversations and all that.

Yes.

I'm— my inclination now is to actually do Taste of Wonderland once, like the way we've always done it. Hopefully 3 or 4 people would show up Yes. Either once a month, either once a month or twice a month. We'll start with once just to see if we can get people. Why don't we just do that? And why don't we invite Les to learn through it and be— and then we can start actually, like, you know, credentializing, you know, facilitators or something and make it like a learning process. And, and then Les can do it more often, like if people sign up and it turns out next week a bunch of people want to do it. And maybe, I mean, I would find him a buddy because it's hard to, for one person, I wouldn't, that's not always the best. But anyway, that's my first thoughts of like bringing the Taste of Wonderland right into the, you know, the community page.

What I love about that is that the framework is loose enough to allow for some really interesting, you know, deviations in terms of it's not a restrictive process. It's, it's, But at the same time, it does follow a process of— that's a really dynamic healing process. So every conversation becomes a healing conversation as opposed to just a conversation. And it becomes— it also is collecting the database at the same time that we're— every time it's done, we're learning something new. We're adding some— we're not just throwing information at each other. We're actually collaborating, co-creating.

Mm-hmm.

strange bruise at the end. And, uh, and, and it is a healing process. So it's— so we're walking the talk in terms of every time we have a conversation, it's actually following, following an alternative reality process.

Yeah, no, it's awesome. I mean, it's the, it's the least thing we can do without funding and big organizations. We can make a difference now.

Yeah.

And we can make a dent now. And I've got the bandwidth to at least do some of these like I've been doing because it matters to me and I don't need to get paid. I don't need to get funding for that. I do want all that, by the way, calling all that in. If people are listening and, you know, super awesome philanthropists or fucking Oprah Winfrey or something, I don't know, somebody that would want to like chip in and make things a lot more scalable quicker and like agile, and we could kind of like make the bigger dents Quicker, whatever. Like, we're, we're going to be getting there at some point, and I want that for this summit, and I want it for this movement. Like, that's why the movement's different in the age of 2022. This is not old-fashioned movement. Like, we're going to use innovation, business investment, creativity, activism, you know, all these things are going to be—

Even a DAO.

Yeah, we're going to use it. We're definitely going to be using a DAO. There's no question about that. I've got some friends lined up to talk to I mean, I think that will actually end up being one of the key things that makes a difference. It's going to be pretty wild. It's going to get pretty wild, actually, with the different diversity of skills and all. I mean, I was thinking when I was listening to you, Hillary, if it's not self-evident to people, it's really important to acknowledge and name that the people that are going to be contributing to this, like you, are what people used to call professionals. For people that like that term. Meaning, what I really mean is look at all the experience you're bringing into this, you know, process design, business reorganization, a healing business. Like, you've been there, done that in what is known as—

Strategy.

Yeah, strategy, like corporations, you know. I'm much different, but I have my own skill. Everyone who's going to be showing up to contribute to this, this is what really also usually excites me, even the work I do with all my other friends and all projects. Like when people start applying their, what might be called real world or practical or experiential knowledge to new ideas in new realms. So it's like, oh, I know how to do accounting, I know how to do strategy, but I'm going to do it in service to reimagining mental illness and addiction and a decentralized movement. Like when you start applying those skills that should not be the baby thrown out with the bathwater because there's good There's all these qualities you've all learned and crafts and skills that certainly apply to building a decentralized civil rights movement for the soul. They certainly apply to building a life park and new innovation. So I'm quite— I'm always— I mean, because we love synergy around here, we love, you know, the diversity. So I think it's important from that old-fashioned— this is not just a bunch of people who have sat on their butts or something or dreaming something up. This is— This is because this is what's needed.

And, and that's why we have been using A Taste of Wonderland, because of the fact that it is imbued with magical imagination. It has the energy of imagination. It's that— it's not us saying we have the ideas and we're going to use this forum and this format and this, this summit to be able to sell our ideas. That's not who we are. We are walking into the unknown knowing that there's already amazing things out there that is hidden in plain sight. That we want to, we want to use our imaginations to be able to bring to the surface and see what's there and reimagine it in a way that serves the greater good and reimagine it in ways that those who have been sitting at the outskirts waiting are ready and able to come and be part of the conversation.

Super awesome. I love working with you.

I love working with you. Hey, imagine we're gonna— imagine if one of the sessions we do, and I'm gonna— I'm actually going to see how I can do this because I did do a— in 2019, I co-created an entrepreneurial program with the women of the Grand Valley Institute in Kitchener, the federal penitentiary. And the most awesome women, awesome women I worked with who, you know, we used, we use the fact that incarceration was their mentor.

Hmm.

And, and they created businesses, business ideas that in which were inspired by the traumas that they had experienced. And but they were hairstyling ideas and hairstylists and fashion and food and childcare. But at the base of them all were these amazing— their special sauce with the fact that their traumas they had experienced was going to give them some different insight. And I can imagine doing some Tastes of Wonderland inside the federal penitentiaries and having them feed into this. Like, we're gonna do it.

Wonderful. And that's— and then, and also to be practical, that's also where we can charge companies and organizations and institutions that have no problem. That's status quo to be charged for that. They can write it off as a deduction. And that's a genuine, authentic way to also help ourselves fund ourselves. So again, not always waiting for people to come along. I mean, I believe with all my heart because philanthropy is such a big dream and mission of mine. I believe with all my heart that that somehow, some way, there will be some people that see these videos and just basically send over some kind of funds or a blank check saying, I hear you, I see you, I don't— I've already got enough money for myself, why don't you go, you know, rock this? I believe that is almost an inevitability when you're aligned with your purpose and you're having fun. That being said, we also have all different ways— the DAOs, the NFTs— and turning our— it's almost like A for-purpose, you know, I guess, like, kind of innovation instead of— oh no, people already use that, don't they? For-purpose companies now or whatever. I don't like that. I have to be, I have to be more cutting edge than that.

I think you did that a lifetime ago. Now you're into something else.

I take that back for, for something else. Right on. Awesome. Well, it's lovely to see you, Hillary. Let's do a closeout. Any conclusions from for today or final words or anything?

I just love you. I just, I love— like, you were brought into my world at a time when I was so desperate for— and you were the one who named it Call to the Mothers. You were the one who said, you know, it was— I, like, the day you said that, my life changed. And, and you gave me such hope again at a time when it was— and it has been, as you know, incredibly difficult. But, but you give me hope. You give me, you know, we're going down this road together with Rami, and I know she's probably listening on Facebook, so shout out to you, Rami, because you are— You're with us. And, and we're, you know, it's, it's, it— we're— this is gonna happen, and it's gonna happen in ways that are gonna surprise us, that we haven't even thought of, that we haven't even dreamt of. But because, because this is such an important thing that— and every person that we've met through either through postings or through the conversations we've had have just been miracles. And, and so we're, you know, this is a— this is the place of miracles. So let's make it happen.

Right on. I'm thinking Romy can remain a mysterious, like Alfred Hitchcock character where we just see her silhouette sometimes in the background. And then maybe she leaves a message, like she's kind of like just drops a message in. But well, thank you, Hillary, for the kind words. I'm, I'm, I'm glad to be a friend. Friends matter most to me, so I, I'm glad to be a friend of yours and that my enthusiasm and need for this change also gives you hope. And I think having you and Romy— wasn't there that famous movie? What's that movie in the '80s, like 3, 3 dads and a baby? I always think like two moms and a Brett, you know? Like, like how? Like of all the different things, of all the gin joints in the world, like whatever, you know? Like there's like two moms and a Brett, like, and love it. I, and sometimes I get down like any of us or frustrated, and I, I don't think I've ever said, but I now I will think, I think, I think of you and Romy, and I think, oh, I can't quit, you know? Like we've gotta, like I've gotta keep going, and they believe, so. So, you know, if 2 people believe and 1 person believes, we can keep going and keep building that. And clearly we've seen that now. Like, and if anyone's listening to this, like, it's been said a million times, but let's just keep grasping and striving for coming together. There's no reason we need to do that. Otherwise, it's just not going to, like, happen on the scale. Again, I think of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. civil rights. Like, that's what we're talking about here. We're not talking about a one-day thing that then fizzles out. This is the call. This is our time. And there's no other way to do it but to do it. Like, we're here now. I know other people have the same visions and similar projects and ideas. I'm not trying to step on the toes or say this is diff— or better, but I'm not seeing anyone on the planet like my video saying like, let's come together, let's Let's make a movement, not just in talk or something, or as an academic exercise. Like, it has to start somewhere. Like, I know it has already. So it's like, I'm— I understand I'm in a lineage and standing on the shoulders of giants. I'm 100%. That's— I love that. So I would never dare dismiss or disregard any of the trailblazers who have already set the stage. But I'm here now saying, like, if you are that person and I've missed you or I'm not understanding, then look us up and find me and let's get together. And let's, let's just bring it all the way home.

And we also are looking for people that may not have new ideas or new ways of doing things, but have questions, that have— that, that, that feel that they— that there's a void, but they can't quite articulate it. Artists who, who may not be able to express in words what it is that they're sensing in listening to whatever the conversations are, or seeing the poetry, But want to contribute their art, music. Like, where it is, a lot of the things we're talking about aren't necessarily easy to express, and we know that the answers are going to come in many forms, and we're gonna break patterns, and we're going to— and just like nature does, you know, we're going to, we're gonna emerge in a springtime which is going to be really, really different. Right on.

Okay, I'll see you this week in our WhatsApp chat. Um, I'm hopefully— I'll catch you. I'm gonna go on a little break midweek for a week. Hopefully I'll maybe catch you for a quick check-in before then, but after that, then I'll be away for a little bit. But yeah.

Sounds good.

Okay, lots of love, Hillary.

Lots of love, and lots of love to everybody who, who's listened to this and was going to listen to this. And thank you for, for being part of the energy of our musings. And, um, we We send you love.

Thank you for saying that. I lost the plot for a second. I think I got tired. Thank you. Thank. I know I very rarely forget that. Yes, thank you everyone. Anyone who would have watched any or part of this, obviously, thank you so much. And thank you, Hillary, for for being the the person that said that.

Anytime. Two moms and a Brett. Gotta love it.

Take care.

Bye.

Bye everybody.