Emeline Michel

Artist

Only a few performers earn acclaim for developing a unique sound. Emeline Michel can count herself among those few. Known for her fusion of traditional Haitian rhythms (kompa, rasyn, and twoubadou) with other musical genres (pop, jazz, and blues), Michel created a sound, which appealed to both traditional and contemporary listeners worldwide. Combined with Michel’s hypnotic and bluesy voice (which draws comparisons to the great Joni Mitchell), and remarkable stage presence, Michel has made her mark as one of the most notable Haitian singers, songwriters, and musicians of the past two decades.

Born in Haiti, Michel’s foray into music began as a singer in the Church of Gonaives’ gospel choir. Later, she studied at the Detroit Jazz Center, refining both her voice and musical style. Her return to Haiti showcased a new sound, highlighted on her debut album, Douvanjou ka leve. Michel continued her studies in France, where she received classical voice training under the tutelage of the legendary voice coach, Richard Cross.

Several albums followed: Tankou Melodie, Flanm, and Ban’m Pase included. Michel’s second album, Tout Mon Temps, featured the top single, “A.K.I.K.O.” As Michel stated, “A.K.I.K.O.” urged Haitians to stop fighting, come together, and create a country that would make the next generation proud. Without unity, we have no future.” A global sensation, “A.K.I.K.O” charted in many countries, including Belgium, French Guiana, Chile, Japan, and Canada.

Michel’s list of appearances is quite extensive: Carnegie Hall, United Nations, the Clinton Global Initiative, Montreal International Jazz Festival, New Orleans Jazz Festival, Fuji Rock Festival, Seychelles Island Creole Festival, and the Teatro del Silencio, where she performed with Andrea Bocelli and the Choir Voices of Haiti in Italy. Still, it was Michel’s performance on MTV’s “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief” telethon, which garnered the most acclaim. Michel’s rendition of Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross,” and other similar performances, led New York Times’ Ben Sisario to declare Michel a “diplomat of music,” and a “dancing ambassador with a voice as serene and warm like the breeze.”

Michel has received countless awards, including Haiti Musique en Folie Award for Best Haitian Album and Best Production for Cordes et Ame (2000). She has also receive the Catherine Flon Award (2017) and a New York City Council Proclamation for outstanding activism in the community.

In Michel’s upcoming autobiographical documentary, The Aroma of My Land (2019), viewers will have the opportunity to hear Michel’s life story in her words, and view behind the scenes exclusives: live performances, interviews, poetry, music, pictures and more. It is one to watch.

Click here to learn more about Emeline Michel

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Dr. Barry Kerzin

American physician and Buddhist monk

Dr. Barry Kerzin is an American physician and Buddhist monk. He serves as a personal physician to the 14th Dalai Lama, along with treating people in the local community.

He has written Tibetan Buddhist Prescription for Happiness, and with the Dalai Lama and Professor Tonagawa, Mind and Matter: Dialogue between Two Nobel Laureates. He has also written Nagarjuna’s Wisdom: A Guide to Practice, Compassion-Bridging Practice and Science and No Fear No Death: The Transformative Power of Compassion.

Barry Kerzin is an ADJUNCT PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington Tacoma, a Visiting Professor at Central University of Tibetan Studies in Varanasi, India, an Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and a former Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington.

Barry is a fellow at the Mind and Life Institute and consults for the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig on compassion training. He is the founder and president of the Altruism in Medicine Institute (AIMI) and the founder and chairman of the Human Values Institute (HVI) in Japan.

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Dr. Sará King

Neuroscientist

Dr. Sará King is a neuroscientist, political and learning scientist, education philosopher, social-entrepreneur, public speaker, and certified yoga and mindfulness meditation instructor. She specializes in the study of the relationship between mindfulness, art, complementary alternative medicine, community health and social justice. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow in Neurology at OHSU , a Garrison Institute Fellow and Society for Neuroscience Associate, and a member of Google’s well-being think tank “Vitality Lab”. She is the Co-Director of the Embodied Social Justice Certificate Program, as well as she is the Director of Science and Healing for Mobius – an organization dedicated to stewarding the development of liberatory technology. She is the founder of MindHeart Consulting, a scientific consulting firm through which she offers up “The Science of Social Justice” framework and the “Systems Based Awareness Map” (SBAM) which she created to explore our capacity to heal intergenerational trauma and promote the well-being of “collective nervous systems”. She is currently partnered with the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y. to bring her applied neuroscience research on the (SBAM) to the world as a part of their “Artful Practice For Well-Being” Initiative.

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Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr

Educator, author and political commentator

Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., is an educator, author, political commentator, and public intellectual who examines the complex dynamics of the human experience. His writings, including “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul”, “In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America”, and his most recent, the New York Times bestseller, “Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own”, takes an exhaustive look at Black communities and the democratic challenges we face. He is also a former president of the American Academy of Religion, with a number of best-selling books published on religion and philosophy. He is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies, on the Morehouse College Board of Trustees, an MSNBC contributor and a columnist for TIME Magazine. Combining a scholar’s knowledge of history, a political commentator’s take on the latest events, and an activist’s passion for social justice, Glaude challenges all of us to examine our collective conscience.

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Dr. Julia Kim

Program Director, Gross National Happiness Centre Bhutan

Dr. Julia Kim is the Program Director of the Gross National Happiness Centre Bhutan. She joined the GNH Centre after serving as a member of the International Expert Working Group for a New Development Paradigm, convened by the Royal Government of Bhutan. Prior to living in Bhutan, Julia worked as a physician and HIV researcher in Africa and Asia, before serving with the United Nations (UNDP and UNICEF) in New York. She brings a background in leadership development, research, and policy in the fields of wellbeing economics, global health, and sustainable development, and is an Executive Committee member of the Club of Rome, and an associate of the Presencing Institute – a global network that views awareness-based systems change as a core capacity for 21st-century innovation and leadership

Cómo los líderes empresariales pueden enfrentar la crisis de salud mental Cómo los líderes empresariales pueden enfrentar la crisis de salud mental

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Es el Día mundial de la Salud Mental y aún es un tema que nos elude en el mundo empresarial. Tal vez porque se siente como un tema privado, difícilmente entendemos nuestro rol frente a un reto que es altamente público.

Hace unos meses, tuve la oportunidad de tener una experiencia inmersiva en uno de los encuentros más importantes a nivel global. Entre las palabras de bienvenida, un líder empresarial explicaba: “El bienestar emocional tiene un rol central en el sector privado, es fundamental para la innovación y colaboración,” dijo Edwin Macharia, Global Managing Partner de Dalberg, frente a más de 1000 personas que se dieron cita en la ciudad española de Bilbao la primera semana de junio.

El encuentro global “The Wellbeing Summit” o Cumbre del Bienestar, juntó a las mentes más influyentes en la intersección de la salud mental, el bienestar integral, el activismo y la investigación científica. Este encuentro, este año 2022 no es para menos: de manera colectiva, los ponentes presentaron un reto enorme al que nos enfrentamos como sociedad de frente al bienestar integral y la salud mental.

La OMS define a la salud como “el estado de bienestar físico, mental y social, no solamente la ausencia de enfermedad” y a la salud mental como “el estado de bienestar en el que cada individuo logra su potencial, se enfrenta a los estreses normales de la vida, puede trabajar productiva y fructíferamente, y puede contribuir a su comunidad.”

La pandemia y sus secuelas presentan retos sin precedentes para la humanidad en términos de salud mental. En los últimos dos años, la estimación conservadora de suicidios está en 700,000 personas anuales; sin explicaciones alternativas, los médicos continúan atribuyendo más y más enfermedades al estrés.

Si el número previo nos genera una fuerte impresión, al llevarlo a un lapso más concreto, cada hora del día, se suicidan 81 personas en el mundo; y a ello, también encontramos el fenómeno aterrador de school shootings, los feminicidios, los enfrentamientos por causas raciales, y más. Se estima que la mala salud mental le cuesta a la economía mundial entre $3 y $5 trillones al año en productividad reducida.

En América Latina, la salud mental continúa acarreando un tabú en el mundo empresarial, se lo habla poco pero se siente su efecto cada vez más seguido. En el mejor de los casos, se lo aborda de manera tangencial, solamente cuando los impactos se hacen visibles. Pero los diagnósticos de patologías de salud mental son sólo el primer paso. El liderazgo integral debe abordar el tema mediante prácticas, servicios y acciones tangibles que arrancan desde el lado preventivo.

Uno de los ponentes del Wellbeing Summit, el neuro-científico Richard Davidson , presentó una colección de hallazgos científicos sobre lo que él llama la “neuroplasticidad’ del cerebro – nuestra cualidad de tener una mente que puede ser moldeable mediante repetición y prácticas que re configuran cómo está programada. La tesis principal es que la compasión y felicidad es un habilidad que se puede aprender:

El cerebro de un monje en estado meditativo es algo replicable – Davidson propone que la habilidad de estar presente, consciente de sus propios pensamientos es un camino de prevención buscando el bienestar mental. En un estudio del 2004 (Lutz et. al) se midieron las oscilaciones gamma, que predicen niveles de claridad de percepción, en el cerebro de un monje budista con años de experiencia en meditación. Las oscilaciones de las ondas en el cerebro de los monjes en estado meditativo eran significativamente más amplias. Es decir, cuando el cerebro se encuentra presente y perceptivo, las ondas gamma se abren. En estados de miedo o incertidumbre se contraen. Lo importante, es que los monjes tienen la capacidad de controlarlo con práctica, y que la incorporación de hábitos de manera consistente puede crear el mismo efecto en la población general.

La capacidad de conexión con otros re-configura el cerebro – Un estudio del 2013 (Weng et al) trabajó con un grupo de personas ofreciéndoles capacitación en técnicas meditativas de cultivar compasión. En sólo dos semanas, los neurocientíficos encontraron diferencias tangibles en imágenes de escaneos cerebrales de quienes habían participado – sus niveles de “conectividad DPLFC-Nacc”, que se asocia con comportamiento altruista (un indicador de salud mental), se muestran claramente dilatados en los scans.

El sentido de propósito correlaciona con la longevidad – Un meta-análisis de estudios de la última década (Cohen et. al, 2016) determinó que el sentido de propósito (incluso en las actividades diarias más mundanas) es un predictor potente de longevidad y prevención de eventos cardiovasculares. Los efectos del bienestar son reales – un estudio del 2019 de Evans y Soliman presentaron una fuerte correlación entre la expectativa de vida promedio y el bienestar en 151 países: aquellos con percepción de bienestar más alta tienen hasta 30 años más de vida en promedio que quienes viven en países bajos niveles de bienestar emocional.

Hace un siglo, el hábito de tomarse 3 minutos después de cada comida para lavarse los dientes no existía a nivel global. Sin embargo, como sociedad, lo incorporamos como una acción de importancia para nuestra supervivencia como especie. Este principio de incentivar hábitos, promoviendo una mente más saludable, puede tener efectos enormes en las distintas crisis que enfrentamos. La diferencia es que esta vez contamos con avances de tecnología móvil y de wearables (relojes inteligentes, tracking devices, etc) que nos permiten acelerar la incorporación de buenos hábitos de manera exponencial.

Por esta razón, no sorprende que el Dr Barry Kerzin, el médico personal del Dalai Lama, se apoya en una aplicación móvil para hacer prácticas de compasión y altruismo más accesibles a la población, o que Betterfly , la start-up unicornio Latinoamericana incentiva buenos hábitos meditativos recompensando a los usuarios con medallas que facilitan la donación a causas. El potencial de generar impacto positivo mediante modelos de negocio que innovan con propósito es enorme.

Los retos más grandes que enfrentamos como humanidad siempre han presentado oportunidades para el empresariado que quiere marcar una diferencia.

Las buenas noticias son que podemos entrenar nuestros cerebros para crear bienestar mental y que podemos promover estos hábitos gracias a los avances de la tecnología móvil.

Con una oportunidad como esta, es cuestión de tiempo para que el sector empresarial tome el liderazgo para escalar la construcción de una sociedad más conectada consigo mismo y con su propósito. Así es cómo el mantra intangible de que “la paz interior puede crear paz para el mundo”, se convierte cada día en algo más tangible y viable conforme esta intersección única de maestros de meditación, científicos y empresarios convierten sus voluntades en una nueva realidad. Así es como el mundo empresarial puede enfrentar la crisis de salud mental: no solamente con voluntad, sino también apalancándose de tecnología y ejerciendo el liderazgo que este reto público exige.

Author bio

Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter is the Global VP of Purpose and Communities at Betterfly, the first social unicorn start-up, with operations across Latin America. Before her current role, Michelle was the CEO and co-founder of IMPAQTO, a B Corporation with a mission to support impact entrepreneurs reach their goals by building the ecosystem and network they need to thrive. Michelle is a recent mother of twins and a member of The Ecosystem Network at The Wellbeing Project.

How business leaders can face the mental health crisis How business leaders can face the mental health crisis

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October is World Mental Health Month yet, mental health remains a topic that eludes us in the business world. Perhaps because it feels like a personal issue, we hardly understand our role in the face of a challenge that is highly public.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to have an immersive experience in one of the most important global meetings related to mental health and wellbeing, which is a more holistic way to explore it. From the very first welcoming remarks, I was all in: “Emotional wellbeing plays a central role in the private sector, it is essential for innovation and collaboration,” said Edwin Macharia, Global Managing Partner of Dalberg, in front of more than 1,000 people who met in the Spanish city of Bilbao the first week of June 2022.

The Wellbeing Summit for Social Change brought together the most influential minds at the intersection of mental health, holistic wellbeing, activism, arts, and scientific research. In the convening, the Summit speakers collectively presented the enormous challenge that we face as a society and the wellbeing of our people.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as “the state of physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely the absence of disease” and mental health as “the state of well-being in which each individual achieves his or her potential, copes with normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can contribute to the community.”

The pandemic and its sequels present unprecedented challenges for humanity in terms of mental health. In the last two years, conservative estimates of suicides are at 700,000 people per year; with no alternative explanations, doctors continue to attribute more and more illnesses to stress. If the previous number makes a strong impression on us, when taken to a more specific period, every hour of the day, 81 people commit suicide in the world; besides, we also find the terrifying phenomenon of school shootings, femicides, clashes for racial reasons, and more. Poor mental health is estimated to cost the global economy between $3 and $5 trillion per year due to reduced productivity.

In Latin America, mental health continues to be a taboo topic in the business world, it is rarely talked about but its effects can be noticed more and more often. At best, it is approached tangentially, only when the impacts become visible. But diagnoses of mental health pathologies are only the tip of the iceberg. Business leaders must address the issue through practices, services, and tangible actions that start from the preventive side.

One of the speakers at the Wellbeing Summit, neuroscientist Richard Davidson, presented a collection of scientific findings on what he calls the brain’s ‘neuroplasticity’ – our quality of having a mind that can be molded through repetition and practices that reconfigure how it is programmed. The main thesis is that compassion and happiness are skills that can be learned. Below are a few of the findings that back up this theory that we can train ourselves to shape the health of our brain:

The brain of a monk in a meditative state can be replicable – Davidson proposes that the ability to be present, and aware of one’s own thoughts is a preventive path toward mental well-being. In a 2004 study (Lutz et. al) gamma oscillations, which predict levels of perceptual clarity, were measured in the brain of a Buddhist monk with years of meditation experience. The wave oscillations in the brains of the monks in a meditative state were significantly broader. That is, when the brain is present and perceptive, the gamma waves open up; in states of fear or uncertainty, they contract. The important thing is that monks have the ability to control it with practice, and incorporating habits consistently can create the same effect in the general population- we don’t necessarily need to be super-meditators to reap the benefits.

The ability to connect with others reconfigurates the brain – A 2013 study (Weng et al) worked with a group of people by offering training in meditative techniques for cultivating compassion. In just two weeks, the neuroscientists found tangible differences in brain scan images of those who had participated – their levels of “DPLFC-Nacc connectivity”, which is associated with altruistic behavior (an indicator of mental health), looked clearly dilated in the scans. Again, visualizing scientifically the effects of human connection on our brains.

A sense of purpose correlates with longevity – A meta-analysis of studies from the last decade (Cohen et. al, 2016) found that a sense of purpose (even in the most mundane daily activities) is a powerful predictor of longevity and prevention of cardiovascular events. The well-being effects are real – a 2019 study by Evans and Soliman found a strong correlation between average life expectancy and well-being across 151 countries: those who live in countries with the highest perceived well-being levels live up to 30 years longer on average than those who live in countries with low levels of emotional wellbeing.

A century ago, the habit of taking 3 minutes after each meal to brush your teeth didn’t exist globally. However, as a society, we incorporated it as an important action for our survival as a species. This principle of encouraging habits, and promoting healthier minds, can have enormous effects on the different crises we face. The difference is that this time we have advances in mobile and wearable technology (smart watches, tracking devices, etc.) that allow us to accelerate the incorporation of good habits exponentially.

For this reason, it is not surprising that Dr. Barry Kerzin, the Dalai Lama’s personal physician, relies on a mobile application to make practices of compassion and altruism more accessible to the population. Or that Betterfly, the Latin American unicorn start-up, encourages good meditative habits by rewarding users with medals that make it easy to donate to causes. The potential to generate a positive impact through business models with purpose-driven innovations is enormous.

The greatest challenges we face as humans have always presented big opportunities for the business community that wants to make a difference. The good news is that we can train our brains to create mental wellbeing and that we can promote these habits thanks to advances in mobile technology.

With an opportunity like this, it is a matter of time before the business sector takes the lead in building a society that is more connected with itself and with its purpose. This is how the intangible mantra that “inner peace can create peace for the world” becomes more tangible and viable every day as this unique intersection of meditation teachers, scientists, and start-up leaders turn their wills into a new reality. This is how the business world can face the mental health crisis: not only with will but also by leveraging technology and exercising the leadership that this public challenge demands.

Author bio

Fatima-Zahra Maelainin

Co-Chair of the Expert Community at Orygen Global

What made the Wellbeing Summit for Social Change different was the mindful curation of physical spaces and the thoughtful creation of psychological havens that allowed us to foster connections with ourselves and others, and engage in transformational conversations opening the space for a collective identity to emerge; an identity that puts our humanity at the forefront.

The words in my journal read: “This space is different. I am invited to put down all my hats, so I may arrive fully, intimately. I assumed it’d be frightening, but it feels peacefully liberating.” And a few pages later: “In this space, we celebrate our humanity, in its most open, raw, and honest expression.”

Indeed, we were in a space that celebrated our humanity before our roles and contributions. It reminded us of our worth as humans, regardless of our titles and achievements, and of the importance and necessity of continuously re-inventing our self-narrative.

As leaders and actors in the social change sector, we often get too immersed in the realities we deal with, becoming too consumed by the limitations we face and the challenging ambiguities of our endeavours, oftentimes pushing beyond exhaustion to continue serving. Ultimately our sense of self and personal worth become deeply attached to our role and contributions, and we lose sight of the many facets of our identity as we stick to a single self-narrative. With time, we either burn out or forcibly readjust our expectations, ultimately confining our imaginations and debasing our sense of self and contribution to the world. At least, that’s what happened to me, and a number of others I shared my story with.

The Summit arrived into our lives with a gift: a much-needed opportunity to revisit our assumptions, unleash our imagination, and embrace the shifts we experience as we rethink our narratives – the kind of inner work we often mention and rarely dive into.

My most memorable lines from the summit were:

“How do you walk away when the world is still so messed up? Sometimes, you just have to. Because you’ve planted the seeds well, and you can trust that someone will continue the work. And while you still have the energy, you can be someone else: a friend, a mentor, a witness.”

I spent the next month following the summit reflecting on my relationship with my own personal narrative, and poured it all into a ‘letter to self.’ It reads:

“you spend years and hours building a narrative, making sense of your identity, who you are, where you come from, what you seek, and what you stand for, and as soon as the words connect into a story coherent enough to share with the world, you start to experience dissonance.

confused and curious, you look inwards, demanding answers.

slowly you begin to notice that your personal evolution outpaces the process of expressing it. gradually, you start to realize that every time a sense of self is crystallizing, a shift in your inner landscape is well underway.

and so, like most of us, you often numb yourself into denial, desperately holding onto an established identity in a vain attempt to avoid the all-too-familiar pain of meaning-making that you know awaits you if you listen to the emerging voice within.

you choose denial because it is a space that allows you to dismiss every thought and every feeling that may cause you to waver and wonder.

you and I choose denial because we live in a world that disapproves of a story-in-the-making. because those of us who understand that self-knowledge is an iterative journey, never a destination, require additional bravery and tenacity to search for wholeness in the midst of incessant external incentives to settle.

but, sticking to one narrative is, simply put, stagnation.

to be human is to honor our complexity, fully, by refusing to settle for a reduced, prematurely bounded narrative.

to be human is to continuously generate stories that make sense of our experiences, reinventing our self-narrative time and again as we continue to integrate the new with previous identities.

here’s to continuous becoming.”

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About Fatima-Zahra About Fatima-Zahra

Fatima-Zahra Ma-el-ainin is a Moroccan psychologist and poet who brings together her background in program development, principles of systems work, and her rich experience facilitating paradigm-shifting workshops and discussions to rethink systems, narratives, and policy. FZ is a member of The Ecosystem Network at The Wellbeing Project and currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Expert Community at Orygen Global, an advisor to the WEF’s Global Shapers Community, and a member of The Lancet-LSHTM Commission on the Emotional Determinants of Health. She was invited to speak at the UK Parliament, TEDx, IAYMH, and the WEF’s Annual Meeting in Davos, among other platforms. In her free time, you’ll find her writing poetry, hosting conversations, or finding stillness in nature or a cozy teashop.

Emily Eldredge

Founder + CEO of ChangeLight

“This seems so incredibly spot on!!!”. Such was the WhatsApp message that popped up on my phone in early April, and attached was an invitation to the Wellbeing Summit for Social Change.

The message came from my dear friend and colleague Marlou Cornelissen who had received the invitation and immediately recognized that, without question, I needed to be there. As an emotional health innovator who is passionately focused on increasing the well-being of leaders and changemakers, I couldn’t agree more.

However, the weekend of the Summit was the same weekend that my husband and I would be driving cross-country from Arizona to New York! We’d be finalizing his move from Tucson to New York City, and we’d been planning this drive for months.

I just couldn’t make it work.

And yet… the Wellbeing Summit kept sticking with me… and sticking with me…

Finally one day, I said to my husband, “Hey, honey. Ummm, I know we’ve both really had our hearts set on doing this drive together, but I really feel like I have to be at this thing in Spain. Is it okay if I don’t join you on the drive or maybe only join you for part of it?” He was clearly disappointed but understanding and supportive. Our original plan was to drive to Dallas and spend the night there with my parents, so I mentioned my dilemma to them. By complete coincidence, they were already planning on driving up to New England a couple of days later! So my husband and I drove from Tucson to Dallas, I flew from Dallas to Bilbao, and my husband and parents drove in tandem to New York! (And they had a perfectly wonderful time without me!) We made it work.

As an impact-driven leader and changemaker myself, I spent years struggling with my own “demons” and burnout. Working hard to live one’s own Truth and fulfill one’s life mission has a tendency to trigger one’s deepest wounds and defenses! And I’ve seen so many of my fellow leaders and changemakers struggle with similar stresses and pressures. However, prior to learning about the Wellbeing Project, I hadn’t heard of any collective efforts to address this pervasive issue. Typical changemaker, I felt like I was the only one focused on it.

The Wellbeing Summit changed everything. Immediately, I felt embraced by a tribe of lovely, loving human beings who, in their own unique ways, are working hard to make our world better while, at the same time, recognizing their own vital need for health and well-being. I met activists, philanthropists, coaches, spiritual figures, artists, innovators, investors, yogis, and others with whom I felt an immediate connection and trust. Though we had only just met, we were instantly open and vulnerable with one another – sharing our struggles as well as our joys.

One thing was also clear: every element of the Summit’s program was deeply intentional. We had time to experience, time to learn, time to connect, time to rest, and time to heal.

What surprised me the most was how profoundly I was impacted by the art. When I had initially read about the Wellbeing Project’s commitment to art as a source of healing, I thought with a shrug, “Oh, that’s nice”. However, the Summit’s well-curated artistic experiences left indelible – and, yes, healing – impressions on me. For example, on the first night, we were treated to a kind of poetic sound bath in which a woman read a long poem while someone stroked a gong to make it shimmer. The sound vibrations penetrated me so deeply that all of my tension was released, my body fell away, and I felt myself floating in a space of pure peace. That and other experiences since have helped me discover the incredible power of sound in my own self-care and healing.

My dear friend, Marlou was right. She, too, was “spot on” that I should attend the Wellbeing Summit. And, oh my, am I grateful that I could forgo that cross-country drive to be there!

I left the Summit feeling healed, encouraged, and inspired by the transformative experiences I had and the wonderful people I met. I’ve made friends for life – some of whom I’ve since rendez-voused with here in New York City – and I feel so much less alone in my commitment to changemakers’ well-being. In fact, to cement my support of the Wellbeing Project’s mission, I joined the Wellbeing Welldoing Network, a group of visionary philanthropists who sustain and grow The Wellbeing Project’s work.

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About Emily

Emily Eldredge is the founder of ChangeLight , the creator of the ChangeLight System™, and a member of the Wellbeing Welldoing Network at The Wellbeing Project. With her rare blend of deep compassion and fierce determination, Emily leads global leaders and everyday heroes through inner work that accelerates their power to change the world. As an innovator, entrepreneur, and humanitarian, Emily’s mission is to accelerate the healing of humanity and our planet.