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Foreign You grew up in a small town in southern Brazil yeah Um I love Brazil I had not heard of the Town you're from uh that's how small it Is yeah I've studied Michelle Um you left at 14 yeah and were I mean Traveling the world from then on yeah I Left at 14 I went to I moved to Japan I Lived in Japan for three months when I Was 14. and then what was that I mean Just going from a small town in southern Brazil to suddenly being in Japan you Know I think my mom did an incredible Job as the guardian that she was for all Of us because we were I felt very independent at 14 for some Reason you know I had 14 sometimes I Don't know if you guys feel that way but At 14 you feel like you know everything For some reason 14 years old is that age Where he's like I know I can take care Of myself So I was leaving out in the world and I Knew how to cook and clean and all that Stuff because I was doing all that at Home Um sharing the the house chores with my Five sisters and so when I left I felt Like I already knew how to do that so I Felt like that's covered and then I Discovered you know I was very naive Though so I had to learn pretty quickly But I saw a lot of different crazy stuff
Happening around me and and then I Realized well you know now I'm out in The world and I have to be really was Your mom with you no My mom was with my five sisters so I Left home alone at 14 and I never went Back but At 16 I moved to New York and I didn't Speak a word of English or Japanese so It was pretty interesting living in Japan without speaking English or Japanese Um I just said yes to everybody yes yes You know so I felt like that would be Easy and then I just and then I had six Different so agreeable she's so nice Yeah I'm I guess I'm not that agreeable Today so I think you know I'm like okay Let me let me think about it but I Didn't speak English so I just didn't Want them to think that Um you know I guess people always Thought models were like you know dumb Or and I didn't want to kind of Let them think that of me so I was like Maybe I'll just pretend I know English Even though I don't So so Um yeah so then just living alone since I'm 14 and being out in the world is Like I said you know I didn't go to high School but I feel like I have a diploma On the School of Life in so many ways Because I you know I think when you go
Out in the world and you go to you Figure it out you learn pretty quickly You know when your parents are not there To protect you You know how to make decisions and you Have to be you know you have to take Accountability for your decisions Because there is nobody there to protect You so the other thing you speak out a Lot on is in the environment oh yeah You're backstage talking about Mother Earth which uh you know we are all her Children I mean I always say you know It's funny to me I've been working with The UN on on on trying my best to talk About what's happening with our Environment and I always think it's kind Of funny how here we are destroying the Very thing that provides us with life You know I mean Our food our air our home I mean Everything we have comes from from other Earth and yet we feel like we can just Keep taking taking taking and exploiting Natural resources like they're never Ending but you know There there is a there's only an amount Of of water there's only an amount of Natural resources and we're just kind of Going through them like there is no Tomorrow you know and you see cities Like Sao Paulo for example who you know Brazil is one of the between Brazil and The continent of Africa the largest
Places of fresh water in the world and We had a drought you know Cape Town was Without water you know and and I think It's just so much is happening and Because everything is going so fast and Everybody's saying oh we have to use This because you know for progress and Like what kind of progress they're going To have when you don't have any more you Know do you find that that your Meditation practice because I think a Lot of people when they think about Meditation we talked to some of the Earlier speakers talked about this as Well think about meditation as being Just something that's very Inward and Focused on themselves do you find your Meditation practice also makes you more Kind of outward focused on the world I think it just gives you a different Kind of awareness I think you see things From a different place I think Everything slows down and you become More Conscious of I think of everything Because when you meditate what you do is Like you become you become silent and I Think there's a in especially in our Society today everything has happened so Fast I mean I remember when I was a kid You know there was no cell phones like Even when I moved to Japan I had to use My the calling cars to call my mom and Be like you know you got one dollar left
And I you know I called my mom like once A month from Japan because there was no You know 1994 you know 1995 and and I Think you know someone calls the house And you're like wait a minute I'll get The message from my mom you know I Remember when the phones came out and They had actually the message that you Can leave a message before that you Couldn't so you had like a notepad and a Pencil next to the phone to leave the Message and I think it was in a way so Great because you know people could do Their job and then could go home and They would have conversations with Dinner table with their family and they Would if people couldn't catch them at Work they would have to wait to the next Day and I think with this kind of speed Up process where you're available 24 7. I think is is really creating a lot more Anxiety so I think even more so it's Important to have the moments if like You said you know a few times a day I Don't think you need to go for like Seven you know every person or like five Days maybe sometimes you do if you have A specific thing you're dealing with but If it would be good if every day you can Check in you know if it's two minutes in A car ride if it's five minutes in the Morning when you wake up if it's before You go to bed if it's before an Important meeting just to take a moment
You know go go into going and going or Take you know focus on your breath deep Breathing and just allow yourself to You know to kind of decompress I think Is essential to be able to deal with the Amount of pressure we have in our Society today I mean I don't know how Else I mean I couldn't do it without it I tell you that much
