0:02

Stephen needed yoga. Steven used

0:04

to go, you and your woo woo's over here until

0:08

he couldn't breathe, and I younger, yoga

0:10

is an enormous help during

0:13

his process of lung cancer, you know,

0:15

opening his lungs. There are certain

0:17

things, they are so simple

0:20

that could be utilized at a hospital level.

0:43

Hey everyone, I'm Doctors and this

0:45

is the Doctors Podcast. A

0:47

few months ago, I was invited to this weird

0:50

event. Weird

0:52

because it was called this Urban Zen

0:54

initiative. Urban to me is sort of

0:56

urbane, right, you know, cool its hips to the

0:59

city, lots of stuff happening, lights, magic,

1:02

and then to me anyway, connoted the exact

1:04

opposite, and uh,

1:07

Lisa, of course was the root of

1:09

mostly good in my life. He said, we have to go to the

1:11

urbans that initiative. You have to go, We have to go, have to go, And

1:13

I start getting called by folks around, and I learned

1:15

that Donna Karan was behind it. The donna who I

1:17

uh did not know well, but I had heard a

1:19

ton of and never ever ever a

1:22

negative word around her voice. Uh,

1:25

And I was impressed that so

1:27

many folks thought that what she was trying to do was

1:29

so important, UM that I

1:31

did what I almost never do, which is to take time

1:33

away from the hospital and actually went down and looked

1:35

at this thing. So I went down to the urbans Zen Initiative

1:38

and UH and I started to learn

1:41

about a movement that Nona

1:43

Karan is created that is transformative

1:47

at many levels. Transformative in that she's

1:50

taking an experience that generally

1:52

isn't found uh in the

1:54

in the hustle bustle lives that many of us live

1:56

and making it physically possible

1:59

UH at that same point, which is

2:01

pretty good because if you can't find an experience

2:03

in your day to day life, you're not gonna go looking for as much.

2:06

But she's also tackling one of the biggest

2:08

challenges in the healthcare system, which which

2:10

is that we are getting better and better at the high tech

2:13

approaches the solving disease, but

2:15

as we take people who would have died and keep them alive,

2:18

we fail continually providing the holistic

2:20

approach the wellness that they really crave.

2:23

And it's that dual approach tech that caught my attention

2:25

and UH, and I was I'm honored today to

2:27

have done on the show thanks joining us. That's

2:31

a little bit talking about time. Bit about you first, and I want

2:33

to give your your long instended bio just for a

2:35

few people don't know everything about you already.

2:38

This is the same nine of crown of you know, d k n

2:40

y Uh, someone who's uh,

2:42

who's been a a influential

2:45

designer, businesswoman, uh,

2:47

philanthrop for more than two

2:49

decades. Her hair story

2:52

starts actually in New York, uh

2:54

and in Brooklyn, I think I'm not mistaken,

2:56

probably five towns on

2:59

island is alright.

3:01

So starting on, her father is a hybrid

3:03

dasher, if I recall,

3:06

and so he's you know, he's a man who has a

3:08

gift for design and style. Mother

3:10

is a model, and among other

3:12

things that her mother, I

3:15

was brought up on Seventh Avenue. So I

3:17

was born on Seventh Avenue

3:19

in the city. Well not, you

3:22

know, in the larger point of it, because

3:25

my father being on Seventh Avenue, my mother being

3:27

on Seventh Avenue, and when your parents

3:29

are at work, you're you know, you're sort of brought up

3:31

on the avenue.

3:32

So that's

3:34

why I considered home was Seventh

3:37

Avenue. So I've lived there for quite

3:39

a number of years. Unfortunately, my

3:41

father died when I was three, and my

3:43

mother passed away from cancer um

3:47

very early on. So disease

3:50

has sort of been around my whole life completely.

3:53

I don't think I'd be sitting here today if

3:56

it wasn't from my boss and Klein and

3:59

who passed away from cancer. When the week

4:01

my daughter was born. Oh my goodness. The

4:03

world of the medical

4:06

world, in the dizebral just something that

4:08

has always been around me while

4:11

I've been designing at the same time. So

4:13

I'm in one hospital bed giving birth to

4:15

a baby, and my boss is in another

4:18

hospital bed. At that point,

4:20

one didn't even discuss the word cancer.

4:23

It was the undisgustable, you know. She didn't

4:25

even tell me she had it. And we had a collection

4:27

to that same

4:29

week and

4:31

it was just the two of us. So

4:33

we're talking from hospital to hospital and then

4:36

and they called me up and they say, well, Donna,

4:38

when are you coming back to work? I said, would you

4:40

like to ask me if I had a boy or a girl? So

4:44

take me back a little bit too. Uh, you

4:47

lose your mother and your father? My

4:49

father, Yeah, Unford. My father passed

4:51

away when I was three of a car accident

4:56

and when you went through the the in your early

4:58

adulthood, there was probably the anyway

5:00

you said, you know what, I can actually probably start the design clothes

5:02

and make things happen for folks. I

5:04

have a vision for what fashion might look

5:06

like. I think basically,

5:10

interestingly enough, because I was around fashion

5:12

as much, I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to sing like

5:14

Barbara and dance like um

5:17

oh God right

5:19

exactly? Is

5:22

that right? Yes? It was Martha, because it was Martha

5:24

and the clothes in the body and all that. Now,

5:26

Interestingly enough, I had started to do yoga

5:28

when I was very very young, and

5:31

I started when I was about fifteen sixteen years

5:33

old, when yoga was just not even discussed,

5:36

and so the

5:38

whole body and the movement, I

5:41

don't know, it was just something

5:43

that that it was called

5:45

to me because it wasn't so popular

5:48

back in the seventies or eighties now, rather

5:57

than it wasn't your our mutual

5:59

friend din Or she was one of the earlier uh

6:02

yoga devotees and he was over in India, so

6:05

you just stumbled on it.

6:09

I know. I was the wo Woo designer. I

6:12

was considered one of those Woo designers,

6:14

which they never understood quite honestly.

6:17

So I love fashion. Um,

6:19

I wasn't a very good student. Fail typing,

6:22

fail draping, you know, I had a little a

6:24

D D problem. Forget

6:27

it. I burnt my dress. They told me I would

6:29

never make it as a fashion designer at all. It's

6:31

usually most people I find

6:34

who have made it, you know, or against obstacles,

6:36

you know, reaching the obstacle, reaching the obstacle. And

6:39

I went to an amazing um

6:43

experience where people were honored, and

6:45

all those who were honored are really kind of

6:47

people who really had to work their

6:49

butt off to get there,

6:52

something that doesn't come easy. And if

6:54

it comes easy, it's just it's not cool.

6:56

I think it also reflects folks who are passionate about

6:58

what they're doing, because if you're if you really really

7:00

really want to do it, no matter what people say, you probably

7:03

become pretty good at it, regardless of all odds.

7:05

And that's what Urban sends regards

7:07

of all odds. Right now, So after

7:10

a story career, we'll come back to in a second doing

7:12

fashion. You've had trials

7:14

and tribulations in your whole life, and most

7:17

recently lost my husband

7:19

of cancer. Cancer walk

7:22

through that process if you don't mind, and if

7:24

you I know you've faced disease a lot. But when

7:27

did it begin to strike you that you need to do something

7:29

about it? Well, I

7:31

think on so many levels, I think,

7:33

you know, with an I must say

7:36

that as an epidemic,

7:38

AIDS hit the fashion industry really

7:41

hard and heavy. You know, when people

7:43

didn't want to talk about it. It was

7:45

a nondiscussable And I'll

7:47

never forget Perry Ellis being the head of

7:49

c fd a UM having AIDS

7:51

at that point, not wanting to discuss

7:53

And I said, Perry, what's the matter, And I said, we must

7:55

do something about the SAIDs epidemic. It's unacceptable.

7:59

So very early on in my career

8:03

I wanted to bring attention

8:06

and awareness

8:09

to what was going on out there, you

8:11

know, for to bring a community together

8:14

to make a difference out there in the world. And started

8:16

with the AIDS epidemic, actually with Perry and

8:18

I said, he has a great idea, you

8:20

know, let's all come together as a unit

8:23

and really make a difference in the in the world of AIDS.

8:25

And Perry says, it's a private issue. I don't want

8:27

to discuss it. It was the same as a

8:30

cancer. Don't discuss it. It was all

8:32

this under the table stuff of

8:35

disease, and nobody wanted

8:37

to deal with it, and yet it was affecting

8:39

each and every one of our lives. And

8:43

for me, it was like a call of action, very

8:45

very early on in my life. And at

8:48

that point I said, I had this great idea,

8:50

which I thought it was a great idea. Was sort of a great idea

8:52

because fundraises a sort of boring, you

8:55

know, you sit around the table and you collect money. As I want

8:57

to have to go to another fundraiser bo bo bo bo boar,

9:00

I said, why don't we get the fashion and just everybody

9:02

loves to shop. Lease, as you were just talking about shopping,

9:04

right, you know how to get somebody right in the pockets

9:06

a shop. Um, let's get

9:08

all the designers to empty out there design

9:12

rooms and do a

9:14

super seventh on sale day

9:16

where we would take all the clothes, all all

9:18

leftovers and and set up in the armory and

9:21

have an amazing day. So he had a three

9:23

day experience and we

9:25

raised quite a number of three

9:27

million dollars in those days for eights.

9:31

So that was my first philanthropic work.

9:33

And I would have to say, if somebody would

9:35

ask me the highlight of my career, it would be that

9:37

day. Is that right? Yeah? You

9:39

know, having been to the sbnth on sale

9:42

and I was I think it was a resident I

9:45

remember buying. Actually it was a

9:47

Perry Ellett and it was it was

9:49

a jacket. I don't remember the designer now, but

9:51

it was. I still wear it cost

9:55

fifteen bucks, but it was a one. That's

9:57

it. You know, you get it from you know,

10:00

you always can at trust, you know, attract

10:02

somebody through another side and

10:05

then oh what's that all about? And

10:07

nobody was discussing AIDS at that point. You

10:10

know, of course the medical industry was, but we

10:12

were having friends that we were losing right and

10:15

left, you know, so cancer was over here,

10:17

but the AIDS epidemic which really hit

10:19

hard, particularly in our industry, and

10:21

I said, I cannot sit back and watch this happen.

10:24

So I had to take a proactive I got ala winter

10:26

together and at that time, unfortunately, when

10:28

I said to Perry Perry, what's so, Maddy says, do you believe

10:30

I'm allergic to cabbage? I

10:33

mean, that was how people

10:35

were approaching age, nobody wanted to

10:37

define the fact that they had eights.

10:40

So of course we've come a long way after

10:43

I did that. A friend of mine also

10:45

who contacted cancer. Well,

10:48

I had Anne who dealt with cancer, and then

10:50

Elizabeth to Baris from Harper's

10:52

Bizarre At that time, I had ovarian

10:55

cancer, and I said, what are we gonna do?

10:57

You know, nobody knows about ovarian cancers.

10:59

Nobody still talking about a great Seventh

11:01

on Sale. It works in the backyard

11:04

out in the Hampton's. We started to empty

11:06

our closets one more time and do a

11:10

garden party. You know, the photographers

11:12

would come. And we started this little

11:14

party in the back of Liz to Barras's house, which

11:17

has now become Super Saturday, which happens

11:19

out now in the Hampton's. And we've got the whole

11:21

Seventh on Sale kind of crew now out in the Hampton's.

11:24

And we just did four million dollars

11:26

for ovarian cancer. And yeah,

11:29

and I started that over

11:31

ten years ago. But in between was

11:33

Elizabeth Glazer, who after I

11:35

had Perry, I met with Elizabeth

11:38

and heard her story and I got,

11:40

oh my god, my heart went, what

11:44

can we do? Children with AIDS? This is

11:46

unacceptable. How do we bring

11:48

awareness to children with aids? Get

11:51

all the families together, start

11:53

Kids for Kids downtown,

11:56

Got the designers together, got the shops,

11:58

got the celebrities, put that all together.

12:01

So philanthropic has always been sort

12:04

of one of my passions, more so than

12:06

I would say designing, where

12:08

you have been a leader in that arena.

12:11

But I must say be able to raise

12:13

money for worthy causes is one aspect

12:15

of what you've gets laudable.

12:18

But the part that's really caught my attention because there are many wonderful

12:20

philanthropists and all of whose work

12:22

should be appropriately recognized.

12:24

But there are some people who take

12:27

a vision that's it's so outside

12:29

the mainstream that from what most

12:31

folks is not on the radar screen and

12:34

uh and and have a way of bringing

12:36

their passion to it and letting a fuse on

12:38

it others so they're not begin to pay attention to it.

12:40

And Urban's end for me has represented

12:42

that. Uh. And if I

12:45

have read your recollection

12:47

of what got you doing it was it was

12:50

partly this recognition that you kept

12:52

going places outside the city.

12:54

Uh, you have leaving New York to find salvation.

12:57

Right. So, and most of us today, I might feel in

12:59

the same way. It's because

13:01

urban zen doesn't technically

13:04

almost exist. It's almost getting there, you

13:06

know. But since I don't have the zen in

13:08

the urban and even though you know what,

13:10

you really do have to come up with my party. People look into

13:13

my apartment, go where am I? You

13:15

know, it's all of a sudden, the energy goes down, you

13:17

know, and you can find you know,

13:19

for those of us who do practice that

13:22

zen is inside of us all, you

13:24

know, but to create we all tensively. I

13:27

gotta go away, I gotta go here. I've just got

13:29

me. I've just come back from a yoga retreat,

13:31

you know, in Para kay and or to Bali

13:34

or wherever I go, and you know, try to get away

13:36

from the urban. But and I

13:38

remember when I was very young, I

13:40

used to go to Canyon Ranch, and I said to

13:42

Melzo Commen, I said, this is crazy. Why

13:44

am I going there when I need

13:46

to come here. I

13:49

have to the craziest place in the

13:51

world, the chaos of New York City.

13:53

But let's bring the common the chaos voila

13:56

urban zen. So I said,

13:58

this was my vision, to find the calm in

14:00

the chaos. Now we all know that we all

14:03

strive on chaos because without chaos,

14:05

they can't be any calm, you know, and vice versa

14:08

exactly, So we need we

14:10

need it. We have a

14:13

lot more questions you get to but first, let's

14:15

say a quick break, can

14:24

you? I hope people would explain what the

14:26

urbans And initiative is all about. Okay? The

14:29

urbans in initiative basically is

14:32

bring awareness, inspired change, and

14:35

it I have to go backward before I go forward.

14:38

Um. Yes, my husband was ill

14:40

with cancer and I lived with that for seven years.

14:44

A best girlfriend of mine had breast

14:46

cancer, brain cancer, and her journey is

14:48

extraordinary. She also was on the Oprah Show Lynn

14:51

Coleman, and she did an amazing book.

14:54

But we hear these stories every single day

14:57

constantly. And but urbans

14:59

In from me was

15:01

more about how

15:04

to bring awareness and inspire

15:06

change. And there are two things

15:08

that happened which inspired me to move forward

15:10

with the urbans And initiative. One

15:13

was a girlfriend said to me, how would you

15:15

like to have the Dolly Lama in the studio? And I

15:17

go, oh, that's a terrible idea.

15:21

I said, You've got to be kidding. How do you say

15:23

no? To his Holiness to Dali Lama. So

15:27

that was two years ago and his Holiness

15:29

came and we had an event for

15:31

Tibet and the people of Noble Linka.

15:35

And what had happened is his

15:37

Holiness how to go to l A. And during

15:39

that time, Rodney Ye

15:41

was supposed to a yoga retreat and he says, listen, I've

15:43

got to stay here for his Holiness. However,

15:47

the day he was supposed to be here, he changed

15:49

his plans to l A. So Rodney says, I'm

15:51

going to do a yoga retreat that

15:53

day, you know, instead of having his

15:55

Holiness there. So everybody who was coming

15:57

to see his Holiness came to Rodney's

16:00

day coming to yoga

16:02

or do they think they're sea now? Because

16:04

we arranged it, they were known that

16:06

far because well

16:10

this sort of no. So they came in,

16:12

they did yoga with Rodney. The following day

16:14

was his Holiness And I walked in and I said, Donna,

16:17

this can't it kind of longer be a vision?

16:20

It is now a reality. So

16:22

when I walked into the studio, I knew

16:25

it was ajointed. I mean to have his Holiness

16:27

in, you know, the studio was

16:29

really an extraordinary exhibit.

16:32

The studio I might have to go back for those people who don't

16:34

know. The studio was my husband's art studio where

16:36

everything was created. So the energy in itself

16:39

is a very sacred space for my favorite spot

16:42

in Manhattan. You actually the

16:44

roof garden in your studio is st

16:46

in Manhattan. That's a beautiful story because he wanted

16:48

me to live there, right,

16:52

Well, that's that's more my

16:54

kind of stuff. My my my husband was a wild guy.

16:56

He raised motorcycles right up to the

16:58

end. But um, he wanted

17:01

me to live there. And I said, honey,

17:03

you don't understand. I have to live on a park or

17:06

on the water. Those are your two choices in life. If I'm

17:08

going to live in the city. He says, I'll build you

17:10

a park, so on top of the

17:12

studio. That's how the park it

17:14

happened. And but I said, I

17:16

do not live where I work. Where you work,

17:19

it's just never gonna happen. So

17:22

I think I needed to separate the two worlds.

17:24

But everybody walks in there and says, I can't believe you don't

17:26

live here. Well that's because they haven't seen

17:28

your apartment. Spectacular.

17:32

But in that space. I knew

17:34

the space was sacred, It had energy

17:37

there that was very special. There was creation

17:39

there, There was my husband philosophically

17:42

was very evolved, even though

17:44

he didn't admit that he was evolved or did not

17:47

want to take on to both worlds of medicine.

17:50

UM. He was connecting the dots

17:52

on a far earlier stage of the string

17:54

theory before I even even understood

17:56

what that was all about. So

17:59

I knew the space ace had a certain

18:01

energy. So I was finding there.

18:03

I was at Urban's n and I was finding

18:06

the calm and the chaos and having

18:08

now a way to address Right

18:10

after his holiness, I had the Clinton initiative,

18:13

and that was the call to action. I

18:15

said, I cannot sit here any longer. I

18:17

must make this happen. It's a passion,

18:20

it's a dream, and

18:22

and I still love doing designing clothes.

18:24

But I was dressing people and I needed

18:26

to address the issues at hand. But

18:29

as most addressing so

18:31

as most people know me, UM,

18:35

one is not enough. God

18:37

forbid. So there are three

18:39

basic initiatives, past, present,

18:42

and future. The past is preservation

18:44

of culture, the present

18:47

is wellness, and the future is the

18:49

empowering of our children, because

18:51

to me, it all lives in mind, body,

18:53

and spirit, which is what

18:56

I believe urbans N represents. So

18:58

when I was at the Clinton Initiative, very

19:01

inspired by the dialogue,

19:03

the input, and I'm saying, here, we've got

19:06

so we we took on. Actually

19:08

the first initie was going to be on Africa. Interestingly

19:11

enough, and as synchronicity

19:14

has it coining deepak Um.

19:17

We got to a point where wellness just

19:19

came up to front because Vanity

19:21

Fair was doing a yoga issue if

19:24

any better remember then, and when Brandon

19:26

said it's launching in May, which that's

19:28

how the dates sort of came, I said, Okay,

19:30

everybody can read Yoga Journal, but how

19:32

many people are going to be aware of yoga coming through Vanity

19:35

Fair's eyes would be a great way

19:37

of introducing urbans

19:39

in. So every night

19:41

we sit in my apartment saying there's

19:43

something and I would say, there's something wrong with the medical

19:45

system. Right after my husband

19:47

passed away, I realized there

19:50

is a huge, huge void, and on a philanthropic

19:53

level, I wanted to make a difference out

19:55

there in the medical system. I

19:57

believe we treat disease brilliantly,

20:01

where I think there is a huge void

20:03

is treating the patient and holistic way.

20:06

It's not east or west, it's not either

20:08

or, but the word and how do we

20:10

treat the patient in its totality

20:13

and that being that UM

20:15

looking at a patient caring that they

20:18

are very limited people like yourself.

20:20

You know, they're they're handful, and it's not

20:23

I don't believe it's intentional. I

20:25

think there are a lot of shields that have come up because

20:27

of the amount that they're stricken with and the

20:30

and the problems that we're dealt with, you

20:32

know, the confusion, the chaos

20:34

of a hospital. Who is caring

20:37

for the patient? That used to be the job of

20:39

the nurse. My husband said to me very

20:41

very clearly right before he passed on, and do

20:43

not forget the nurses. The

20:45

nurses are such a strong component

20:48

to caring for the patient. But I realized

20:50

on both my husband's journey and

20:53

also Lens what was needed

20:55

and what was missing in the hospitals. It

20:57

became very very apparent that I my

21:00

posse. You know, it's like I come around

21:02

with my personal posse, you know, my mutritional

21:05

posse, my hands on healing posse.

21:07

Stephen needed yoga had a wonderful

21:09

um. My younger teacher, Lindsay

21:12

Um worked with Steven. Steven wouldn't go near

21:15

Steven used to go you and your woo woo's over here

21:19

until he couldn't breath. And I younger

21:21

yoga is an enormous help

21:24

during his process of lung cancer, you

21:26

know, opening his lungs. So as

21:28

we're sitting around the table, and everyone

21:31

had known that I usually don't go the normal

21:33

way, or what is the norm today

21:36

is? I was looking for a doctor who embraced

21:38

both Eastern Western philosophies. Is medicine,

21:40

you know. To me, acupuncture could be a

21:42

daily way of life. I'd like to get up every morning and have

21:45

accupunctution feeling very good, you

21:47

know, my b twelve shots. Okay, I'm ready to

21:49

go to work. You know. You know there are certain

21:51

things, they are so simple,

21:54

that could be utilized at a hospital

21:56

level. So what I wanted

21:58

to do was to say, oh, here's the hospital

22:00

system. How do we change the hospital system?

22:03

You know, and I've been working on this

22:05

for a good many years, so I forget, let's

22:07

bring all those of knowledge

22:10

together in a

22:12

conference and to figure out how

22:15

are we going to deal with the health care system. I'm

22:17

not dealing with cancer, I'm not dealing with

22:19

hart, I'm not dealing with specific disease

22:21

of anything. But how do we deal with the patient?

22:23

After the Urban Zen conference that you had, which

22:26

is addressing that to you in particular,

22:28

because we didn't weren't there for the last day, did

22:30

you have specific action stuff

22:33

that people had could go away

22:35

with and actually change something? I

22:37

mean, do you have an outline of things that need

22:39

to be changed and ways to change them?

22:42

What had happened? Um, listen,

22:44

it was it was going at a pace much

22:46

faster than I had thought because I didn't expect

22:49

the amount of people to respond.

22:52

What was happening is there was, all of a sudden, there was a nurse

22:54

day, and then there was a Buddhist day,

22:56

and then there was the doctor's day, and then there was a death

22:58

and dying day. You know, so each day

23:00

had a theme to it

23:03

because there were so many themes that need to be dressed

23:06

in this particular area. And

23:08

we looked at we said, and we were asking also

23:10

not only the panelists but the audience. We're

23:13

all here to discuss there's

23:15

a problem. What are

23:17

the resolutions and We had a wonderful

23:21

um person, Daniel Stone,

23:23

who worked with the Clinton Initiative to help

23:25

us pull the whole thing together. Call to

23:27

action, How are you going to call to action? What

23:31

we've learned we

23:33

have the Urbans and

23:35

Initiative can work on many folds. At

23:37

the moment, we are going

23:39

into two hospitals. One is Beth Israel

23:42

and to a slung hintering. We are doing a

23:44

test modality form that is going to be clinically

23:47

tested. We're taking over the entire

23:49

cancer floor from the moment a person

23:51

finds out they have cancer that we

23:53

will be working with them,

23:55

helping them navigate their course, so

23:58

that the doctors doing their work and just doing

24:00

their work. But we're coming in as an assistant,

24:02

the Urbans and therapististant and navigators.

24:05

So we've put together a group of people

24:07

and Rodney who came up with the

24:10

idea. He says, my god, you know, the nurses

24:12

are overworked, the doctors are burned out.

24:14

Where can we access another community

24:17

of people of healers that can

24:19

come into the hospital in an organized

24:21

way who can make a difference in people's lives.

24:24

So we came up with the idea and it

24:26

was actually Rodney's idea and

24:29

Wood he and his team at beth Issuel are hundred

24:31

percent committed to integrating their hospital.

24:34

So they said, oh well, come into the whole hospital said

24:36

we'll wait a second, let's start a Florida

24:39

time, you know. And I figured would

24:41

be a great comparison to look at Sloan Cantering, who's

24:43

dealing with cancer as a cancer hospital,

24:45

and that there's Uel and will take two cancer

24:48

opportunities. What's happened,

24:50

you know, up to now is all the hospitals

24:52

want to do this. We've got to walk before

24:55

we run, you know, We've got to test the

24:57

ways to see how this is going to

24:59

work. So what we're trying to create

25:01

is the ultimate healing approach. Now

25:04

the big handicap we have or

25:06

we're looking at, you know, to really make

25:09

this successful obvious as insurance companies,

25:11

you know, which was the one, you

25:13

know, the place you didn't want to discuss

25:16

at Urban's end, I called it like

25:18

the leap anybody discussed urns.

25:21

We don't discuss that right now. Let's

25:23

discuss the problem. Let's discuss the solution.

25:27

Let exactly I figured and now was

25:29

really one of the other parts

25:31

of it you know he was dealing with that. I

25:34

said, perfect, Urban's in over here, Michael

25:36

Moore, over here. We'll come together, get to Washington.

25:38

You know it will come bust spontaneously. We

25:41

come back with darn corn. We're gonna find them more about

25:43

the Repre's initiative. But first a quick

25:45

break,

25:56

So let me ask you talk a little bit about kids.

25:59

So the three the three parts

26:01

of the program you mentioned were

26:03

past president, future, you know, rest,

26:06

to maintains irustration of culture, uh,

26:09

a little bit about wellness today at

26:11

the end of the day. Part of the purpose

26:13

of an adult is to make sure

26:15

you can procreate and pass on at

26:18

a pure biologic biological your genes,

26:20

but at a more humanitarian level, the next generation

26:22

of healthy, well trained and keepable

26:25

folks to carry on the mission. What

26:27

does Urban's en doing about kids and what's the spirituality

26:29

for kids movement about? I'll tell you for

26:32

me, I keep on doing it. Was it. There's

26:34

no visual here, so I think your best to explain

26:37

it. You know that we could keep pointing

26:39

our fingers at all of the people that we can

26:41

blame for the problems out there today. But

26:44

when you point your finger, there are three fingers pointing at

26:46

yourself and and those

26:48

three figures of pointing at me right now. So I

26:50

looked at those three fingers calling about the three initiatives,

26:53

and that's sort of how it all happened. One

26:55

finger at you know who, but I don't want to mention his

26:57

name is because I'm being politically correct. I think at this

26:59

moment and then three back at me

27:01

and say, I can't blame anybody else

27:03

for the world we're living in today. I can only

27:06

take action, and I see it as a blessing. I

27:08

truly do. I think everything that's happening

27:10

right now all around us, and Oprah

27:12

definitively has taken a call to action

27:15

and said what are we going to do about our

27:17

next generation. There's a program

27:19

called Spirituality for Kids. It

27:21

was started. It is not Cabala at

27:24

you know in its essence, but yes, it was

27:26

started by the Cabala movement. It is in

27:28

nine countries and thirty three cities. It's

27:31

in the school system right now, and

27:34

it is a tool program of empowering

27:36

children and allowing children to make

27:38

their choices that they have empowered

27:41

inside of themselves using a

27:44

simple approach and the only way that I can

27:46

they use tools sort of like

27:49

um, there's a bowl of sugar and

27:51

they put salt in the sugar and

27:53

they say the salt the sugar is sweet,

27:56

and taste it. And then you put the salt in it and

27:59

you can't the salt out of the sugar. Watch

28:02

your words. And

28:05

then there's a beated necklace

28:07

and there's a string of beads and they beat all the

28:09

necklaces together. Each bead is

28:12

independently unique, and

28:14

we're all together as one. You cut the

28:16

string, we're all apart. Then

28:19

there's the chest uh sort

28:21

of the domino theory, cause and effect.

28:24

Put up a whole thing of dominoes. They

28:27

press the cause and the effect is

28:29

everything you do has an action has

28:31

an effect to it. So the kids learn

28:34

the system of modalities, and they play

28:37

with two puppets, the good

28:39

guy and the opponent, and two stories

28:41

that we hear in our heads all the time. And

28:44

you have the choice to listen to these two

28:46

people. So what we do in

28:48

SFK or not, what we do, what they do, and

28:51

what urbans and chooses to do is

28:53

to help look at mind, body and spirit and

28:55

what we can do for children. And one

28:58

of the next forms that we are doing is to bring

29:00

awareness and consciousness into

29:02

the SFK movement because I personally

29:04

have just come back from Israel working with the

29:06

Palestinian and the Israeli children, and

29:09

it's mind blowing. They're in Malawi,

29:11

they're in Israel. Um

29:14

We've done a documentary on it, you

29:17

know. There. I went to Harlem, Brooklyn Bronx

29:19

and it's so far. We all go to Africa

29:21

and we all go to the but the impoverishment

29:24

is sitting in our own backyard, you know,

29:26

when you go to Harlem and you hear the stories.

29:28

In Faraquay, the Faraco school system

29:30

did not want to send the kids to school

29:33

unless they had the SFK program there because

29:36

what they're finding for

29:39

kids. SFK stands for spirituality

29:41

for kids. Unless they have the child

29:44

open to learning and giving in compassion

29:46

and awaring that they have the ability

29:49

to change, they can't learn. So I

29:51

said to the teacher, I said, what are you missing

29:53

in the educational system? They have reading, writing,

29:55

and arithmetic, and the program works to

29:58

me, not only like in the hospitals,

30:01

but what is the ultimate way

30:03

of teaching and caring for children. They

30:06

have to have other disciplines. I would love

30:08

to see yogur as a discipline in the class. I

30:10

said to one of the um teachers,

30:12

I said, you know, tell me about what it's like. And she didn't

30:15

know about s FK that one of her

30:17

students was taking an

30:19

s f TEM program. It's in Micros

30:21

Island by the way as well. It's part of the program.

30:23

How does how does the listener find out if there

30:26

is a Spirituality for Kids program in their city? Could

30:28

go online to s f K and

30:31

find out where it is. It's grassroots, you know, organizations

30:33

been around for three years. You can start You can start one in

30:36

your if you if you've got the well passion

30:38

to do it, start one in your city. What needs

30:40

to be done The teachers have to be trained. And that's

30:42

a thirteen teachers do it well, either

30:45

the teachers do it or yes, a teacher needs

30:47

to be trained. So the obstacles that we have right

30:49

now is everybody wants the program, but

30:51

the teachers need to be trained to the program. Why

30:54

couldn't the listeners say, you know what, I live in the

30:56

moy in Iowa, and I'm going to go into my school system and offer

30:58

my time to help teach the kids. Dring lunch.

31:01

If they want to learn yoga, why couldn't that be part of that's

31:03

not SFK. SFK is

31:06

purely a specific spirituality

31:08

for kids. From an Urban Zen perspective

31:10

of empowering children. I'm looking at

31:13

yoga separately. So

31:15

s FK is you know, at Urban Zen, what

31:18

we do is bring the collective together. So

31:20

SFK is a program in one

31:23

of our empowering children. My

31:25

larger vision is the same within

31:28

the hospitals. What all the tools that

31:30

we need to change and shift hospitals.

31:32

I'm looking at what do we need to change and shift

31:35

the empowerment of children. Spirituality

31:38

is one of them, you know, mind,

31:40

body, and spirit. I look at the mind, the body,

31:43

and the spirit. The nutritional I think

31:45

nutrition has to be changed in the school system.

31:47

Absolutely. We can't be expecting our children

31:50

to learn if they're eating the wrong food, you

31:52

know. And it's the same in the hospitals. You

31:54

know that wonderful story that I

31:57

think Zeni Falco says, you know, they're

31:59

my father just had a an attack and they gave him a grilled cheese

32:01

sandwich. So what we're trying

32:03

to do. What

32:05

we're trying to do is create the optimum

32:07

healing card that goes around the hospitals

32:10

feeding all the patient's nutritional

32:12

food. You know that there will be juice

32:14

and soups and all. So let me just be concrete

32:16

about this, because I want folks to understand this. Well,

32:19

it's a lot I know we're talking about, but that's okay.

32:22

Is it wrong for me to paraphrase the Urban's and initiative

32:24

as an effort to mobilize

32:27

an army of folks that

32:29

are perhaps put into battalions

32:31

with sometimes specialized training, sometimes

32:34

just credentially, sometimes just a

32:36

way of venting and expressing a desire

32:38

to help. Is because as I attended

32:41

the events, I saw a lot of very interested

32:43

folks, many of whom didn't know how to get involved.

32:46

So, for example, in the in the Cancer Institute

32:48

initiative that you're going to do about Israel, the

32:51

people who actually go around the floor to help

32:53

these folks who who need help,

32:56

they're gonna need a little bit of coaching about how to work

32:58

with people in a hospital. Not a lot, we've

33:00

done it, but they need a little bit of coaching. Is that

33:02

the kind of effort that you're going to

33:04

make to operationalize these ideas at

33:07

the moment right now, we're looking for experts.

33:09

I can't you know, if people want to help right

33:11

now, financial support is what's really

33:13

needed to be perfectly honest, to

33:16

come up upon and say, you know, I can give

33:18

of my time and energy. We're looking for experts

33:21

in the field who are already do it. We're trying to identify,

33:23

like in a hospital that you would have to go through a training

33:25

program of some sort. So what we're

33:28

doing because we're hoping to create,

33:30

you know, make credentials. The same way at SFK,

33:33

you have to be a credential SFK

33:35

teacher to teach SFK. Obviously,

33:39

if somebody wants to support nutritionally

33:41

in hospitals and they have access

33:44

to you know, bringing in

33:46

juice and soups and you know, healthy foods

33:48

into the hospitals, we'd be very happy for that,

33:51

you know, and help in that respect. If people

33:53

wanted to donate you know, UM

33:56

c d s or music, because

33:58

we're developing UM music

34:00

tapes and guided visualizations.

34:02

But what we're trying to create is the

34:05

optimal healing environment. And we appreciate

34:07

how many people do want to get involved in

34:10

the movement, but we're trying to ascertain.

34:13

First of all, is what is the program. It's

34:15

in a test study program at the moment

34:18

it's being tested. We're

34:20

having a clinically tested. So once

34:22

we've got the power behind

34:25

us. My vision is

34:27

that once we create the optimum healing

34:30

experience, then then it could be rolled

34:32

out to other cities. How to folks find

34:34

that more about it? They can go online

34:37

to the website or new website urbans and dot

34:39

org. Um. The

34:41

call to action is the fact that the

34:44

importance that this is needed, you

34:47

know, to change in in the hospitals,

34:49

to get hospitals involved, or into

34:52

the educational system. We're looking

34:54

for, you know, the mass desire to make

34:56

the change. It is a movement, no question

34:58

about that. Um. We

35:01

must say. The one part about the entire endeavor

35:03

that I really treasured was the emphasis

35:05

on nursing. And you you you recounted

35:08

this a little bit when you talked about the loss of your husband.

35:11

But the nurses have been disenfranchised

35:14

in the whole process, and they were originally

35:17

the caregivers. Now they're primarily

35:19

bookkeepers as we keep track

35:21

of all the things we've done to you, and less

35:23

and less are they the ones who actually communicate to the patients.

35:25

You know, we do surveys of folks who are in our hospital.

35:28

I met New York Presbyterian, which is one of the biggest hospitals

35:30

of the country, which been a lot of time collecting information

35:32

about what upsets people. So I'm upset about

35:35

the food, but guess what my patients

35:38

claim. They're upset about it, but they don't really expect

35:40

good food, right, But I'm upset about

35:42

the basic hospitality function the gowns.

35:44

Patients don't like what they have, but they

35:46

don't see there as their biggest obstacle. They're unaware

35:49

of the influence of those factors. But what they

35:51

do complain about all the time is

35:53

lack of information. They don't feel like

35:55

they know what's happening to them. And that's

35:58

actually gonna happen because we create a healing in environment

36:00

by changing the food and transport

36:03

and physical plant and a Roman

36:05

therapy and all the other things that might be part of this broader program,

36:08

but also placed nurses at the bedside where they

36:10

can provide that carrying a healing touch, which

36:12

is ultimately also about communicating

36:14

to folks, not Crown. I want to applaud you for all you've

36:16

done. It's uh, it's a wonderful has always

36:18

spend some time with you. I think the things you're

36:20

doing both in your in the design world, which

36:23

has been which has made you so successful, well known,

36:25

but especially now, um, the

36:27

wonderful job you're doing helping reform

36:30

medicine