Escaping the modern world and your noisy mind

How do you find the courage to leave the world you know and make your way to a completely different reality? This episode, TED speakers share ideas about escape and renewal. Guests include author Pico Iyer, NXIVM whistleblower Sarah Edmondson, captain and navigator Lehua Kamalu and TV producer and screenwriter Shonda Rhimes. TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at plus.npr.org/ted http://plus.npr.org/ted. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Planet Visionaries. Host Alex Honnold sits down this season with extraordinary doers creating real climate solutions. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:11Manoush Zomorodi?

  This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks. Our job now is to dream big. Delivered at TED conferences. To bring about the future we want to see. Around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  You just don't know what you're gonna find.

• 0:33Manoush Zomorodi?

  Challenge you.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy?

• 0:36Manoush Zomorodi?

  And even change you. I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading. From TED and NPR, I'm Manoush Zomorodi. Today on the show, great escapes.

• 0:54Speaker 03

  Many years ago, our family home in the hills of California burnt to the ground. I lost everything in the world. After the fire, I bought a toothbrush from an all-night supermarket, and that was the only thing I had.

• 1:08Manoush Zomorodi?

  This is bestselling author Pico Iyer. Back in 1990, he was a young writer when this fire took all of his possessions, including all the ideas he'd been compiling for new projects.

• 1:23Speaker 03

  I'd lost my next three books, which were in handwritten notes. So I was sort of back to zero.

• 1:29Manoush Zomorodi?

  For months, he camped out at a friend's house, sleeping on their floor, unsure what to do next.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  And another friend, who was a school teacher, came in, saw me there and said, "Come on, Pico, you can do better than this." And he told me how every spring, he took his students up to this choir retreat house four hours to the north. So I thought, well, if nothing else, I would have a bed to sleep in there, and a wide desk, and a private walled garden, looking over the Pacific Ocean, all the food I could eat, all, in those days, for $30 a night. So compared with sleeping on a friend's floor, it looked like a very attractive proposition.

• 2:08Manoush Zomorodi?

  Pico got into his car and drove north for several hours, up the coast to Big Sur and this monastery, which sits high on a hilltop, surrounded by acres of forest on one side and looking out over the Pacific Ocean on the other.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  And I do remember very vividly, the minute I got out of my car in this monastery, the silence was pulsing.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  It wasn't just an absence of noise. It was a kind of active presence, maybe of everything I sleepwalk past in my regular life.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  And I walked into this small but comfortable room, looking out on the Pacific, and instantly I felt I'd come home. This was the place I'd been looking for all my life, I felt.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  And so, in an odd way, I had been well-prepared for the monastery by being stripped of everything and even stripped of the way I define myself.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  If you think about losing everything in a forest fire, it sounds so terrifying. But in my case, for all the terrible losses, slowly, all kinds of doors opened and made possible things that might never have happened otherwise. It was like being given a fresh start and a chance to make my life up again from scratch with this tabula rasa and really to craft a life much closer to the life I'd always wanted to lead, a much simpler life, much less cluttered. And so, in certain ways, the fire actually saved me from myself and gave me the opportunity to start again.

• 3:52Manoush Zomorodi?

  How do people find the courage to leave the world they know and make their way to a completely different reality? On today's show, ideas about escape and renewal, stories about getting away from the modern world in search of peace of mind. Now, Pico Ayer is an acclaimed author who writes about his travels all over the world, from Japan to India, Iran to North Korea. And throughout the past 30 years, he has found himself returning to that same hermitage over and over again.

• 4:31Speaker 03

  Yes, more than a hundred times over thirty four years. I've driven four hours up from my mother's house to a Catholic hermitage, which is a surprise even to me because I'm not a Christian. But I have found that's really become my secret home over these many years. And the monks leave everybody free because they're confident that just in undistracted silence, you will find what you need most, whether you call it God or reality or your better self. You will find it.

• 5:07Manoush Zomorodi?

  In Pico's latest book, A Flame, he describes how his relationship with that undistracted silence has changed and morphed, how he's embraced it sometimes and wrestled with it at others.

• 5:21Speaker 03

  Yes, so when I first went there, I thought, this is heaven. Who wouldn't want to be alone for thirty dollars a night with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean and be so not a care in the world? And then soon after I began staying, suddenly a winter storm arrived and the rain pattered on my roof all night long and the aged heater groaned in the winter cold and the very foundations of the little trailer in which I was sitting seemed to be shaking. And I looked out and I couldn't see a single sign of human habitation. I was alone, it seemed, in nine hundred acres of remote wilderness, absolute mist. And it was terrifying. It felt like forty days and nights in the wilderness.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  And then the next morning, of course, the sun rose and everything was beautiful again. But it was a very tonic reminder. Thomas Merton, the monk, says that if you seek out contemplation in search of anything, you're sure not to find it. There are no guarantees. And a monk knows much better than I do, as does a nun, that, you know, half the days are stormy and overcast. And however bright the daytime is, night will fall in time. And of course, when you're by yourself, all of us know, dark things come out of yourself. You have to confront your shadow side as well as your affirmation.

• 6:45Manoush Zomorodi?

  I noticed that in the beginning of the book, there's, of course, the extraordinary view of the Pacific Ocean that looms and the way that every storm just seems to almost sort of take over your soul when you're in your little, I guess, little cottage, sheltering from the elements. And that when the sun does finally come out, it has a way of filling you up that just feels mystical. But as the book goes on, you quickly also get a lot of, I guess, comfort or creative solace from the rituals that are going on around you, from the monks and the way that they go about their day.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Yes. Initially, it was the nature that so moved and transported me. And in time, it became the people. So it is their rituals and the fact that they're maintaining a very rigorous and steady daily practice they gather in the chapel five times a day. And they derive great freedom from knowing that at any hour of the day, they know exactly what they have to do and where they have to be. So to us on the outside, it looks like a very confining thing, but they find liberation from the fact that they're freed from doubt. And having traveled so much for 51 years around the globe, I've always felt that

• 8:12Speaker 03

  when I think of escape, it's not so important where you're escaping to, but what you're escaping from. And famously, if an angry person goes to Tibet, he starts complaining about the altitude. In other words, he's gone to a beautiful place, but he hasn't escaped himself. And so the special beauty of this place is that I do feel my lesser, fretful self has been left behind. And suddenly, I can access some much deeper, quieter place inside me and also some much wider reality. I wake up to the world, I think. It's almost as if blinders come off and suddenly I'm not locked inside my thoughts,

• 8:54Speaker 03

  but I'm wide awake to the light on the ocean and the rabbit on my splintered fence and the bells tolling behind me down the road.

• 9:07Manoush Zomorodi?

  There's a line I underline where you say, "I'm glad to be away from the self I am when other people are around." And I think anyone living in our on-display world can really identify this idea of almost being sick of yourself. You know, "Here's what I'm doing. Here's why I'm winning. Here's why I'm so busy." And it's exhausting.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Exactly. I'm so happy you picked up on that line because that's probably the central line in the entire book. So it's not just the noise in the world I'm trying to get away from, but it's the chatter in my head. An escape from my social self, an escape from my chit-chat, from my anxious thoughts, from my idle meditations, from my busy plans. An escape from all the static in my head. And the small miracle of being there, to this day, 34 years later, is whenever I step into that room or even get out of my car, it feels as if little Pico and all his worries

• 10:17Speaker 03

  and ambitions and hopes are left down on the highway two miles below the hermitage. And I'm suddenly released to the world. It's as if I'm freed from my thoughts, which are usually the least interesting part of life, and liberated to this great radiant beauty all around me.

• 10:37Manoush Zomorodi?

  There are some people who might say what you're talking about is religion, that you can have this sacred space every week, depending on which religion you go to. There is a temple, a church for you. But we know that people are turning to religion less and less these days. I wonder how you see it on a daily basis, whether there is a way to find this comfort without having to leave your life, which many people can't do.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  Exactly, because so many people don't have the time or resources to go on retreat, let alone to go on retreat regularly as I do. But as you say, the beauty of silence is that to some degree it's available to everyone, wherever you are, and to some degree at any time. And I tell my friends, take a long hike every Sunday. Go and visit a friend without your cellphone, so that instantly you're in, I think, a much more intimate and undistracted place. Or maybe best of all, just sit quietly without your devices for 20 minutes every morning, setting a tone for the day. And that would represent probably only 3% of most people's waking hours, but it would

• 11:58Speaker 03

  completely transform the other 97%. And of course, I know many people have small children or a job that requires them to check in very, very early as soon as they wake up. But whoever you are, I think we can make space for those things in our daily life. And as you say, that's how we would encounter God or reality or some truth that otherwise eludes us far too much. I do feel that it's a universal medicine. Each of us may describe it differently and will find it in different ways, but it's something more and more essential as our world gets more and more fractured.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  And every now and then, I'll hear myself say, I don't have time to go on retreat. And if I hear myself say that, that means that's the time I really need it, because it's akin to my saying, I don't have time to take my medicine.

• 12:53Manoush Zomorodi?

  That was author Pico Iyer. His latest book is A Flame: Learning from Silence. You can see his many TED Talks at ted.com. On the show today, escape and renewal. I'm Manoush Zamirodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. We'll be right back.

• 13:24Speaker 00

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• 14:26Manoush Zomorodi?

  It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. On the show today, great escapes. So now we want to talk about when the search for peace of mind goes horribly wrong. And before we start, a warning. This story includes descriptions of physical and emotional abuse and mentions of sexual assault.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  I've always been a pretty outgoing person. I was very social. I loved summer camp. I loved groups. I loved being a part of things.

• 14:58Manoush Zomorodi?

  This is Sarah Edmondson.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  In 2005, I was kind of a stereotypical aspiring actress, also waitress. I think I was very optimistic, always a little bit of a, you know, a go-getter, hustler.

• 15:14Manoush Zomorodi?

  She was in her mid-20s, living in Vancouver.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  I had work. I technically was a working actress, but I felt like the things that I was doing weren't particularly meaningful. It was beer commercials and vampire TV shows. That's sort of like, that's a paycheck. And it didn't fill the void of like wanting to do something more impactful. So, you know, I was idealistic. I was raised by, you know, ex hippie parents who took me on peace rallies and really instilled in me that, you know, that you can leave the world a better place. And I just thought that I would do something, I guess, more impactful than what I was doing at the time.

• 15:48Manoush Zomorodi?

  I mean, I think you sound like a lot of 20 something people, right?

• 15:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, 100%. I have a lot of grace for myself now, but like 26, 27, it's like the end of childhood, the beginning of adulthood, a lot of responsibilities, trying to figure out who you are.

• 16:03Manoush Zomorodi?

  So Sarah was intrigued when a friend told her about a personal and professional development program run by a company called Nexium. Her friend said the methodology had helped him work through his problems and hangups far faster than years of talk therapy.

• 16:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. The way that he had pitched it to me was that it was a group of humanitarians that were changing the world and really starting with evolving ourselves. And he told me that it had really helped him overcome some phobias and fears. And I had enough self-awareness to know that I wasn't perfect, that I had things that I needed to work on. And so I thought this would be a great time to look at that stuff and work on my stuff.

• 16:52Manoush Zomorodi?

  With the hopes that this could get her out of her rut, Sarah decided to give the program a try and signed up for a five-day introductory course. On the first day, she learned that the methods had been developed by a man named Keith Raniere, who the coaches referred to as Vanguard.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  All the coaches and facilitators were talking about how Vanguard had created this curriculum, and he was one of the smartest men in the world. He's mega mensa, IQ of 240. He was supposed to be like a mathematician and a physics major and a science major and triple major from RPI with, you know, all these accolades. And he could put it towards anything, but he was choosing to put it towards helping people.

• 17:34Manoush Zomorodi?

  The instructors also promised she would understand herself and her values in new ways. Not that it would be easy.

• 17:40Speaker 04

  They started saying things like, you know, you're, we're here to grow. And when you're working on yourself, you're, you're going to feel uncomfortable. And if you, if you feel the urge to bolt, to leave, or to eat, or to smoke, or to flirt, like, those are things that are going to cover up the feelings that we want to dig in on. And you paid a lot of money, so why don't you stick it through?

• 18:01Manoush Zomorodi?

  Participants were also asked to wear sashes to indicate their rank as students.

• 18:06Speaker 04

  And if you felt uncomfortable with it, then the facilitator would say something like, it's totally normal, you know, if you feel uncomfortable, a lot of people who have authority issues, or who don't like being measured, which was me, like, I quit swim class because I didn't like all the testing and the, you know, getting to the next level, red, gold, silver, or whatever it was, back in the swim class days. And I was like, okay, it must be my authority issues.

• 18:29Manoush Zomorodi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  Right? This is no different than going to a dojo. And this is the karate system. This is our karate system.

• 18:35Manoush Zomorodi?

  Right, right.

• 18:36Speaker 04

  And definitely by the end of that five day, I was, like, I was in. I was, I felt so great. And I did think it was better than any other therapy or seminar, other things that I'd done that were similar. And I really did feel like if we could reach people who have the power, then we could actually change the world because we'd be compassionate to each other. We wouldn't hurt each other over petty things. I mean, that's a beautiful idea, I think. I still think that's a good idea. A personal and professional development program with a seemingly altruistic mission to change the world one person at a time.

• 19:12Manoush Zomorodi?

  Sarah Edmondson picks up her story from the TED stage.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  I truly found an incredible community of like-minded humanitarians, and a place where I could help people set and achieve goals and bust through their limiting beliefs. It was wonderful. I thought that I'd found the best club ever. My people, the chosen family, but more importantly, a place where I had community and belonging. Those were things I was looking for ever since I was a little girl. I rose up, the ranks, became one of the company's star recruiters. It was incredible.

• 19:49Manoush Zomorodi?

  You ended up staying part of this community. In fact, you became a key member of the community 12 years. Tell me about how you think of the halcyon days of Nexium.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  The beginning and middle were, you know, the heyday and it was, it was really fun. We had our goals labs, which is basically working through a particular goal in three month sections. So people would do things like write a script or run a marathon or lose 20 pounds or whatever it was. And we, we'd take people through that.

• 20:21Manoush Zomorodi?

  I mean, this just sounds like life coaching.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  Yes. Basically, I was, I was an untrained life coach and probably a pretty good life coach because I loved working with people. I loved helping people. I was very much in my element. And we were getting better at asking for what we wanted and our, you know, our self-esteem was being raised. We were making more money. It was all the things that a lot of these things out there promise on the outset.

• 20:51Manoush Zomorodi?

  At this point, thousands of people had gone through Nexium's personal growth courses all over North America. The company's main headquarters in Albany, where Keith Raniere lived with a group of trusted advisors, was churning out new curricula. Sarah, meanwhile, had fallen in love with a fellow coach. They'd gotten married, had a child, and her center in Vancouver was thriving.

• 21:17Manoush Zomorodi?

  So where's the problem? Tell us about when things started to go wrong.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, there were, there were so many red flags along the way that I just missed. But long and short of it is that I was invited to a women's group that was supposed to be a secret women's group of women who were going to take the tools and really commit. And, and I never would have signed up for it if I'd, if I'd known what it was.

• 21:42Manoush Zomorodi?

  The year was 2017, just as the Me Too movement was taking off. And the invitation was from Lauren Salzman, Sarah's best friend, her son's godmother, and the head of education at Nexium. Sarah would need to go through a kind of hazing process and make a vow of obedience to join.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  It's sort of like what I saw with fraternities and sororities when someone's making a pledge and they're like, you know, going around and being, fetching the remote for the person. It's sort of like, this is an exercise we're doing. And... Part of it was I was supposed to get a tattoo in a very special sacred ceremony with my quote unquote sisters.

• 22:20Manoush Zomorodi?

  Sarah flew to Albany for this special secret ceremony. And after a decade in a group abiding by these special rules and strict codes of conduct, she was willing to pretty much go along with whatever was required of her, including getting not a tattoo, but a brand on her body.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, it ended up being a brand. And it wasn't actually even the brand that that made me realize it was bad. It was realizing that the brand was Keith's initials and a monogram. And that had been kept from me. That information had been kept from me.

• 22:54Manoush Zomorodi?

  Back in Vancouver, she got a call from a friend who was also high up in the organization. He had decided to leave NXIVM.

• 23:02Speaker 04

  He had heard rumblings of these things. Basically, what had been happening over the 12 years that I'd been there is that Keith was very good at keeping people siloed. So nobody really knew what everybody else was dealing with or going on, what they were struggling with. And he had heard about that Keith was, had started a secret group for women and that sex was part of the assignments. I'd been given assignments. I had not been given that assignment yet. So I knew that, I knew that the women's group was true. I'd been branded. And he was now telling me about the sex part of it.

• 23:38Manoush Zomorodi?

  Do you remember that moment, I guess, of realization that the life you had was not what you thought it was and that it will, you needed to go?

• 23:49Speaker 04

  I will never forget the moment. I remember exactly where I was standing in my bedroom in Vancouver. And it was like my world got flipped upside down because I saw Keith Raniere is not the most noble humanitarian in the world. He is a cult leader and he's a sociopath. And then it's like all the other things that I'd seen. Made sense.

• 24:10Manoush Zomorodi?

  And this is where the story might start to sound familiar.

• 24:14Speaker 05

  The leader of an alleged sex cult has been arrested in Mexico.

• 24:17Speaker 06

  The FBI says that Keith Raniere tricked women, brainwashed them, and then forced them into sexual relationships.

• 24:24Manoush Zomorodi?

  Long story short, Keith Raniere had been running a cult. And this new women's group was his latest way to control the female acolytes who surrounded him.

• 24:33Speaker 04

  And, you know, I've since learned that the women's group that I had joined was a heightened version of how, basically, Keith was running his ship with his harem all the time. And I couldn't totally see everything fully at the time, but we started to piece together that this was sex trafficking. That's why he had this group of women. They weren't his assistants and helping him figure out the plans for world peace. It was, they were at his beck and call because they were in his harem. And basically, all of that information together helped both of us see pretty much what we ended up going to the FBI with, which is that he'd created a blackmail MLM scheme for sex.

• 25:18Speaker 05

  A self-described self-improvement guru is now sentenced to 120 years in prison.

• 25:23Manoush Zomorodi?

  As many of us heard all over the news, after Keith Raniere was captured by authorities in Mexico, the details of how he manipulated people to believe in him and follow his every instruction came out on the witness stand in a New York courtroom.

• 25:40Speaker 07

  Fifteen former NXIVM members delivered angry, emotional, and powerful victim impact statements before the sentencing.

• 25:46Speaker 04

  Keith planted the seeds for this to be OK and be normalized. And, I mean, I did have many thoughts in my head that kind of are leftover NXIVM questions, like, you know, what if I'm wrong? What if the branding is the thing that's supposed to help people, you know, overcome their biggest challenges? And I just, but it was like a fleeting thought. I was able to really, like, sort of get almost like a picture, like a rubber band, or just snap back to my former self. I was like, nope, there's no place in a personal and professional development program to get branded as part of your commitment to your growth. That's not me. This is me. And I'm leaving.

• 26:24Manoush Zomorodi?

  How did you do that, though? Because your entire adult self had been crafted by them the previous 12 years. What do you think made it possible for you to go to revert that quickly? Whereas there were some people closer to Keith Raniere who really, that took a long time for them.

• 26:43Speaker 04

  It took a long time. Well, some of them are even still there, by the way. Yep, they're still, probably about 15 to 20, we call them the loyalists, still dedicated. But I think that happened because I, even though I was very dedicated and I did make NXIVM over time, you know, my whole, my whole life in many ways, and stopped acting. I think because I still had a foot in reality, like I never moved to Albany, I never joined the harem, I never engaged with Keith in that way. So I was not fully hooked emotionally. And I, I think because of that, I had a place to go. Like, I think a lot of the people who, who joined and burnt all their bridges didn't have anywhere else to go. I had my family who, who were thrilled I was stopping NXIVM.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  And they were like, "Great, welcome back." And that's the thing that's so insidious about these groups is that with coercive control or undue influence, it happens slowly over time. And the more committed you are, the more you invest, the easier it is to ride the cognitive dissonance wave. Cults are everywhere, and they don't look like what you think anymore. Not talking about shaved heads and drinking goat's blood and some Stanley Kubrick horror movie, Eyes Wide Shut, masks and robes, no. Cults thrive by disguising themselves as something wonderful that appeals to your total, normal humanity, your desire for connection, meaning, and purpose.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  It might look like a hot yoga class, a course on leadership and communication, an incredible business opportunity to sell a life-changing product from the comfort of your own home. #FinancialFreedom, #BossBabe. I'm not condemning any one of these things, trust me. I just want you to see the precursors. I want you to be able to tell the difference between a healthy, human thing and something with a malignant endgame.

• 28:38Manoush Zomorodi?

  It's been a few years now, five, six years since Kies Ernie went to prison and your book came out and some documentaries. And you now talk a lot in your podcast and on the TED stage about that line, that line between community and feeling part of something and believing in something versus that line where it turns into something controlling and debilitating.

• 29:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, there always has to be good things on the outside. It's what's happening in the inner circle or at the core level that usually that's where the rotten toxicity is. And it never starts that way. People join, I've said this a million times, nobody joins a cult, they join something good. That's why it's so important to know the signs and red flags of cultic abuse, especially in this day and age. We've all had to become hip in regards to internet safety, catfishing and hacking. How about we learn some cult literacy? So I'm going to teach you a couple of red flags. And remember, not any one of these things in and of itself is the problem, it's the whole package. The first thing is, there's an assumption of your neediness.

• 29:51Speaker 04

  You're a broken bird, you're unwhole, and they have all the tools to make you whole again, that's very convenient. Secondly, it's expensive. And please know that it might cost you more than money, it could cost you in time and relationships. Also loaded language. If they're using pretentious terms to sound holier and smarter, run. And finally, if they're claiming to have the definitive answers to life's mysteries, big red flag. Ultimately, the best advice I have for you to avoid a culty nightmare is just remember that all of these programs and communities and tools and answers and all this stuff is just a tool, not an answer.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  Nobody has all the answers.

• 30:40Speaker 04

  I think people also have to know that any group can become culty. And it doesn't even have to even become a cult. It doesn't become culty. And that's, that's just as problematic. Is this thing that you are into, is it healthy for you? Can you leave the group? If you leave the group, are people still going to communicate with you? Or are they going to shun you? That's a real tell.

• 31:04Manoush Zomorodi?

  There's this great exchange in the book where your husband says, you know, now we can live a normal life. We can just go for hikes. We can take our kid to the park. We can be a family. That's all I want. It sounds like it was relatively easy for you. But I think for a lot of people, there's a hold that gets left. Who are they if they're not doing this activity? If they're not expressing these beliefs? How do you see people coming out on the other side and rebuilding a life?

• 31:35Speaker 04

  It's really hard and requires tremendous amount of work, which is hard because so many people get out of a cult or a group like this and they, A, lack resources. And then also being embarrassed because people are normally so ashamed that they've been duped or conned that they just want to run for the hills and never address it. And, you know, when you look at even the Me Too movement or why people join cults, it's not like, oh, you're vulnerable. You're weak. It's like, no, we all have vulnerabilities. It's like situational susceptibility. So maybe you're moving to a new town and you don't know anybody or you're after a divorce and you're feeling particularly low and looking for comfort. And it's very normal. It's very human because people tend to say weak.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  I don't think it's weak, but vulnerable is a normal human thing.

• 32:23Manoush Zomorodi?

  That was Sarah Edmondson. She's the host of the podcast A Little Bit Culty. Her book is called Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, The Cult That Bound My Life. You can see her full talk at ted.com. On the show today, great escapes. I'm Manoush Zamirodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. We'll be right back.

• 32:59Speaker 00

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• 33:45Speaker 00

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• 34:02Manoush Zomorodi?

  It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. On the show today, great escapes and searching for renewal. Our next guest is a wayfinder. She escapes the modern world by going back to the old methods of traditional Hawaiian voyaging canoes. On these trips, if it's a clear night, she'll often find herself gazing at the sky where it meets the Pacific.

• 34:32Speaker 08

  So I'll probably be awake around 2:00 AM, trying to see the changes in the color of the sky. I'm trying to get a good idea of what we're going to see as the sun starts to come up.

• 34:45Manoush Zomorodi?

  This is Lehua Kamalu. She is a third-generation captain and navigator.

• 34:51Speaker 08

  The stars are all very incredibly important and useful in keeping a very accurate course line, but I'm about to go into the daytime. And so I really want to see what this day is going to look like, and I want to see the moment that sun comes out of the water. And so as a navigator, I'm going to be awake for that sunrise, and I'm going to see sort of all the changes as the night turns into day.

• 35:17Manoush Zomorodi?

  Lehua has captained voyages all over the Pacific, from Hawaii to San Francisco and Tahiti. She and her crew follow strict rules. They don't use GPS or compasses or any modern navigational tools.

• 35:33Speaker 08

  When we talk about navigating these canoes, some people will call it celestial navigation. I try not to, only because I think that really only acknowledges what's in the heavens and what's in the sky. And you'll find that a critical element of navigating by nature is looking down to what's in the ocean and understanding the wave patterns and understanding the wind that's right in front of you that you can feel physically on your skin and, you know, blowing your hair. And I'm just asking myself so many questions about what's going on around me, not just on where the things in the sky are, but which way are the waves coming from? And let me try and understand, okay, what does that mean? Does that mean we're still on course?

• 36:17Speaker 08

  Do I need to make an adjustment towards the wind or away from it?

• 36:21Manoush Zomorodi?

  It wasn't until the 1970s, when the Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded, that sailors started using these traditional methods again. Hundreds of years ago, this was how Lehua's ancestors crossed the ocean.

• 36:36Speaker 08

  Hawaii is traced back through the migration route to Tahiti in French Polynesia. It's over 2,000 miles to the south. And the idea that we are so deeply connected to a place so physically far away, to the point where we can understand each other in the languages we speak, is pretty astonishing. And so, we start to learn this, I would say, as early as, you know, six, seven, eight years old. We get to go visit the canoe itself. And this canoe is called Hokulea that I'm referencing. And it was the first to be built in centuries here in Hawaii. And it was launched in 1975 as something that demonstrated both the ability and the

• 37:17Speaker 08

  genius to construct a vessel that could sail the ocean and the very, you know, high seas.

• 37:25Speaker 08

  As well as the skill of the people who would have been sailing these canoes, you know, 500, 1,000 years ago to actually intentionally find their way across those 2,000 miles.

• 37:38Manoush Zomorodi?

  Can you describe what Hokule looks like? I mean, we keep using the word canoe, but if you see a picture of it, this is not like, you know, a little fiberglass canoe that we would put in the canal near where I live.

• 37:52Speaker 08

  Absolutely. What we have are, you know, the, basically the ancestor of the modern catamaran, when you, when you see these canoes. So the very large Hokule itself is 62 feet long and it's about 21 feet wide. And it is a double masted canoe. And so it has a forward and an aft mast and it is, it is sail powered.

• 38:15Manoush Zomorodi?

  How many people can fit on it?

• 38:16Speaker 08

  Usually a long voyage will have about 10 to 12 people, I'd say comfortably, as comfortable as it gets when you're on a, on a deck, on a platform, out in the middle of the ocean in the, in the sun and the rain. It is very exposed, living for what can be up to, you know, four weeks usually at the longest between islands, between landfalls.

• 38:40Manoush Zomorodi?

  How scary does it get out there? Like, do the waves get really big or do you get blown off course?

• 38:47Speaker 08

  Absolutely. And so as a captain or a navigator, you really need to be sensitive to what your, what your canoe can handle. What is too much? What is too rough? When do we need to make adjustments? And by really understanding every piece and part of it, you know what's going on. You know also how to fix it when it breaks out there. So we have a lot of safety gear that we take with us these days. Everyone is wearing life jackets in the event that you do end up in the water. This is very real concern for us on these canoes that have very low decks to the water and very little that keeps you connected to the canoe itself. And everyone is effectively in a state of, I might be in the ocean in the next wave.

• 39:30Speaker 08

  So you're absolutely holding on for dear life so that you stay connected to the canoe, but you also are staying focused on sailing good.

• 39:38Manoush Zomorodi?

  Are you wet the whole time, pretty much?

• 39:40Speaker 08

  You can be. Creature comforts are usually secondary to the function of the vessel. And you really have to be ready to be uncomfortable the entire time. Uncomfortable is your new normal. And I actually really think that is not a bad thing about sailing. I think forcing you to be in the temperature of the wind that's out there, to feel the actual temperature of the ocean. We don't have running water out there. You know, everything is done with buckets through the ocean. You shower with the ocean. We wash the canoe with the ocean water. The first few days, arguably even a week out on the ocean, are not what I would call pleasant.

• 40:24Speaker 08

  It is a very, I think, physically challenging experience. And for me, it feels like the time that my crew are actually the quietest because we're each going through the steps of, why did I do this? Why did I choose to come out here? And I would say certainly by day five, six, seven, maybe, everyone's really embraced this as, you know, this is actually just a different way of going day by day. And it's not what I'm used to, but it's definitely putting me in a very different, I would say, spiritual and psychological space. And you just start thinking differently. And we sort of say, you know, you're now in this zone. You're in the ocean space now. And you can't get away from it. There's no bunk downstairs where you're going to hide away.

• 41:08Speaker 08

  You're on deck, you're out in the elements, and there's not much that's going to remove you from that until we get to our destination.

• 41:15Manoush Zomorodi?

  I mean, having escaped the sort of day to day of your life and you're out there relying on your senses, can you just describe what that feels like?

• 41:28Speaker 08

  Yes. I do not think I am the same person on the ocean that I am on land at all. And what happens when you step on board and you say, okay, here's what we're doing. We're navigating. We're going to be completely, you know, looking at nature. We are completely in it. At no point while we sail from one island to the next am I worried about what I was worried about the day before we left. It is almost like a switch. And escape is a good word for it. I like to think it's a re-immersion. It's actually a return. It's a return to something we have maybe not intended to escape from,

• 42:10Speaker 08

  but because of the way that we all live on this planet and the way that, you know, the course of humans have evolved our daily lives. We are very protected and sometimes removed from a space that I think gives us incredible peace and incredible introspection and reverence. And everything that you do is up to you out there, you know? There's no one here to dictate how you need to respond to, you know, the winds or the squall that's coming in.

• 42:44Speaker 08

  I consider it an escape because I think it takes you away from what we may see as the only way to live our lives and the only way to think about how we are traveling on this beautiful planet. And allows you a space and a time, even if it's just for a few days or a few weeks, to see yourself in a different light, to see yourself in a different environment where your focus is so completely removed from the daily grind, if you will.

• 43:16Manoush Zomorodi?

  That's Hokulea captain and navigator Lehua Kamalu. You can learn more about her journeys at ted.com.

• 43:27Manoush Zomorodi?

  To close our episode about escape and renewal, we want to share one of my favorite TED Talks ever. It's from Shonda Rhimes, the creator of TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder. Shonda loves to work. But about a decade ago, she developed a classic case of burnout. So she went on a quest to get back her mojo, or what she calls her hum. She named her plan A Year of Yes. Here's Shonda Rhimes on the TED stage in 2016.

• 44:04Speaker 09

  I love working. It is creative and mechanical and exhausting and exhilarating and hilarious and disturbing and clinical and maternal and cruel and judicious. And what makes it all so good is the hum. There is some kind of shift inside me when the work gets good. A hum begins in my brain, and it grows, and it grows, and that hum sounds like the open road, and I could drive it forever. The hum is more than writing. The hum is action and activity. The hum is a drug. The hum is music. The hum is light and air. The hum is God's whisper right in my ear. And when you have a hum like that, you can't help but strive for greatness at any cost. That's called the hum.

• 44:47Speaker 09

  Or, maybe it's called being a workaholic. Maybe it's called genius. But here's the thing. The more successful I become, the more shows, the more episodes, the more barriers broken, the more work there is to do. And then the hum stopped. Overworked, overused, overdone, burned out, the hum stopped. Now, my three daughters are used to the truth that their mother is a single working titan. Harper tells people, "My mom won't be there, but you can text my nanny." And Emerson says, "Honey, I'm wanting to go to Shondaland." They're children of a titan. They're baby titans.

• 45:31Speaker 09

  They were 12, 3, and 1 when the hum stopped. The hum of the engine died. I stopped loving work. I couldn't restart the engine. The hum would not come back. My hum was broken. Now, I know somebody's out there thinking, "Cry me a river, stupid writer titan lady." But you know, you do. If you make, if you work, if you love what you do, being a teacher, being a banker, being a mother, being a painter, being Bill Gates, if you simply love another person, if that gives you the hum, if you have been to the hum, when the hum stops, who are you? What are you?

• 46:12Speaker 09

  And then my southern waitress toddler asks me a question. I'm on my way out the door, I'm late, and she says, "Mama, wanna play?" And I'm just about to say no when I realize two things. One, I'm supposed to say yes to everything. And two, my southern waitress didn't call me honey. She's not calling everyone honey anymore. When did that happen? I'm missing it, being a titan and mourning my hum, and here she is changing right before my eyes. And so she says, "Mama, wanna play?" And I say yes. There's nothing special about it. We play.

• 46:52Speaker 09

  And we're joined by her sisters, and there's a lot of laughing, and I give a dramatic reading from the book, "Everybody Poops." Nothing out of the ordinary. And yet, it is extraordinary, because in my pain and my panic, in the homelessness of my humlessness, I have nothing to do but pay attention. I focus. I am still. The nation I'm building, the marathon I'm running, the troops, the canvas, the high note, does not exist. All that exists are sticky fingers, and gooey kisses, and tiny voices, and crayons, and that song about letting go of whatever it is that frozen girl needs to let go of.

• 47:33Speaker 09

  It's all peace and simplicity. The air is so rare in this place for me that I can barely breathe. I can barely believe I'm breathing. Play is the opposite of work. And I am happy. And a rush of energy comes, and it's not instantaneous, but it happens. It does happen. I feel it. A hum creeps back. Not at full volume, barely there. It's quiet, and I have to stay very still to hear it, but it is there. Not the hum, but a hum. And now I feel like I know a very magical secret. It's just love. We could all use a little more love, a lot more love.

• 48:18Speaker 09

  Anytime my child asks me to play, I will say yes. I make it a firm rule for one reason, to give myself permission to free me from all of my workaholic guilt. It's a law, so I don't have a choice. And I don't have a choice, not if I want to feel the hum. I wish it were that easy, but I'm not good at playing. I don't like it. I'm not interested in doing it the way I am interested in doing work. I like working more than I like being at home. Facing that fact is incredibly difficult to handle. What kind of person likes working more than being at home?

• 49:02Speaker 09

  I mean, let's be honest. I call myself a titan. I've got issues. And one of those issues isn't that I am too relaxed. We run around the yard, up and back, and up and back. We have 30-second dance parties. We sing show tunes. We play with balls. I blow bubbles, and they pop them. And I feel stiff and delirious and confused most of the time. I itch for my cellphone always. But it is OK. My tiny humans show me how to live, and the hum of the universe fills me up. The other hum, the real hum, life's hum. The more I feel that hum,

• 49:47Speaker 09

  the more this strange, quivering, uncocooned, awkward, brand-new, alive, non-titan feels like me. The more I feel that hum, the more I know who I am. I'm a writer. I make stuff up. I imagine. That part of the job, that's living the dream. That's the dream of the job. Because a dream job should be a little bit dreaming. I said yes to less work and more play. Titans need not apply. Want to play? Thank you.

• 50:21Manoush Zomorodi?

  That was Shonda Rhimes. Her book is called Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person. You can watch her full talk at ted.com. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you are thinking about supporting public radio, I think today is the day. When you become a TED Radio Hour Plus listener, you support this show and you can hear the latest Plus episode. It is my conversation about how to avoid small talk with the hilarious and extremely emotionally intelligent comedian, Chris Duffy. There was a little hiccup with Plus episodes recently, but this one is

• 51:01Manoush Zomorodi?

  all new, and Chris is awesome. Just go to plus.npr.org/ted. And thank you so much to anyone who already is a Plus subscriber. This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner-White, Katie Monteleone, Harsha Nahada, and Matthew Cloutier. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkempur and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes James Delahoussaye and Fiona Guerin. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineers were Jimmy Keely, Neil Rouch, Gilly Moon, and Zoe Vangenhoven. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxane Hylash, Alejandra Salazar, and Daniela

• 51:44Manoush Zomorodi?

  Balarezzo. I'm Manoush Zamirodi, and you have been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.