How To Move Beyond Fear - With Karen Palmer

Palma interviews Karen Palmer, an award-winning international AI artist, and TED speaker. In this episode, she shares with us how she found her purpose, her experience with fear, and how to use it as a motivational tool as well as how to consciously work through our implicit biases. If you are ready to find your purpose, but often feel like fear stops you, then don’t miss out on this episode.

Transcript

Welcome to the Explorers Mind podcast,

Where we will inspire and empower you through conscious conversations with explorers of the inner and outer worlds that have ventured into uncharted territory,

Pursued bold challenges,

Found their purpose,

And expanded their consciousness.

We will journey through the insights and experiences of adventurers,

Scientists,

Conscious leaders,

Founders,

Activists,

And artists,

And provide you with the practical tools you need to get out of your comfort zone,

Expand your mind,

Find deep fulfillment,

And create an inspiring vision for your life.

It's time to find your inspiration and open up new possibilities for a meaningful life with your host,

Alma Michel.

Welcome to the Explorers Mind.

Today's guest is Karen Palmer,

The storyteller from the future.

Karen is an award-winning international artist and text speaker.

She creates immersive film experiences that combine the genres of film,

AI,

Technology,

Gaming,

Neuroscience,

Consciousness,

Implicit bias,

Behavioral psychology,

And the parkour philosophy of moving through fear.

Karen is committed to democratizing AI and highlighting the necessity to do so.

Her groundbreaking work has been exhibited all around the world,

Including the V&A Museum in London,

The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York.

Karen's projects have been featured in Forbes,

The Guardian,

Wired Magazine,

And the New York Times.

When I think about Karen,

I always think about her ability to push the boundaries of what's possible,

Her extraordinary amount of energy,

Infectious enthusiasm,

And drive.

Karen,

Welcome to the show.

It's so great to have you here today.

Oh,

Thank you so much for inviting me,

Palmer.

It's an honor.

Thank you.

Well,

We've known each other now for many years.

Time is really flying.

I think it was 2014 when we met.

Wow.

And at the time,

You were in some ways still at the beginning of your artist's journey.

And it was really cool for me to observe your journey over all those years and also to collaborate with you on some projects as well.

What I'm curious to hear for our listeners is nowadays you are the storyteller from the future,

But you've not always been the storyteller from the future.

There was a life before and after.

So couldn't you tell us what you were doing before you became the storyteller from the future?

I think you were in the music industry and what made you shift?

So before I remembered that I was a storyteller from the future is that I used to have a previous life about a decade ago,

Working in the music industry,

Starting life out as a photographer and creative director,

And then moving into directing music videos and TV commercials,

Particularly in urban music.

And I was really,

I got to the point about 15 years ago where I was very,

I was fairly successful in terms of like traditionally looking from the outside.

Like I had a really nice cool BMW convertible.

I was like living a cool life.

However,

I didn't feel like satisfied within my core of my being.

And I felt that I had a talent,

Which I worked very hard to develop.

And I felt that there was the potential of that to have even more impact and influence on people.

And using that in the skill in the service of just selling or marketing or promoting things to people was not what I should be doing with it.

It had kind of like a different purpose,

A higher calling in a way.

And I wanted to discover what that was,

Which is kind of challenging when you're from the outside,

There looks like you're doing quite cool.

You're doing quite well.

So for me to,

I was struggled with that for a few years in terms of,

You know,

Maybe I should just stay where I am,

But I couldn't really ignore that voice within.

And also I had other interests and passions outside of music.

So I was very much into health,

Wellbeing,

Meditations like parkour.

And my other practices enabled me to go deeper within.

So as I went deeper within,

I was like,

Like parkour taught me how to know myself,

Master myself to an extent to move through fear.

So if you're doing jumps a few times a week,

That if you were to fall and maybe break both your legs and be paralyzed,

But you make the jump because you're doing it,

You're not doing it kamikaze,

You're doing it disciplined and focused.

If you're doing things like that and you don't fall and break your legs,

You start to ask yourself,

Well,

I'm starting to master and understand my fear.

What would be the worst thing that could happen if the wall is like my job?

Like I take a leap of faith,

You know,

I didn't fall and break my legs.

Maybe I won't fall and be homeless.

Say,

You know,

People trying to make a big life decision,

They kind of think the worst,

Oh,

If I make that leap,

Oh,

I won't be able to live.

I won't be able to eat.

I won't be able to get a house,

But having kind of learned to move through fear through parkour and be calm within my mind through meditation,

It prepared me to take the leap within my life beyond the yoga mat or beyond the meditation hall or beyond a training session at nighttime.

And that's why it's called a practice.

You know,

Literally changed you from the inside out.

Yeah,

Exactly.

You're practicing to live something in your life,

Not just to do something a Monday night,

Like seven to 9 PM,

It's developing your being,

Your,

Your resolve,

Your spirit.

And so through those passions,

I was able to find the courage to move through fear,

To take a leap of faith and leave my job in the music industry,

Which started more on a path for a long time of many challenges.

I went from having a really cool BMW convertible and,

You know,

Shopping at Waitrose and Marks and Spencers to buying a bicycle and looking at as,

As the,

Not even as the special,

But just basic as though,

And it's good because it teaches you humility and priorities,

But I was in that zone for quite a while because as soon after leaving my job in 2000 and something,

The last recession hit.

So it was a lot more bumpy than I thought.

So it's taken me,

I would say from that point,

Like 15 years to get to where I,

I would say I've gone,

I've well exceeded where I would have hoped to have been at this point in my life.

I think it's really cool that you're sharing this because many people,

They always only see the success that someone is having,

But they also forget that there was almost always like a long period where someone really trusted in themselves and did it anyway,

Even when there was some hardship or the success wasn't there yet.

What do you think enabled you to believe in yourself through those more difficult times?

Wow,

What a good question.

I always,

I'm,

I'm like an artist and I believed in my art and I believe that I had a story to tell and a purpose.

So it wasn't just about,

Hey,

I'm going to get another car because I haven't got a car since it's about,

I had,

I was in service or something.

I felt bigger than myself and I had something I needed to do.

So I had no doubts that,

But I did have doubts,

But I still kept focused in terms of I'm going to keep going because I believe there's something there.

So to answer your question,

I think I did a lot of things,

Which I'm probably not even totally can even remember.

So I,

I started to edit my life to become the person I wanted to be.

So I would not,

I stopped listening to music.

I still don't listen to music,

But I would listen to motivational tapes every morning for 15,

20 minutes while I would get dressed for a decade,

You know?

And so it's,

And then there was certain practices,

Which I started to utilize as well.

And I start like visualization techniques,

Mood boards,

Imagining the person that I was going to become.

And how does that person think?

How does that person dress?

How does that person respond and actively and very consciously becoming this new person?

So it wasn't that it was,

Oh,

I had this dream and then it was like,

I created the discipline and the practice to systematically become the person that I wanted to be.

So I would say the structure and the system I created combined with my belief,

Even like I,

The person I expected myself to be,

Did not have the friends that I had at that time.

So I had to just,

I didn't have a choice,

But to lose a lot of those friends.

So there's a,

I was very selective with the people around me.

So,

You know,

Before people would be like,

Oh,

Why would you leave your job?

So those people,

When I'm no longer listening to their doubts,

I'm cultivating new thoughts in my brain.

So it's a conscious process that I undertook very deliberately and committed to,

To get where I want to be.

And I continue that in different forms.

It's interesting that you're sharing that I always had the impression with your creative projects that you pick challenges that were bigger than yourself,

Where you sometimes had no idea how to actually deliver them,

But almost as if you had to grow into those projects.

Is that a fair observation?

That's interesting.

Okay.

That's an interesting observation.

I'm going to answer it through like a little insight to what I did my first project that really started to launch my career 2014 was I believe sync self.

And that was a project about moving through fear.

I'd made projects before.

And I,

You know,

I was kind of developed this career for like a decade as an independent artist,

But the sync self was like a turning point.

So that project was about moving through fear.

And a lot of very challenging things happened at the very beginning of that process.

Like I wrote relationship with my technologies I've been working for years broke down.

I lost the funding I was supposed to have,

But I had still had the opportunity to have an exhibition at the V&A.

So I was like,

It's going to happen.

Everything fell down at the beginning,

But I was like,

It's going to happen.

I'm going to have an exhibition of it.

It's going to be amazing.

And I said,

This is a project about moving through fear.

So I have to move through fear in the manifestation of making the project that way.

It will resonate with people.

I can't make a project about moving through fear and I'm scared.

I'm not saying I'm scared,

But I don't move through fear while I make it.

It just the fabric of the work will not resonate with people.

The process of that I need to go through to put into the work,

Because I feel anything that people create,

Particularly creative people is a reflection of who they are and what they think and where their mind and spirit is at.

So I have to kind of embody what the story I'm trying to tell as I'm manifesting it so that it can connect with people.

So in that every day,

I remember calling my parents and saying,

And every day I had to believe and every day would call my parents and go,

I cannot believe this amazing thing happened today.

And I'd be like,

I remember what I had to call.

I lost my technologist and I contacted everybody.

I knew,

Can you recommend a technologist?

And the friend of a friend of a friend said,

I've got someone for you.

And I went to call the guy and I didn't have credit.

I had enough credit for like maybe 15 minutes on my phone.

I was so broke.

And I was like,

I'm going to call the guy.

It's going to be fine.

I remember back to call him going,

Oh my God,

I hope it doesn't run out.

It's going to be so embarrassing.

And I was like,

Just call the guy,

Just call the guy.

And then I called the guys on the phone to him with an hour.

And at the end,

I was like,

What do you think?

And he goes,

Listen,

You haven't got enough money to afford me,

But I really like your projects.

I'm going to do it for free.

Amazing.

And he was like,

I'm like 50 pounds an hour and this project is going to take months.

And I was like,

Oh my God,

Really?

And he goes,

Yeah.

And I came off the phone and like the phone was exact same credit because he was on the same network as me.

So it was free.

And I was like,

Oh my God,

I still have credit.

And the guys will do it for free.

But when I got on the phone,

I was like,

I believe this is going to be good.

Every time I go on a call or a meeting,

Anything ever,

I always say,

This is going to exceed my expectations.

That's how I walk into a meeting.

This is going to exceed my expectations.

And even one time I was in a meeting with somebody and it was a crucial meeting in my career and it started to go very bad.

And I said,

This doesn't happen to me.

It exceeds my expectations.

So I started talking to him and break.

He was saying it's impossible.

And I was like,

Well,

Why is it impossible?

And he goes,

This,

I said,

Well,

What about if we do this,

This,

This,

This,

This.

And he goes,

Oh yeah,

Then it might be possible.

And I came out of the conversation.

He was like,

Yeah,

I'm not going to accept no,

Because that's not how I flow,

You know?

So I always go in the expectation.

And if I met with challenges,

Which often can happen,

I just have this resolve and this logical mindset and good vibes that,

Okay,

Let's identify the issue specifically,

You know,

Because often people say,

No,

It's a blanket.

No,

But it's probably because of one or two specific chinks in the chain.

So let's not look at the whole picture.

Let's look at the chinks and let's see how we can be solution orientated.

So yeah,

I have a big positive vibe and then I have a logical that I apply like surgery to make things happen.

Very cool.

You spoke about moving through fear inspired by parkour and that's also fear has also been the topic in many of your projects.

What have you learned about fear or mastering and overcoming fears throughout these years?

I have learned a lot about fear.

I would say,

And I'm sure I have a lot more to learn and every day I'm going to learn something new.

It's not something that you've like,

Oh,

I've learned.

It's like the more,

You know,

The more you've realized you don't know.

Right.

So what I have learned is so far that I feel that fear is one of the most dominant emotions in the world and it is one of the most dominant motivational emotions.

So people often talk about things like empathy and that,

And I just feel personally,

I'm not like an empathy person in terms of my belief.

I feel that the most dominant emotion that can impact you is fear.

Lots of people might not leave the job because they're scared.

They may not be happy in it because they're scared of what might happen.

They might not talk to someone a potential part because they're scared of rejection.

I feel at the moment in the world we're living that fear is actually being weaponized and it's influencing people's behavior.

And love is also a very powerful emotion,

But fear is one which I am seeing exhibited a lot of,

And also fear is almost imaginary.

It doesn't exist because most of the times you proceed something relating to fear with the word,

If so,

You know,

If the second wave comes back,

Or if I jump,

I jump.

And I land on the railing,

I'll break my leg.

Or if I leave my job and I can't get another job,

I could become homeless.

It's this very abstract concept that's holding people back.

And a lot of the time those things don't happen if you're methodical and clear and committed and focused and believe.

I also,

My,

My,

What I've learned about fear is that if I can learn to understand how I react and respond to fear and I can learn to master that,

Then I am empowered.

So I learned through parkour that I get very paralyzed when I'm faced with a major challenge,

Which is very scary.

But then I learned to understand how to move through that being paralyzed and navigate through to the other side,

Because you got to learn how to move through fear.

You can't let fear stop.

You can't say every time fear comes to you,

Cause that's the end.

It probably just means that it's something new and different,

Unless you're doing something really crazy,

You know,

That it's something new and different,

Which means maybe you should go in that direction and you need to come out the other side to have a new insight on yourself and the world.

So fear is something that used to be hacked.

You need to understand that you need to work with it.

We did a event together before it's really the most dangerous pandemic.

And some of the amazing panelists on there like Emily Blaketz who are behavioral psychologists were saying,

Fear is a motivational tool.

That's all it is.

You decide how you channel it.

And Daniel from the military,

A Lieutenant Colonel said,

Well,

Fear is like,

Should be a passenger.

If you get in the car,

You say,

Fear get in the car,

Get in the passenger seat,

Let's go.

It's not supposed to be the driver.

It's the passenger.

And I feel fear is like a friend that when it comes to you,

It's not like it's not going to come.

It's like,

You again.

Okay,

Come,

Come.

Let's,

Let's have a chat.

Exactly.

I think that's the most powerful thing.

If you can look at fear or any trigger literally and say like,

Oh,

You again,

What message is in here?

What is it that I still need to learn?

Look into deeper,

Discover about myself.

And even with fear,

You mentioned love and fear and I always fear when someone has fear,

There's also like an element of love or care underneath,

Like something that someone cares about so much that they're afraid of losing in some ways.

So they seem to be quite deeply related for me as well.

Now moving from your own personal experience around fear,

I'd love to hear a little bit more about your literally mind blowing projects and how these projects actually also helping people to come to terms with their fear and even reprogram their minds for different behaviors in the future.

Thank you for your generous compliment there.

Okay,

So I was working on like multimedia,

Interactive,

Immersive work for a decade.

And in 2014,

I started to work very much really seriously with technology.

And the three major projects are the riot project,

Which I created in 2016.

And that uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition.

And it's a film that watches you back.

And it makes you conscious of your subconscious behavior through a branching narrative that branches in real time,

Depending on your emotional response.

So if you respond to the film with calm,

It branches in one direction,

If it was responded with fear,

It branches in another.

This was inspired because when I used to make music videos,

I was very aware of how it's a linear film could impress imprint a message or an identity onto people.

And I saw media as it should be a loop back to kind of give you an indication of your emotional state of mind.

So it's not projecting onto you.

It's a reflection of you,

So that you can use these visual realities to reprogram your mind subconsciously.

So what I mean by that is a lot of what we know as our personal reality,

Personality or personal reality is kind of constructed from our childhood and our experiences in life.

So it's kind of in a way operating system that has been programmed through our experiences.

And some things are really locked in there.

And we,

And maybe they're redundant.

Maybe they don't need to be there any longer.

They've out serve their purpose,

But we were not really that objective to it.

We just,

We just are feel that's us.

We can't change.

So what happens is that you watch this film is right.

And you respond to a character with fear,

And then you have a reaction of fear in the narrative.

So that if you don't want that reaction of anger,

Like somebody maybe arresting you,

If it was a riot cop,

But you could go into the experience again and learn to change your emotional reaction,

Which in turn would actually start to fire different neurological pathways in your brain.

So I'll give you one example of this.

I was showing the experience in New York,

Part of armory arts week in 2017,

I believe.

And a lady came into the experience and she only passed the first level in which she got fear.

Cause there's four levels.

And if you get calm,

You progress the next level.

And if you get anger or fear,

Your narrative comes to an end because I feel that's a little bit what happens in life.

Your narrative ends prematurely,

Right?

Sometimes.

So I said to her,

First of all,

Is that accurate?

Did you feel fearful?

She said,

Yes,

I actually felt like when you're watching a wildlife program and creatures under attack by a predator,

I was like making myself smaller.

I said,

Wow,

That's really deep.

Would you like to have another go?

I said,

Because you can learn how to reprogram your brain.

She said,

I want to reprogram my brain,

But I don't want another go.

I said,

Well,

It's really deep.

Like why do you want to reprogram your brain?

Are you weird like me?

And she said,

Well,

I'll tell you why,

I'll never see you again.

I'm in AA,

Alcoholics Anonymous,

And I'm looking at what's triggering my addictions.

I was like,

Whoa,

That's so deep.

And I was like,

Okay,

Let's have another go.

So she did another go.

And this time she got calm in the second,

First level.

And that she couldn't maintain it to the second level.

She got fear again.

And I said to her,

Did you feel different?

She said,

Yeah,

Because I was conscious of making myself smaller because we did this emotional decompression.

She said,

I was able to push past making myself smaller,

But I couldn't maintain it.

I said,

Now you've become conscious of it.

Is it something you feel you could activate in your daily life?

And she said,

She felt she could.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Let's talk a bit more about Riot also,

Because this project is immensely timely in the context of what's happening right now.

And as a storyteller from the future,

You obviously created it four years ago and not right now,

But it also talks quite a bit or involves implicit bias and racism as well and the different reactions.

Martin Luther King said,

A riot is the voice of the unheard.

And in 2014,

There was the Ferguson riots.

And even though I'm not in America as a black woman,

It really affected me.

So Riot was my response to that.

I wanted to create an experience that put people in the middle of a riot environment to see how they would respond viscerally as a human being,

Not how the media was kind of representing it.

I also felt that at that time,

This kind of global sense of unrest was going to expand in terms of the social justice that was happening,

Whether it's Bulgaria,

Venezuela,

Then went on to Hong Kong,

You know,

There's all over the world,

This kind of people rising up.

So that was a very important narrative for me to give a voice to.

It was like,

For me,

I felt an unheard voice that particularly in the arts and storytelling,

I would say now maybe a bit more,

But particularly with the times that I've been in it,

It's not like a place where there's lots of people of color or black people.

It's not really,

And if it is,

It's a certain type of story often,

Not all the time.

So I felt this huge responsibility to amplify what I was seeing and feeling of my people and also other economically disadvantaged people throughout the world.

In terms of bias,

I then went on to make another piece called Perception I O,

Which is the future of law enforcement.

That project I did in 2019 is currently being exhibited at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum to empty museum.

And that is a project which indicates the other side,

Not of the person in the riot,

But this is the future of law enforcement.

And this is very much about making you aware of your own implicit bias in particular.

Riot was looking at your subconscious,

Making you aware of your subconscious,

Where Perception I O is making you aware of your implicit bias.

So what I do with Perception I O is that you sit in front of a screen again,

And it's watching you back,

Your facial emotions,

Also your eye tracking,

Which is soon to be finished.

And you are the cop and it's from the perspective of your body cam.

And you come into contact with two separate people in two separate narratives,

A black man and a white man.

And they could be mental health or they could be criminals.

You don't know.

But how you respond to them as they're communicating with you will determine the narrative.

So if you become agitated or threatened by the black man,

Maybe you arrest him or you may shoot him or the white man,

You may arrest him and shoot him.

And you find that afterwards at the end,

If they were criminals or if they separately or if they were mental health.

It also says at the end of the experience that you are training artificial intelligence dataset.

So it's saying thank you for training the system because I believe that the future of law enforcement and much of it is going to be automated and robotic.

And people have this confidence in computers,

But computers are trained by people.

So the same implicit bias and racism that exists in a human,

They're going to programme into machines and artificial intelligence.

I have listened to some of your past talks as well around that topic.

There are already examples of that in place,

Right?

Yes.

So there's a system,

For example,

Called the compass system,

Which in America is an artificial intelligence system,

Which supports a judge in determining the length of a criminal once they have determined that they are guilty of a crime.

So how this works basically is that a private organisation will build this is called an algorithm based upon the data that they programme into what they call a neural net and the data is called a dataset.

So one of the categories they might label is,

Is your parents still together,

Say?

And so when the criminal is sentenced,

They'll then ask them those questions.

The questions that they answer are more likely to be detrimental to people of colour and black people.

So that's why they will get a longer sentence.

So even it's not just black people and people of colour.

There was a system that Amazon used several years ago to recruit people.

It wasn't a decision maker.

It would support the decision maker.

And after two years,

They realised that it's not really recommending any women.

Two years,

Two years incompetence.

And what it was is that they had trained the dataset on a man's CV being the perfect candidate.

Traditionally,

Stereotypically speaking,

Men tend to use more action orientated words like led and charged where women tend to use more different types of words like collaborated and work together.

So the women's terminology did not match the optimum candidate.

So then they weren't given the opportunity of recruitment.

So these systems exist because the people programming them have their own implicit bias and they most probably will be white and male.

So it's reflecting their bias.

And at the moment,

There's no regulation for artificial intelligence,

Transparency so that you can see what's being coded and governance.

So it's just going forward without anybody challenging anything.

So when you have,

When this kind of brings us up to date now to me is that when people are talking about defunding the police,

I as a black woman really appreciate that sentiment.

It's very serious situation for people of colour and black people and working class people in particular.

But I'm very concerned about what the alternatives are.

Exactly.

So if you're going to,

I believe that many things that could be dismantled will be automated and they will be replaced with biased networks.

And then that will be way worse in my opinion,

Because I always say I can argue with a biased or racist cop,

But I cannot argue with a biased or racist algorithm.

In terms of your efforts of speaking out about democratising AI in that context,

What are some of the challenges or how do you go about that?

Wow,

That's a really good question.

So I'm British,

But I've spent a lot of time in the US because there's a really strong techno activist community and there's a strong academic studies and movement looking at these things.

People like Ruha Benjamin,

Who's a professor in America,

She wrote a book,

Race Against Tech.

So there's lots of people coming at it from different ways,

Making people aware of this is coming.

My approach is kind of twofold.

As a storyteller,

I feel compelled to tell these stories that aren't being told.

So I'm a research based artist.

I do a lot of research at the intersection of social justice,

Technology,

Artificial intelligence and science.

And then I'll imagine these realities,

Which I call immersive documentaries from the future so that people like I did the perception I owe the future of law enforcement so that people can see,

Experience the future today.

Often when I'm an artist and a public speaker,

And often when I'm on a stage,

The scientists have said after me,

Wow,

Karen did in 10 minutes,

What am I very dry two hour lecture would never convey because I want people to viscerally experience something.

You know,

These topics,

Artificial intelligence bias are not very sexy for the regular person.

They just want to pay some bills and probably get home and chill and jump on Netflix,

You know.

And they might also sound too complicated and scary for them to understand.

Initially they might feel like,

Oh,

I need to read a lot about it to even understand it if they're not immersed in an experience that you're enabling them to do.

Exactly.

I've been on stages with other scientists talking about computational science and I've looked at them and I've been on stages for the last two,

Three years and I've looked at them and said,

What the hell are you talking about?

I don't even understand this.

I looked at the audience and go,

They haven't got a clue.

Like I am there to be that bridge to give it a social justice culture,

Society,

Community context.

These,

That is not the role of the scientists.

They are communicating very cold,

Clear,

Factual information,

Which is hard to connect with.

So my storytelling enables people to connect with the issues.

Not,

It's not about what's happening.

It's the kind of the repercussions of what happening.

I'm the gap that can connect with people.

And the second part of my work is to,

As well as enable people to not just see these stories,

But experience them by being inside of them through these immersive experiences is to make the technology,

Which I create available open source.

So meaning when I make my riot film,

You have a film and then on the back of it,

You have the artificial intelligence.

And then I take off the film and I give the people that artificial intelligence open source so that they can discern what they want to do with it.

These technologies that are there like the internet and the email have been with the government and the military for decades before it came to us,

The people.

And now we're kind of fighting.

We're not even starting to fight yet.

We're just becoming aware of the implications,

But we need to kind of,

As opposed to just saying,

Oh,

I'm trying to fight this system.

It's like,

Okay,

I want ownership of it.

What would I do with a surveillance system in the community or those algorithms?

What would I do if I had the equivalent of a compass system?

So I spoke to a technical activist in New York and she said,

If we're using your AI,

I would kind of reverse the compass where they're saying,

What's the likelihood of you to reoffend.

I would look at what do you need to not reoffend?

Like do you have a support network?

Do you have a mentor?

Do you have somewhere to live?

Do you have someone that can support you in terms of family,

You know,

So that you could look at as opposed to the likelihood of reoffending the likelihood of not reoffending,

Because that's how we're approaching it.

We're using the same technology in a different way.

Technology is not good or bad is how you use it.

And as opposed to just fighting people,

They say,

Stop doing it like that.

That's definitely a very legitimate role.

The other side is to say,

Fine,

I don't know how much I'm going to convince you,

But if I can take ownership of this tech,

We can create our own agenda and objectives and purpose with the same technology.

And how is it possible to really make this broadly available or a movement because very often I guess it's the people who want to create good in the world,

They often work in more isolated ways and they're not often as effective on a grand global scale.

Whereas some of the people that work against that are much more effective on a global scale.

What would you say to that?

Well,

I would just kind of share with you my approach to my new project where it's about movement building and strategies of liberation through storytelling.

So because the stories of my childhood has kind of shaped the world in which we live now.

So the stories that we tell ourselves and each other are the stories of our future.

So my current project that I'm in having development is called Consensus Gentium,

Which you may know because you're super smart is Latin for if everybody believes it,

It must be true,

Which is kind of a comment that just because the masses believe something doesn't mean it's necessarily the case.

A lot of it is about perception of reality.

So my current project is going to be a series of immersive experience and immersive documentaries sent back from the future to warn us of what is to come.

And as a series,

And that will be set in the world of weaponized tech,

Bias networks and an erosion of our digital civil liberties.

As part of the build up to development of this work,

Which is a six month development project in conjunction with the British Film Institute,

Is that I'm going to have three months development of these labs called Hack the Future Labs,

Where I'm going to bring together amazing thought leaders and super cool people at the intersection of art,

Tech,

Science,

Social justice,

To imagine these worlds of the future and create these user experiences as well.

And then from these thoughts,

I will crystallize them and I will create these immersive experience sent back to warn us of what is to come and enable us to be prepared.

So what I'm doing is using storytelling to spark and capture people's imagination.

I feel as an artist that my role,

One of my many roles is as a co-creator of society.

If you think that all the art you have around you,

Whether it's music,

Fashion or whatever,

These are all influencing our interaction with reality.

So a lot of creative people or people creating things that could be a database,

That's still a creation of something,

That we are co-creators of reality.

And I need people to understand who are involved in this movement with me of Hack the Future Labs,

That I need them to realize that the future,

If they don't already,

That the future is not something that happens to us,

But something which we create together.

So I want to activate that agency so they can start to tell those stories or create those strategies or build those solutions and give them that awareness.

And that is what's going to hopefully be sparked through the process or when they do the immersive experiences.

Kind of this connection to collective consciousness,

As it were.

Yeah,

Without awareness,

There's nothing you can change.

It starts with for the broader public also to be aware initially,

Not just aware of what's happening,

But also of their own power and that they can literally create the reality and that they're already creating their reality.

And so that it's not something new that they will be doing,

But they will just do it consciously this time around.

Many people,

And I used to be like this,

Are creating new reality by default.

Oh,

I have to do this or I hate going to the job.

This is never going to change.

And once you start to take ownership of that,

I wonder if I'm going to try it this way.

This might happen.

And then that turns into it's going to happen.

And then it's going to become unshakable belief.

This is going to happen.

Like I did something quite interesting and I'm very curious.

I'm like,

I started to get doubts.

I know I haven't got any doubts that the first day of the shops,

I've been invited to do a talk in Amsterdam in the 9th of July.

And at the moment there's quarantine in the UK.

So we'd have 14 days.

My can't be stuck in the house for 14 days.

I go,

Man.

So they haven't announced anything.

And the talk is like two and a half,

Three weeks away.

But when the shops open on Monday,

I went to the West End and bought myself a dress for my talk.

Cause I said,

I'm going to be in the Netherlands.

They're going to stop the quarantine for exactly when I want to be there that exact week.

And so I'm going to be able to go and I need to come and get my dress now because when other people realize the shops are open,

I won't get my size.

So I'm moving as if I'm going to Netherlands.

And today I said,

This might not happen.

I said,

You haven't got time to think that way.

Just get ready.

You're going to the Netherlands,

Start thinking about your talk.

You're going to the Netherlands.

So it's that kind of belief and confidence that you have to have as you move forward.

Believe confidence in the ability to have some awareness around your thoughts.

Because for some people,

These thoughts are just simply working in the background and then they realize,

Oh,

I'm feeling really terrible today.

And they didn't quite notice that there was just a lot of negative self-talk that was going on and creating that negative feeling.

Default subconscious programming.

That's our full self.

That's not our true self.

So my work is about identifying more with your true self and our capabilities.

And I can't create a manifest that if I'm not living it.

So it's a constant and I'm not saying,

Hey,

I'm done it.

I'm amazing.

It's like a case of it's a constant process that you have to go through.

You don't just do it and bam,

That's it.

You've got it.

It's a constant process of evolution.

On that note,

How,

From your perspective,

Can our listeners constantly evolve themselves,

But also contribute to,

I guess,

Decolonizing their minds if they're colonized and contributing to a better co-creation for all of us?

That's easy.

Okay,

Listeners,

This is an easy question.

This is easy peasy,

Lemon squeezy.

All you need to do is follow your bliss,

Whatever makes your heart and soul sing.

Unless you're some kind of sadist or something,

It's probably going to be a really good thing.

Right?

You're probably something which you've taught yourself out of doing most of your life because you didn't know how you're going to make money from it,

Whether it's being a baker or training people or doing flowers,

Whatever that thing is,

Is just follow your bliss,

Follow your heart,

Follow that thing that gives you that satisfaction.

That's your calling.

That's what you've been,

You've come back to do.

We didn't come back to go to work Monday to Friday and,

You know,

Just live for the weekends.

That's really not cool.

You have a purpose.

So just put the phone down after this interview that you've heard this cool podcast.

You don't have to go on Twitter.

You don't have to go on Insta.

Just give yourself some space,

Whether it's to go for a walk or,

You know,

Just chill out,

Just give yourself the space to just feel,

Don't even think what gives you that bliss and then move towards it.

There's a lot of other things happening in the world in terms of decolonization and lots of stuff.

I don't think I want to get into that so much.

I feel right now,

It's just about connecting with yourself because once you connect yourself,

You'll be able to connect with if you're someone that's not really into other people of other races or genders or minorities,

Once you start to connect with yourself,

You'll be able to connect with other people,

You know,

So it all starts with self and just being there,

Listening to yourself,

Loving yourself,

Because what is happening inside of you is going to be manifested in the world around you.

A hundred percent.

So just take a deep breath.

Come off this,

Give a little bit of gratitude that you found it as probably as a random way that you did and just give yourself permission to just stop and pause and just give yourself that time for yourself to just identify what that thing is that you love and start to spend time pursuing it or moving towards it or dedicating to it.

Because even if you have so many other priorities that are super relevant,

Whether they're children or a partner or just making money,

There's no point not spending five or 10 or 15 minutes a day to the thing that makes you happy and gives you joy.

I used to find time to do that when I had a horrible job that I hated in my lunch break on the train before I went to work on the train.

When I came back,

I wouldn't,

I deleted all the apps on my phone and I was like,

I'm going to change my life.

I have an hour on my lunch break,

I have an hour on the train going to work an hour coming back.

That's three hours a day.

I work three times a week.

That's another day in the week.

That's nine hours,

You know,

As well as the time I would do in the evening.

By the time I found all these hours here and there,

I had another week.

So that you just try and be methodical about being committed to pursue your bliss.

Perfect.

And how can people continue to follow your work or get in contact with you if that's something you're open to?

Yeah,

Cool.

Well,

I'm really bad at social media,

But let's see my insta I think is storyteller from the future.

My Twitter I think is riot AI,

But I may change that.

So just search for storyteller.

Maybe my website is KarenParma.

Uk or just Google me Karen Palmer,

Hollywood,

Probably interesting.

Why I think it's interesting.

Things will come up.

Yeah.

And even if you don't follow me up,

I just hope there's something,

A little spark that will inspire you so that,

You know,

If it's your choosing that you'll be on the podcast one day saying things that it's not really even about me,

It's just about the message and I'm a vehicle for the message.

So maybe this is all you needed to hear today.

Amazing.

Thank you so much,

Karen.

It was wonderful to have you here today.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much for the good work you're doing there Palmer.

Is there anything that you see fresh or new after listening to my conversation with Karen?

This week,

I invite you to take the question.

What would it mean to make fear my friend as a living inquiry into your week?

If you would like to go one step further,

Here are a few questions that I invite you to journal or reflect upon.

Think of a situation that you're currently worrying about.

Some examples might be,

What if I lose my job,

If I start my own business,

I could end up homeless and so on.

Just pick a situation.

Then ask yourself,

What is the worst case scenario that could happen?

If the worst case scenario would happen,

What could you do?

What action could you take?

Now ask yourself,

What is the best case scenario that is waiting for you?

And what small step can I take today to avoid the worst case scenario?

And what step can I take today to make the best case scenario more possible?

You don't need to map out a whole plan of how to solve the situation.

Just think about the next obvious step you could take,

However small or big it is.

And only once you have taken that step,

Ask yourself again,

What could I do today and see what comes up.

In a similar way,

Like you walk a steep staircase,

Step by step.

If you would like to continue the conversation,

We would love to hear your insights and questions in our Facebook group.

Next week I will be speaking to Dr Peter Fenwick,

A world renowned expert in the fields of consciousness and of life phenomena and near-death experiences.

Spoiler alert,

One of the things we will talk about is how he measured the brainwaves of the Beatles in the 70s.

I look forward to sharing this episode with you.

Thank you for joining us on this journey of the Explorer's Mind podcast.

Now it is time to find your own unique path.

We can help you to connect with your innate wisdom and create an inspiring vision for a deeply fulfilling and meaningful life.

Apply for a discovery session on our website palomomichael.

Com.

Until next time,

We look forward to continuing this journey together.