[Music]
[Applause]
this is a picture of Island Cody some of
you may remember it made global
headlines on the morning of September
3rd 2015 Island was three years old and
he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea and
his body washed up on the shores of
Turkey he his mother father and his
brother made a treacherous journey from
Syria seeking a safer world for
themselves in Europe only his father
survived what do you feel when you look
at this photo do you feel sad do you
feel overwhelmed they need to look away
or do you feel something else do you
feel an anger at a world that has
created systems that incentivizes this
kind of suffering for some people on the
planet for me when I look at this
picture I feel deep sadness but I also
connect to a deep anger and if I look at
this picture for long enough and think
about the context in which little island
lived and died I stopped thinking about
Island I'm thinking about how this
happened and why and how can I stop this
from happening to other children how can
I become a part of the change today I
want to talk to you about my lived
experience with anger and why I embrace
anger as a gift I know some of you would
be like
what is that because the dominant view
about anger that it is a negative state
that we must avoid seek to avoid control
or manage has never really resonated
with me because stripped of violence
hatred and bitterness anger is just a
powerful energy it is a frequency and it
is a frequency that you can access and
this frequency has become one of my most
profound teachers recently scientists in
2003 and 2010 actually started
researching a new dimension of empathy
they call it empathic anger and those
scientists made a distinction between
feeling sad because someone is suffering
empathic sadness and feeling angry
because someone else is suffering and
what those scientists found was that
when you feel angry for what someone
else is suffering that is actually more
of a predictor of pro-social behavior
that goes beyond
alleviating the suffering of the
individual and goes toward how do I
prevent future harm now why am i
standing here before you talking to you
about anger and making it such a big
part of my life's work to research the
neuroscience of anger I am NOT a
neuroscientist I am NOT a psychologist I
am not even a counselor and I could go
on with a list of how many things I am
NOT I am a lawyer and I am a social
entrepreneur now working with innovators
and professionals to bring about
systemic
change so where did it start for me I
remember I was about 5 years old and my
mother was taking my brother and I he
was six my brother Daniel and she was
taking us out and I was excited to go
out with my mom and we were walking out
the gate and she was holding us each of
us in one of her hands and and I was
looking up at her and thinking how
beautiful she was
she had this beach sand complexion skin
and jet long black hair Street flowing
behind her back and she had a pot in the
middle of her head the way they used to
wear it in the seventies and yes I'm
revealing my age there but she was
beautiful and I remember looking up at
her and looking at my little chocolate
hand and who creamier one and thinking I
wonder if I'm going to grow up to be
like her to look like her and it seemed
to me in that moment when I was having
that thought I may have completed the
memories in past but in my mind in that
moment my mother stopped walking turned
around stooped down drew us in to each
other to her she was eyeball to eyeball
with her she's looking at us and she
says she has a little smile on her face
and she says hey guys
don't call me mummy okay call me aunty
Kathy she must have seen something in us
because neither my brother and I said
anything we didn't even look at each
other because she quickly added oh
because I don't want anyone to know I
have children as old as you even back
then at five something about that reason
for not calling her mummy didn't ring
true to me you see I am from Trinidad
and Tobago with it which is a twin
Island steeped in the english-speaking
Caribbean and our two major ethnic
groups of East Indian descent
of African descent the Africans were
brought there as slaves and after
emancipation the East Indians were
brought us indentured laborers and there
is a lot of enmity and animosity and
strife between these two groups and so I
guess it's not difficult to understand
why a young East Indian woman may have
felt that she had to tell her kids that
when they were going out kids that were
very dark-skinned and looked like
African children don't call me Mommy
okey call me auntie Cathy I felt like
someone had cuffed me I felt I couldn't
breathe when she said it then in that
moment we're talking about moments today
in that moment began my struggle to
understand my own self-worth and value
in a world where I felt my own mother
could not and things got things were
exacerbated I know this is sounding all
very sad we will lift it up at some
point
so things were exacerbated when my aunt
took my brother and I my father sisters
took my brother and I to live with them
and with no explanation to us we had no
idea why were we living with these aunts
and the only thing we could see is that
the aunts had more money and so early on
this message was enforced
you know reinforced in me that you know
money somehow had more value than
families and connection than love and I
grew up feeling powerless and with that
powerlessness I was angry and I became
rebellious I heard I gave all this
trouble in school and I probably did not
saying I didn't but I was told I would
amount in the
thing I was told that I was as a
teenager that I was only interested in
looking for men that's something we see
in Trinidad and Tobago I guess I was
looking for my value and my self-worth I
was told that I would either end up a
prostitute or pregnant and unwed I would
be a dropout I was told all those things
and through all of that time there was
one thing that saved me
when I turned 16 I actually was kicked
out of school and when I turned 19 I was
actually pregnant and unwed yes I
fulfill the expectations of others and I
guess when you have your no self-worth
and value the expectations of others
become a very powerful thing but the one
thing that saved me is that I did not in
all of my environment and all of my
experiences I did not become sad
depressed and overwhelmed I did not turn
to drugs and alcohol like many of our 13
teenagers - today I became angry when
people said these things to me a deep
surge of emotion bubbled up inside of me
an aggressive energy and I took that
energy and I said no i am a value watch
my dust and so that when i was sixteen
and kicked out of school I said watch my
dust I continued studying I got my old
levels and I got into another school to
do my a levels and by nineteen when I
was pregnant and unwed I had also
finished my first year of university
studying law
they told me I needed to have an
abortion or else my life would be ruined
I chose not to I said watch my dust
I had my son and a few days later I was
back in university did not miss a beat
and qualified as a lawyer at the age of
22 but when they put my son in my arms
for the first time in my life that surge
of emotion that I used to feel was
different I felt love unconditional love
those of you who've had children here
you know what I'm talking about
this protective energy you would do
anything for this life this miracle that
is in your hands and when they put him
in my hands I looked at this little baby
all perfect and a little piece of me
began to heal because as I looked at my
baby all prove it I saw myself there and
I said I too was a baby like this
perfect
not needing to strive to prove my value
to anyone I had value just because I was
in that moment of of love and joy and
peace I actually felt this anger boiling
up inside of me again in that moment and
this anger was not aimed at anyone but
it was aimed at a society and a world
that separated children from this
feeling of value and wound this
connection and in there was born the
creative question of my life and that
creative question was subconscious then
I've done work to understand this now
but this was all subconscious but my
creative question was how might I create
a world where human value is given
priority over economic value over
societal expectations pressures and
man-made rules and to answer that
question I felt I had a responsibility
to do more than just yoga and so at 22
when I qualified when all of my friends
were getting jobs with big law firms and
an in-house counsel and really you know
driving nice cars and all that I became
a legal criminal defense attorney
because I felt connected to people that
society felt had no value I could see
their value and I fought for them people
say Margit why are you doing that and
like they have value that is a defense
as I matured and in the laws specialized
in public procurement law which is the
law that governs how governments by
which when you think about it is really
about how governments identify measure
and place value in society now I work
with entrepreneurs and lawyers to try to
help them navigate the twin pursuit of
creating social value alongside economic
value you see your anger can point you
to grief that requires healing but it
can it can also be the gravity for your
purpose and when you begin living in
that purpose it unlocks the doors for
healing for forgiveness for gratitude
for your past and so my mum today is one
of my closest friends I love her she
loves me this is my brother Daniel last
year she had to go through something no
other mother should have she stood at
the bedside of her son Daniel 48 years
old every night day and night as he
passed on to another realm and she held
him and she said don't worry my son
mommy is here
there are four things my story about
anger can teach us and we don't have
enough time but this is backed up by the
research one another points as to that
which we are deeply connected to and
gives us an uncommon fuel for action a
courage to take action when ordinarily
we would not have it
another point sister that which we feel
most profoundly responsible for our
boundaries what we are willing to fight
for and interestingly anger the
scientists in 2015 a study showed is
positively correlated with innovation
and creativity and more so than love
connection action responsibility and
entrepreneurship so angry people care
they do they do and I want to see one
thing which could be controversial to
some of you the highest part the highest
use of anger is not the path of protest
even nonviolent protests it's not the
highest path of anger is the path of
empathy seeking to find your purpose
sipping seeking to help others and
seeking to solve some of the most
pressing problems facing people and
planet 2d that's the highest use of your
anger and so if you are not angry at the
systems and the injustice is that you're
seeing in the world today then that
means you're content you are content and
if you are content that contentment will
never drive real change and change is
required in this time in this time in
2017 the World Economic Forum indicated
for the first time that rising levels of
public anger are threatening our
security and safety the fabric of our
society if you and I if we do not begin
to work more
collectively and consciously with our
anger we will find that those who have
the power to manipulate our tension will
cause us to misdirect this powerful
energy toward each other - what a
contrived enemies when the real enemy
the real task ahead of us is system
change I leave you with two things this
is Island again two invitations when you
see the photo don't look away
not only at island but the injustice is
in your community in the world don't
look away and when you find what makes
you feel angriest that which you feel
most profoundly responsible for I ask my
second invitation is don't say I'm angry
say I care and then do the work to
figure out what it is I care about
enough to act our collective future
depends on this thank you
[Applause]