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So, I knew, statistically, kids like me ended up repeating the cycle, and I didn’t want to be a statistic. But if your nurture was really bad, how do you get to know your nature? That is what I’ve spent my life dedicated to, is figuring out what causes happiness? Happiness is a side effect of choices. Our choices are usually stimulated by misunderstandings. We have to examine those and rework them so we can go where we want in life. AK: Did you do that with the help of a therapist, or was it mainly self-work? Jewel: It was an internal process for me. [At the time] I didn’t have access to therapists. When I moved out at 15, I started having panic attacks and didn’t know what they were. I also started getting really sick and I thought it was stress related, so I started studying food as medicine. I started having so many panic attacks, that I was able to experiment while I was having them to see what things worked. And then it was really when I was homeless that I hit a whole new level of being able to understand a lot of my behaviors. I was shop lifting a dress and I looked in the mirror and saw what I looked like, and I looked like a statistic. I hadn’t beat the odds. I turned into a homeless kid who was stealing and going to end up in jail or on drugs. I remembered this quote by Buddha that said, “Happiness doesn’t depend on who you are or what you have. It depends on what you think.” I wanted to see if I could change my life one thought at a time. But I couldn’t perceive what I was thinking in real time, because I was so disassociated, and I couldn’t witness my thoughts happening. So, I decided to come up with this hack where I realized your hands are the servants of your thoughts. If you want to see what you’re thinking, just watch what you’re doing. It’s your thought cooled down, slowed down into action. My big life plan in that moment was to not steal the dress, and to write down everything my hands did for two weeks, I think. I didn’t know what I was looking for. AK: What your hands were doing… explain that. Jewel: I opened a door, I shut a door. I washed my hands. I wouldn’t shake somebody’s hand. I stole vegetables. Whatever it was, I was looking for a pattern to clue me in about what I was thinking? At the end of the two weeks, I sat down and looked at everything and the pattern definitely showed I quit believing in myself. The much more interesting thing was that my anxiety went away. I didn’t have a panic attack for the whole two weeks. What I had stumbled onto was mindfulness and being present. The word “mindfulness” wasn’t around at that time. It was just through my journaling and going inward that I realized fear is a thief and it robs us of any chance we have to change. My anxiety was me taking my past and projecting it onto my future that hadn’t happened yet. AK: Tell me how your music connects to all of this. Your lyrics can stand alone as poetry. When you were writing many of your songs that went on to become huge hits, did you first write them as poems? Jewel: My songs came together with lyrics and melody, but writing poems had been my first skill, and my first love was writing. AK: I can tell. Jewel: I think writing was me developing that relationship with my observer; with that quiet voice that is so easily drowned out, but that is so wise and sees so much. When you sit down to write, whether you’re going to be a writer or not, you’re giving a pen to your authenticity. You’re giving your authenticity a way of communicating to you. It is your soul trying to communicate with you. Poetry, especially so, because it leaves enough room, and it is symbolic. AK: Let’s talk about your upcoming World Mental Health Day Summit and Concert. This is the second annual event of its kind. How did it come together? And how can people get involved and attend? Jewel: As I mentioned to you, moving out at 15 and having this daunting feeling of, “Oh my gosh! If happiness wasn’t taught in my home, is it a learnable skill? Is it a teachable skill?” Then realizing everything that I needed to learn to be a happy and whole human, and not a human full of holes (laughs). AK: (laugh) I like that! Jewel: It was an education that I originally lacked, and I