Saerom

Jodi Win­nwalk­er wit­nessed the pow­er of music ther­a­py even before she knew what music ther­a­py was.

It was through her moth­er, who sang and hummed to Jodi and her broth­er, David, while grow­ing up. David is one year old­er than Jodi and he has Down syn­drome. Music was a key way David con­nect­ed with oth­ers, and that’s where Jodi first learned about the pow­er of music.

Then in the sixth grade, she joined choir.

“That’s where I real­ly learned the pow­er of music for build­ing com­mu­ni­ty and for lead­er­ship skills,” Jodi said.

When she was 17, her choir direc­tor sug­gest­ed she be a music ther­a­pist. And that put her back to when she first learned of music, on her moth­er’s hip.

Today, Jodi owns a com­pa­ny called Earth­tones Music Ther­a­py, which employs 14 music ther­a­pists. Jodi’s focus is peo­ple with Alzheimer’s, but Earth­tones offers a drum cir­cle pro­gram for vet­er­ans, a chil­dren’s pro­gram and a hor­ti­cul­ture ther­a­py pro­gram.

At TEDxSalem, Jodi will share exam­ples of how music ther­a­py affect­ed peo­ple’s lives, includ­ing a woman named Mol­ly, who had phys­i­cal and devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties and was placed in the Fairview Train­ing Cen­ter as a child. Jodi worked with Mol­ly, whose sto­ry is the sub­ject of the doc­u­men­tary “Where’s Mol­ly.”

“I real­ly would like to encour­age peo­ple to con­sid­er how they can use music inten­tion­al­ly for them­selves for their own health and well­ness,” she said.

We have some mag­nif­i­cent news to share: TEDxSalem will now become acces­si­ble to even more of our com­mu­ni­ty, thanks to two vol­un­teers who have stepped up to help us make it an ASL inter­pret­ed event.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it is very rare for a live TED event to be inter­pret­ed and we are so excit­ed to be able to pro­vide this ser­vice to our beloved ASL com­mu­ni­ty.

Huge props to Karen Brush for being the cat­a­lyst for this devel­op­ment, and huge thanks to Cyn­thia Ander­son and Koli Cut­ler for vol­un­teer­ing their time.

So please spread the word of this won­der­ful news, and if you are part of the ASL com­mu­ni­ty or know some­one who would enjoy this oppor­tu­ni­ty, be sure to let them know.

Tick­ets are avail­able at http://goo.gl/pI3UJ2 or skip the fees and get them in per­son at the His­toric Elsi­nore The­atre in down­town Salem!

When Jes­si­ca Amos McEl­ravy’s daugh­ter was born nine years ago, she came to terms with a dif­fi­cult real­i­ty.

In order to give her daugh­ter, Haven, the best she could, she need­ed to do the same for her­self.

So with some help, she addressed her anx­i­ety and the tox­ic things she’d been hold­ing on to. She learned tech­niques to live with­in her own nature and to avoid self-shame.

Now, she guides oth­ers through a sim­i­lar jour­ney through her busi­ness, Stay With Your­self.

At TEDxSalem, Jes­si­ca will share the process she goes through to soothe her anx­i­ety and fears — the dread­ed emo­tions we all have felt. The unique part of Jes­si­ca’s talk is that she will most like­ly be feel­ing those very emo­tions while stand­ing on stage and speak­ing to you.

The thing that stands out when speak­ing with her is that she does­n’t try to ban­ish fear or extin­guish anx­i­ety. In fact, she acknowl­edges them, then finds ways to work around them.

The key, Jes­si­ca says, is to avoid build­ing the neg­a­tive feel­ings even more by judg­ing them.

“Rec­og­niz­ing my needs and pro­vid­ing for my needs is the trick most of the time,” she said. “Tak­ing care of myself is the biggest com­po­nent.”

Jes­si­ca’s ulti­mate goal is to remind her TEDx audi­ence that they are not alone and that they are capa­ble of find­ing inner peace.

If every­body could find that peace, life and the world would be a much bet­ter place.

“I think that’s real­ly good news and def­i­nite­ly worth spread­ing,” she said.

If you want to see Jes­si­ca in per­son, get your tick­ets now at the Elsi­nore The­atre or http://tiny.cc/TEDxSalem.

Edi­tor’s note: Dr. Pamela Wible, a fam­i­ly physi­cian in Eugene, is one of our speak­ers from our inau­gur­al event last year. Her talk has gone viral since, and her ideas have been fea­tured in nation­al news out­lets such as Al Jazeera Amer­i­ca, Wash­ing­ton Post and Huff­in­g­ton Post. Who would’ve thought? TEDxSalem helped one Ore­go­ni­an’s idea spread to the world.

Below is her take on the nine months.

I’m not a small talk doc. My ther­a­pist calls me “the Dr. Kevorkian of med­ical taboos.” I’m most com­fort­able dis­cussing the uncom­fort­able — top­ics that scare off most physi­cians. In my TED talk, I bust through 3 taboos: human sex­u­al­i­ty, physi­cian-patient inti­ma­cy, and doc­tor sui­cides. Is there a con­ve­nient time to talk about all this? With over 100,000 views, I think the time is now:

In many cul­tures, those who trav­el into for­bid­den ter­ri­to­ry are ostra­cized. But some­times, the pub­lic demands—even craves the truth. There has been an over­whelm­ing pub­lic response to my TED talk and the media is buzzing.

The Wash­ing­ton Post asked to pub­lish my physi­cian sui­cide blog in their news­pa­per and online (with TED talk embed­ded). When doc­tors com­mit sui­cide, it’s often hushed up was the third most read nation­al news sto­ry that day. Due to high read­er­ship, they’ve asked for anoth­er arti­cle. The Huff­in­g­ton Post invit­ed me to con­tribute Why I Kiss My Patients. The Dai­ly Beast show­cased my TED talk in The Health-Care Sys­tem Is So Bro­ken, It’s Time for Doc­tors to Strike. Reader’s Digest inter­viewed me and so has Time Mag­a­zine.

As a result of my TED talk, I’ve been fea­tured in jour­nals such as Med­ical Eco­nom­ics and Ore­gon Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion. After post­ing my arti­cle: Physi­cian Sui­cide Let­ters which links to my TED talk, the edi­tor at one med­ical site e‑mailed: “We have nev­er had com­ments of that mag­ni­tude and it is utter­ly eye-open­ing for me.” I am now the top trend­ing author on KevinMD.com | Social media’s lead­ing physi­cian voice. My pre­sen­ta­tion is now list­ed as the No. 1 TED talk that med­ical stu­dents must watch here: Three TED Talks Med Stu­dents Should Watch.

After view­ing my TED talk, the pro­duc­er of Amer­i­ca Tonight sent a crew from DC to film me for 2 days. An excel­lent 11-minute pro­gram on physi­cian sui­cide aired on prime time nation­al TV with por­tions of my TED replayed! Though not acces­si­ble online, Here’s why 9 out of 10 doc­tors would­n’t rec­om­mend med­i­cine as a pro­fes­sion in a much abbre­vi­at­ed print ver­sion of that sto­ry.

I thought my TED talk was just for Amer­i­cans, until I was named New Zealand’s Com­pas­sion Hero and then fea­tured in the UK on Med­de­bate. Sui­ci­dal and depressed physi­cians and med­ical stu­dents have con­tact­ed me from all over the world after view­ing my TED talk. I pro­vide assis­tance and lives have poten­tial­ly been saved. I receive mail from patients too. They tell me I’ve helped them devel­op more heal­ing rela­tion­ships with their doc­tors.

I’m a small-town doc with big ideas. Peo­ple think I have a PR team. I do not. My TED talk has spread by word of mouth and click of mouse. In less than 6 months since my talk was uploaded, it has gone glob­al.

And this proves to me that one TED talk can change the world of med­i­cine.

Orga­niz­ing and putting on TEDxSalem takes a lot of work, and much of it goes unseen and unrec­og­nized. Usu­al­ly, that’s a good thing. If things go smooth­ly, you don’t notice those hard­work­ing folks in the back­ground.

That’s why now is the time to rec­og­nize our vol­un­teers. There are duties avail­able for every kind of vol­un­teer. You could just give your time for one day, or you could be more involved in build­ing the event.

Every one is need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed. Why should you get involved? Well, I’ll let our team speak for itself.

Tra­cy Rose Tor­res: I vol­un­teer because I want to keep great things hap­pen­ing in Salem. Tedx def­i­nite­ly falls under the cat­e­go­ry of great things. I may not be the best event orga­niz­er or net­work­er in the com­mu­ni­ty, but I feel like being there to help the peo­ple who are have an eas­i­er time is some­thing I can do! I became a vol­un­teer through be and try to help them out when­ev­er I can. I was a PA for Car­lee Wright, and real­ly is that a tough job? I think we have as much fun as we do work!

Car­men Her­nan­dez Armen­dariz: There was a call for vol­un­teers and I answered it. I did­n’t know a thing about TEDx. But as I looked around and found some of the TEDx talks online I thought how great it would be to hold one in Salem and won­dered if any­one would attend the event here in Salem. I worked on the side stage dur­ing the event help­ing with switch­ing screens from the Illu­mi­na­tion logo to the Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions last year. This year I’ll be receiv­ing, review­ing and help­ing the speak­ers with their pre­sen­ta­tions and dur­ing the event switch­ing from the logo to the Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions. LOL Keep your fin­gers crossed!

Lau­ra Heald Hofer: I vol­un­teered with Ted because I LOVE the whole con­cept of TED. 

I went in with an open mind and ready to help any­where and came out of the expe­ri­ence more enlight­ened, ful­filled and in awe of what a TED event is about. Giv­en the chance I would vol­un­teer for TED again in a heart­beat! 

I ran the “Love Let­ter” sta­tion and was lucky enough to be able to dis­trib­ute some of the Love Let­ters peo­ple hand­ed back to me to give out. 

Spread­ing kind­ness and hap­pi­ness with oth­ers through words, sto­ries and ran­dom acts is a won­der­ful way to cre­ate aware­ness.

A tru­ly amaz­ing event. Thank you TEDxSalem.

Scott Hoss­ner: Vir­tu­al­ly the entire staff at Allied Video Pro­duc­tions vol­un­teered at TEDx Salem because we were, quite sim­ply, excit­ed to help bring this amaz­ing pro­gram to Salem. Our goal was to, from a tech­ni­cal stand­point, help ensure Salem’s TEDx was on-par with the nation­al lev­el TED pro­grams. It was excit­ing to be a part of it!

Jyll Smith: I vol­un­teered for TEDx Salem last year because on more than one occa­sion I have geeked out on TED videos. So when I heard Salem was hold­ing one I knew I had to be involved. Though I did­n’t get to see many of the pre­sen­ters I did make new friends all while doing some­thing I love to do…coordinate peo­ple to make sure they are hav­ing a great time.

If you’re inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing this year, please con­tact us at mindie@tedxsalem.us or find us on Face­book! Also, don’t for­get to buy tick­ets here.

If you knew you had a finite num­ber of words you had left to speak in this life, what would they be?

Would they be words of love, heal­ing and under­stand­ing? Or would they defend jus­tice, brav­ery and sac­ri­fice?

What would the world look like if we all thought a lit­tle bit longer before we spoke?

Simon Tam will illus­trate at TEDxSalem this year how words have start­ed wars, can break or make rela­tion­ships and heal or hurt peo­ple.

“My talk in par­tic­u­lar is about the way we use lan­guage and how we should treat our lan­guage care­ful­ly and con­sid­er our words and make every word count,” Tam said.

Tam uses his words dai­ly to fur­ther his cause, com­mu­ni­cate his exper­tise and build rela­tion­ships. He’s a founder and bassist for an Asian Amer­i­can band, The Slants, and a pub­lic speak­er. He has writ­ten two books on thriv­ing in the music busi­ness and reg­u­lar­ly speaks about racial jus­tice and diver­si­ty.

Tam par­tic­u­lar­ly seems to enjoy using words to chal­lenge com­mon def­i­n­i­tions and cause us to rethink what they rep­re­sent. The fact that he start­ed an Asian band named The Slants is a good exam­ple. The name takes charge of the car­i­ca­ture of the slant­ed-eyed Asian, and gives it a new mean­ing, Tam says.

“It would be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk about our slant, or our per­spec­tive, as peo­ple of col­or,” he said. “It’s a play on words, re-appro­pri­at­ing the term.”

The band has become a way to hon­or Asian her­itages and activists and break stereo­types.

But no mat­ter what your goals or mes­sage is, choos­ing your words wise­ly can only help, Tam says. And that’s only the begin­ning.

Some say actions speak loud­er than words, but it is when they match your words that you are most effec­tive.

Cur­rent­ly, Tam is the mar­ket­ing direc­tor for Ore­gon Envi­ron­men­tal Coun­cil, but he has about a mil­lion oth­er jobs, tour­ing with his band, speak­ing at ani­me con­ven­tions and teach­ing.

We’re so glad he has cho­sen TEDxSalem as one of his many plat­forms to spread his idea. If we’re lucky, The Slants may also make an appear­ance.

Get your tick­ets at the His­toric Elsi­nore The­atre or online: http://goo.gl/pI3UJ2.