NDAPL Pine Ridge North Dakota Access Pipeline Sioux Nations

Robert Bridgeman

Robert Bridgeman is a transformational coach, author of 6 books (and counting), documentary filmmaker, inspirator and philosopher.

Together with his wife Monique van Leeuwen, Robert travels the world to explore methods that enhance quality of life in profound ways, in countries like Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and India, but also in Europe and the United States. In 2010, this led to the start of the Bridgeman Method and Foundation, a means to optimizing your lives path through the salvation of trauma and living authentically. Robert and Monique now work with people from 26 different countries and train life coaches worldwide, they give (online) workshops and facilitate training sessions within the corporate world.

Through the Foundation, Robert has become a well known speaker at events, essentially inspiring and motivating people through his own life experiences. He meditated with many spiritual leaders in Asia and sat beside shamans for weeks on end. Together with iceman Wim Hof, Bridgeman climbed the Kilimanjaro in short trousers and is affiliated with the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute in San Fransisco, a collaboration between Stanford University and Google that gives mindfulness trainings for businesses.

More Than A Pipeline

Last year in december 2016, Robert went to Standing Rock, where the Sioux nations were (and still are) fighting against the construction of the North Dakota Access Pipeline, and made a documentary about it: More Than A Pipeline. The result is a very moving documentation of a movement of so called ‘water protectors’ that started out very small, but captivated the whole world by the time the Standing Rock camp was abolished by local authorities. The documentary is set the premier in february of next year, please keep a look out for more information.

Robert speaking about his documentary:

A few thousand Sioux Indians were standing there (together with members of mostly all of the larger tribes from the US and with other helpers) protesting peacefully against the construction of oil pipe lines through their land. Why? The land is a reservation which is natural reserve, it is their water resource and it is one of the last pieces of their ‘holy ground’. It is well known that the Grand Sioux Nation (a sovereign state according to the Fort Laramie treaty in 1851), as well as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have been in peaceful protest against the DAPL project for several reasons. There are 17 banks in the bank syndicate supporting the project. Their client is Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), a Texan company with a 38% interest in DAPL. They stood up to point out the potential dangers of this and other projects as well as the potential damage to the environment, damage to water resources and violation of human rights.

‘I had to go there, I had to do something’

They were facing an overwhelming police force who tried to entrap the peaceful ‘Water protectors’ by using teargas, water cannons and rubber bullets, to provoke them to aggression which would be a reason to arrest them. (It is terrible). The many years of oppressing these people have gone through and are still facing today. Even in the 21st century, while you and I are watching.