Find Peace From Internal and External Turbulence

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back. Denzel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Diane Dreer, Welcome to the show. How are you great? And I'm delighted to be here.

1:00 Oh, I'm really excited to have you here. And as I have mentioned to you, I would love for you to be able to share with the audience who you are, your background, and then the journey that you have been on to bring you to the point where you've written these wonderful books and also doing what you're doing now. Okay, well, I guess here we are. I am a Diandrea. I have a PhD in Renaissance literature from UCLA. I have a master's in counseling from Santa Clara University. I'm a credential positive psychology coach with the International Coaching Federation, and I have been a college professor for absolutely decades. All of that psychology literature, it does come together. But actually my big passion and my inspiration is helping people discover the power and possibilities within them, which is what I think we all need personally and politically and collectively to make our world really shine. And I was inspired by my father, who never went to college, but he was very happy to say that his daughter has a PhD. My father was a poor boy growing up on a farm in Kentucky riding a mule. The farm had no indoor plumbing, and he grew up to fly jets and air rescue helicopters

2:35 and retire as a colonel in the Air Force. We moved all over the world for his Air Force assignments, which was an adventure in itself. But my father's story inspired me because he discovered the power and possibilities within him. He was poor, He didn't have, you know, much. He had no driver's license when he was sixteen, because, of course, no one in his family could fort de car. His mother wanted him to be a priest. She was a very devout Catholic, and my father would look up at the sky and see these little biplanes flying overhead, and his idea of the heavens was much different from my grandmother's. He wanted to fly, so he would run it out over a mile to the local airport, the Louisville Flying Service, to tie down help tie down the plane, because he could get a quarter for doing that, and this was during the depression, and a quarter was a lot of money. Eventually, when his mother began nagging him about being a priest, he moved away from home into the attic of the Louisville Flying Service, where he was summarily adopted by these old World War One barnstormers, and he supported himself from age sixteen. Got his pilot's license at sixteen and was in the Louisville Courier Journal as the younger Pilot in Kentucky, which when he was in his sixties. I used to tease him about, you're still the youngest pilot in Kentucky. Yeah. He found his calling

4:11 by following his heart, by following his passion, and rescued a lot of people when he was, you know, the commander of an air rescue squadron. He inspired me because I believe, as people in the Renaissance believed that we each have talents, gifts, a light within us, and it's our duty and our destiny to discover that light and bring it forward and to apply it to our lives, because then we make, you know, new contributions to our world. So, following my father's example but not necessarily his path, I decided I wanted to be a writer and eventually a college professor.

5:00 But of course I needed to work my way through college, and so I had these little part time jobs, and I kept seeing myself writing and publishing. And one day I was driving home from another little temporary job in the summertime between my first and second year of college at UC Riverside, and I drove down Fourteenth Street past the Riverside Press Enterprise, our local newspaper, and this voice within me said, you're a writer. You should work there. So I turned my little red Volkswagen that I shared with my brother into the parking lot, walked inside as a shy teenager, and said, Hi, I'm Diane Drea. I'm a writer. I'd like to apply for a job, and the reporter in the newsroom said, go upstairs to the personnel office.

5:49 What I learned after I filled out some papers was that they said their college intern had given notice that morning. Can you begin work on Monday. I had this great job because I followed my heart. You know. I could work twenty hours a week for the press enterprise, work around my class schedule, paid for my dorms room and board, books, everything tuition, which wasn't much back then. And I learned from all these reporters what it means to be a writer, you know, how to really capture a story and the excitement of getting words down on paper and sharing them with the world.

6:30 So that was my launch. I guess into my writing career, and then I majored in English at uc Riverside and got a graduate fellowship to the PhD program at UCLA because I fell in love with Renaissance literature. And it was difficult because I was thinking do I want to write about current events, or do I want to write about the Renaissance and this poetry and the time when people were discovering their vocations, their callings. What's happened, of course, is that I write a blog for Psychology Today about current events, and I write books about Eastern philosophy, Renaissance literature. But all of this is to help us, all including me, wake up to what we are inside and discover the hidden treasures within us, you know, And it's so amazing that you were so inspired by your father and his journey. I remember back in twenty ten when my dad passed away and they he was at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, a vocal teacher, a classical voice teacher, and I remember they held a special ceremony for him, and I remember that I walked out of there and it was a similar thing for you. It was like the message that I heard was, yeah, Norman was a great voice teacher, and they had all sorts of funny stories about it, But then

8:03 the real message was, but he gave us, He gave us the power to win. He taught us to live, to love, to succeed. And I thought to myself because at that point in time, I had just I was just kind of in one of those transitions in my life, and I thought to myself, you know what, my dad found a purpose totally outside quote his profession that was really touching the lives. And that's when I actually decided that I was going to really focus in this area. So you know, I really appreciate what you've experienced. In fact, this morning, when I was walking and doing a little bit of meditation, the sun was rising up and I took a picture of the clouds, and later on, as I was contemplating that, I thought, you know what, it's interesting because here was the sun way to the left, but directly where I was taking the picture, which I'm sure was miles away in the clouds, that's where beauty was. And I was thinking to myself, how interesting it is that we reflect the beauty that comes from elsewhere, And in your case, that's what you've done also, which I think is just amazing. So you have gotten into this whole ancient philosophy, and you know, you talk about the Tao of Inner Peace and I can't pronounce these names, but the legendary sage was allowed to oh you got it. Yes, all right, Well,

9:33 let's talk about that a little bit, because you know, I found I find that as I look at the ancient individuals who have taught, whether it's Buddha or Bahamad or Christ or others, that they they all have similar messages. But the interesting thing is that it's all a message of becoming and finding peace and joy in our lives. Right, And so share a little bit about your learning and what you've learned philosophically about his teachings. Oh my goodness. Well, I've been fascinated by the wisdom of the East since I was ten years old when my father was stationed in the Philippines and he would go on flights to Japan and to Taiwan and bring back this beautiful Asian art, which you know, I mean, it's incredible. So I tried to paint Chinese brush paintings and do that too, But the Asian art, unlike Western art, doesn't fill up the whole canvas. It's you know, there's bamboo or some you know, river or something, but there's a whole lot of white space there, which is in Japanese yohaku the white space, and Chinese it's wu emptiness, and that's just as important as the as the foreground, whatever is there, the bamboo, for example, yin and yang,

11:05 you know, yin the empty space, the valley, yang, the mountain. In music, yang the notes when you play the piano, yin the spaces, the rest between the notes. And we all have this dark and light night and day yin and yang rhythm in our lives. But in the West we tend to put too much emphasis on yang and fill up our schedules so that we're just crammed everything crammed in there. And I learned, you know, somehow I resonated with the fact that there was this piece by finding balance. Latsu wrote the Dowda Jing learning about yin and yang in nature during the Warring States period in ancient China, which was about twenty five centuries ago, and he and Confucius were contemporaries, and each of these wise teachers responded to the chaos and commotion around them in different ways. Confucius emphasized family values and honoring your elders and abiding by social rules and rituals. Okay Lao Tzu.

12:26 Like Henry David Thureaux, went wandering out into the woods to find his meaning, his source of peace, and he found the wisdom of bamboo, which is empty at the center and bends with the wind so it doesn't break. That's a different kind of strength than we in the West associate with strength. It's a strength of flexibility. He also is inspired by the power of a mountain stream, which is gentle and nurturing, and yet with perseverance, water can cut through solid rock. We've got a great example of that in this country, the Grand Canyon. So there's a strength and perseverance. And then you noticed the wisdom of the seasons that you know, everything has a cycle of seasons beginning, middle end and spring, you know, the new beginnings, summer when everything is growing, fall when you harvest, and then winter a time of yen, a time to pause and reflect and learn from the previous cycle before we begin again. And what was interesting to me years ago, after World War two, there was a philosopher w. Edwards Deming in America who who believe that when you manufacture something, you know, you begin with an idea, then you build it, and then you finish it,

14:00 and then you sell it and it's done. And there were only three seasons there. He said, no, we need to pause and ask what did we do well? What could we do to make it even more efficient, even better? So he took his philosophy to Detroit and they laughed at him and said, we don't need this. We just put more fins on a car, you know, and to crank it out. You know, we don't need to do this. So he said, okay. So I went to Japan and they resonated with his message. Because the wisdom of the East, the four seasons, the yin or the the Yohaku. So they started building cars and cameras and all kinds of electronics. And they built them, and they paused and asked, what could we do to improve it?

14:48 And they kept getting better and better mileage with their cars, which surprised the people in Detroit. Okay, so that there's a real wisdom there that we can use to make our lives more meaningful, but also to make things more effective and more efficient, you know. And you know there's so much turmoil. Yeah, we could sit and talk about all of the turmoil that's going on in the world today, all right, But what comes to my mind is that the cause of that turmoil, at least in my opinion, and only my opinion is the fact that there's inner turmoil going on within the individuals, which then reflects and behavior and actions. So let's talk a little bit about how this ancient wisdom that you've been talking about can help all of us find that greater personal balance today and to find the peace in our lives, resolve the conflicts in our lives, to really experience that greater joy piece harmony in our lives. Okay, well, one uh, one way is to begin by, we can't really make peace around us when we're all stressed out inside because when we're stressed, stress shuts down our immune system, our digestive

16:23 system, and our higher brain centers, and we just get into fight flight or freeze, which doesn't leave us very many creative options. So to you know, to take a deep breath to recognize when we're feeling stressed and get back into our balance is one way. A lot of people just react and we can't create when we're reacting, you know, we just we make things worse. I think Latsu also taught people to you know, to go within, to reflect on the wisdom of nature and to be my nature, and to find their inner balance through meditation. There are all kinds of Taoist meditations.

17:07 To have a regular meditation or contemplative practice to balance out the activity in our lives. You know, we need both yen, the restoration of balance, the contemplative time and active time, you know both. So that's important. But also yin and yang are two opposites that combine. You've probably seen this symbol of the looks like a darkfish and a light fish, you know, swimming together, opposite opposite directions. Okay, what happens in conflict, when it becomes combat is that people forget that they're part of a larger hole.

17:52 That they don't realize that there may be, you know, something there that the other person has, something that I don't have. I did a workshop recently at my university for students, and I was talking to them about yin and yang in conflict resolution. And we need to see the person that disagrees with us not as the enemy, but as somebody who offers something different, who is yen to our yang or vice versa. So I said, here's an example. Right, we need to listen to ourselves and ask what do I need, and then listen to the other person and ask what does that person need, and then find out our common ground, something that we can agree on together and get both of our needs met instead of just making demands. Well, I brought a lemon from my garden to this class and ask the students, all right, we're going to have a visualization. Imagine that we're all going to a retreat at the top of one of our local mountains. And first of all, we stop at the bottom of the hill to go to the grocery store and to get everything we need because we're going to be spending two nights up there in a cabin. Okay, so we do that, and then we drive, you know, for a couple of hours up to the mountaintop, and some of us are making dinner that night, and we've brought our favorite recipes and we're going to make rice. Of

19:26 course I love rice, lemon, lemon chicken, and a lemon poppy seed cake or dessert. All right, So one person has brought the cake recipe, and another person has brought the lemon chicken recipe, and somebody else has brought the rice. And that's easy, so the rice person has no problem. The other two are ready to make their recipes and they grab the limon and there's only one lemon, and they each need a lemon for their recipe. So what do we do. Well, we could fight over the lemon, which a lot of people end up doing. Oh I need it, you know, I need it more than you do. And then somebody has the whole lemon and the other person's recipe suffers for lack of that lemon, that ingredient. Or else we can compromise, cut the lemon in half, and each of one of us has only a recipe that's only half as good as what it could be, and a lot of people settle for compromise, or else we can ask what do you really need? And we find out that the person who's making lemon chicken needs the lemon juice and the person who's making the cake needs the lemon zest, which is the grating of the outside of the lemon. So they say, oh, okay, so let me just you know, grate the outside of the lemon. Put that in there, hand you the rest of the lemon. You could squeeze it for your recipe, and it's a win win. What's the difference. A lot of

20:59 people stop at phase one. They fight over it. I need it more than you do, you know mine, you know, either or all or nothing, win or lose. A lot of times people get into that polarized way of looking at conflict, or they say, all right, let's compromise, which a lot of people in the US government end up compromising, and they, you know, they don't get all of what they want, but at least it's something or else. If they listen deeply to each other and ask what they really need, possibly they can each get what they what they need and everyone benefits. I think what we need to do is look at how yin and yang fit together and also recognize that we all have common ground and find that common ground. The common ground in the in the metaphorical situation was they wanted to have a nice, harmonious meal together, you know.

22:00 And it's interesting when it comes to my mind as a saying that I love to use, and it's you know, it isn't either or, it can be both and yes, And I think so many people have that either or mentality when if they could change it to both, and all of a sudden, as you say, you bring in the ying and the yang together, and there's such that understanding. So I want to go back to something you were talking about, because what I find is, you know, we can talk theoretically about things and philosophically about things, and yet here we are talking to people who are listening to this podcast and they're feeling that stress. They're feeling that the challenges in their lives and the lack of harmony, and it's like, how do I do it? Yeah, it's great that you're writing, is great that you're doing all of this stuff, but how do I do it? You mentioned meditation, And what I find interesting is how can we help people that really want to improve their lives and want to find that balance and that harmony in their lives. What are some suggestions that you can make that they can literally put into practice to start to experience that, And how do they do that? Okay? Well, one way is to breathe, and we all do it anyway. There are studies that show that if

23:32 you take, you know, recognize when we're stressed, to know ourselves, which is the ancient Greek wisdom as well as the ancient Taoist wisdom, to recognize where we're coming from, and to just take three slow, deep breaths that cuts the stress reaction right away, or to acknowledge when we're stressed and to say, oh, stress, scared, nervous. When we do that, when we name it, when we label it, it takes us away from the amygdala that you know, the automatic stress reaction, and puts our brains into the Wernickes and Brokers areas on the on the left side, which control language, so it automatically puts us back into a more focused state.

24:22 I like to do both, actually, to acknowledge my feeling with a word and then to take deep breaths. That's that's during the situation, you know. But also there are I think it's important for everyone to have some kind of contemplative practice, and for me, I meditate every morning and every night, but I also, you know, will find time sometimes during the day to do a walking meditation, to go out into nature. There's all kinds of research that shows it's called for ust bathing, and that just going out and walking around in nature will reduce inflammation, relieve stress, and make people healthier emotionally and physically. And that's like fifteen minutes of just being out in nature can have that effect on people. So said, yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that I actually do a walking meditation every morning, and for me, you know, it's kind of nature, but for me, I really focus on the breath, you know. So it's an hour and fifteen minutes usually, and literally I'm focusing on the breath. I'm trying to develop that mindset. I'm listening to very interesting. I just came across this concept of the Hemi sink, and you talked about the right brain left brain. Huh, where the Hemi sink allegedly brings both the right brain and the left brain

25:52 together so that you literally are able to really develop that mindset and that coherence, and science is showing that when we can create coherence within our mind, all sorts of amazing things take place, not only the sense of peace and joy, but healing of our bodies and some of those other types of things. So, you know, I love the fact that you're doing it three times a day. I just try to make sure I get it done a long time in the morning. But you know what I find interesting, and I was reading some of this just the other day, that some people find a conflict, particularly people who are oriented religiously in particular ways, and sometimes they believe that there's a conflict between meditation and their belief in God. What are your thoughts on that? Do you ever come across that? It depends, Yeah, but not that much. I mean, I live in northern California and we have a lot okay, but there are many There are hundreds of forms of meditation. I belong to the Heart Math Institute, which does this Cohart coherence meditation, yes, which they've measured. You know, if you have obviously heart coherence, it's good for us personally. And again, you just breathe into your heart and you know, release it and think of some some something that you're grateful for, something that you appreciate, and feel

27:26 that feeling of gratitude go through your body and out into the world. What happens is that our gratitude practice heart math meditation affects the people around us, and they've measured it. If you have a coherent person and you know a couple of incoherent people, the coherent person, all of a sudden, the other people start feeling better. So that isn't prayer, it's just, you know, it's pretty neutral. I mean, just breathing into your heart and thinking of something you're grateful for a person who's a devout Catholic or any religion, jew Muslim, Islamic, whatever can relate to breathing into the heart and feeling grateful, or can relate to walking in nature and observing the beauty of the natural world. So we're not we're not doing anything diabolical or threatening in meditation. It's it's just something natural. There's also there are meditations in almost every spiritual tradition. One of my friends who works for Catholic charities does something which is a meditation in which you have a sacred word and focus on it, so you know, it can be the name of a saint or you know some you know alve Maria or something some phrase like that which fits within a religious tradition. There's also a group of people that I know who say

29:00 mantrum, which is a spiritual word or phrase from whatever your own tradition is. And there have been studies down at the VA Center in San Diego that the people who were working as staff in the VA Center, when they would say that they choose a mantrum that was meaningful to them and just repeat it when they felt stressed. Stress went way down, you know, inflammation went way down. And then they introduced it to a lot of the war veterans who were down at the VA, and they noticed that there was this incredible effect on people who had PTSD when they said their mantrum. An incredible you know, healing effect took place and they didn't feel the PTSD had stopped it.

29:48 So and again there are publications about this, So there are you know, you can say a montrum, you can walk in nature, you can do heart focused breathing, you can say a prayer. I mean, it's all a way of tuning into something beyond our egos and recognizing we're connected to something much greater than ourselves, which allows to discovers. You know, doctor Joe dispends it talks about the quantum field. And you know, as I've looked at that, and I you know, as I've been contemplating that doing my meditation, and and I do pray during my meditation, uh and particularly express gratitude. What what I what came to my mind is, you know, he talks about quantum field, what about talking about the eternal field, the eternity, and all of a sudden we take ourselves out of this mortal everything going on in our lives and we put ourselves into a place of peace, of being able to tap into that higher power, whatever that happens to be for people, and realize that through meditation we are able to remove ourselves from that daily stress and start to feel that sense of peace and start to express that gratitude that all the blessings that come into our lives, and sometimes we don't even recognize what those blessings are, but it would ever step back

31:19 and really contemplate about it, would recognize that, Wow, there's so many blessings in our lives, and I think it's amazing. I would love for the folks that are listening to understand that. You know, for me, it took me, oh wow, it took me at least three four months of intended purpose to finally get to the point where, Okay, I'm going to meditate because I really want to experience that peace and that joy in my life and eliminate some of that stress. And I want the people to understand that. You know what it sounds weird, Yeah, it does. And does it take time, Well, you don't have to do it for half an hour or an hour as you said, It could be you know, five minutes, six minutes, ten minutes, and just breathing and trying to move out of that situation to the point where you just get to a point where you're start to experience that gratitude and that piece and that love and joy.

32:16 So, you know, and that's one of the reasons why I'm focusing on this right now on the interviews, is because I want people to understand that they can literally find a practice in their lives that can help move them away from that stress and find that piece. You have some amazing stories that you have shared, and one in particular, I'd love for you to share the story that you talk about this lady that ended up with COVID having to go back to her parents' house. Oh okay, Well, what you said, doctor Doug, is that we tune in to that light which surrounds us, you know, which is beyond our egos. We find, you know, we find guidance, we find insight, we find inspiration. And one of the joys in my life is helping my students and now my clients discover the wisdom that is within them and beyond them when they get into that state.

33:29 Otherwise, it's just our conscious mind and it's thinking, you know, we can't really solve a lot of problems with this little bit of our minds, but we're all connected to a source of inspiration that transcends our egos. So and to go into my students, I try to help them discover the light within them, because I believe, again back to the Renaissance, everyone has particular strengths that they've been given that they have come into this life with. And in the Renaissance they believed that, you know, God gave these people a certain set of gifts. We were supposed to develop them and use them to serve the world the Lord, and to make our lives meaningful.

34:21 So what happened in the Renaissance is that this is going somewhere toward my former student. We have all these people, you know, there was this incredible explosion of creativity. A young boy in the English countryside, for example, whose parents could only sign their names with an X, found his calling on the London stage as William Shakespeare. We have, you know, the arts, we've got literature, we've got scientific discoveries. Because people tuned in to that power and possibility and inspiration within them that they were connected to something greater than their ego. They could do something more than simply the status quo.

35:05 They were not stuck. So I ended up talking to a lot of students and helping them discover that possibility within them. Most recently, it was a young woman who had a fulbride actually to study a soldar entrepreneurship in India with working with women's solar entrepreneurs and she was very excited about that. But unfortunately this was in twenty twenty and twenty nineteen twenty twenty, and in February of twenty twenty, something happened called the COVID pandemic, yes, which pretty much curtailed her her work over there. She had to come home back to her parents' house in the States, and her sister had been killed in an in an automobile accident. Her sister was riding a bicycle, was trying to be environmentally you know, friendly, and got hit by a car. So my former student was pretty distraught, wrote a story about her sister, her older sister, and send it to me because she'd been in my creative writing class the year before. And I said, oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your sister. And she said, now I'm at my parents' house.

36:27 You know, I can't go anywhere. I want to help the world. I want to do something, but you know, I had to come home my full write. I said, Okay, what can you do? I said, you're a really good writer. Can you write stories about what you learned over there? Can you draw pictures with words of these women and what they discovered and how it improved their lives? And it did. I mean they a lot of the people had they didn't have housing, so they lived under tarps, you know, which are plastic, and they were cooking with fire in there, and the whole thing would go up in flames. So solar cookstoves are a whole lot safer and solar lighting. People could actually read and students could do their homework, and it was helping people. And she felt really sad that she had to stop. Okay, but she wrote about them, and her writing was so colorful and heartrending. It was beautiful.

37:28 So we met on Zoom and we had a little creative writing class. I said, okay, I'm a creative writing coach, and so you have to pay me. And what I expect is for you to pay me. Your payment is going to be your first published article. Okay. So she did publish these articles, you know, with our university and also with the Full Right organization, and she used some of the stories to apply to Oxford University, which and she finished her master's degree in international development over there, and she's going to make a positive difference in the world. So she looked within herself and brought forth her talent, told the stories of these women, and so what she did was actually spread in a different way. I've had other students when I was an associate dean. I heard all the student complaints in the College of Arts and Sciences. So a student came to my office one time with his mother. He had gotten a C plus in organic chemistry and he was pre med and the mother said, I want you to talk to the professor and get him to raise the grade. And I said, well, I can't do that, you know. But what I can do is I can meet with your son and we can figure out something that he can do that will make things better. So okay. So then the young man came back and it was just a first year student, you know, and

38:58 I said, look, this is your first quarter in college, right, what graduate schools look at is the last two years. They really don't. They figured, you know, you're just adjusting. So what can you go to the professor? What can you learn from the experience, and how can you do better next time? That's what you do why you want to be a doctor. And he said, I love anatomy. It's so beautiful. And he had brought some of his anatomical drawings that he had done, and he said, my high school teacher wanted me to publish with him a book of these drawings so that he could use it in his class. And this student's anatomical drawings look like Leonardo da Vinci's. I mean, they were really good. He said. Wow. So I ended up being a writing coach and helping him do a contract, you know, a co author contract, and get the book published and all that. Well. He then was inspired and empowered and he went to medical school. And a few years later I got an email from him and he invited me to lunch and he was now a doctor whatever. So you know, we can help people discover that which is within them. Another of my students had a similar experience. He was very, very unhappy because he was a Sikh and didn't eat meat and didn't drink, and a lot of the activities on campus were barbecues and beer parties.

40:30 So he said, what are we going to do here? And he applied to be an RA in the dorms, you know, a resident advisor, because he wanted to do something. He wanted to participate in campus life. But he got turned down and I said, okay, so what can you do? I said, they wanted somebody to fit into their idea of what they you know, their their structure, and what can you do that is is who you are? And he said, I love nature and I love hiking. So he started this club called Into the Wild where students would go off walking in the mountains. They'd have to leave their electronic behind and you know, they could bring a notebook and write and meditate walking in nature.

41:17 It became the most popular club on campus, and years later, some students in my class, he came back to visit. He's now working, you know, at Google, and he's very very happy. But he founded this club that helps students manage stress by going out into nature. And then he found lots of friends who also liked to go out into nature. It was good for him. He left a legacy it's still the most popular club on campus, you know, and it's so interesting, you know what we're talking about, and of course you're talking at a level, you know, where people are really highly educated and are doing things in that way to help people. And yet I want I want the audience to understand that you don't need that education. You don't need to be you know, affecting lives of hundreds of people or you know, hundreds of thousands of people. That literally, little actions that we can do in behalf of others to help them and to lift their lives can be done just touching the life of one person.

42:22 You know, we think, well, that's not many, but when you start to think, all right, if I touch the life of one person, and now they touch the life of their connections and on and on and on, and suddenly years later, hundreds, if not thousands of people have been touched because of that one person who decided to benefit someone else by lifting their lives. Absolutely, that is so inspiring. A long time ago, in one of the churches that I went to, I go to a lot of different ones, but we had a ceremony and they had a candle there and each one of us had a little candle, and one person went and lit her candle from this one, and then we each lit a candle of someone else. We were standing in a circle, and that one candle and one person lighting another person's candle, one to one, one person at a time. The whole room was filled with light because of the progressive, you know, sharing of our light, and that really does make a difference.

43:30 There's a psychologist, Barbara Frederickson at the University of North Carolina who's written a book called Love two point zero, and she talks about something called micro moments of connectivity, which is something that we can all do every day. She said, just a small interaction smiling at somebody, a kind word, waving at a neighbor, a kind word to the clerk at the supermarket or something. You know what that does. It benefits both people. It reduces stress, it reduces inflammation, It activates our immune system. And it also is contagious because then each person feels better and their energy goes out. And she said, it affects, It can affect a whole neighborhood, you know, a whole community. All right. So, as we're coming near the end of the show, talk about your latest book and share with the audience what that's about and how they can find it. Okay, well, that's a good question. My most recent book is Your Personal Renaissance, which is and it's the available you know, in most places bookstores online. But it works with the fact that in the Renaissance people believe that everyone had just these special gifts strengths. We all have them, we're all individual rules, and that

45:01 recently positive psychologists have discovered our signature strengths, that there are twenty four character strengths which are common to all humanity and each one of us. We can take the Signature Strength Survey at wwwvia character dot org and it's free, but we can find and I have all my students do it to find out what their top strengths are, their signature strengths, and to use them to improve their lives to be healthier, happier and more successful. So that is one book that is available. The dow of Inner Piece just came out as an audiobook this past year, so it's been published in many different editions and this is the new one. So if you like to listen to books when you're walking or waiting for something, I would recommend if you're interested in Eastern philosophy, the dow of Innerpiece, which kind of goes back to finding peace with than us, so that we can create greater peace around us. Okay, and say the name and again very slowly the audible book, the Tao of Inner Piece, The Tao of Inner Piece outright wonderful. So as we close, very sharp message, what would be the message that you want to share with the audience from your heart? Oh my, I would like in a time when when a lot of people are feeling disconnected and there's a lot of

46:35 depression and darkness and confusion, to remind us that we each have a spark, a light within us, and we can find that by connecting to nature, to one another, to our favorite music, to a sense of purpose and meaning. And when we find our own spark, we can help light the world, not just our own lives, but to look within ourselves for who we truly are inside and how we can connect. Love it, love it, love it, Dan, Thank you so much. It's just been wonderful chatting with you. Oh, thank you. It's been a real real inspiration, doctor Doug, and I totally I am very grateful for the wonderful work you do. Peace be with you. Well. Thank you, and folks, thanks for listening. And you know, if there's nothing else you got from this, it's a matter of the fact that you know you all have strengths. We all have strengths. If we discover what those are, we can use those to touch the lives of others. And if you're feeling stress, if you're feeling all that anxiety, consider meditation in some way that can improve your lives. Thanks for listening. Hope you'll join us again soon time with sir compliment