Find Peace From Internal and External Turbulence

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This program is designed to provide general
information with regards to the subject matters covered.

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This information is given with the understanding
that neither the hosts, guests,

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sponsors, or station are engaged in
rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,

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legal counseling, professional service, or
any advice. You should seek the

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services of competent professionals before applying or
trying any suggested ideas. At the end

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of the day, it's not about
what you have or even what you've accomplished.

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It's about what you've done with those
accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted

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up, who you've made better.
It's about what you've given back. Denzel

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Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision.
Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives

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of others and to inspire you to
do the same. Diane Dreer, Welcome

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to the show. How are you
great? And I'm delighted to be here.

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Oh, I'm really excited to have
you here. And as I have

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mentioned to you, I would love
for you to be able to share with

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the audience who you are, your
background, and then the journey that you

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have been on to bring you to
the point where you've written these wonderful books

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and also doing what you're doing now. Okay, well, I guess here

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we are. I am a Diandrea. I have a PhD in Renaissance literature

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from UCLA. I have a master's
in counseling from Santa Clara University. I'm

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a credential positive psychology coach with the
International Coaching Federation, and I have been

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a college professor for absolutely decades.
All of that psychology literature, it does

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come together. But actually my big
passion and my inspiration is helping people discover

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the power and possibilities within them,
which is what I think we all need

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personally and politically and collectively to make
our world really shine. And I was

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inspired by my father, who never
went to college, but he was very

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happy to say that his daughter has
a PhD. My father was a poor

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boy growing up on a farm in
Kentucky riding a mule. The farm had

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no indoor plumbing, and he grew
up to fly jets and air rescue helicopters

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and retire as a colonel in the
Air Force. We moved all over the

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world for his Air Force assignments,
which was an adventure in itself. But

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my father's story inspired me because he
discovered the power and possibilities within him.

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He was poor, He didn't have, you know, much. He had

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no driver's license when he was sixteen, because, of course, no one

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in his family could fort de car. His mother wanted him to be a

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priest. She was a very devout
Catholic, and my father would look up

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at the sky and see these little
biplanes flying overhead, and his idea of

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the heavens was much different from my
grandmother's. He wanted to fly, so

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he would run it out over a
mile to the local airport, the Louisville

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Flying Service, to tie down help
tie down the plane, because he could

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get a quarter for doing that,
and this was during the depression, and

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a quarter was a lot of money. Eventually, when his mother began nagging

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him about being a priest, he
moved away from home into the attic of

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the Louisville Flying Service, where he
was summarily adopted by these old World War

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One barnstormers, and he supported himself
from age sixteen. Got his pilot's license

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at sixteen and was in the Louisville
Courier Journal as the younger Pilot in Kentucky,

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which when he was in his sixties. I used to tease him about,

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you're still the youngest pilot in Kentucky. Yeah. He found his calling

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by following his heart, by following
his passion, and rescued a lot of

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people when he was, you know, the commander of an air rescue squadron.

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He inspired me because I believe,
as people in the Renaissance believed that

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we each have talents, gifts,
a light within us, and it's our

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duty and our destiny to discover that
light and bring it forward and to apply

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it to our lives, because then
we make, you know, new contributions

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to our world. So, following
my father's example but not necessarily his path,

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I decided I wanted to be a
writer and eventually a college professor.

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But of course I needed to work
my way through college, and so I

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had these little part time jobs,
and I kept seeing myself writing and publishing.

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And one day I was driving home
from another little temporary job in the

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summertime between my first and second year
of college at UC Riverside, and I

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drove down Fourteenth Street past the Riverside
Press Enterprise, our local newspaper, and

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this voice within me said, you're
a writer. You should work there.

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So I turned my little red Volkswagen
that I shared with my brother into the

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parking lot, walked inside as a
shy teenager, and said, Hi,

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I'm Diane Drea. I'm a writer. I'd like to apply for a job,

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and the reporter in the newsroom said, go upstairs to the personnel office.

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What I learned after I filled out
some papers was that they said their

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college intern had given notice that morning. Can you begin work on Monday.

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I had this great job because I
followed my heart. You know. I

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could work twenty hours a week for
the press enterprise, work around my class

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schedule, paid for my dorms room
and board, books, everything tuition,

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which wasn't much back then. And
I learned from all these reporters what it

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means to be a writer, you
know, how to really capture a story

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and the excitement of getting words down
on paper and sharing them with the world.

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So that was my launch. I
guess into my writing career, and

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then I majored in English at uc
Riverside and got a graduate fellowship to the

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PhD program at UCLA because I fell
in love with Renaissance literature. And it

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was difficult because I was thinking do
I want to write about current events,

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or do I want to write about
the Renaissance and this poetry and the time

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when people were discovering their vocations,
their callings. What's happened, of course,

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is that I write a blog for
Psychology Today about current events, and

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I write books about Eastern philosophy,
Renaissance literature. But all of this is

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to help us, all including me, wake up to what we are inside

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and discover the hidden treasures within us, you know, And it's so amazing

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that you were so inspired by your
father and his journey. I remember back

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in twenty ten when my dad passed
away and they he was at Northwestern University

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in Evanston, Illinois, a vocal
teacher, a classical voice teacher, and

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I remember they held a special ceremony
for him, and I remember that I

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walked out of there and it was
a similar thing for you. It was

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like the message that I heard was, yeah, Norman was a great voice

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teacher, and they had all sorts
of funny stories about it, But then

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the real message was, but he
gave us, He gave us the power

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to win. He taught us to
live, to love, to succeed.

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And I thought to myself because at
that point in time, I had just

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I was just kind of in one
of those transitions in my life, and

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I thought to myself, you know
what, my dad found a purpose totally

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outside quote his profession that was really
touching the lives. And that's when I

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actually decided that I was going to
really focus in this area. So you

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know, I really appreciate what you've
experienced. In fact, this morning,

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when I was walking and doing a
little bit of meditation, the sun was

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rising up and I took a picture
of the clouds, and later on,

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as I was contemplating that, I
thought, you know what, it's interesting

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because here was the sun way to
the left, but directly where I was

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taking the picture, which I'm sure
was miles away in the clouds, that's

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where beauty was. And I was
thinking to myself, how interesting it is

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that we reflect the beauty that comes
from elsewhere, And in your case,

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that's what you've done also, which
I think is just amazing. So you

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have gotten into this whole ancient philosophy, and you know, you talk about

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the Tao of Inner Peace and I
can't pronounce these names, but the legendary

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sage was allowed to oh you got
it. Yes, all right, Well,

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let's talk about that a little bit, because you know, I found

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I find that as I look at
the ancient individuals who have taught, whether

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it's Buddha or Bahamad or Christ or
others, that they they all have similar

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messages. But the interesting thing is
that it's all a message of becoming and

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finding peace and joy in our lives. Right, And so share a little

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bit about your learning and what you've
learned philosophically about his teachings. Oh my

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goodness. Well, I've been fascinated
by the wisdom of the East since I

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was ten years old when my father
was stationed in the Philippines and he would

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go on flights to Japan and to
Taiwan and bring back this beautiful Asian art,

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which you know, I mean,
it's incredible. So I tried to

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paint Chinese brush paintings and do that
too, But the Asian art, unlike

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Western art, doesn't fill up the
whole canvas. It's you know, there's

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bamboo or some you know, river
or something, but there's a whole lot

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of white space there, which is
in Japanese yohaku the white space, and

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Chinese it's wu emptiness, and that's
just as important as the as the foreground,

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whatever is there, the bamboo,
for example, yin and yang,

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you know, yin the empty space, the valley, yang, the mountain.

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In music, yang the notes when
you play the piano, yin the

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spaces, the rest between the notes. And we all have this dark and

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light night and day yin and yang
rhythm in our lives. But in the

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West we tend to put too much
emphasis on yang and fill up our schedules

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so that we're just crammed everything crammed
in there. And I learned, you

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know, somehow I resonated with the
fact that there was this piece by finding

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balance. Latsu wrote the Dowda Jing
learning about yin and yang in nature during

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the Warring States period in ancient China, which was about twenty five centuries ago,

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and he and Confucius were contemporaries,
and each of these wise teachers responded

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to the chaos and commotion around them
in different ways. Confucius emphasized family values

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and honoring your elders and abiding by
social rules and rituals. Okay Lao Tzu.

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Like Henry David Thureaux, went wandering
out into the woods to find his

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meaning, his source of peace,
and he found the wisdom of bamboo,

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which is empty at the center and
bends with the wind so it doesn't break.

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That's a different kind of strength than
we in the West associate with strength.

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It's a strength of flexibility. He
also is inspired by the power of

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a mountain stream, which is gentle
and nurturing, and yet with perseverance,

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water can cut through solid rock.
We've got a great example of that in

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this country, the Grand Canyon.
So there's a strength and perseverance. And

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then you noticed the wisdom of the
seasons that you know, everything has a

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cycle of seasons beginning, middle end
and spring, you know, the new

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beginnings, summer when everything is growing, fall when you harvest, and then

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winter a time of yen, a
time to pause and reflect and learn from

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the previous cycle before we begin again. And what was interesting to me years

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ago, after World War two,
there was a philosopher w. Edwards Deming

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in America who who believe that when
you manufacture something, you know, you

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begin with an idea, then you
build it, and then you finish it,

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and then you sell it and it's
done. And there were only three

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seasons there. He said, no, we need to pause and ask what

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did we do well? What could
we do to make it even more efficient,

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even better? So he took his
philosophy to Detroit and they laughed at

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him and said, we don't need
this. We just put more fins on

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a car, you know, and
to crank it out. You know,

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we don't need to do this.
So he said, okay. So I

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went to Japan and they resonated with
his message. Because the wisdom of the

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East, the four seasons, the
yin or the the Yohaku. So they

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started building cars and cameras and all
kinds of electronics. And they built them,

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and they paused and asked, what
could we do to improve it?

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And they kept getting better and better
mileage with their cars, which surprised the

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people in Detroit. Okay, so
that there's a real wisdom there that we

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can use to make our lives more
meaningful, but also to make things more

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effective and more efficient, you know. And you know there's so much turmoil.

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Yeah, we could sit and talk
about all of the turmoil that's going

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on in the world today, all
right, But what comes to my mind

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is that the cause of that turmoil, at least in my opinion, and

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only my opinion is the fact that
there's inner turmoil going on within the individuals,

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which then reflects and behavior and actions. So let's talk a little bit

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about how this ancient wisdom that you've
been talking about can help all of us

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find that greater personal balance today and
to find the peace in our lives,

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resolve the conflicts in our lives,
to really experience that greater joy piece harmony

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in our lives. Okay, well, one uh, one way is to

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begin by, we can't really make
peace around us when we're all stressed out

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inside because when we're stressed, stress
shuts down our immune system, our digestive

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system, and our higher brain centers, and we just get into fight flight

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or freeze, which doesn't leave us
very many creative options. So to you

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know, to take a deep breath
to recognize when we're feeling stressed and get

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back into our balance is one way. A lot of people just react and

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we can't create when we're reacting,
you know, we just we make things

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worse. I think Latsu also taught
people to you know, to go within,

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to reflect on the wisdom of nature
and to be my nature, and

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to find their inner balance through meditation. There are all kinds of Taoist meditations.

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To have a regular meditation or contemplative
practice to balance out the activity in

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our lives. You know, we
need both yen, the restoration of balance,

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the contemplative time and active time,
you know both. So that's important.

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But also yin and yang are two
opposites that combine. You've probably seen

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this symbol of the looks like a
darkfish and a light fish, you know,

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swimming together, opposite opposite directions.
Okay, what happens in conflict,

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when it becomes combat is that people
forget that they're part of a larger hole.

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That they don't realize that there may
be, you know, something there

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that the other person has, something
that I don't have. I did a

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workshop recently at my university for students, and I was talking to them about

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yin and yang in conflict resolution.
And we need to see the person that

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disagrees with us not as the enemy, but as somebody who offers something different,

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who is yen to our yang or
vice versa. So I said,

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here's an example. Right, we
need to listen to ourselves and ask what

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do I need, and then listen
to the other person and ask what does

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that person need, and then find
out our common ground, something that we

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can agree on together and get both
of our needs met instead of just making

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demands. Well, I brought a
lemon from my garden to this class and

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ask the students, all right,
we're going to have a visualization. Imagine

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that we're all going to a retreat
at the top of one of our local

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mountains. And first of all,
we stop at the bottom of the hill

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to go to the grocery store and
to get everything we need because we're going

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to be spending two nights up there
in a cabin. Okay, so we

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do that, and then we drive, you know, for a couple of

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hours up to the mountaintop, and
some of us are making dinner that night,

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and we've brought our favorite recipes and
we're going to make rice. Of

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course I love rice, lemon,
lemon chicken, and a lemon poppy seed

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cake or dessert. All right,
So one person has brought the cake recipe,

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and another person has brought the lemon
chicken recipe, and somebody else has

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brought the rice. And that's easy, so the rice person has no problem.

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The other two are ready to make
their recipes and they grab the limon

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and there's only one lemon, and
they each need a lemon for their recipe.

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So what do we do. Well, we could fight over the lemon,

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which a lot of people end up
doing. Oh I need it,

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you know, I need it more
than you do. And then somebody has

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the whole lemon and the other person's
recipe suffers for lack of that lemon,

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that ingredient. Or else we can
compromise, cut the lemon in half,

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and each of one of us has
only a recipe that's only half as good

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as what it could be, and
a lot of people settle for compromise,

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or else we can ask what do
you really need? And we find out

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that the person who's making lemon chicken
needs the lemon juice and the person who's

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making the cake needs the lemon zest, which is the grating of the outside

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of the lemon. So they say, oh, okay, so let me

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just you know, grate the outside
of the lemon. Put that in there,

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hand you the rest of the lemon. You could squeeze it for your

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recipe, and it's a win win. What's the difference. A lot of

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people stop at phase one. They
fight over it. I need it more

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than you do, you know mine, you know, either or all or

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nothing, win or lose. A
lot of times people get into that polarized

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way of looking at conflict, or
they say, all right, let's compromise,

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which a lot of people in the
US government end up compromising, and

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they, you know, they don't
get all of what they want, but

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at least it's something or else.
If they listen deeply to each other and

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ask what they really need, possibly
they can each get what they what they

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need and everyone benefits. I think
what we need to do is look at

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how yin and yang fit together and
also recognize that we all have common ground

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and find that common ground. The
common ground in the in the metaphorical situation

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was they wanted to have a nice, harmonious meal together, you know.

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And it's interesting when it comes to
my mind as a saying that I love

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to use, and it's you know, it isn't either or, it can

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be both and yes, And I
think so many people have that either or

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mentality when if they could change it
to both, and all of a sudden,

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as you say, you bring in
the ying and the yang together,

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and there's such that understanding. So
I want to go back to something you

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were talking about, because what I
find is, you know, we can

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talk theoretically about things and philosophically about
things, and yet here we are talking

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to people who are listening to this
podcast and they're feeling that stress. They're

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feeling that the challenges in their lives
and the lack of harmony, and it's

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like, how do I do it? Yeah, it's great that you're writing,

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is great that you're doing all of
this stuff, but how do I

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do it? You mentioned meditation,
And what I find interesting is how can

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we help people that really want to
improve their lives and want to find that

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balance and that harmony in their lives. What are some suggestions that you can

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make that they can literally put into
practice to start to experience that, And

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how do they do that? Okay? Well, one way is to breathe,

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and we all do it anyway.
There are studies that show that if

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you take, you know, recognize
when we're stressed, to know ourselves,

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which is the ancient Greek wisdom as
well as the ancient Taoist wisdom, to

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recognize where we're coming from, and
to just take three slow, deep breaths

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that cuts the stress reaction right away, or to acknowledge when we're stressed and

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to say, oh, stress,
scared, nervous. When we do that,

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when we name it, when we
label it, it takes us away

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from the amygdala that you know,
the automatic stress reaction, and puts our

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brains into the Wernickes and Brokers areas
on the on the left side, which

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control language, so it automatically puts
us back into a more focused state.

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I like to do both, actually, to acknowledge my feeling with a word

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and then to take deep breaths.
That's that's during the situation, you know.

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But also there are I think it's
important for everyone to have some kind

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of contemplative practice, and for me, I meditate every morning and every night,

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but I also, you know,
will find time sometimes during the day

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to do a walking meditation, to
go out into nature. There's all kinds

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of research that shows it's called for
ust bathing, and that just going out

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and walking around in nature will reduce
inflammation, relieve stress, and make people

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healthier emotionally and physically. And that's
like fifteen minutes of just being out in

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nature can have that effect on people. So said, yeah, it's interesting

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you mentioned that I actually do a
walking meditation every morning, and for me,

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you know, it's kind of nature, but for me, I really

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focus on the breath, you know. So it's an hour and fifteen minutes

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usually, and literally I'm focusing on
the breath. I'm trying to develop that

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mindset. I'm listening to very interesting. I just came across this concept of

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the Hemi sink, and you talked
about the right brain left brain. Huh,

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where the Hemi sink allegedly brings both
the right brain and the left brain

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together so that you literally are able
to really develop that mindset and that coherence,

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and science is showing that when we
can create coherence within our mind,

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all sorts of amazing things take place, not only the sense of peace and

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joy, but healing of our bodies
and some of those other types of things.

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So, you know, I love
the fact that you're doing it three

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times a day. I just try
to make sure I get it done a

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long time in the morning. But
you know what I find interesting, and

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I was reading some of this just
the other day, that some people find

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a conflict, particularly people who are
oriented religiously in particular ways, and sometimes

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they believe that there's a conflict between
meditation and their belief in God. What

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are your thoughts on that? Do
you ever come across that? It depends,

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Yeah, but not that much.
I mean, I live in northern

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California and we have a lot okay, but there are many There are hundreds

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of forms of meditation. I belong
to the Heart Math Institute, which does

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this Cohart coherence meditation, yes,
which they've measured. You know, if

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you have obviously heart coherence, it's
good for us personally. And again,

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you just breathe into your heart and
you know, release it and think of

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some some something that you're grateful for, something that you appreciate, and feel

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that feeling of gratitude go through your
body and out into the world. What

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happens is that our gratitude practice heart
math meditation affects the people around us,

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and they've measured it. If you
have a coherent person and you know a

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couple of incoherent people, the coherent
person, all of a sudden, the

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other people start feeling better. So
that isn't prayer, it's just, you

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know, it's pretty neutral. I
mean, just breathing into your heart and

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thinking of something you're grateful for a
person who's a devout Catholic or any religion,

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jew Muslim, Islamic, whatever can
relate to breathing into the heart and

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feeling grateful, or can relate to
walking in nature and observing the beauty of

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the natural world. So we're not
we're not doing anything diabolical or threatening in

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meditation. It's it's just something natural. There's also there are meditations in almost

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every spiritual tradition. One of my
friends who works for Catholic charities does something

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which is a meditation in which you
have a sacred word and focus on it,

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so you know, it can be
the name of a saint or you

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know some you know alve Maria or
something some phrase like that which fits within

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a religious tradition. There's also a
group of people that I know who say

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mantrum, which is a spiritual word
or phrase from whatever your own tradition is.

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And there have been studies down at
the VA Center in San Diego that

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the people who were working as staff
in the VA Center, when they would

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say that they choose a mantrum that
was meaningful to them and just repeat it

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when they felt stressed. Stress went
way down, you know, inflammation went

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way down. And then they introduced
it to a lot of the war veterans

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who were down at the VA,
and they noticed that there was this incredible

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effect on people who had PTSD when
they said their mantrum. An incredible you

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know, healing effect took place and
they didn't feel the PTSD had stopped it.

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So and again there are publications about
this, So there are you know,

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you can say a montrum, you
can walk in nature, you can

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do heart focused breathing, you can
say a prayer. I mean, it's

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all a way of tuning into something
beyond our egos and recognizing we're connected to

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something much greater than ourselves, which
allows to discovers. You know, doctor

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Joe dispends it talks about the quantum
field. And you know, as I've

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looked at that, and I you
know, as I've been contemplating that doing

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my meditation, and and I do
pray during my meditation, uh and particularly

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express gratitude. What what I what
came to my mind is, you know,

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he talks about quantum field, what
about talking about the eternal field,

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the eternity, and all of a
sudden we take ourselves out of this mortal

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everything going on in our lives and
we put ourselves into a place of peace,

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of being able to tap into that
higher power, whatever that happens to

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be for people, and realize that
through meditation we are able to remove ourselves

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from that daily stress and start to
feel that sense of peace and start to

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express that gratitude that all the blessings
that come into our lives, and sometimes

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we don't even recognize what those blessings
are, but it would ever step back

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and really contemplate about it, would
recognize that, Wow, there's so many

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blessings in our lives, and I
think it's amazing. I would love for

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the folks that are listening to understand
that. You know, for me,

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it took me, oh wow,
it took me at least three four months

353
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of intended purpose to finally get to
the point where, Okay, I'm going

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to meditate because I really want to
experience that peace and that joy in my

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life and eliminate some of that stress. And I want the people to understand

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that. You know what it sounds
weird, Yeah, it does. And

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does it take time, Well,
you don't have to do it for half

358
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an hour or an hour as you
said, It could be you know,

359
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five minutes, six minutes, ten
minutes, and just breathing and trying to

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move out of that situation to the
point where you just get to a point

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where you're start to experience that gratitude
and that piece and that love and joy.

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So, you know, and that's
one of the reasons why I'm focusing

363
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on this right now on the interviews, is because I want people to understand

364
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that they can literally find a practice
in their lives that can help move them

365
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away from that stress and find that
piece. You have some amazing stories that

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you have shared, and one in
particular, I'd love for you to share

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the story that you talk about this
lady that ended up with COVID having to

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go back to her parents' house.
Oh okay, Well, what you said,

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doctor Doug, is that we tune
in to that light which surrounds us,

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you know, which is beyond our
egos. We find, you know,

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we find guidance, we find insight, we find inspiration. And one

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of the joys in my life is
helping my students and now my clients discover

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the wisdom that is within them and
beyond them when they get into that state.

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Otherwise, it's just our conscious mind
and it's thinking, you know,

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we can't really solve a lot of
problems with this little bit of our minds,

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but we're all connected to a source
of inspiration that transcends our egos.

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So and to go into my students, I try to help them discover the

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light within them, because I believe, again back to the Renaissance, everyone

379
00:34:00.119 --> 00:34:06.359
has particular strengths that they've been given
that they have come into this life with.

380
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And in the Renaissance they believed that, you know, God gave these

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people a certain set of gifts.
We were supposed to develop them and use

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them to serve the world the Lord, and to make our lives meaningful.

383
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So what happened in the Renaissance is
that this is going somewhere toward my former

384
00:34:27.079 --> 00:34:31.360
student. We have all these people, you know, there was this incredible

385
00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:37.440
explosion of creativity. A young boy
in the English countryside, for example,

386
00:34:37.480 --> 00:34:43.519
whose parents could only sign their names
with an X, found his calling on

387
00:34:43.599 --> 00:34:47.960
the London stage as William Shakespeare.
We have, you know, the arts,

388
00:34:49.039 --> 00:34:53.880
we've got literature, we've got scientific
discoveries. Because people tuned in to

389
00:34:54.159 --> 00:35:00.920
that power and possibility and inspiration within
them that they were connected to something greater

390
00:35:00.039 --> 00:35:04.840
than their ego. They could do
something more than simply the status quo.

391
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They were not stuck. So I
ended up talking to a lot of students

392
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and helping them discover that possibility within
them. Most recently, it was a

393
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:29.079
young woman who had a fulbride actually
to study a soldar entrepreneurship in India with

394
00:35:29.199 --> 00:35:35.800
working with women's solar entrepreneurs and she
was very excited about that. But unfortunately

395
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:44.280
this was in twenty twenty and twenty
nineteen twenty twenty, and in February of

396
00:35:44.280 --> 00:35:51.280
twenty twenty, something happened called the
COVID pandemic, yes, which pretty much

397
00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:54.840
curtailed her her work over there.
She had to come home back to her

398
00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:00.079
parents' house in the States, and
her sister had been killed in an in

399
00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:04.519
an automobile accident. Her sister was
riding a bicycle, was trying to be

400
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:08.960
environmentally you know, friendly, and
got hit by a car. So my

401
00:36:09.079 --> 00:36:15.679
former student was pretty distraught, wrote
a story about her sister, her older

402
00:36:15.719 --> 00:36:20.559
sister, and send it to me
because she'd been in my creative writing class

403
00:36:20.559 --> 00:36:22.760
the year before. And I said, oh, I'm so sorry to hear

404
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:25.639
about your sister. And she said, now I'm at my parents' house.

405
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You know, I can't go anywhere. I want to help the world.

406
00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:32.199
I want to do something, but
you know, I had to come home

407
00:36:32.440 --> 00:36:37.239
my full write. I said,
Okay, what can you do? I

408
00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:40.480
said, you're a really good writer. Can you write stories about what you

409
00:36:40.559 --> 00:36:45.760
learned over there? Can you draw
pictures with words of these women and what

410
00:36:45.800 --> 00:36:50.960
they discovered and how it improved their
lives? And it did. I mean

411
00:36:51.519 --> 00:36:55.800
they a lot of the people had
they didn't have housing, so they lived

412
00:36:57.159 --> 00:37:02.559
under tarps, you know, which
are plastic, and they were cooking with

413
00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:07.639
fire in there, and the whole
thing would go up in flames. So

414
00:37:07.639 --> 00:37:14.079
solar cookstoves are a whole lot safer
and solar lighting. People could actually read

415
00:37:14.199 --> 00:37:17.239
and students could do their homework,
and it was helping people. And she

416
00:37:17.320 --> 00:37:22.519
felt really sad that she had to
stop. Okay, but she wrote about

417
00:37:22.559 --> 00:37:28.199
them, and her writing was so
colorful and heartrending. It was beautiful.

418
00:37:28.599 --> 00:37:32.079
So we met on Zoom and we
had a little creative writing class. I

419
00:37:32.079 --> 00:37:37.760
said, okay, I'm a creative
writing coach, and so you have to

420
00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:42.159
pay me. And what I expect
is for you to pay me. Your

421
00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:46.559
payment is going to be your first
published article. Okay. So she did

422
00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:51.960
publish these articles, you know,
with our university and also with the Full

423
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:58.719
Right organization, and she used some
of the stories to apply to Oxford University,

424
00:37:59.320 --> 00:38:04.599
which and she finished her master's degree
in international development over there, and

425
00:38:04.639 --> 00:38:07.519
she's going to make a positive difference
in the world. So she looked within

426
00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:13.840
herself and brought forth her talent,
told the stories of these women, and

427
00:38:13.880 --> 00:38:19.159
so what she did was actually spread
in a different way. I've had other

428
00:38:19.239 --> 00:38:24.079
students when I was an associate dean. I heard all the student complaints in

429
00:38:24.119 --> 00:38:29.239
the College of Arts and Sciences.
So a student came to my office one

430
00:38:29.280 --> 00:38:32.639
time with his mother. He had
gotten a C plus in organic chemistry and

431
00:38:32.679 --> 00:38:37.639
he was pre med and the mother
said, I want you to talk to

432
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:42.480
the professor and get him to raise
the grade. And I said, well,

433
00:38:42.679 --> 00:38:46.920
I can't do that, you know. But what I can do is

434
00:38:46.960 --> 00:38:51.280
I can meet with your son and
we can figure out something that he can

435
00:38:51.320 --> 00:38:54.840
do that will make things better.
So okay. So then the young man

436
00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:58.800
came back and it was just a
first year student, you know, and

437
00:38:58.840 --> 00:39:00.800
I said, look, this is
your first quarter in college, right,

438
00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:07.639
what graduate schools look at is the
last two years. They really don't.

439
00:39:07.880 --> 00:39:10.719
They figured, you know, you're
just adjusting. So what can you go

440
00:39:10.800 --> 00:39:14.639
to the professor? What can you
learn from the experience, and how can

441
00:39:14.679 --> 00:39:17.159
you do better next time? That's
what you do why you want to be

442
00:39:17.239 --> 00:39:23.000
a doctor. And he said,
I love anatomy. It's so beautiful.

443
00:39:23.400 --> 00:39:28.719
And he had brought some of his
anatomical drawings that he had done, and

444
00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:32.159
he said, my high school teacher
wanted me to publish with him a book

445
00:39:32.280 --> 00:39:37.000
of these drawings so that he could
use it in his class. And this

446
00:39:37.159 --> 00:39:42.519
student's anatomical drawings look like Leonardo da
Vinci's. I mean, they were really

447
00:39:42.599 --> 00:39:46.519
good. He said. Wow.
So I ended up being a writing coach

448
00:39:46.639 --> 00:39:52.000
and helping him do a contract,
you know, a co author contract,

449
00:39:52.039 --> 00:39:58.159
and get the book published and all
that. Well. He then was inspired

450
00:39:58.760 --> 00:40:04.000
and empowered and he went to medical
school. And a few years later I

451
00:40:04.039 --> 00:40:07.039
got an email from him and he
invited me to lunch and he was now

452
00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:15.119
a doctor whatever. So you know, we can help people discover that which

453
00:40:15.159 --> 00:40:20.199
is within them. Another of my
students had a similar experience. He was

454
00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:25.800
very, very unhappy because he was
a Sikh and didn't eat meat and didn't

455
00:40:25.880 --> 00:40:30.199
drink, and a lot of the
activities on campus were barbecues and beer parties.

456
00:40:30.920 --> 00:40:35.599
So he said, what are we
going to do here? And he

457
00:40:35.639 --> 00:40:39.679
applied to be an RA in the
dorms, you know, a resident advisor,

458
00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:45.519
because he wanted to do something.
He wanted to participate in campus life.

459
00:40:46.039 --> 00:40:50.960
But he got turned down and I
said, okay, so what can

460
00:40:51.000 --> 00:40:53.960
you do? I said, they
wanted somebody to fit into their idea of

461
00:40:54.039 --> 00:40:59.679
what they you know, their their
structure, and what can you do that

462
00:40:59.840 --> 00:41:02.159
is is who you are? And
he said, I love nature and I

463
00:41:02.199 --> 00:41:07.920
love hiking. So he started this
club called Into the Wild where students would

464
00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:13.519
go off walking in the mountains.
They'd have to leave their electronic behind and

465
00:41:14.119 --> 00:41:16.920
you know, they could bring a
notebook and write and meditate walking in nature.

466
00:41:17.480 --> 00:41:25.760
It became the most popular club on
campus, and years later, some

467
00:41:25.880 --> 00:41:29.800
students in my class, he came
back to visit. He's now working,

468
00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:32.639
you know, at Google, and
he's very very happy. But he founded

469
00:41:32.639 --> 00:41:38.079
this club that helps students manage stress
by going out into nature. And then

470
00:41:38.119 --> 00:41:42.199
he found lots of friends who also
liked to go out into nature. It

471
00:41:42.239 --> 00:41:45.960
was good for him. He left
a legacy it's still the most popular club

472
00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:50.280
on campus, you know, and
it's so interesting, you know what we're

473
00:41:50.320 --> 00:41:53.079
talking about, and of course you're
talking at a level, you know,

474
00:41:53.239 --> 00:41:59.239
where people are really highly educated and
are doing things in that way to help

475
00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:02.480
people. And yet I want I
want the audience to understand that you don't

476
00:42:02.519 --> 00:42:07.639
need that education. You don't need
to be you know, affecting lives of

477
00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:12.360
hundreds of people or you know,
hundreds of thousands of people. That literally,

478
00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:16.679
little actions that we can do in
behalf of others to help them and

479
00:42:16.719 --> 00:42:22.159
to lift their lives can be done
just touching the life of one person.

480
00:42:22.719 --> 00:42:24.159
You know, we think, well, that's not many, but when you

481
00:42:24.199 --> 00:42:28.000
start to think, all right,
if I touch the life of one person,

482
00:42:28.800 --> 00:42:34.760
and now they touch the life of
their connections and on and on and

483
00:42:34.840 --> 00:42:42.679
on, and suddenly years later,
hundreds, if not thousands of people have

484
00:42:42.840 --> 00:42:49.360
been touched because of that one person
who decided to benefit someone else by lifting

485
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:53.599
their lives. Absolutely, that is
so inspiring. A long time ago,

486
00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:58.320
in one of the churches that I
went to, I go to a lot

487
00:42:58.360 --> 00:43:02.360
of different ones, but we had
a ceremony and they had a candle there

488
00:43:02.639 --> 00:43:07.000
and each one of us had a
little candle, and one person went and

489
00:43:07.159 --> 00:43:10.159
lit her candle from this one,
and then we each lit a candle of

490
00:43:10.280 --> 00:43:15.000
someone else. We were standing in
a circle, and that one candle and

491
00:43:15.320 --> 00:43:20.360
one person lighting another person's candle,
one to one, one person at a

492
00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:25.719
time. The whole room was filled
with light because of the progressive, you

493
00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:30.840
know, sharing of our light,
and that really does make a difference.

494
00:43:30.360 --> 00:43:35.719
There's a psychologist, Barbara Frederickson at
the University of North Carolina who's written a

495
00:43:35.719 --> 00:43:39.800
book called Love two point zero,
and she talks about something called micro moments

496
00:43:39.800 --> 00:43:46.840
of connectivity, which is something that
we can all do every day. She

497
00:43:46.920 --> 00:43:54.519
said, just a small interaction smiling
at somebody, a kind word, waving

498
00:43:54.559 --> 00:43:59.880
at a neighbor, a kind word
to the clerk at the supermarket or something.

499
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:05.559
You know what that does. It
benefits both people. It reduces stress,

500
00:44:05.880 --> 00:44:12.840
it reduces inflammation, It activates our
immune system. And it also is

501
00:44:12.920 --> 00:44:19.199
contagious because then each person feels better
and their energy goes out. And she

502
00:44:19.239 --> 00:44:22.920
said, it affects, It can
affect a whole neighborhood, you know,

503
00:44:22.159 --> 00:44:27.280
a whole community. All right.
So, as we're coming near the end

504
00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:30.000
of the show, talk about your
latest book and share with the audience what

505
00:44:30.079 --> 00:44:35.679
that's about and how they can find
it. Okay, well, that's a

506
00:44:35.679 --> 00:44:43.559
good question. My most recent book
is Your Personal Renaissance, which is and

507
00:44:43.599 --> 00:44:50.400
it's the available you know, in
most places bookstores online. But it works

508
00:44:50.440 --> 00:44:55.599
with the fact that in the Renaissance
people believe that everyone had just these special

509
00:44:55.760 --> 00:45:00.960
gifts strengths. We all have them, we're all individual rules, and that

510
00:45:01.320 --> 00:45:07.159
recently positive psychologists have discovered our signature
strengths, that there are twenty four character

511
00:45:07.199 --> 00:45:12.920
strengths which are common to all humanity
and each one of us. We can

512
00:45:12.960 --> 00:45:21.199
take the Signature Strength Survey at wwwvia
character dot org and it's free, but

513
00:45:21.400 --> 00:45:24.599
we can find and I have all
my students do it to find out what

514
00:45:24.639 --> 00:45:30.320
their top strengths are, their signature
strengths, and to use them to improve

515
00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:35.480
their lives to be healthier, happier
and more successful. So that is one

516
00:45:35.480 --> 00:45:38.559
book that is available. The dow
of Inner Piece just came out as an

517
00:45:38.639 --> 00:45:45.000
audiobook this past year, so it's
been published in many different editions and this

518
00:45:45.639 --> 00:45:47.760
is the new one. So if
you like to listen to books when you're

519
00:45:47.800 --> 00:45:54.559
walking or waiting for something, I
would recommend if you're interested in Eastern philosophy,

520
00:45:54.639 --> 00:46:00.039
the dow of Innerpiece, which kind
of goes back to finding peace with

521
00:46:00.119 --> 00:46:02.559
than us, so that we can
create greater peace around us. Okay,

522
00:46:02.639 --> 00:46:07.599
and say the name and again very
slowly the audible book, the Tao of

523
00:46:07.639 --> 00:46:14.760
Inner Piece, The Tao of Inner
Piece outright wonderful. So as we close,

524
00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.679
very sharp message, what would be
the message that you want to share

525
00:46:19.679 --> 00:46:27.800
with the audience from your heart?
Oh my, I would like in a

526
00:46:27.920 --> 00:46:35.239
time when when a lot of people
are feeling disconnected and there's a lot of

527
00:46:35.320 --> 00:46:40.760
depression and darkness and confusion, to
remind us that we each have a spark,

528
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:47.280
a light within us, and we
can find that by connecting to nature,

529
00:46:47.639 --> 00:46:53.800
to one another, to our favorite
music, to a sense of purpose

530
00:46:53.920 --> 00:46:59.440
and meaning. And when we find
our own spark, we can help light

531
00:46:59.519 --> 00:47:04.679
the world, not just our own
lives, but to look within ourselves for

532
00:47:05.559 --> 00:47:10.559
who we truly are inside and how
we can connect. Love it, love

533
00:47:10.599 --> 00:47:15.119
it, love it, Dan,
Thank you so much. It's just been

534
00:47:15.239 --> 00:47:20.320
wonderful chatting with you. Oh,
thank you. It's been a real real

535
00:47:20.400 --> 00:47:25.599
inspiration, doctor Doug, and I
totally I am very grateful for the wonderful

536
00:47:25.599 --> 00:47:29.840
work you do. Peace be with
you. Well. Thank you, and

537
00:47:30.039 --> 00:47:35.079
folks, thanks for listening. And
you know, if there's nothing else you

538
00:47:35.199 --> 00:47:37.400
got from this, it's a matter
of the fact that you know you all

539
00:47:37.440 --> 00:47:42.039
have strengths. We all have strengths. If we discover what those are,

540
00:47:42.239 --> 00:47:45.360
we can use those to touch the
lives of others. And if you're feeling

541
00:47:45.400 --> 00:47:50.760
stress, if you're feeling all that
anxiety, consider meditation in some way that

542
00:47:50.800 --> 00:47:53.920
can improve your lives. Thanks for
listening. Hope you'll join us again soon

543
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:02.920
time with sir compliment