Your Personal Renaissance

Life's true calling

by Diane Dreher Ph.D.

The Power of Spiritual Models

The lives of inspirational figures such as Viktor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mother Teresa can open our hearts, connect us to our deepest values, and inspire us to follow their example Read More

Grief and the DSM 5

"Grief is not a pathological condition," say grief counseling professionals, concerned about the new DSM 5's new definition of Depression Read More

Are You Caught in a Speed Trap?

Our fast-paced lives may be our nation's greatest health risk. Read More

Saying "No" With Style

To regain our balance, to say "Yes" to life, we must say "No" to the insanity of over commitment. Read More

Hope for the New Year

It's not too late to set a goal you can believe in. Read More

Do You Find Joy and Meaning in Your Work?

We're seeing a resurgence of the Renaissance concept of vocation, when people believed they were given a unique set of gifts to make their own personal contribution to the world. Read More

Do You Freeze Up Before Reaching an Important Goal?

Do you feel scared or lose heart when you see that long-awaited goal before you? If so, you’re not alone. Many marathon runners “hit the wall” at mile 23. Doctoral candidates often fail to finish their dissertations. Read More

How Do You Deal with a Drama Queen?

Do you have a drama queen in your life? Read More

If I Only Had Time. . .

“If I only had time, I’d write a book,” people tell me—or go back to school, paint, write poetry, take nature photographs, or another variation on a dream deferred, pushed aside by the incessant demands of daily life. Read More

More Powerful than PTSD

Stress-related illnesses, insomnia, anxiety—our bodies are constantly on alert. Confronted by demands, distress, and endless distractions, we rush through our days, longing for peace of mind. Yet a surprising solution is as close as our next thought—the power of the mantram. Read More

Robert Reich on What We Can Learn from the Occupy Movement

Caught up in the current economic crisis and daily barrage of bad news, too many Americans are falling into what Martin Seligman (1992) has called “learned helplessness.” We spend much of our time complaining, blaming, and worrying—what psychologists call “ruminating”—which only makes matters worse. Read More

Are You Moving Forward or Just Running in Place?

Have you been feeling run down and exhausted? Are your days filled with busywork: endless e-mails, reports, and meetings where everyone’s eyes glaze over? Read More

Do We Talk Too Much?

Last month, when I had bronchitis and lost my voice for a week, I became more aware of the conversational habits that fill our lives. Read More

Do You Live in a Culture of Courage or Fear?

The amount of courage you have "has a lot to do with your environment-both internal and external," says best-selling author and sports psychologist Jerry Lynch. If your external environment is "not emotionally safe," Jerry explains, "there's too much fear." Read More

Do Today's Women Have Too Many Choices?

Journalism professor Barbara Kelley noticed a surprising trend among her women students: they were bright, successful, highly motivated—and terribly confused. Read More

Why Do We Have a Crisis in Leadership?

This week, NPR reporters introducing California Governor Jerry Brown's 2012 "State of the State" message were at a loss for words. "The Governor wrote his own speech," they said. There was no advance notice, no executive summary. Like the rest of us, they had to wait to hear what he had to say. Read More

Why Are Children Experiencing a Crisis of Imagination?

Educator and author Gloria DeGaetano shares a revealing insight from a second grade teacher at one of her workshops. The teacher said that on the first day of class, when she began reading the children a story, one boy, Tommy, started fidgeting anxiously. Looking up, he asked what he should be doing. "Just listen to the story," she answered. He looked at her blankly. Read More

Begin the New Year with Positive Momentum

This week when my husband Bob and entered the gym for our regular workout, Dom at the front desk said, "You two are consistent. But you'll see lots of people come here for the first two weeks in January and then never see them again." Read More

From Reactive to Creative

Long before research revealed the harmful effects of chronic stress, Henry David Thoreau knew that living at a frantic pace injures us at a deep level. He called this life "quiet desperation." It is far more desperate for busy men and women today. Read More

Are You Curious?

This week NASA launched Curiosity, the new Mars rover, to explore the mysteries of the red planet. For millennia, we've gazed in wonder at the stars above our heads. Curiosity is intrinsic to our nature. As children, we naturally reach out to explore our world. Creative individuals--artists and scientists--never lose this intrinsic curiosity. Read More

How to Raise Healthy Children in our Fast-Paced Media Age

Nearly 400 years ago, English poet Thomas Traherne described how in childhood his perception of himself and the world was distorted by "the customs and manners of men," which "put grubs and worms in [our] heads that are enemies to all pure and true apprehensions, and eat out all [our] happiness" (Traherne, 1908, III, 7, 13). Read More

Living Creatively in a World of Lack

The daily news mesmerizes us with messages of lack. There's not enough—not enough energy reserves to meet our future needs, not enough food to feed the hungry, not enough jobs in the US economy or enough money in the federal budget for education, health care, environmental protection, Social Security, and Medicare, not to mention science and the arts. Read More

Who Was Shakespeare?

The new film, Anonymous, has publicized the persistent controversy about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Read More

What Are Your Gifts?

I've always been fascinated by the Renaissance, one of the most creative periods in human history. A sense of new possibilities filled the air as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, St. Teresa of Avila, William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I, John Milton, and countless others were inspired by a sense of vocation. Read More

Where Do Creative Ideas Come From?

I began asking this question in college while reading the English poets. Traherne, Blake and Wordsworth found their inspiration looking back on childhood. Donne was inspired by love, Milton by a passionate commitment to his ideals.

But where did their creative ideas come from? As Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream: Read More

Diane Dreher, Ph.D. is a best-selling author, positive psychology coach, and professor of English at Santa Clara University. where she serves as associate director of the Spirituality and Health Institute.

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