Praise

Praises from Instutitions, Speaking Engagements, Lectures, Community Classes & Workshops

University of Wisconsin Sheboygan, WI

February, 2003

To: Tish Lasserty
At: Meriter Hospital 
RE: Diane Pauly

Dear Ms. Lasserty, 

I am writing in regard to Ms. Diane Pauly’s employment with the University of Wisconsin Sheboygan, Continuing Education Department. Ms. Pauly has been employed with our department since 1995 as a Continuing Education Outreach Instructor for adult education courses. Our Continuing Education Department provides outreach liberal arts classes for adults in our community. Diane has taught a variety of evening courses through this program and her employment history with the University has been exemplary.

Diane has always conducted herself in a professional manner and has established good rapport with our Continuing Education students. Diane is a genuine teacher at heart and is both sensitive and responsive to the needs of her students. We have received a significant number of positive comments from students who have taken her courses ranging from appreciation of the course as a journey of self-discovery to respect for Ms. Pauly in her ability to communicate her expertise. Prior students have offered comments such as: “The class helped give me a new perspective on life and what it has to offer.” “The class encourages a person to really think about what is important to learn, how to laugh, and how to find real happiness.” “It was time well spent!” Diane is enthusiastic and energetic in exploring new ideas relative to our emotional health and well-being. I have both enjoyed and benefited from my association with Diane over the years. She has brought energy, authenticity, sincerity and sensitivity to our Continuing Education Program.

I highly recommend Ms. Diane Pauly as an adult education teacher. I have no doubt that her commitment to education will continue throughout her professional career. I wish Diane great success in her new endeavors, but I will miss her at UW Sheboygan. Please feel free to contact me at 920-459-6617 if you wish to discuss Ms. Pauly’s experience in further detail. 

Respectfully,

Jeannine Roseberry
Contuining Education Director
University of Wisconsin Sheboygan/Greenbay

MERITER HOSPITAL
Navigate your way to better health with Meriter Hospital Classes and events. 

March, 2005

To Whom It May Concern:

Diane Pauly has taught at the Meriter Hospital Community Health Education Center and has received wonderful evaluations from her students. Two classes in particular, “Happiness Comes from Within” and “Cirlce of Stones,” focus on the potential in all of us to deepen spiritual awareness in the everyday moments of our lives.

Diane is able to capture the hearts and minds of her students, so they leave with an enriched repertoire of strategies with which to rediscover their divine essence.

She enjoys being of service through teaching others with love and sincerity, and those blessed to be in her classes experience uplifted hearts.

Very sincerely,

Tish Lafferty RN, MS
Meriter Community Health Education Center
Meriter Hospital
Madison, WI

ARC Healthy Beginnings
A Project of ARC Community Services, Inc. 

December, 2005

To Whom It May Concern:

I’m delighted to be writing a letter of reference for Diane Pauly. I am the Treatment Director of ARC Community Services Drug and Alcohol Day Treatment and Intensive Outpatient Program that serves women and their children. Many of the women we serve have been through multiple treatment episodes and have multiple issues. Some of the women are in jail, some live in the community while some are homeless and jobless. Many have deficits in parenting or may have prostitution issues and/or mental health issues as well as drug and alcohol issues. 100% of them have suffered many types of trauma in their lifetimes.

As you might suspect, this can be a difficult population to work with given their many serious issues and not just anyone can join and connect with these women. It takes a “down to earth,” authentic, and compassionate individual with a hopeful outlook that becomes contagious. 

Diane is one of those individuals. She agreed to come and share her journey and to nurture the women as they learned about how to be happy and how that happiness is really a spiritual journey. Current research suggests that helping recovering addicts develop and practice spirituality is one of the most critical components of recovery. 

The women loved her presentations and couldn’t wait for her to arrive on Friday afternoons. Diane graciously gave of her time each and every Friday afternoon from 12:15 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. for 8 weeks. The women completed evaluation forms after she completed her work with them, and they couldn’t say enough about the hope, inspiration, and love they received during their time togther. They also reported that they felt that they wanted to practice walking the spiritual path they had been exploring with Diane. 

It was such a pleasure to have met Diane and for her to share her wisdom with the ARC clients. I hope that this letter will in some small way assist her in achieving the goals she has set forth for herself. 

In gratitude, 
Kate Ihs, M.A., LPC 
Program Manager/Treatment Director
ARC Community Services, Inc. 
1409 Emil St.
Madison, WI 53713

Judith Duerk
Author of Circle of Stones Series
Woman’s Journey to Herself

April, 2006

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing today in behalf of Diane Pauly, whom I have known for the past six years through the books. I have written regarding women’s spiritual and psychological inner life. During the time I have known her; Diane has drawn many groups of women together and worked with them on a continuous basis.

Her gatherings for women have included day-long and weekend-long meetings as well as meetings of several hours for an afternoon or evening. She has “designed” and led on material about women’s self-esteem and their relationship to their individual sense of the Deity.

In these gatherings, Diane both teaches and listens to the women with great compassion. She has a particular gift for helping women build an image of themselves as idividuals of dignity, strength, and a certain womanly authority. Since many of the women come from backgrounds that have included hardship and abuse, this work has often not been an easy task.

I know Diane Pauly as an earnest, dedicated woman, devout in her own spirituality, and deeply committed to the spiritual growth of others. 

Yours
Judith Durek
Kensington, MD 20895

East Madison Community Center

January, 2005

This letter serves to verify that Diane Pauly presented a 17 hour workshop series at the East Madison Community Center (October/November 2004) entitled: “Happiness Comes From Within.” The course met one night a week and was well attended by area residents. 

The class was specifically designed for women seeking tools for finding personal fulfillment and internal resources for happiness in life, regardless of circumstances or fortune. 

The course materials were thought-provoking and targeted experiences and situations found in “everyday life.” As a consequence, all the participants found personal ways of relating to what was being discussed. Issues of spirituality, growth and experiential learning in life were addressed weekly, as well as a wide range of individual topics like women’s health, nutrition, and other factors that significantly influence how one relates to oneself, others and the world at-large. 

The topic of women’s spirituality was especially important to the workshop series, as Diane helped participants explore what it means to understand and develop one’s spiritual connections to one’s self and the rest of creation. Using both simple and complex ideas and examples, participants received a much clearer understanding about how spirituality infuses all layers of existence, from the mundane to the profound. 

This course was very popular, as was Diane herself as presenter. We hope to be able to do follow-up sessions or even a repeat of it in 2005. 

The Biannual Publication of Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, Madison, WI

The Power of Words DAIS Supporter Diane Pauly proves that lives can change by something you say. 
By Carrie Kilman

Winter/Spring 2009

DAIS supporter Diane Pauly keeps a busy schedule. She serves on the Compassionate Action Council at her church. She teaches “personal growth” workshops all over town. She and her daughters recently organized a daylong retreat for residents of a women’s shelter in Sheboygan. And she leads regular tour groups to Brazil. 

In all her various hats, Diane helps others heal from their past and embrace their potential. Her handiest tool has become her own story. 

“I share where I’ve been because I want participants to feel safe,” she says. “It’s important they realize they’re not alone.”

Diane’s story hangs on one key fact: Something you say from a seemingly small remark, to a grand and thoughtful statement can change the course of someone else’s life. 

Diane’s story begins in a place of pain. She has used her story to create a workshop designed to help others, particularly women, learn to find their own voice. She first developed the course in 1995, and has taught it all over Madison, WI at community centers, hospitals, and groups that help women transitioning from the criminal justice system. 

What Students and Participants Had to Say

• It was time well spent.
• The honesty of the presenter. Diane is not there to tell anyone what they want to hear, she tells it the way it is with life experiences. It is refreshing to listen to someone who is willing to express beliefs and ideas that do not follow the norm of this society.
• The down to earth concepts presented. The interaction between the students and the teacher.
• The broad spectrum of possibilities for thought. Relaxed atmosphere.
• It forced me, each week, to take a good look around me, to become aware. The instructor had a way of making me feel like “I can’t wait until next week.” Always interesting. I learned  something new each week.
• It taught me to look at other areas of my inner self. Diane showed: What we do, what we can be, how to change, and gave us ideas as to why we are the way we are.
• The class helped me to look in other directions. I really enjoyed the class.
• The class helped to give me a new perspective on life and what it has to offer.
• The class encourages a person to really think about what is important, how to laugh and how
  to find real happiness.