Ten Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life
By Renée Peterson Trudeau
NEW WORLD LIBRARY

When you're swigging a soda to stay awake, yelling at your four-year-old, and fantasizing about how boarding school might be a fabulous idea, it’s hard to envision a peaceful home life. Yet raising a family can be a sacred, nourishing experience, says Renée Peterson Trudeau. Families are more than a bunch of people who share a bathroom, she writes. “I believe there is a divine orchestration at play. We’re together for a reason.”

Trudeau is a well-known author and trainer who specializes in life balance. While she often conducts workshops for companies such as Whole Foods, IBM, and Amazon, in her latest book, Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: Ten Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life, Trudeau counsels on how to find connection and community under our very own roofs. For harried parents, this begins with self-care. Though it feels counterintuitive to invest more time in yourself when the to-do list looms so large, Trudeau argues that caregivers simply have to invest in their own physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Her book is filled with exercises to help readers define their family’s unique culture and prune any “shoulds” and “have-to’s” that don’t align with it. Other chapters have tips on creating rituals; spending time in nature to recharge; and finding equilibrium in a world awash in pinging electronics and other demands.

If you’re willing to slow down, to do less, Trudeau says, your family can actually experience more. That’s a courageous choice in our society, and this book is a loving invocation to start along this new path.