Title: Nurturing the Soul of Your Family
Author: Renee Peterson Trudeau
ISBN: 978-1-60868-158-1
Published by New World Library www.newworldlibrary.com
Release Date: Mach 1, 2013
Suggested Retail Price: $15.95
240 Pages, Paperback
I didn’t realize I was on such a theme, but I have had the opportunity to review quite a few wonderful parenting/personal growth books lately. My newest read is Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life. Maybe someone is trying to tell me something.
Renee Person Trudeau, the author, is a life balance coach, speaker, and author with world-wide recognition. She is on the faculty of Kripalu Center for Yoga and Wellness and leads life balance workshops and retreats for Fortune 500 companies, conferences and organizations worldwide. She is also a mom to one son and lives in Texas with her family. I have not yet read her other book, but she is also the author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal. http://www.reneetrudeau.com
Here are the chapter titles in Nurturing the Soul of Your Family:
- Tapping the transformative power of self-care: attune and respond to your needs and desires
- Healing from the inside out: peace begins with me
- Unplugging to plug in: crossing the digital divide
- Unleashing the healing power of nature: the ultimate antidepressant
- Making time for spiritual renewal: return to the river within
- Loving the ones you’re with: spend time together (like you mean it!)
- Defining, celebrating, honoring your family culture: what do you stand for?
- Slowing down: do less to experience more
- Exploring a new way of being: make hard choices, break free, and do it differently
- Building your tribe: ask for and embrace help as you create your support network
With trying to take care of three kids to the best of my ability as a stay-at-home mom and working a part-time job , recently taking on another work commitment, and working to meet deadlines for blogging, I have sometimes stopped and wondered if I am coming out ahead with everything or two steps behind. I recently read an interview of Renee Peterson Trudeau and a statement shared hit home – “More than ever, thousands of us are hitting the pause button and reflecting on what’s really important in life. Due in large part to the economic recession, our worst since the Great Depression, we’re realizing our external environment can change on a dime: job gone, house gone, investments tanked. And when what we “thought” makes us happy, vanishes – where does that leave us?”
When I graduated college, listing yourself as a multi-tasker was a desired trait/skill. Take on as much as you can and accomplish it all. At what price though? It seems like we have been made to believe that we need to do it all and have it all. Instead we are exhausted and over scheduled.
In Nurturing the Soul of Your Family, Renee speaks of the importance of disconnecting and spending true, quality time with our families, even just the need to slow down and become more in touch with nature, grounding ourselves.
More than anything, we all crave connection and community. This starts at home, and it starts right now – not a month or year from now. Now is the time to awaken, heal, open our hearts, and reconnect with the most important people we’ll ever know.” -Renee Peterson Trudeau
The last path to peace focuses on building your tribe and this is going to take the most work for me right now. I rely a lot on my spouse to help with care of our children when I need time away. I thought that’s how it had to be – we brought them into the world and need to always be there for care and support. My husband and I need to find a way to put more time away for ourselves as individuals and also as a couple. We don’t have much of a tribe for support and we need to work on building it and finding it okay to take help without feeling it must be reciprocated.
Nurturing the Soul of Your Family is beautifully written. I think it would be a great resource for any family or even someone soon starting a family. Think about your own family and find ways to let them know that they are loved and honored by you and think back to when you last heard a close friend or family member share those wonderful feelings about you.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book to produce this review. No other compensation was received. The thoughts and feelings expressed are my own.
