Peace in the Heart and Home: A Down-to-Earth Guide to Creating a Better Life for You and Your Loved Ones

Most people find it very difficult to manage the emotions that they experience in their family relationships. Instead of home being a safe haven, a place of emotional support, it is too often a source of hurt and deprivation. Loneliness, disappointment, fear, frustration and stress take a high toll on people's functioning and quality of life. As a result, depression, anxiety, panic, phobias, compulsions, addictions and attention problems are practically epidemic in our society. Dealing with emotions in self-defeating ways is the norm and psychological trauma is more wide spread than most people realize. It is common for the average person to turn to medications and over-the-counter substances to manage a wide range of mind-body symptoms. Serious health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, sleep disorders, migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue interfere with feelings of competence, self-worth and peace.

Fortunately, scientific research and knowledge have been proliferating in the past few decades, helping us to understand the brain, attachment relationships and their interplay with physical and mental health. We now know how to prevent and heal the relationship trauma that is at the root of most of the above-mentioned conditions. Also, mental health and marriage and family practitioners have been learning how to help couples create secure attachment bonds with each other and their children.

Peace in the Heart and Home provides a clear and thorough explanation of the dynamics that overwhelm the average person, couple and family. It takes the mystery out of their struggles. The book then provides abundant, explicit advice and a wide array of effective skills, resources and methods for managing emotions, healing trauma, cultivating awareness and fostering effective and fulfilling relationships. Peace in the Heart and Home is the manual on life and relationships that so many have been wishing they had. A multitude of memorable anecdotes, metaphors and quotations bring the material to life and will resonate with readers' most meaningful experiences. This book will also be of great benefit to helping professionals in developing a deeper understanding of the most powerful dynamics and practices that undermine or foster wellbeing.

A highly readable, accessible and very practical guide to living a more emotionally fulfilling life, both with oneself and in relationships. --ALAN S. GURMAN, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine

Charlette Mikulka has written a deeply insightful and compassionate book...textured with heartfelt stories and ways in which we can address our own pain and suffering...a book of wisdom and immense helpfulness. An uplifting and empowering book. --PAUL GILBERT, PhD, FBPsS, Mental Health Research Unit, Kingsway Hospital, Derby, United Kingdom and author of The Compassionate Mind

One-stop shopping handbook for life...folksy, straight-talking...a wise and comforting hand. -- ELANA KATZ, LCSW, LMFT, Senior Faculty member, Ackerman Institute for the Family

Sincerity, care and understanding about how to handle emotions and cultivate spiritual awareness..a wealth of information and resources...this is a beautiful book. --DEBORAH ROZMAN, PhD, author of Transforming Stress: The HeartMath Solution for Relieving Worry, Fatigue and Tension

A wonderful book...offers hard-won, useful lessons about inner well-being and outer harmony that drip with authenticity. --RICK HANSON, PhD, neuropsychologist and author of Buddha's Brain

A profoundly important book...an inspiration to all readers...delivers much-needed healing and will likely change the lives of many. --GEORGE FALLER, LMFT, Director, New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy