The Missing Peace: Rewire Your Brain, Reduce Anxiety, and Recreate Your Life

by Laura Rhodes-Levin

Readers want to understand that there is life beyond anxiety. Happiness needs to be within their grasp. The Missing Peace will show them how to touch it, feel it, and nurture their natural desires, not those with which society burdens us. Often said but true, people need to learn to love themselves, but the real question is how to love themselves. How can they understand not to take the world and the other anxious people in it personally? They must understand how fear is underneath their anger. They long for acceptance but don't know how to accept themselves. The Missing Peace will give them a roadmap to these vital concepts. Scientifically, anxiety is not a set of pre-wired and uncontrollable buttons. This book communicates how to understand these buttons, who installed them and how to unwire them. It makes people feel better all around. It goes beyond just not feeling anxious. Practically, The Missing Peace will show readers how to cultivate and nurture the core traits mattering most to them. They will re-parent themselves to well-being, vibrant energy, and emotional stability and be shown there is just as much to nurture as there is to nature. It is never too late. After reading this book, the reader will understand their anxiety, learn how to harness it, shift focus to what they love, and live the life they want.

232 pages, Hardcover

Published May 7, 2024

Reviews

[Sidharth Aravinth · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the name indicates, this a book for people who are interested in understanding and
consequently reducing the acquired or inherited anxiety and recreating their life.
I loved the way the book is structured, it is broken into short chapters of 6-8 pages and each chapter is split into 3 sections -
1. Introduction - Author details about a specific type of anxiety using an example situation from her own life.
2. User Manual - Goes in-depth into what possibly could have caused the anxiety and how she tried to address it.
3. Took Kit - Provides a tool kit with activities for readers to ponder and practise.

It makes for a not-so complicated read for a complicated subject. The concepts stick to you specifically because of examples from author's personal life. Personally, loved the concepts around the Wounded Child and Capable Adult Self. One of my favorite quotes from the book is - "Not my circus, not my monkey", which I think I should apply more in life.
This book is impactful and did definitely gave me a better understanding of how I can counteract anxiety and shift focus to live the life I would love to live.
Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

[Amy Cima · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the minute I received this book, which felt like forever to await its release, I could not put it down, and it most definitely did not disappoint, and as a matter of fact, it exceeded my hopes and expectations. I actually couldn't wait to sit down and write this review. I finished it in two days and will be buying it for birthday, Christmas and Chanukah gifts for the lucky ones in my life who will receive it! I follow Laura's fabulous podcast, and as someone lucky enough to have received treatment at the MP Center in Agoura, I count my blessings that I live close enough to it to receive its benefits, as do many others I have met there whose lives have also been changed for the better. Dozens of us agree that there is nowhere else like it., chockfull of modalities from massage, heart mapping, art therapy, nutrition, reiki, neurofeedback, etc. that this book acknowledges as a whole-person path to mental and physical wellbeing. What this blessing of a book does is to allow others around the world to gain tools and knowledge of how to cope with their anxiety or depression, or just live their best lives.....if they are not fortunate to live close enough to attain the benefits of Laura's wisdom through the Missing Peace Center for Anxiety & Depression. This book is unique and life changing because it offers insights and wisdom through honest personal stories of a wise woman's journey through life, with vulnerability and humor, having survived (and eventually thrived) a dysfunctional upbringing, to addiction, to tragedy and eventual recovery to where she is now, taking it day by day and seeing her blessings as opposed to her curses (such as anxiety). Ms. Rhodes-Levin offers invaluable tools at the end of each chapter that enable the reader to assess and address their personal mental challenges, and Lord knows we all have them, just to different degrees. The coping mechanisms and advice given in this book can and will be life altering- I have already started the mental process of rewiring my thinking and habits to look at and experience life from a different, better, hopeful and productive viewpoint, thanks to this incredible book. I should mention, I have ready many books in this genre, and this is but far the BEST- I kept a tissue box next to me for crying and whole-hearted laughing. I can't recommend it more!

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure if you have noticed but lately I have been reading more non-fiction specifically geared towards mental health (anxiety mostly).
I found this ARC on @netgalley and requested it. I was happy to have been picked to review it.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is: “Anxiety is not what’s wrong with you. Anxiety is what’s right with you”.
Now that may sound completely bonkers right? Well, after reading this book I have a better insight into my anxiety and how “there is life beyond…” it.
This book has several “tool kits” in various chapters that you can choose to work on or not. I have saved these “tool kits” and prompts to work on in my journal later on and I’m going to discuss it all with my therapist.
After reading this book I have a better understanding of anxiety and how it impacts me personally. I can use this information going forward.

Definitely recommend if you are someone who suffers from anxiety!

[Val Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read for anyone who deals with anxiety. Laura Rhodes-Levin, LMFT, gives sound advice and actual action items to help you deal with your anxiety. At the end of each chapter she includes an Anxiety User Manual and tips on how to Build Your Toolkit. Her most powerful message is that Anxiety isn't what's wrong with you but is what's right with you. She teaches readers how to work with their anxiety and embrace it rather than fear it.