Chapter 11: Be At Peace With Yourself and Everyone in Your Life, doesn't just get close to home. It gets inside your home and beneath your skin, into your brain and heart. I'm a doctor, so I know about those things.

How can you hope to be effective at helping your own neighbors, your neighborhood, your friends, your co-workers and everyone in your life to be at peace with themselves and with you, if you are not even at peace with yourself? That's where it has to start. Each of us needs to appreciate and love ourselves so that we have the emotional health and wealth to appreciate and love others.

Many readers of The Peace Prescription tell me that Chapter 11 is their favorite chapter. It gets very personal, but it strives to give the best guidance and real support in the direction of inner peace that can shine through to cast its light on all those in our lives.

If you, or people you care about, are going through persistent and serious stress that threatens to end a marriage or other romantic relationship, or to keep that relationship from being peaceful and satisfying, read or tell them about Chapter 11. There, on pages 117 and 118, I describe a 45-minute session that a couple can use to get their relationship headed in a much better direction. Two pages. 45 minutes. Not even a whole hour. Doesn't cost anything, except a few bucks for the book. Compare that to the emotional and financial cost of divorce, even when there are no children to be affected.

Basically, the two people meet privately for about 45 minutes without interruption, and exchange lists of the things they like best and the things they most dislike about each other. The lists are discussed item by item. It works! No therapists. No lawyers. No divorce needed.

Then there is the rest of the book, showing how violence and war can be prevented by dealing effectively with beliefs and behaviors that lead to violence and war beyond our own homes and most intimate  and loving relationships.