MSI Press Blog

  excerpt from  How to Get Happy and Stay That Way  (Romer) - What Makes You Happy? I guess every generation thinks it’s pretty special, but there’s no doubt that mine, the so-called “Woodstock generation,” was unique. In fact, for a long time it seemed that my happiness had to relate back to the 1960s and 70s, as if then and not now I was the real  me . But over the last few years, I’ve realized there are other ways of being happy, ways that build on all the things I learned as a free-spirited flower child (and later, a fun-living feminist)—yet add new ingredients, a certain type of self-awareness combined with gratitude, that really bring contentment. “Follow your bliss,” advised mythologist Joseph Campbell. I didn’t hear him say that on TV till the mid-1980s, well into my second marriage and light years away from my former hippie happiness. Yet the words struck a chord because by that time I knew I loved to write— had  to write, in fact, although I’d only pub...

  This excerpt comes from  Helping the Disabled Veteran  (Joanna Romer) PTSD   In the 2017 movie Dunkirk , a soldier is rescued from an airplane wreckage by a fishing boat. He is shocked to learn that the boat is on its way to Dunkirk to help the war effort, and he refuses to go. Instead, he flies into a rage. “He’s shell-shocked,” the boat captain tells his mate. The mate asks if the solder will recover, and the boat captain tells him there is no way of knowing. “He may never be the same,” the captain adds ruefully.   Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has replaced the term shell-shocked to describe the agitated state born by some soldiers after combat. The symptoms are: 1)     Headache 2)     Agitation 3)     Dizziness 4)     Chest pain 5)     Insomnia (dhproject.org)   If your veteran is displaying one or more of these symptoms, try to get him or her to talk to you about it. Yo...

For Transformation Tuesday, here is a nugget of transformation from A Woman's Guide to Self-Nurturing by Joanna Romer. " The art of self-nurturing encompasses a broad range of activities from the simplest to the most complex. In its most elementary form, it can refer merely to pleasures such as indulging in a bottle of perfume or buying a bouquet of flowers on our way home from work. On a more advanced level, self-nurturing can entail consciously expressing gratitude throughout the day for everything from the food on our table to a new job promotion. Making lists of items we are grateful for, along with recognizing activities that fill our soul with joy, can have a tremendous impact on our psyche. By acknowledging beauty, abundance and joy, we add them to our lives. A natural concomitant to gratitude is prayer, which then works to enhance our feelings of worth. Acknowledging God’s role in our lives is a powerful aid to self-esteem. " Book description: A Woman's Guide...

  The MSI Press study guide series is a set of documents/posts prepared by authors to help readers take a deeper dive into and personal look at various MSI books.  Today's study guide is meant to accompany A Woman's Guide to Self-Nurturing by Joanna Romer. Book Description: A Woman's Guide to Self-Nurturing offers a new perspective on how to comfort yourself while bolstering self-esteem. Using Bible stories as well as creative techniques for self-nurturing, the book will help you determine exactly what pleases you and nourishes your self-esteem, expand your repertoire of self-nurturing techniques by adding love and gratitude, and show you how self-nurturing can work toward building a new identity. Combining specific guidelines with inspiring examples of self-nurturing, this book will help you recover lost self-esteem and embrace a new mission for a more fulfilling life. Keywords: self-nurturing for women, Christian self-care, faith-based self-esteem, Bible study for heali...