MSI Press Blog

  The easiest and most complete way to share Julia's news is to reproduce the email I received from her, as is. If you follow the text (worth reading) down, you will see the link to the podcast at the end. Read this email online.  How are you supposed to help other people when you're struggling yourself?  I hear this question all the time in my work with helping professionals and moms. You're not immune to personal and collective stress, yet somehow you need to keep showing up with a clear mind and full heart for the people you serve. You may have days when you feel overwhelmed by the world, unsure about everything, and barely making it through, but you can't just phone it in. So when you have a big life stressor or three to deal with, what's a caring person to do?  Well, let's first look at the assumptions we're starting with in asking this question.  Many individuals in helping roles learned early on that their value depended on what they could do for othe

   Julia Aziz, author of  Lessons of Labor.  was featured on Fourth Trimester Podcast, Listen to it HERE . Read posts about Julia and her book  HERE . Link to reviews of Julia's book  HERE . Read more posts about motherhood  HERE .                                  Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newslette                          Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  For those who have been following interviews of MSI Press author, Julia Aziz ( Lessons of Labor ), here are some you may have missed: Julia discusses miscarriage on EmpowHer. Check it out HERE . Julia discusses how childbirth can be one of life's greatest teachers on Talk Zone HERE . Julia talks about honoring birth on Extraordinary Moms podcast HERE . Julia talks about lessons of labor on Synchronicity Talk Radio from Vancouver HERE . Julia discusses "Where are all the babies?" on Smart Mom Solutions HEFRE . Julia discusses "How birth translates into life lessons" on Postpartum Podcast HERE . Read posts about Julia and her book HERE . Link to reviews of Julia's book HERE . Read more posts about motherhood HERE .                                  Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newslette                          Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  Another oldie but goodie, that we somehow missed posting/sharing when it happens. Never too late to listen, though. Here is Julia Aziz, author of Lessons of Labor , talking about reclaiming the self in motherhood, a topic that never dies, on Mom Talk Radio. Link to the video HERE . Read posts about Julia and her book HERE .                                  Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter                           Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  For your listening pleasure -- and erudition, here is a roundup of podcasts produced by Julia Aziz, author of Lessons of Labor.   Julia Aziz - Top podcast episodes (listennotes.com) Read posts about Julia and her book  HERE . Link to reviews of Julia's book  HERE . Read more posts about motherhood  HERE .                                  Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newslette                          Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  " he summer intensity has been calling me back toward waterfalls again. This year, I’ve been playing with shifting my listening from one spot to the next, noticing how water bouncing off small rocks makes a tinkling sound under the noisy rush from heights above. The cascade’s separate sprays are like a crowd of different voices all talking at once, reminding me of the input overload so many of us feel these days. I try to hear one stream or another until I give up, listen to the whole chorus of voices together, and let it become one current, one being, one song.  Sounds lovely, right, but  how on earth do we let the current of our modern times sing us a song rather than slip us off the edge and take us down with it?  “Go with the flow” won’t cut it. If we go with the flow of the collective, we are going down a dark vortex of strife and fear. So let’s pause for a moment from the many streams of deep grief, trauma, injustice, and tyranny and see if we can shift how we’re listening

  The following was sent out in email by Julia Aziz yesterday. Good reflection! I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired of the "new year, new you" rhetoric.  While I'm a big believer in the power of setting intentions and making commitments to the small steps of change, this whole "ready, set, go" of the new year feels more like pressure than inspiration. I'm personally feeling more of an ease in, see what happens, take it one step at a time kind of vibe. With sadness, disappointment, and weariness so rampant right now, it's hard to get excited about the future. It reminds me of a question my aunt Judy asked me last week: "how do you know what to do for people who are suffering when everybody is having such a hard time?" I told her I don't see it as my job to fix anyone or to make their problems go away. Thank goodness for that, as there are plenty of people out there who will tell you they have the magic solution if only you f

  Have you ever thought you knew someone well and later discovered a side of them you had never seen before?   My brother has been transcribing some letters my grandmother wrote when she was engaged to my grandfather but living apart in New York and Chicago. Nineteen-year-old Helen Yarmush teases her beloved with tales of her dates with other men and says things like, "It's been a beautiful day today--a day to run in the wind (which I did) and laugh and sing." The Helen Zimmerberg I got to know three decades later was a mother of four who had already lost her first daughter to ovarian cancer and was undergoing chemo and radiation for lymphoma herself. I've cherished my memories of Helen's sense of humor and ability to make the best out of most anything, and I delight in this free spirit I'm seeing now at her 20th yahrzeit (death anniversary). What a gift it is to discover something new in someone I haven't seen for so long and to be reminded of how multi-f

  Have you ever made sure your clients, children, partner, friends, family, or coworkers were OK before noticing you were drained and exhausted yourself? Or maybe you noticed, but you told yourself, "Later. I'll deal with you later." Other people's needs may seem more pressing, and perhaps they legitimately are. You care, and that's a beautiful thing. It's not the caring that's the problem; it's the carrying everybody else's emotions around that is unsustainable.   If you work in a helping profession, or you have children or elderly dependents, or you're the go-to friend for everyone around you, being helpful is probably such a part of who you are that you can't imagine life without being needed. Thank goodness there are people out there in the world who will give the way you do, who put their own problems to the side for a while to attend to others. However, without healthy boundaries and deeply respectful self-love, caretaking can get pre

  Have you ever sat by a waterfall in the forest, relaxed in a hammock on the beach, or watched an impressively colorful sunset and felt... nothing? Beauty and peace surround you, yet you're lost in your own troubles. Maybe you've even had that experience with helping professionals, going to therapists and bodyworkers and life coaches and doctors and still, you remain caught in the same struggle that brought you there. It's an awful feeling, like being handed a beautiful gift made just for you, only you can't reach out your hands to accept it. You might decide the gift is not right for you and continue your search for more and new and better gifts. But what will help you to receive them? As many of you know, I am a huge proponent of what I call “self-healing.” This phrase wasn’t super popular long ago, but much like “mindfulness" and "energy work," it’s becoming so commonplace, it’s losing all meaning. So let me clarify the essence and the hype, as I see

  Julia Aziz's latest post focuses on "beautiful mistakes and life u-turns." She writes: Life is messy! It just is. The artistry of my life–my decisions, the ways I fail, the ways I grow–doesn’t match the artistry of yours, and thank goodness! Our messes make us unique. I think of a flower with a torn petal. Shall we toss it to the wind for being imperfectly symmetrical, or will we cherish its fragile beauty?  You can read the whole post  HERE . You can read more posts by and about Julia Aziz and her books HERE . 

  EmpowerHer interviewed MSI Press author, Julia Aziz about experiences of labor and miscarriage. Read the full interview  HERE .  Read posts about and by Julia and information about and excerpts from her book HERE .

  (Next Quest Podcast) MSI Press author Julia Aziz was recently interviewed on Next Quest Podcast on the topic of Loss and Grief. Click HERE to listen to the podcast. To see other posts by and about Julia and her book, click HERE . To see podcast interviews of other MSI Press authors, click HERE . To see more posts on grief and loss, click HERE .

  Dr. Wendy Bruton recently interviewed Julia Aziz, author of Lessons of Labor , on her I Used To Be a Therapist podcast. The topic? " Surrender and Releasing Negative Emotions ." For more posts on Julia and her writings, click HERE .

On January 13. MSI Press author, Julia Aziz, will be conducting a free Release and Empower Workshop for women who take care of people professionally or in their personal life. More details can be found HERE . Julia is author of Lessons of Labor . Read posts by and about Julia and her book HERE .

  The following post comes from Julia Aziz, author of Lessons of Labor : I’ve been living in the same neighborhood for ten years now, and given that I take a walk at least once a day, I’m pretty familiar with my surroundings. There’s the blue house with the big cactus out front, the little library around the corner, the “for sale by owner” sign two blocks away… you get the picture. Seeing the same things every day can, as you may well know, get a little monotonous. Yesterday though, it occurred to me that I could walk in a different direction. That sounds obvious, I know, but taking a left from my front door means crossing a busy street, so I never go that way. Yesterday however, I turned left, waited to cross the street, and found myself in a neighborhood I had never seen before. Listen, it wasn’t as if I discovered Shangri-la. It’s just another neighborhood, right? But yesterday it felt like grace, getting happily lost on unfamiliar streets with new sights to see. Of course this mini

From the blog of MSI Press author, Julia Aziz: You might find this strange and a little gross, but the other day I spent some time watching a beetle roll a little balll of dung across the road. I became fascinated by his perseverance and how he naturally made use of what for most living beings on earth is just poop. I don’t know much about dung beetles, but it strikes me on a metaphoric level how we need this kind of resourcefulness in our current world. What creativity could transform what we must leave behind into something sustainable and life-giving? The most common refrain I’m hearing from folks these days is “I just wish I knew when this pandemic would end.” There is a lot of sadness with this question, as no one can offer anything but predictions or false promises. Maybe there is a higher authority on the subject though. Nature tells us: Everything changes. Change happens on its own time. To read the rest of this blog post, click HERE , For more posts by and about Julia and her

We are moving through the Days of Awe in the Jewish tradition this week, a deeply reflective time that starts with an autumnal new year and ends with a holy day of fasting, accountability, and forgiveness. In this ten day period, each member of the community is asked to own up to the ways in which they have become out of alignment with what is true and loving. No one is exempt from this process, for it is understood that being a human being means wanting to do better and failing often. Throughout the High Holy Days, we speak aloud the many ways we have fallen off track, from being greedy and inconsiderate to talking unkindly behind someone’s back to not speaking up against injustice. Now, you might be thinking this is a big “oh, how guilty am I” vortex. But it’s really not. It’s not about self-hate; it’s about acknowledging human frailty, taking corrective action, and recovering our true essence again.  Read the rest of the post HERE . For posts about Julia Aziz and her book, Lessons o

  I suppose it is hokey associating Labor Day (the day to honor workers) with the labor of childbirth, but, heck, it ain't called "labor" for nothing. Any woman who has gone through it can tell you that it is a lot of work. Ironically, my daughter's birthday is today, Labor Day. Giving birth during the Labor Day weekend meant that her doctor was out of town, but we both survived. Though I tried hard to make it into the regular work week, she was having none of that, and after 12 hours of negotiation on the date, she won. So, happy birthday to my Labor Day (now working) girl. It seems appropriate, then, to share an excerpt today from Lessons of Labor by Julia Aziz, a social worker and three times a mother. She knows something about both kinds of labor.  REMEMBERING THE BEGINNER’S MIND   About a week before my second baby’s due date, I woke up in the middle of the night to the same menstrual-like cramping that began my first labor. Excited at 3 a.m. in the morning, I wo