MSI Press Blog

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -9-   All changes are a risk… but change makes you know that you’re alive. You’re exploring, you’re stumbling- almost certainly stumbling if my past is any indication- but there is a certain exhilaration, too. You can’t wait to see what happens next… What I like most about change is that it’s a synonym for “hope.” If you are taking a risk, what you are really saying is, “I believe in tomorrow, and I will be a part of it.”   Linda Ellerbee   You are alive as you extend yourself on behalf of something new. Advocating for ideas and causes is one type of risk, but the experience of aliveness in risk and change is much broader than that. You are alive as you venture out of your accustomed and comfortable ways of being—we use the modern phrase, comfort zone —to take up something that you haven’t done before that expands a little bit ...

  CHANGE OF HEART “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” --Ezekiel 36: 26   “I hate change!” If I received a dollar for every time a patient said that to me, I could work for free.   They often add, “Change replaces the familiar with the unknown. The unknown scares me.” In response, I remind my anxious patients, “If there is no change, you are dead. The future is always unknown, of course, because it does not yet exist. You are now in the process of creating your own future.” I also ask them,”Why are you here meeting with me, except to change?” They tell me how miserable they feel and powerless to do anything about it. Frightening change is the price of relief. Therapy is for healing and growth. Some of my patients imagine that their trying life circumstances cause their distress. In our work together they learn that only changing their minds and hearts, their ...

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! Every time I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until it passes. Mark Twain   New Years!   The Times Square ball, confetti, Guy Lombardo (for people of my vintage) and… New Year’s resolutions!   Most of us make some kind of resolution for the New Year. It’s a good opportunity for a fresh start. Change isn’t easy, though, and lapsed New Year’s resolutions are certainly part of the common lore of our culture.   There is no lack of advice out there about how best to manage the resolutions we set for the year to come. Set clear goals (I prefer the word, “intentions,” by the way). Write them down. Check in regularly about how you’re doing. Enlist the caring and support of somebody else.   These are perfectly fine ideas that I’m sure you have heard before. I want to share with you, though, three ideas that get less press, that arise from some combination of empirical literature and my own experience working with people for a long t...

  Nanette Hucknall, author of How to Live from Your Heart and co-author of The Rose and the Sword . provokes some timely thinking on the topic of change as the year turns from 2022 to 2023 in a blog post earlier this year, "Overcoming difficulties that come with change." As a therapist, she says, she encounters the greatest difficulties among her clients not in a willingness to make a change or a recognition for the need for change but in the implementation of change, Read all of what she says HERE . For more posts about Nanette and her books, click HERE . For more posts on the topic of change, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Pres...

  from Julia Aziz -- If you're having a hard time right now, you are most definitely not alone (though in observing all the hoopla, you certainly may feel that way!). December can be lovely when it involves slow time, good food, and heartfelt connection with people you love. It can also be stressful and heavy with illness, loneliness, and grief. In lightness and dark, this time of year brings up all the feels. I'm going to keep this one short, as I know your inbox is probably overfull. But here are some resources to use, again or for the first time, when you need a little extra support: When you're not sure how you or other people are changing   When you're misunderstood   When you're over-giving and doing too much Releasing negative emotions and what it means to surrender  (audio) On grief and loss  (audio- you can skip the first 10-15 minute intro to my counseling practice--after that, we dive into the topic) The challenge of being a helping professional and a...