MSI Press Blog

  \ LIFE’S JOY “What can separate us from the love of Christ?” --Paul of Tarsus   “I’ve never been happy. I don’t believe I’ll ever escape my misery,” my elderly patient lamented. She had suffered from anxiety her whole life. She was its prisoner. “I’m always worrying about something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Anything can cause me to panic,” she explained.  I asked her, “Who would you be if you didn’t worry?” She responded honestly, “I don’t know. I wouldn’t know myself. That would be even scarier!” My patient had constructed an identity around her illness. She could not imagine living without it and the misery it caused her.  Another patient of mine was terrified of leaving the house. She insisted she wanted to feel free to go out and socialize, but still stayed home to feel safe. I asked her, “You say you want to go out, but still stay home. Which is true, what you say you want or what you do?” Both, in fact, may have been true. She felt hopelessly conflicted, not knowin

  Book Excerpt: Nurturing Contentment What makes us happy? I just made a list, and on it, I placed such items as “writing on the beach,” “cooking something interesting,” and “having lunch with Karen.” There are 20 such items—I could certainly come up with more. Plunging a little deeper into my memory, I could add “making love with my husband, Jack” (the last time was in 2010, the year before he died on January 2, 2011.), “vacation in the Keys” (2009), and “camping in upstate New York” (2002). If I think about these things and why they made me happy, I can see that all of them concerned getting in touch with a certain radiance or connection to love, and not just a personal love, although I certainly felt that for my late husband (and still do). I feel love for my friend Karen, and for the beach, cooking, the Keys, and the land in South Kortright, New York, where Jack and I used to camp. (I confess the last few times were in a trailer, not a tent!) But the love I am speaking of goe