MSI Press Blog

  Most people learn emotional suppression long before they learn emotional vocabulary. It starts quietly, almost invisibly, in childhood. If a child grows up hearing: “Stop crying.” “You’re too sensitive.” “We don’t talk about that.” they absorb a simple rule: feeling is unsafe . Children don’t argue with that message; they adapt to it. They tighten their throat, swallow their tears, and learn to present a version of themselves that keeps adults comfortable. What begins as self‑protection slowly becomes identity. By Adulthood, Hiding Emotions Feels Automatic It’s not rebellion. It’s not avoidance. It’s muscle memory. Years of “don’t feel that” turn into a reflex: stay composed, stay quiet, stay small. Many adults don’t even realize they’re suppressing anything — they just know that expressing emotion feels risky, messy, or wrong. And because the training happened so early, the habit feels natural. The Cost of Early Emotional Training When feeling becomes unsafe, connection becomes ...

  Recently, Learning to Feel (Girrell), reached #196 on the Amazon bestseller list of psychologist biographies. Book Description:  Learning to Feel, Second Edition, teaches readers how to gain choice and authority over their emotional states. Feelings and emotions are reactions to the deeply held beliefs and experiences of our lives. In order to become fully emotionally intelligent - that is, to be able to know what is yours, what comes from the others, and how best to respond to those others - we must connect first to those core experiences and often re-interpret the meaning they have held for us. Learning to Feel is such a journey, intended to be a set of trail blazes for anyone who wishes to up their game in the realm of emotional intelligence. (Edition 1 was selected for the Independent Press Distinguished Favorite Award and a Literary Titan gold award.) First Edition Book Awards Literary Titan Gold Award Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite/Psychology For more ...

  Recently, Learning to Feel (Girrell), reached #196 on the Amazon bestseller list of psychologist biographies. Book Description:  Learning to Feel, Second Edition, teaches readers how to gain choice and authority over their emotional states. Feelings and emotions are reactions to the deeply held beliefs and experiences of our lives. In order to become fully emotionally intelligent - that is, to be able to know what is yours, what comes from the others, and how best to respond to those others - we must connect first to those core experiences and often re-interpret the meaning they have held for us. Learning to Feel is such a journey, intended to be a set of trail blazes for anyone who wishes to up their game in the realm of emotional intelligence. (Edition 1 was selected for the Independent Press Distinguished Favorite Award and a Literary Titan gold award.) First Edition Book Awards Literary Titan Gold Award Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite/Psychology For more ...

Every family has a story it tells about itself. In healthy families, that story can stretch to include truth, conflict, and growth. In dysfunctional families, the story becomes rigid. It must be protected at all costs. And when reality threatens that story, the family often chooses a surprising solution: it identifies the healthiest member as “the problem.” This isn’t pop psychology. It’s a well‑established pattern in family systems theory, where the person who refuses to play along with dysfunction becomes the identified patient — the one who carries the symptoms the family doesn’t want to face. Sometimes that person is the most perceptive, the most emotionally honest, or simply the one who says, “This isn’t right.” In a system built on denial, that kind of clarity is destabilizing. So the family stabilizes itself the only way it knows how: by pathologizing the truth‑teller. The “problem child” may be the one who names the tension everyone else tiptoes around. The “difficult sibling”...