MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from  A Guide to Blis s - Your First Step into Expansion, part 2 We will focus our consciousness on one object and then carry out an expansion. We will break through limits and realize new possibilities/ways of experiencing and feeling.  We shall begin with a very simple expansion, the expansion of a positive emotion. Of course, we are not used to expanding positive emotions as they seem to be more than enough on their own. The very suggestion indicates that there is something beyond a positive emotion’s borders that we ought to find. Why would we expect this? After all, if it were up to us, we would rather abide in positivity as much as possible before sorrowfully collapsing into some negative emotion, pain or even the daily existential tension that follows too many of us! Well, the thing is that, in actuality, positive emotions in their expanded states can lead us to truly sublime experiences, overflowing bliss, and an existence beyond sorrow, beyon...

  The emotional toll of Agent Orange began long before the first diagnosis. For many soldiers, it started with confusion — a sense that something invisible had followed them home. The chemical itself was unseen, odorless, and forgotten by the time its effects appeared. But the emotions it left behind were immediate and lasting. 1. The First Emotion: Betrayal When symptoms began to surface — rashes, fatigue, unexplained illnesses — many veterans felt betrayed. They had trusted their government, their commanders, and the systems meant to protect them. The realization that the danger came from their own side, not the enemy, was devastating. “We thought it was just weed killer,” one veteran said. “Nobody told us it could kill us too.” That sense of betrayal became a defining emotional thread. It wasn’t just about exposure; it was about abandonment. 2. The Second Emotion: Isolation Agent Orange created a kind of loneliness that medicine couldn’t treat. Veterans often found themselves di...

  You’ve mastered the vocabulary of emotion. You can say “I’m sorry,” “I’m thrilled,” “I’m worried,” in your second language. You know how to express joy, grief, gratitude, and frustration. But do you know how much to express? When to express it? To whom ? 🎚️ The Volume Dial of Emotion Emotional calibration is the ability to adjust your emotional expression to match cultural expectations. It’s not just about what you feel—it’s about how you signal that feeling. In some cultures, grief is public and loud. In others, it’s private and restrained. Joy might be exuberant or quietly dignified. Anger might be direct or veiled in irony. At Level 3, you may express emotion clearly—but not appropriately . You might apologize too profusely, celebrate too loudly, or offer comfort too intimately. Your words are fluent, but your emotional timing is off. 🕰️ Emotion Is a Cultural Clock Every culture has its own rhythm for emotional expression. Some cultures value immediacy—say what you...

  How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett argues something that initially sounds almost unbelievable: Emotions are not pre-packaged reactions hidden inside us waiting to “come out.” Instead, the brain constructs emotions. That sounds strange because most of us intuitively think emotions work like reflexes: something happens the brain detects it an emotion fires automatically Barrett argues it is more complicated than that. The Brain as a Prediction Machine Her central idea is that the brain is constantly trying to predict what is happening and what the body needs next. Your brain is not passively receiving reality like a camera. It is actively: interpreting sensory input predicting meaning preparing bodily responses using past experience to make sense of present sensations So when your heart races, stomach tightens, breathing changes, and attention narrows, the brain has to answer: “What does this mean?” And the answer is not always fixed. T...