MSI Press Blog

The Finding Your Path Project recently published 30 back to school tips from experts: five of them came from MSI Press author, Cindy McKinley ( 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents , co-authored with Patti Trombly),

Brittany Renz, author of Girl, You Got This! , had a great book signing last Saturday at Barnes & Noble in Gilroy. Here are some fun pictures from the event, including the participation of her husband HOlden and daughter Sophie.

One of the first things I learned as part of my fitness training -- and am still learning -- is that when it comes to physical fitness development of any sort, slow is better than fast. That came as a surprise to me, especially since I have been impulsive and near-hyperactive my entire life. Doing things fast comes naturally. Doing them slowly does not--and frustrates me as well. However, I now understand that I MUST do fitness activites slowly for a number of reasons: to avoid injury to let your muscles fully experience the activity not to confuse cardio training with muscle training to get the full benefit of each activity  to build muscle faster -- more time under tension Try it. Lift 20 pounds rapidly 20 times. Then lift 20 pounds slowly 20 times. Slowly is harder to do; it taxes your muscles more; it build muscles faster. (Though with faster, you can live more weight or do more repetitions.) A length of 2-6 seonds between repitions seems to optimal. What you wil

How We Meditate Right Concentration furnishes the eighth step on Buddha’s Eightfold Path. Technically, Right Concentration signifies passing through four stages in meditation called jhanas , and arriving at mindfulness. While the steps on the path are not consecutive and are practiced together, Buddha said that by following the previous steps, that is, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Understanding, Right Effort, Right Intention, Right Livelihood, and Right Mindfulness, we arrive at Right Concentration. When we concentrate, we focus our attention on something. Concentration, here called samadhi ,  means that we focus our mind on an object that helps us to become more wholesome and pure in our awareness. As we know, a distracted mind races between ideas, thoughts, and concepts, filled with anxiety, worry, concern, and delusion (thinking that things differ from the way they actually are). This mind has been compared to the antics of a drunken monkey. A drunken monkey cha

Holidays   If you’re a newly bereaved parent of a deceased child and you haven’t encountered a major holiday yet—say Thanksgiving or Christmas, be prepared for a shock. The holidays can bring home the extent of your loss in a way that nothing else can. Having recently lost a child, you might not be thinking about the holiday or how it will affect you. This is a mistake. It is better to face it in advance and decide how you will handle the holiday. Will you decorate for Christmas as you’ve always done? Will you go to a relative’s house and try to get through the whole thing as quickly as possible? Or will you close up shop and absent yourself from the holiday completely, traveling to Cancun, Key West, or a neighborhood motel, with or without your spouse? Paulette Jarnagin lost her son Keith in a drowning accident six months before Christmas. Paulette, who admits to “always going overboard” at Christmas, didn’t want to celebrate the holiday that year, but her family and fri

Advanced review copies are available now for Peter Jonas's new book, Soccer Is Fun without Parents . Pre-orders also available at online retailers (Amazon, B&N, etc.), as well as at the MIS Press webstore  (25% off with coupon code FF25). MSI Press will provide free copies to readers who will review and post to places like Goodreads and Library Thing or blogs. A limited number of copies are available. Contact editor@msipress.com.

Congratulations to Julie Gentile for her article, "A Journal Entry a Day to Help You Let Go of Grief Your Way" on My Greiving Place.  Read it here . Julie is author of the award-winning booi, 108 Yoga and Self Care Practices for Busy Mamas .