Authors Electric

Susan Jane Smith B.Sc           Who thinks about mercy these days?  My recollection is that in the days of yore people would ask for (and sometimes receive) mercy when on the pointed end of a sword.            I’m not sure if anyone thinks about granting their partner mercy in an argument and maybe we all need to think about that.           My husband certainly goes for the jugular in his desire to ‘win’ rather than trying to negotiate a mutually acceptable outcome.           This approach brings out the worst in me!  All my professional knowledge flies out the window.  In the 16 years that we have been together I have learned to stand my ground.  I try to stay assertive.           What tends to happen is that I am more articulate and he ...

Susan Jane Smith, B.Sc.           Sometimes people have a ‘life script’ that disables them.   An example might be a student who could not tell her tutors about some horrible problems that she was trying to deal with at home.   People seem to think that others will consider them weak when in fact it takes a lot of courage and inner strength to admit that you are struggling with any aspect of life.        The benefit of counselling that I experienced personally and then witnessed hundreds of my clients experience (before I retired) was that once you do tell someone, the old saying tends to kick in “a problem shared is a problem halved”.   Now I agree, if you tell a friend or family member there is a possibility that they might “hold it against” you or tell your “secret” to another.           That is where counselling/psychotherapy is so useful. ...

Susan Jane Smith           The last day of July saw me posting “Pay it Forward” on www.Goodreads.com as a discussion item because I am curious.   What do you think this phrase means?   What do you do to “pay it forward”?         In April people from Goodreads entered a competition to win 3 copies of my book Emotional Health for EmotionalWealth. The response was overwhelming for me and I had to stick to sending off just 3 of the paperbacks due to the cost of postage.           Now, in order to “pay it forward” I’ve just sent all the other entrants a free e-book copy and told them about the free app on my revised website so that they can read e-books on their computers, phones, iPads etc.   Praise for the book, and great reviews, would be lovely especially if they lead on to mega sales!   No expectations, but lots of hope!  ...

Take Your MOT Before the Plunge!           A pre-marital ‘MOT’ for couples to take before formally tying the knot has been devised to help reduce soaring divorce rates.  This book is available internationally on Kindle e-book readers via Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, et al. It is also available in paperback via www.EmotionalHealthForEmotionalWealth.co.uk .   Its author, Sue Smith, believes that a ‘relationship inspection’ prior to marriage is now all the more crucial following legal rulings on big-money divorce settlements.           High profile cases in which ex husbands have been forced to pay huge sums to their former wives could discourage people from marrying. But the key, says Sue, is avoiding in the first place some of the pitfalls which can lead to divorce.           “If couples talked to each other more effective...

Susan Jane Smith I became an author without ever having any desire to write! Let me explain: I was a Psychotherapist in private practice and busy, but always short on time or money due to the labour intensive nature of the work. I meditated about how to get more money and the "answer" came back "write the book"! Well, what to write? I had read you should write about what you know so I started to try to convey all that I had learnt in 20 years of my professional life. It took me six years! It was a long time before I "found my voice" - my style. Chatty rather than clinical as I believe in trying to connect with people. I literally had to screw up all my courage to start writing as it was a new world to share my thoughts with people I didn't know. My book started on a bit of chip paper in a car park! I made lots of notes on scraps of paper and eventually organised them and pulled it all together and that was how "Emotional Health for Emotio...