Bestselling self-help author and award-winning personal development blogger Shelley Wilson takes the fear out of self-help and makes it fun, helping you to make easy, positive changes to improve your life right now. Includes her 31-day self-help toolkit.
Have you ever felt helpless? Are you struggling to understand why you feel disconnected from your friends or family? Are you mystified by the words self-help, self-care, and personal development? Are you looking for answers but really have no idea where to begin?
In this beginner's guide to personal developmental and understanding self-care, Shelley Wilson will show you how looking after your own needs can be a powerful tool for your mental, physical, and emotional health so you can begin making important changes today.
Discover what self-help means, how to become more self-aware, understand core values, and have fun mapping out what your best life looks like. Shelley includes tips, tools, and techniques and shares her 31-day self-help toolkit.
Be the person you deserve to be and join bestselling self-help author and award-winning personal development blogger Shelley Wilson on a journey of self-discovery and recovery.
Self Help for the Helpless : A Beginner's Guide to Personal Development, Understanding Self-care, and Becoming Your Authentic Self by Shelley Wilson was published on 2 December 2021 by BHC Press.
As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I am delighted to welcome the author here today to answer a few questions.
Interview with author Shelley Wilson
Q: What was the inspiration behind writing Self-Help for the Helpless?
Personal development was, and still is, important to me because I’ve used so many techniques on my own healing journey. I wanted to pay it forward and help other women. In 2008 I opened a holistic spa which became a sanctuary for many women. I loved helping my clients to feel empowered, inspired, and confident. When I sat down to write Self-Help for the Helpless, I found myself going back to the early days of my training. What had I needed back then? Why was self-help so important to me?
As my clients opened up to me during their appointments, I began to recognise that self-help strategies appeared when they needed them in their lives. I could relate to that. After walking out of a physically and emotionally abusive marriage, I found myself in the mind, body, spirit section in Waterstones – I’d never been in that section before. Still, at that moment, it was exactly what I needed.
Self-Help for the Helpless is my way of reaching out to the women at the start of their healing journey and giving them the basics to thrive and survive.
Q: In your bio you mention using a healthy dose of humour in your non-fiction books. Do you believe this helps you cope with tough times?
It’s taken me many years to learn how to laugh again, and my amazing children were the main reason I was able to find my smile. When I give talks about self-help and motivation, I often include funny (and sometimes embarrassing) stories to put the audience at ease. We need laughter in our lives. I appreciate that it’s an urban myth to say children laugh 400 times a day and adults laugh less than 20, but the idea behind this is to show that we, as adults, can be far too serious.
I’ve learned to laugh at myself, which has been a powerful tool on my own road to recovery, but laughter also strengthens our immune systems. It produces antibodies that fight off diseases, which means a good belly laugh not only helps you heal mentally but physically. What’s your favourite joke? Go on, share it with someone today.
Q: What advice would you give someone interested in self-help but unsure or hesitant?
When my clients came to my spa, many booked a pedicure or facial because they weren’t sure about alternative therapies. Once I told them what each treatment included and how it would benefit them, they switched to reflexology or reiki sessions. My advice is always to start with a small step. For example, download a meditation app, read a book (I can recommend Self-Help for the Helpless!!), listen to a podcast or go to a workshop or talk. Do one small thing that opens up the world of self-help to you. Be curious and open to the possibilities.
Q: What was your favourite part of writing Self-Help for the Helpless?
I love talking about motivation and confidence, and I recognise that I’m a constant work in progress. It doesn’t matter how many self-help books I’ve read or written; there is still so much more to learn. In Self-Help for the Helpless, I share one of my favourite exercises that I used to do with my clients and still do for myself. The exercise is to write down what your best day would look like from the minute you wake up to when you go to bed. There are no rules. You can write whatever you want. My best day usually involves being by water, books, coffee, eating pizza, and occasionally, Johnny Depp makes an appearance! Have a go, it’s great fun, and you might just learn something about your innermost desires.
Q: Why should people read this book?
When you travel by plane, you are told by the stewardess to secure your own oxygen mask before helping others in the event of any loss of cabin pressure. This is basic self-help. You can’t help others if you are broken. Self-Help for the Helpless isn’t a hefty tome designed to confuse or overwhelm. When I write my non-fiction, I want my readers to feel like they’re having a coffee and chatting with me. I want to know what’s going on in their world and how they’re coping. Hopefully, they’ll find the answers to their questions within the pages and feel supported as they dip their toe into helping themselves be the best they can be.
I want people to read this book because they feel adrift or disconnected, and I want to help them realise it’s okay to feel this way. We all need guidance sometimes, and we all need to stay curious. My hope is that Self-Help for the Helpless finds its way into the hearts of anyone who needs a bit of a boost.
motivational and personal development blog received numerous awards and was named a Top 10 UK Personal Development Blog.
She divides her writing time between motivational non-fiction for adults and the fictional worlds of her young adult titles. Her non-fiction books combine self-help with a healthy dose of humour, and her YA novels combine myth, legend, and supernatural characters with a side order of demonic chaos.
Shelley is an obsessive list maker who loves pizza, history, mythology, vampires, and travelling solo in her VW campervan. She lives in the West Midlands with her three children, a mischievous black cat called Luna, and a sixteen year old goldfish that refuses to die (he’s come back to life twice!)
Her new book, Self-Help for the Helpless, is out on 2nd December 2021, published by BHC Press Books.
Author website: https://shelleywilsonauthor.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FantasyAuthorSLWilson/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ShelleyWilson72
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorslwilson/
Publisher: https://www.bhcpress.com/Author_SL_Wilson.html
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