"A prescriptive, compassionate, user-friendly guidebook for the heart, infused with hard-won wisdom and true concern for the emotional health and authentic well-being of us all." - Cindy Crawford, International SuperModel, Entrepreneur, TV Personality, New York Times best-selling author, Mom
by Melanie Smith
8 Steps to Heal Your Trauma, Transcend Your Past, and Transform Your Life
by Melanie Smith
8 Steps to Heal Your Trauma, Transcend Your Past, and Transform Your Life
About Unfinished Business
Melanie Smith knows from experience how complex and immovable grief and trauma can feel.
She used that experience to fuel her research into the issues of trauma, loss, and finding happiness, which led to the creation of Unfinished Business—an eight-step, actionable process that will help you overcome heartbreak, emotional wounds, limiting beliefs, old patterns, and unconscious habits, as well as the negative self-talk, self-judgment, overwhelm, and misalignment that have held you back from succeeding in love, relationships, business, finance, and health.
Grounded in a scientifically supported and solution-based methodology, this system has already transformed people’s lives globally through her one-on-one and group coaching sessions; now Melanie has put it on the page so everyone can access it and change their lives once and for all.
With her guidance, you will clear out the heartbreak, trauma, and grief of your past and make space for joy, hope, and possibility—giving you the self-awareness, clarity of vision, and courage to create the purpose-filled life that was meant for you.
Cindy Crawford
International SuperModel, Entrepreneur, TV Personality, New York Times best-selling author, Mom
“Unfinished Business a prescriptive, compassionate, user-friendly guidebook for the heart, infused with hard-won wisdom and true concern for the emotional health and authentic well-being of us all. Both science-based and deeply personal, the work in this book helps us to understand our challenging life events from an entirely different perspective and offers us an invitation to lovingly face ourselves, our fears, and our heartbreaks, so we can finally heal from the past and move on. By using her own difficult losses and past traumas Melanie encourages us to organize our complicated histories and take inventory of what was lost so we can enthusiastically grab hold of all that is yet to come. It’s an eye-opener. I loved every page.”
Tal Ben-Shahar
New York Times best-selling author of Happier, Being Happy and creator of the most popular course in Harvard University’s history
“In Unfinished Business, Melanie Smith explores the powerful force that can hold us back from fulfilling our potential for success, health, and happiness. The accessible, evidence-based steps in this book can help us put our unfinished business behind us so that we can become the best version of ourselves and flourish. Beautifully written and a necessary read in these disorienting times.”
Nancy McKeon
Actress, Writer, Producer, Director, Mom
“Throughout our thirty-plus-year friendship, Melanie’s constant desire has been to help people heal and live authentically. Unfinished Business distills all of her knowledge, tools, and wisdom into a practical, step by step guide that is a must-have resource to help us all navigate our painful pasts and ever-changing, complex lives. From the very first page you know that you are in amazing hands as you learn, grow, and heal from Melanie’s hard-earned strength, compassion, honesty, and insights. This book is a true work of heart.”
Mary Curran Hackett
Best-selling author of Proof of Heaven and Proof of Angels
“Melanie Smith’s Unfinished Business is required reading for anyone feeling stuck in the past or in unhealthy patterns, yet instinctively knows that there is so much more they are capable of becoming. Most people are unaware of the deep pain of their past, and how it is holding them back. Many more have resigned themselves to their suffering, and think it is permanent and impossible to ever be ‘finished.’ But Unfinished Business provides hope, tools, and skills that create lasting change and healing once and for all. If you are looking to transform your relationships, professional life, and most importantly, yourself, Melanie’s scientifically supported and proven work changes you on a cellular and energetic level so that you can live fully, abundantly, joyfully and claim the life you knew deep down was possible all along.”
Eric Yaverbaum
New York Times best-selling author of 7 books including Leadership Secrets of the World’s Most Successful CEOs
“Honestly taken aback by the process Melanie so eloquently writes the reader through. Her ability to help us understand our emotional history as well as how to set it free is a kind of superpower for those of us determined to heal and reach our greatest potential. Engaging. Insightful and a life changer for me. Grateful to have read it! It’s that good.”
Dr. Beverly Kaye
Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Love Em or Lose Em, Up is Not the Only Way, Hello, Goodbye, and Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go
“Unfinished Business is a beautifully written survival guide for anyone with a past, a present and a future. An inspiring roadmap for those of us who have ever had doubts about our place in the world. I’ve used it myself and found it phenomenally helpful. This one is a must read!”
Publisher's Weekly Review
This inspiring guide from author and actress Smith has been crafted to guide readers in facing unhealed trauma and taking steps to heal, let go, and move on toward a happier, freer perspective on life. “This work is deep, meaningful, and life-changing,” Smith writes, emphasizing that the eight-step process here—which includes recognizing coping mechanisms, unpacking triggers, and unblocking one’s “charge”—is indeed work. She draws on her own experience of that effort, of going “deep enough to find ways through the difficult pain and disappointment life can expose us to,” in this inviting, action-oriented resource, she encourages readers who are ready to start the process of reflection and release, of identifying past traumas, patterns, and beliefs that may have long steered you, and installing instead “a new and clear GPS that will guide you to the places in life you’ve always dreamed of.”
Smith’s process calls for exploring journaling, creating daily mantras, and knowing one’s AACTS (Acceptance and Approval Create Tricks), which will help reveal the “gap between the real, connected self and the artificial, created one.” Each chapter begins with a revealing personal anecdote (about forgiving oneself; about crafting a “happier ending” story for your life) from Smith or one of her clients, leading readers into each new lesson, which builds smartly upon the previous. Writing with empathy and clarity, Smith explores how loss can cause individuals to become stuck or stagnant in grief, and how that grief can become a self-defeating catalyst affecting decision-making, even leading to the creation of a risk-averse life built to avoid pain.
Unfinished Business asks for deep self-assessment, but Smith continually offers words of encouragement and affirmations, especially in recurring “Higher Self-talk” sections. This is a heartening, straight-talking resource for readers looking to start the work that it takes to (as Smith puts it) “weed” their gardens and re-plant in “clean and clear” soil. Smith makes the work look approachable and nourishing.