Meg Selig

New release! My latest book, "Silver Sparks: Thoughts on Growing Older, Wiser, and Happier," was published in October, 2020. I'm proud of this book for many reasons, not least of which is that it was my "pandemic purpose project." I worked on it from January, 2020, to September, 2020. The book provides an upbeat and realistic view of today's aging experience--including the amazing research that shows that most older people are happier people. I've included select blogs from my blogging "corner" at psychologytoday.com (see below), personal essays, quote pages, and short anecdotes ("Sparks").

I wrote my 2010 book, "Changepower: 37 Secrets to Habit Change Success," to help people who wanted to stop harmful habits and/or create helpful ones. As a longtime counselor, I'd had plenty of experience with people struggling to change. So my favorite compliment about my book was when a reader told me, "As I was reading, I felt that you were sitting beside me, encouraging me to keep on and giving me gentle advice to help me stay on my chosen path." What more could a counselor ask?

I was a counselor for over 30 years. I spent my last 20 years of fulltime work at St. Louis Community College and continued to work part-time after retiring in 2005. My current work as an author and freelance writer is an extension of my former career. My goal is to write about counseling topics in a way that entertains and helps my readers.

I first became obsessed with the topic of habit change after a beloved aunt died of lung cancer. Her seeming inability to quit smoking haunted me for many years. When I later discovered research about successful habit change, I decided to create a "Habit Change" class for people who wanted to make positive changes in their lives. I taught this class each semester from 2001-2011. Many of my students' success stories appear in Changepower.

I'm a frequent speaker on radio and TV shows, as well as for national counseling conferences, community organizations, and educational groups. I also write the "Changepower" blog at the Psychology Today website: psychologytoday.com/blog/changepower.