Smart people know better.
So why do they keep choosing the same kinds of relationships, repeating the same patterns and ending up with the same painful results?
Because knowing better is not the same as seeing what is actually driving you.
Suman Smith is the author of Stop Cock-Blocking Your Dating Life: Get Out of Your Head, Get Into Your Heart, and Finally Let Love In.
Her message is simple and direct:
The biggest obstacle to finding love may not be finding the right person.
It may be recognizing the unconscious patterns that keep pushing the right people away.
For nearly 20 years, Suman has worked in the engagement ring industry as the founder of Lux Jewels. She has spent thousands of hours talking with people about dating, proposals, marriage, heartbreak, commitment and whether they had finally found the right person.
Couples came to Suman to create engagement rings.
But single people talked to her too.
They imagined the ring they hoped to buy or receive once they finally met the one. And they opened up about their dating challenges, disappointments and fears that the right person might never come along.
Suman became a little like a bartender.
Over time, she began seeing the same relationship patterns everywhere.
People said they wanted love but kept choosing emotionally unavailable partners.
They called fear intuition.
They called emotional walls high standards.
They said they were focusing on themselves when, sometimes, they were simply exhausted, disappointed and afraid to be hurt again.
And Suman was not standing outside those patterns looking in.
She was living many of them herself.
She always believed in love. What she could not see were the stories, assumptions and protective behaviours getting in her way.
After recognizing her own patterns, Suman found love and married for the first time at 54.
That experience became the foundation of Stop Cock-Blocking Your Dating Life.
This is not another dating book telling people where to meet someone, how to write a dating profile or how long to wait before sending a text.
And Suman is not a dating coach promising a formula for finding the perfect partner.
She talks about the part most dating advice skips:
What happens when you say you want connection but your unconscious mind is still trying to protect you from it?
Her work explores why intelligent, successful and self-aware people can manage careers, businesses and families but still feel completely stuck in their relationships.
It also challenges a popular assumption: that seeing the red flags in other people is enough.
Sometimes the most important red flags are our own patterns.
Potential interview topics include:
Why finding the right person may not be the real problem
Why smart people repeat patterns even when they know better
How self-protection quietly blocks connection
Why high standards and emotional walls are not always the same thing
The difference between fear and intuition
Why I am fine can really mean I am tired of being disappointed
How people confuse feelings with the stories they attach to those feelings
How our past can make present-day decisions without us even knowing
What nearly 20 years of engagement ring conversations taught Suman about love, fear and commitment
What changed when Suman finally recognized her own patterns and married at 54
Suman brings honesty, humour and compassion to conversations people often avoid having with themselves.
She does not shame people or tell them they are broken.
She helps them see what they could not see before.
Because people cannot change what they cannot see.
But once they see the pattern, they have a choice.
The conversation Suman wants listeners to have with themselves is not only:
Why can I not find the right person?
It is:
What if I keep looking for the problem in everyone else because I have not yet recognized what is driving me?
Suman Smith is the author of Stop Cock-Blocking Your Dating Life, a speaker, decision-making educator and founder of Lux Jewels.
For nearly 20 years, Suman has helped people choose engagement rings and navigate the emotions surrounding proposals, marriage and commitment. People came to her for diamonds, but they often talked to her about dating, heartbreak, fear and whether they had finally found the right person.
Those conversations gave Suman a unique view into the patterns shaping people’s biggest decisions.
After recognizing many of those same patterns in her own life, Suman found love and married for the first time at 54.
Her book challenges traditional dating advice by asking a more uncomfortable question: What if the biggest obstacle to love is not finding the right person, but recognizing the unconscious patterns influencing whom we choose, what we tolerate and who we push away?
Suman speaks candidly about emotional availability, self-protection, fear versus intuition, feelings versus stories and why smart, successful people can continue repeating patterns they consciously want to change.
Her message is simple: people cannot change what they cannot see. Awareness gives them the power to choose differently.
Suman was born and raised in Vancouver and is now based in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada. She is available for radio, television, podcast and speaking appearances.
