Hi, and thanks for visiting my site. I hope (my goal is) to provide info that’s helpful to you in some way. Info that will help you to create a better life for yourself and those around you. I’m Sue Woledge and I was born in Scotland in the mid 60’s and migrated with my parents to NZ when I was 2 years old. I’m the eldest of 5 children. I remember from a very young age feeling that my family was different – my parents spoke differently to my friends (kiwi) parents, my parents seemed to be a lot stricter I guess and even looked different as they had a different kind of style about them I suppose (now looking back) having moved from the UK.
I didn’t like being different. I spent my whole life trying to fit in and be the same as everyone else even tho I knew that I was different inside. Looking back, it was always my desire to fit in that got me into strife.
As a very young teenager I wanted to be ‘cool’ and didn’t think that who I really was, was good enough or that people would like me so I covered myself up with makeup, big earrings, bleached hair and revealing clothes. I smoked cigarettes and drank and did my absolute best to be ‘cool’. I thank god now, looking back, that I never really got into any more serious drugs.
I moved out of home at 16 and in with my boyfriend of 2 years who treated me worse than I treated myself. I was pregnant 3 months later and had my beautiful daughter 3 months after my 17th birthday. After 5 years of being lied to, cheated on and emotionally abused I had had enough and finished the relationship with my daughter’s father. Twelve months later I met my husband Ray (we’ve been married now for 25 years!) who loves and has always loved me unconditionally – which is probably just as well, as I’ve been a bit of a mess at times!
I have always had, what I now realise is, an unhealthy relationship with food. Even as a small child, I always over ate when I had the chance and always had a sweet tooth and a weight problem and/or an unhealthy body image. I remember thinking that I was fat even when I was really little – before I started school. I don’t know where that came from or why or how I felt that way, at that age, as when I look back on photo’s, I was a fairly normal looking preschooler!
At school I was a bit chubby and the other kids didn’t let me forget it (as kids do), as was the case with my brother who regularly reminded me that I was ‘fat’. There weren’t too many overweight kids around when I was young, unlike the very sad state of our children at this time in history.
Puberty slimmed me down as a young teenager, however between my eating habits, smoking, my very early pregnancy, and then the resulting post natal depression that lasted until I split up with my daughters father, by the time I was 18 I weighed in at around 100kgs. I slimmed down a little during the time I lived on my own with my daughter and after I met my husband and had my gorgeous son I still averaged around 85kg or more (apart from during my second pregnancy when my weight went up to around the 100kg mark again).
Our move to Australia in 1989 was only a few weeks after having my tubes tied. Twelve months later I found myself living in a caravan with my husband and children, suffering from depression (at least in part I now believe, caused by Post Tubal Ligation syndrome), ill health – IBS, anxiety, panic attacks, a horrendous mentrual cycle, and regular abdominal pain and sickness. I spent a lot of time crying on my own and pretending that everything was fine when I was in the company of others. By the time I reached the age of 30, I weighed in at close to 120kg, I used to go to bed at night often around 7pm because my chest was to tight, I could hardly breathe and I just couldn’t smoke any more and if I couldn’t smoke I had to go to bed so that I wouldn’t have cravings for a cigarette (I was such an addict!). I bought a pushbike around the time I turned 30 and found that I could pedal about 6 times and then would have to coast for a few minutes because I was so unfit and unhealthy. I was so unhealthy that I was scared that I was going to die. I realised that I couldn’t let that happen, so I quit smoking at 30, started exercising, and lost over 45kg over the following 4 years. I went from pedalling 6 times to riding 20kms in just a few months.
Shortly after our move to Australia, I also started to become interested in herbs. This stemmed from my Grandmother who told me that I should be using slippery elm for my ongoing digestive problems. When I finally gave up on the doctors and tried it, it worked! I’ve never looked back and today I always look to herbal medicine along with nutrition and lifestyle for answers.
Life since then has been a healthier story in all ways – physically, emotionally and spiritually. I feel that I have been on a journey, but I have a long, long way to go still and it’s just getting really exciting now. My weight still goes up and down – but never up as far as it used to. I still struggle with my relationship with food, but I find that as I get older it all gets better. I get wiser, think smarter, think more out of the box, understand myself and the universe better and appreciate life and all that it holds more and more as time marches on.
My working history has included a fairly mixed up bunch of stuff. I’ve worked as a cleaner, in a cafeteria, as a typist (back when typewriters were in every office). I’ve done all types of administration and office work, data entry and in more recent years I’ve worked in IT roles after getting my Diploma in IT, and then for myself as a Remedial Therapist after getting my Diploma in Remedial Therapies. I started to study Naturopathy, but quit once I realised that it wasn’t really what I wanted to do over the long term. I now feel that I’m here to do something a bit different from being a therapist.
My involvement in my network marketing business and via that, my introduction to personal development, is something that I am so incredibly grateful for. I honestly can’t express how thankful I am, without tears welling in my eyes. It is changing me, my life and my future in amazing ways. I wish I had been introduced to this earlier and I wish that I had known these things that I have learned and am learning when my children were young so that I could have taught them and they would have grown up knowing, so that their lives would have been easier right from the start. But that wasn’t the journey that was meant for them – or I – obviously.
I am a fairly passionate person. Passionate about health, life and being responsible. I do my best to ‘be‘ what I would like to see in the world, and I’m looking to make some sort of a difference to the planet for my time spent here in this life, however long it ends up being. I’m saddened by the ignorance that causes hatred and racism. I find ignorance frustrating. Ignorance is knowing no better – but it’s when there is no desire to know better that it frustrates me. People who say “I know” when they don’t know – what they think they know is only what’s been aimed at them via the mass media – the nightly news, advertising, advertising disguised as news, the gossip magazines and the other ignorant people that they listen to.
If I don’t know about something, I always try to find out. I’ll research and find as much info as possible so that I do know more. It’s just something I believe I should do before making decisions or judgements. I generally keep an open mind and will always look at new information and new ideas and then take from them what makes sense to me. That’s all each of us can do. But to not seek the information and take what is aimed at you as knowledge is ignorance. Pure and simple. My beliefs change as I come across new information. I believe that most people have no idea where their beliefs come from, but they’ll defend them tooth and nail anyway. I believe that’s a mistake! I believe that most people are good inside – maybe not all, but most. Most people are doing their best and doing what they believe is right, but it doesn’t stop them from being ignorant and ignorance is not bliss! Ignorance causes ill health and suffering. Ignorance causes poverty. Ignorance causes lack of understanding and hatred and intolerance. We really don’t know what we don’t know – until we know!
Today I am still working on myself and my health and my happiness. Still learning and seeking answers and new ideas and information. I still battle with my weight, but I get more and more comfortable in my skin, however it looks, as time goes on. I am less concerned about what others might think of me (although I do notice that it’s still sometimes an issue) I am proud and thankful to be different. I am happy to think differently and have my individual views on the world and it’s issues and to not be someone that follows the herd.
I run a few times a week and I walk. I do a little resistance exercise. I use herbs and vitamins and never take pharmaceutical drugs (not for over 10 years at this point). I take responsibility for my own health and don’t leave it in the hands of doctors. I am responsible for my life and the results I get in it and I know now that I can have whatever I want in my future if I believe that I can. I can live an extraordinary life if I choose to. I didn’t grow up knowing this, but have only learned it recently so I’m working on keeping that belief in the forefront of my mind at all times and I want to let others know that they too can have the life that they maybe daren’t dream of.
I truly believe that life is worth living well. When I leave this life I want it to be with no regrets. I want to have done all the things that I dream of doing. I want to leave a legacy. I want to make a difference in other peoples lives. I want to be a grandmother who has a positive impact on my grandchildren (when and if I have some) so that when they remember me, it is because I helped them realise that they’re amazing and it’s absolutely wonderful and perfect to be different because it means they’re special and that they could do whatever, be whatever and have whatever they want in their lives.
I hope this gives you a little bit of a picture of me and why I am spending my spare time working on this site.
Comments