Susan "Sue" McKenzie

Lovingly known to many as Sueby.

Life is My Greatest Teacher

 I have been blessed to know many incredible people who have taught me a lot about friendship, honesty, resilience and real human connection.

But life is the whole classroom.

The people. The places. The love. The losses. The mistakes. The questions. The detours. The ordinary days and the completely absurd ones.

All of it.

Adopted at birth, I grew up in Alberta, Canada, and have called the East Coast of Australia home for the past twenty five years.

I’m nearly fifty. Culturally, women are supposed to hide that bit. I’d rather count it as experience. These days, making it through all the stages of being a woman gets a medal, so here’s the ‘bling’.

There have been plenty of curve balls along the way. 

I have learned to dance with some of them gracefully.

Others, not so much.

I have been curious about people for as long as I can remember. 

At nine, my peers voted me to be a Peer Counsellor, which was probably my first little clue that people and the strange business of being human were going to keep my attention.

Since then I have spent a ridiculous amount of time flipping over rocks.

 Science. Logic. Theology. Spirituality. Psychology. Philosophy. History and Mystery.

Some things held up. Some did not. Some sent me down very long rabbit holes.

I have observed, experimented, questioned, changed my mind and learned plenty through my own lived experience as well as through the lives of the people around me.

What keeps coming back for me is pretty simple.

We can notice more. We can take on different perspectives.

We can become more aware of how we are living, relating, reacting and moving through the world.

And sometimes noticing something clearly is enough to change what happens next.

Honesty, humour, curiosity and a little playful irreverence matter to me.

Life is too interesting to pretend otherwise.

Why I Studied All This

I never set out to collect methods or become an expert in one school of thought.   The idea of that actually creeps me out. 

I kept studying because the same questions kept following me.

Why do we believe what we believe? Why do some experiences stay with us while others pass through? How do language, imagination, identity, relationships and environment shape the way we see ourselves and the world?

That curiosity has taken me through psychology, behaviour, communication, hypnosis, neuroscience, spirituality and some much stranger corners along the way. I have kept what has been useful, questioned plenty, discarded plenty and changed my mind more than once.

The thread running through all of it has remained remarkably simple: to understand ourselves better, so we have more awareness and more choice in how we live.

My Experience and Training

I have gathered a fairly eclectic mix of experience over the years.

Before moving to Australia, I was studying toward a Bachelor’s degree in Biology in Canada. Then I fell in love with an Aussie and life took a different turn.

Eighteen years running an international backpacker hostel in Byron Bay taught me a lot about people before I ever studied them formally.

My training includes certification in Hypnosis and Regression Technology, NLP, Effective Communication, Hypnotic Persuasion, Body Language Analysis, Chinese Face Reading, NCI 1, Reiki Mastery and the Mace Energy Method, with which I am no longer affiliated.

My studies first took me through Chase Hughes’s Applied Behavior Research (ABR) programs, including a 6MX certificate, followed by Spycraft.

In 2022, I spent a life changing year in Dr David Snyder’s Mastery Program. His knowledge is broad and diverse, spanning NLP, hypnosis, identity level change, Chinese Medicine, behavioural science and a range of metaphysical approaches.

David also regularly referenced Chase’s material, so there was a natural crossover between the two bodies of work and a thread that continued through my studies.

That thread continues for me through Neuro-Cognitive Intelligence University (NCI-U), where I am currently completing NCI 2, with further study in behavioural profiling, advanced body language, interview and interrogation, and micro expression analysis.

I am also studying Creativity and Art Therapy, which has opened another door into expression, imagination and the different ways we make sense of ourselves.

The certificates are nice, but they are not really the point for me. 

I care far more about the information, what holds up, what is useful and what actually helps me understand people better.

I have learned a lot from all of it.

I have also learned not to confuse a method with the human being in front of me.

These are tools, not magic wands.

They give me different ways to look, listen, notice and ask better questions while you remain firmly in the driver’s seat of your own life.

My Philosophy

No BS. Honest. Curious. Grounded. I also think I am pretty funny.

I am not here to hand out more rules or rigid answers. 

I have never been particularly good at falling into line just because someone says I should.

I am much more interested in what happens when we stop trying so hard to be who we think we should be, stop automatically following what is coming at us from the outside, and start paying attention to what is actually going on.

The more I have done that in my own life, the more comfortable I have become in my own skin.

Not perfected. Not finished. Just more me.

Life is messy, playful, challenging, deeply personal and sometimes wildly absurd.

That is not something I am trying to fix.

It is part of being here.

I stay interested in this work because people continue to surprise me with what can shift when there is space, honesty and curiosity.

It keeps me looking, learning, questioning and shifting my perspective when something no longer holds up.

I don’t think there is one answer to being human. There are patterns, ideas, experiences and plenty of rabbit holes worth exploring.

“None but ourselves can free our minds.”
Bob Marley, Redemption Song

If the way I see things resonates with you, have a wander through the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Poke around, question things and follow whatever catches your attention.

And if you’d like to talk, you can always reach me at sue@real-you.vip.