International Women’s Day: Author Duduzile Noeleen Ngwenya Champions Worthiness, Self-Care, and Healing
Author Duduzile Noeleen Ngwenya champions worthiness with book “Things I Never Said to Myself”
For author and digital entrepreneur Duduzile Noeleen Ngwenya, the road of life has been paved with self-care, healing, and self-affirmation. And the warm reception of her self-published poetry collection Things I Never Said to Myself only affirms this, with infectious tidbits of it spreading from Instagram reels to BookTok.
A self-styled perfectionist, the Pretoria wordsmith is not new to the game. In 2017, she founded a digital magazine called Ayana Magazine. Before being forced to shut down because of the COVID pandemic, it garnered traction, with cover stories that featured the likes of high-profile women such as Mihlali Ndamase and Sihle Ndaba.
Apart from being an author, Noeleen wears other hats, such as being a social media manager and an influencer. She’s currently corresponding with Unisa where she is pursuing a degree in marketing. Her resilient spirit and ability to weave her wounds into a well of healing are why people turn the pages of her book, searching for strength in pieces of herself she hides within the book covers.
Frontpage had a chat with Noeleen for our International Women’s Day feature.
Tell us more about yourself, your origins, and who you are today.
I’m a 26 year old lady from Hammanskraal, Pretoria. I’m a Zulu girl, but I think I am more Tswana than I’ll ever be Zulu because I went to school with Tswana people, I did Setswana at school and my friends were all Tswana; everything about me is basically Setswana. The only thing that’s Zulu is my name and my surname. I am someone who’s very passionate about self-development and on mental health. I am a social media manager and an influencer as well. Currently, I’m an author and since the release of Things I Never Said to Myself, it has been sort of like an awakening or sort of like God showing me that this is where I belong. This is what I’m supposed to be doing and I feel more excited about my future now than I ever did before.
Let’s cross over to your book Things I Never Said to Myself. What is it about?
It’s a poetry collection – a self-love poetry collection. It’s about healing. It’s about self-acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness. So it’s mainly about fixing the kind of relationship that you may have had with yourself in the past. By past, I don’t mean like years ago or a year ago, it could be the kind of relationship that you had with yourself like six months ago or three or two.
I wrote this book to validate the emotions and experiences that I’ve had as a young woman. I feel like most of the time in my early 20s, I was very hard on myself. Well, I still am but I’m trying to work on it.
On your website you said: “the purpose of this book is to share words of love and healing.” What events have you gone through as a woman which gave rise to this purpose that brought forth this book?
I’d say that I had low self-esteem growing up. So I was very tiny. Very, and I didn’t like it. So I have a younger sister who is two years younger than me and she always looked older than me because she was not tiny. So I hated it. I hated it when people would always assume that I’m very young, and I feel like I took a strain from that. In a way, I hated being different. I hated that even in a group of girls, it was easy to spot me. So that affected my self-esteem and my self-confidence a lot.
Also, another thing is the kind of relationships that I’ve had, especially romantic relationships. I’ve had horrible ones, honestly, from as early as my 20s. That made me think that maybe I’m better off without relationships completely. So that’s why the book is about validating everything that I went through and everything that I’ve ever felt.
The art of writing a book such as yours is a shared journey. What’s the most touching thing a fan has ever said to you about your book and how it has impacted them as a woman?
Oh, firstly, just to put it out there, the book is not necessarily a book for women. It’s a book for everyone. But you know how things are in the world, women are more receptive to self-care or mental health, and that kind of content.
So there is a lady who told me that she was in a very bad place, in terms of her relationship. She said that the relationship was toxic and she felt she wasn’t loved in the relationship. But she still stayed. And every time she saw my posts, she thought: “One day I’ll have the courage to buy this book; for now, I’m not ready.” I remember a video I once posted on Instagram, about how you shouldn’t hold on to your hurts and anything that makes you feel less worthy – she saw that post and cried. That sparked a decision to delete that guy’s number, blocked him and completely ignore him. She went onto my website to purchased the book, read it every day and that reading it saved her. That’s how she put it, that it saved her from a lot of things.
5. One of your book sections speaks of “growth, love, and healing reminders.” What is the most detrimental thing you feel women are stuck in which hinders that growth and self-love, and why?
Most of the time we seek external validation. We put more weight and value on what other people think about us, what they say about us, and how they make us feel, you know. We put so much power on other people, and that tends to come back to bite us. Seeking external validation and not investing a lot in our emotional and mental wellness. That’s why having a self-care day is such a wow thing now but honestly it shouldn’t be. Taking a day off, going to get your nails done, going out for brunch or a spa treatment should be normal. Taking care of yourself should be normal. So for women, I feel that we were mostly told to be selfless and to take care of others and to take responsibility for things. So even when we’re grown up, we still struggle with trying to put ourselves first when it’s necessary.
On top of making a difference with your writing, do you have something else that people are not privy to or perhaps something that you’re currently working on or people that you’re working with?
I am working on the next book, which at the moment I can’t disclose as to when am I gonna release it but it’s definitely coming. I’m self-published author, so I don’t have people I’m working with.
This International Women’s Day, what words of wisdom do you wish to share with other fellow women out there?
Take care of yourself. See to it that you grow, that you mature and, more important, grow to be more self-aware. Understand yourself, what you need most of the time and the things that you want from other people. You are worthy. You are deserving. You’re lovable, and you deserve everything that’s happening in your life – everything that’s good, you know?
Connect with Noeleen:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writtenbynoeleen
Twitter: https://twitter.com/noeleensaid
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noeleensaid/
Purchase a copy of Things I Never Said to Myself here