Mrs South Africa Archives | A Million Beautiful Pieces

A Million Beautiful Pieces June 26, 2018

Be True To You, Always

Here I am in the final week of semi final judging for the Tammy Taylor Mrs South Africa Women Empowerment Programme. I’m not nervous. I’m both excited and nostalgic as I think about my best moments so far.I’ve lost weight and found my energy and strength again. I’ve been forced to take better care of myself and that has been good for me. In my motivational talks to women, I always drive home the point that we must be kind to ourselves first but I did not know how to do that before this competition.

I’ve also met amazing people. The staff and owners at the BloBar and Meyersdal Nail and Beauty Studio with their vibrancy and laughter was always refreshing. My cousins too have taught me so much about belief and empowerment and love. Through their companies, Shipping and General Transport and Supreme Rubber Rollers they gifted me the opportunity to “do me” by sponsoring me for this competition.

My sister-in-law took care of all my social media so that I could juggle everything else. My mum, my aunts and my girlfriends pulled together outfits like fairy godmothers. My husband and children have been so supportive and respectful of the times I had to be away from them.

People have written to me or called me or stopped me at events to tell me that they admire me for doing this competition at this age and as a mother of three. Women have shared that they are re-evaluting their lives and weighing up what challenges they would like to tackle.

It makes me glad to know that my journey to explore my womanhood in this way is meaningful to other women too. It’s been a wonderful opportunity and I am proud of myself for doing this.

I also recognise too that I am not on a journey of discovery because I already found myself at the age of twenty-two years old. I knew then who I was and what I was made off.

This journey this year has been about showing my second daughter Talisa that life is more than just facing down one challenge after another. It’s also about enjoying the moment and having a sense of adventure. I got to step out of my comfort zone and meet people I would not ordinarily have met.

The other semi-finalists are each amazing and powerful in the own right. I couldn’t have been amongst a group of more beautiful ladies both inside and out.

So here’s to them; for their drive, their determination, their friendship and our sisterhood. I will be sad that after Friday we will never all be together again. The top twenty-five Mrs South Africa finalists will be announced and their lives will never be the same.

In all the possibilities that lie before me, I am sure of this: I’ve given all of me to the people that count and to the opportunities that were presented to me. I know for sure who I am, and that is my gift to me.

Be True To You, Always.

A Million Beautiful Pieces May 7, 2018

An Unexpected Surprise – When Your Inspiration is Inspired By You

I’ve started jogging twice a week in addition to attending training sessions at a Body20 Studio. To my surprise Savannah asked to join me on my jog.

This is pretty big for us because since Savannah was sick last year, she stopped going out as often. There have been periods of three consecutive weeks where she did not leave our home at all because she felt too ill.

So far this year, she has returned to church with us, is trying to manage her own diet and has even joined me in a photo shoot and on visits to some sponsors for @MRS_SOUTH_AFRICA. And today while I kept my pace in my jog; Michael helped Savannah as she wheeled herself for a few metres.

I would never have guessed that of all the women I would inspire by taking time for myself this year it would be my daughter, Savannah.

How life can come at you in a full circle moment! For so long Savannah was my inspiration and now I can be hers. I’m so grateful.

My Story May 3, 2018

Set your soul on fire

What is it that makes you jump up and greet the day? What keeps you from giving into the fears that yell out to stop? How do you keep yourself motivated?

I’ve stared down some dead ends and often when there was a choice to be made, it meant choosing between all tough alternatives.

Even now, everyday I face the greatest and toughest challenge of all. Myself.

I’m made up of too many things that tell me I should just accept mediocre. I should be satisfied with just being defined as a mother, or “the mother of the child with the disability”.

I should accept that all the mountains I’ve scaled have defined me and like the Lady Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings; “I should retreat to the North” and remain forever just as I am.

The thing is many of the mountains I’ve scaled were not of my choosing. So many times due to necessity and for the greater good of the people involved, I made decisions just based on getting through the moment.

Still I am mindful that on so many levels I have been blessed with having made a magnificent impact in my world. I am grateful for having had the ability to raise three respectful and amazing children and to be in a marriage that has only grown ever stronger over the years. Yet, I want something more, something defined only by myself and not by the mountains before me.

It’s like being the student who scores an A plus in Maths, then becomes a maths wizz with a high paying job, but actually wanted to own a patisserie and serve great desserts and coffee. No, I’m not a maths whizz and no, I’m not in a high paying job. But you get the analogy. I wanted to do what sets my soul on fire.

Here I am, a day away from turning forty years old and am exhilarated by the revelation that I can still pursue ME.

I know that sounds so strange but for twenty years or so I’ve been doing what most women are taught to do: to put yourself at the bottom of the list of people to care for. As wives and mothers it seems honourable to leave yourself out of your circle of care. Yet if you aren’t looking after yourself; you can’t really look after anyone else.

While I understood the concept of self care, I had no idea how to put myself at the top of the list.

I became a woman who stopped looking in the mirror because I didn’t want to see the girl who wanted more from life.

That girl in the mirror kept reminding me that I was smart, funny, maybe needed to shed a few kilograms but still looked okay. I was also thoughtful, passionate, hard working, powerful, kind, wise, determined, a dependable daughter and sister, and a really dedicated mum and a fantastic wife. She would not let me forget that God loved me.

That girl annoyed me. She scared me. She frustrated me. Yet in all these years she has never left me. Now, as I surrendered to the process of being a semi-finalist in the Tammy Taylor Mrs South Africa Women Empowerment Programme and also pursuing my love for writing as a Blogger, I finally understand her.

I am everything life has made me and I am also everything I dare to be. It was never about choosing between being all those roles that life called me to be. It was about accepting that I am those roles…. And more.

So I can answer my own questions that I began this post with.

I get myself out of bed every morning excited by all the possibilities still to come. I meet the day with the ache in my heart for all that I have yet to live through, but I rise knowing that God’s grace has brought me this far and will take me to where I need to be. The mornings bring me hope for another chance to be more than I thought I could be.

That girl from the mirror is no longer in there. She is where she should be: exploring what sets her soul on fire.

She is unafraid and unashamed. She is ME.

My Story March 27, 2018

This is my story

I am a motivational speaker, an aspiring author and a blogger. I love, love to write but I had no idea that in my fortieth year, I would find the courage to take up my mantle as a full time inspirational speaker and writer. I did not begin my adult life planning to become an inspiration but God had his own plans for me.

I grew up in an unhappy home and by the age of eighteen I became a mother. Being a teen mother was painfully difficult but learning that my daughter, Savannah was diagnosed with cerebral palsy was even more so. It was a torrid period in my life. I was married and divorced by the time I turned twenty one years old. I mourned in silence the loss of my hopes and dreams for my daughter and for myself; as I slowly came to grips with the reality of her diagnosis.

Teenage pregnancies and sex outside marriage was frowned upon then just as much as it is now. It’s still astonishing to me that even now we don’t do enough to address the “why” young women look for love in all the wrong ways in the wrong people. My own self loathing and self doubt coupled with the taunts of those around me should have destroyed me. The assumptions that I would not be able to parent a child, and more so be capable to parent a child with a disability, chipped away at what little self-esteem there was left in me.

I have journeyed a long way from the 18-year-old who thought she always had to do what everyone else deemed right for her. I was forced to do what was right for Savannah first and in so doing I slowly learnt to let go of everyone else’s expectations of me. Being Savannah’s mother meant learning to fight for her in ways that took me to the ends of myself. I had to learn to parent her while I was still trying to figure out what being a whole person meant for myself.

This is an incredibly difficult thing to do, even for parents who planned their lives and had everything go according to that plan. It is a complicated struggle to figure out who you are as a parent when your child has a disability. Sometimes the battles are not just with other people. The toughest battles are often the battles that erupt within us. As a parent of a child with a disability, it was incredibly difficult to fight my own preconceptions and expectations of who I wanted my child to be. I am still learning all the time, as each new season unfolds how to accept the life that lies before me.

Savannah has become an inspiration to many people from many different communities, but non more so than to me. She is also autistic and struggles with complications from her physical disability. She is the reason that my husband Michael and I met and fell in love. We have two more children: a daughter Talisa (16) and a son Eli (10). Savannah’s life continues to test my faith in God, in myself and in people and over and over again I find that Faith, Hope and Love remain.

I started out as a parent at eighteen and went on to carve out a most unique career that is diverse as it is fulfilling. From talking publicly about raising my family in the face of disability, to working as an assistive technology advisor, to being a motivational speaker, to using my skill as a speaker to host events and to conduct trainings in various sectors; I found so many beautiful pieces in these experiences that make up this life I live today.

I was chosen as a South African to Watch by #SA Bloggers for 2018 and I was awarded the Most Inspirational Blogger by the #SAMommyBloggerAwards.

My family lived through more heartaches and struggles than my 18-year-old self could have imagined she would survive. And yet I did.

I learnt that life is frail and must be handled with care.

I learnt that there are heartaches that will never be healed, but living with a broken heart doesn’t mean you are broken.

I learnt that people need people, but not everyone wants to be the person who is needed.

I learnt that unconditional love is real and a rarity, and I am blessed to know it.

I learnt to trust the process.

I learnt that people are always more important than things, always.

I learnt that God does not give his strongest fights to his strongest warriors. He helps normal, everyday people to face their difficulties and He never leaves them.

I learnt that…… my true self…… is made up of A Million Beautiful Pieces.

To book me for an event please click here:

This Is What I Do

A Million Beautiful Pieces March 9, 2018

Why am I entering a competition for a title?

Yes, I’ve entered Mrs South Africa. No, I am not having a mid-life crisis or a re-visit to my years when I was a girl that dabbled a little in modelling.

I am in fact having a reawakening; a renewal if you will. I will be forty this year and I have spent all my adult life dedicated to giving my daughter Savannah, who is a person with special needs, a life of dignity and value while building our family.

I have raised my second daughter, Talisa with the understanding that life is not always fair but you still have to be fair.

Over the years Talisa watched me patiently teach her sister a great many lessons. Some of which Savannah grasped and other lessons she may never learn.

Talisa understands the fight of a mother who didn’t quit. She knows STRONG because she is raised by a strong woman and is a sibling to a strong woman.

This year Talisa will also know that strength is also Beautiful not only tired. Strength is not only long suffering but it is also Joyful. Strength is not only the ability to keep going when life doesn’t go your way but it is also the ability to do it with Grace.

Being a mother to a child with special needs already made me a strong and confident woman but the chance to compete in the Tammy Taylor Mrs South Africa Women Empowerment programme makes me a strong and powerful woman with a cause beyond my community.

My community are the mothers who are caring for adult children. Those mothers who quit careers to become carers. Or who are working hard to provide for their families while coping with facing forever with an adult who will never be able to care for themselves. They are the woman who are left behind (posted on, 15 February 2018 http://amillionbeautifulpieces.co.za/2018/02/15/sue-robins-left-behind/).

My community are the mothers who make quiet sacrifices yet continue to uplift their communities. The mothers who continously fight for their child’s right to dignity and quality of life and do it without the need for recognition or being hailed as a hero. The mothers whose lives are bound to their child with special needs in ways no one else will understand, and they accept that no one ever will. Yet everyday they rise to do it all again.

For my community, and proudly as Talisa’s mother, I am excited to join with the 99 other #bonfide women as we jointly pursue the crown in honour of all women. Sounds strange doesn’t it, but it is what only women can do… Work together even though we already know there will be one winner. As women, we understand that often in life it is the journey that is often the prize, not the destination. However, the destination is a lovely reward.

For Talisa, I hope this year you will learn that being a woman is fun and exhilarating. I hope that as I put myself first, you too will learn to do the same.

For Savannah I hope as I pursue a dream, you will find your motivation again. Life is hardest on you but you are by far the strongest woman I know. I promised you “I would not change you for the world, I’d change the world for you” (author unknown), and I will always hold true to that.

For my readers, I hope you stay with me on this journey as I rediscover the joys of being a woman who already has the heart of a warrior.

Why? Because women need women, and for once I need to do something that doesn’t need reason or logic. I still get the opportunity to share myself in the way that is true to who I am, by inspiring and working alongside others for a cause.

I need you to please follow me and interact with me on the following platforms: To vote for me: Annelize I’ll add this later at my laptop.

To vote for me:

Please like the Mrs South Africa Facebook Page
Like/love my picture on their page
SMS “SABC3 DESIRAE PILLAY” to 35959

All the votes count towards getting into the top 25 in June 2018.

Thank you for following me on this journey and for your support.

#thisisme

Images credit: Brendan Croft & Tammy Taylor Mrs South Africa.