A teen pregnancy, a stillbirth, adultery, suicide attempt, addiction, domestic violence and a gruelling cancer challenge. Author Liezel Snyman (48) from Hoheizen has a thriller of a life story few others would want, but many others have.
Today “that beautifully flawed woman” like one person called her, is on a mission to help others find their worth.
Like her challenges, Liezel is multifaceted. She is a life coach, an entrepreneur, an author, a charity worker, a motivational speaker and a publisher.
She is also married to Johnny, and is mother to Ethan (5), Simone (30) and Larnelle (25).
Her success is a far call away from the Liezel who could often just be defined as down and out.
Being broken
She never thought she would be qualified to tell others how to thrive until she realised she is ideal for having lived through so many challenges others face.
“I am more beautiful for having been broken,” she says. “Being broken does not disqualify you from living again.”
For years she was the woman people spoke about in whispers and she felt every word, like she felt every drop of alcohol, cancer treatment and difficulty during her teen pregnancy.
She felt broken, ashamed ridiculed.
By her 30s, when Liezel had been divorced for the second time, she had perfected the art of feigning confidence and acting like everything was fine in her life. She was working in a corporate job and finally finding her feet, but the shame always stayed with her, chaining her down.
Her healing was not a lightning bolt, she says. It took years of small moments.
But it was around the time of being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) when she was 34, that her thoughts slowly started to change.
Her chances of survival were slim. “I remember clearly how I heard (God say) ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’.”
She survived and her life started changing along with her thoughts. She realised she was “beautifully broken”, like the Japanese art form ‘Kintsukuroi’, broken pottery is filled with gold inlays to repair it, because the Japanese feel an object is more beautiful for having been broken.
This concept inspired her so much that once she quit her job, she named her coaching business the “Kintsukuroi”.
Writing
She started journalling during her gruelling cancer treatment as a way to make sense of her thoughts.
Almost 10 years after her successful treatment she thought of turning her cancer experience into a book, but again heard God say her story didn’t start when she had cancer. It started before, with all the ugliness and shame that came with it. “People don’ know that Liezel and people need to know there’s still grace.”
This led to her autobiography, Beautifully Flawed, which was published in 2021.
“I write about everything. The ugly, the terrible, the incredibly ugly,” she says.
She dedicates the book to “every woman who secretly lived through the consequences of the choices they wished they never made. If you faced ridicule from loved ones and walked in the shame of the unspoken pain caused by the opinions of an ignorant and judgemental society, my story is for you.”
Upon reading in the book about Liezel’s suicide attempt years ago, a family member commented about her airing “dirty laundry”.
Liezel doesn’t see it this way. “I’m breaking free from my chains.”
She wasn’t scared when she was writing the book. “I felt God was leading me.”
Writing the book has opened many doors. “I am invited to events to speak.”
She often meets readers that resonate with her story.
“So many people tell me it’s like reading their own stories.”
Publishing company
She started publishing other people’s books in 2022. “When I started coaching so many people would ask how to publish a book,” she recalls. Since opening her company, Kintsukuroi Book House has published the works of three other writers, including They Called Me Moffie by Channing September.
She also works at the Living Network Crisis Centre in Bellville, where she helps with a range of problems their clients are facing.
Her past has taught her compassion, she says, and a way of looking at things differently.
“Be kind to people, be respectful. People treated me like the sin I was doing and didn’t see the person on the inside.”
Beautifully Flawed is available at selected Exclusive Books and can be ordered from Liezel at Liezel@kintukuroiconsulting.com
