Plus Trinidad and To­ba­go 2012, Miss Plus Caribbean Uni­verse 2012, Bill­board ad mod­el for Cher Mere, J&K Sig­na­ture Styles and Di­va Glam Corsets, Un­der­pin­nings, Be Body Pos­i­tive Fa­cil­i­ta­tor, Lost Tribe’s First Plus mod­el and Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Clos­et Red Plus Size Bou­tique - these are just a hand­ful of ti­tles that Son­ja Pol­lon­ais owns.

Grow­ing up in the com­mu­ni­ties of Mal­oney and Mt Lam­bert, Son­ja grew to find an in­ter­est in mod­el­ling. She ad­mits to be­ing hes­i­tant when she was about to delve in­to the field. It took para­mount courage to push her though the doors of a cast­ing mod­el­ling show. Lit­tle did she know, this was about to be her en­trance in­to the mod­el­ling and fash­ion world in a way she could have on­ly imag­ined. It is now eight years in the in­dus­try for Son­ja af­ter she start­ed in her ear­ly 20s. In the ear­ly days, she would do a lot of fash­ion shows and mod­el cast­ings. She ad­mits that the re­jec­tions at the start of her ca­reer were many and the judge­ment and con­de­scen­sion in the in­dus­try were great and of­ten times sim­ply be­cause or­gan­is­ers did now want plus mod­els, pe­ri­od. Son­ja re­mained de­ter­mined and there­fore al­lowed her­self to be dri­ven by her de­sire to do what she loves. She con­fess­es to have a nat­ur­al love for fash­ion and look­ing great but then she re­alised not on­ly did she want that for her­self but for oth­er plus size women as well. Af­ter re­al­is­ing that, many women would ques­tion her about where she bought her out­fits. She then be­came de­ter­mined to close an ev­i­dent gap in the lo­cal fash­ion world by pro­vid­ing plus size cloth­ing through her com­pa­ny Clos­et Red - tru­ly es­tab­lished to help oth­er plus size women look and feel fan­tas­tic.

Now, her jour­ney is tak­ing her be­yond fash­ion and rep­re­sent­ing for plus size women. She proud­ly at­tests to be­ing able to help women of all sizes, ages and eth­nic­i­ty to en­joy life and their body by be­com­ing a li­censed ‘Be Body Pos­i­tive Fa­cil­i­ta­tor’. This sim­ply means that she is trained and equipped with the tools to take peo­ple through a jour­ney of self-com­pas­sion, in­tu­itive self-care, re­claim­ing their health and de­clar­ing their own au­then­tic beau­ty. Son­ja’s sto­ry is so in­spir­ing to us that the WE Mag Team had to take some time to meet up with her to learn more about her jour­ney. This is what she shared with us:

Who are you in­spired by?

​I am in­spired by my moth­er be­cause her love is so gen­uine. I am in­spired by my fa­ther be­cause his com­mit­ment to his fam­i­ly is wor­thy of praise. I am in­spired by my aunt as her faith in God com­pels me to ex­pand mine. I am in­spired by Oprah, Tyler Per­ry, Barak and Michelle Oba­ma be­cause they break stereo­types and shat­ter glass ceil­ings through hard work. In busi­ness, I am in­spired by Kather­ine Bethel, CEO of B’s Ice Cream, In­dra Nooyi and Lisa Nicholas.

Tell us some­thing about you that peo­ple may not know?

Sur­pris­ing­ly, I can be very reclu­sive at times. I fig­ure it may be a way of guard­ing my en­er­gy or even recharg­ing my en­er­gy. I will not call my­self an in­tro­vert or say I am shy even though I can be at times.

What are you most grate­ful for?

How do I con­dense such a long list? I am grate­ful for my fam­i­ly. They stand with me and sup­port me in my busi­ness. I am grate­ful for my busi­ness and it has made a tremen­dous im­pact on the life of my fam­i­ly and I. I am grate­ful for my clients and those who sup­port me in my many ven­tures. I am grate­ful for my won­der­ful friends who pour their love in­to my life con­sis­tent­ly. I am grate­ful for my jour­ney. God has tru­ly blessed me and con­tin­ues to bless me. Be­ing plus size in such a crit­i­cal world can be a dif­fi­cult ex­pe­ri­ence at times and I am grate­ful that I have been able to turn self hate in­to love and from that love, cre­ate busi­ness­es and be an in­spi­ra­tion to oth­ers and love for my com­mu­ni­ty.

What is some­thing you know for sure that you wish the rest of us knew?

Mo­ti­va­tion and de­ter­mi­na­tion are mus­cles you must work out. At times, I still strug­gle with my body im­age es­pe­cial­ly be­ing so pub­lic I am con­stant­ly ex­posed to un­so­licit­ed com­ments about how I look. While I may have it to­geth­er, for the most part, there is no quick fix to ac­cept­ing and lov­ing your­self. It is a jour­ney full of ups and downs but you have to be com­mit­ted to your­self. You have to find the right peo­ple who can pour in­to you pos­i­tive­ly and you have to train your­self to be the most pow­er­ful voice and say in your re­la­tion­ship with your­self.

Why Do You Do What You Do?

One of my great­est heart’s de­sires is to help per­sons dive deep­er in lov­ing them­selves and their life. Lov­ing your­self I think is one of the most beau­ti­ful gifts you can give to your­self. It will in­flu­ence the de­ci­sions you make, the peo­ple you al­low in your life and the chances you take or do not take. It changes how you see and in­ter­act with the world around you be­cause you have set for your­self a stan­dard. I hope my jour­ney ex­pands my plat­form that I can pos­i­tive­ly im­pact the lives of many world wide.