If you had asked me a few years ago what kind of relationships would shape my life most deeply, I probably would have named the obvious ones. Family. Marriage. Motherhood. All of those relationships matter to me more than I can put into words. But there is another relationship that has quietly become one of the most transformative of my life, and it is the one I share with my cofounders at Hidden Healers. Hidden Healers is the nonprofit we built together, rooted in mental health advocacy and the belief that healing should not be a luxury or a secret. What I did not know when we started is that building something like that with other people would change me. My cofounders are not just business partners. They are people who have seen me tired, seen me doubt myself, seen me carry things I did not always have the strength to name, and have shown up for me anyway. In return, I have done the same for them. That kind of trust does not come quickly. It is earned through late-night conversations, hard decisions, honest disagreements, and the shared conviction that the work we are doing matters too much to approach it halfway. What makes this relationship so formative is that my cofounders push me. They push me to live boldly, even on the days when boldness feels expensive. They push me to advocate loudly, especially when my voice feels small. They push me to remember that I am building a legacy, not just a résumé, and that the people coming after us deserve more than the systems we inherited. When I want to shrink, they remind me who I am. When I want to rush, they slow me down. When I want to give up on an idea, they ask the right questions until I find my way back to it. That kind of mirroring is rare. It is also the reason I have grown more in the last stretch of my life than in any period before it. This relationship has reshaped how I build connections with everyone else. It taught me that the strongest bonds are the ones where people love you enough to tell you the truth. Before Hidden Healers, I sometimes mistook politeness for closeness. I thought surface-level harmony was a sign of a good relationship. My cofounders taught me otherwise. They showed me that real connection is built on honesty, accountability, and a willingness to stay in the room when things get hard. I carry that lesson into every relationship I have now, from my marriage to my friendships to the way I mentor others. I am more honest than I used to be. I am quicker to say the hard thing with love. I am slower to walk away from people who are worth the work. It has also deepened how I show up in my professional and advocacy spaces. Because I know what it feels like to be built up by the right people, I try to be that for others. I make space for the quiet voice in the room. I check in on people who have gone silent. I celebrate other people's wins out loud. I share resources, connections, and opportunities because I have learned that legacy is not something you build alone, and the best leaders pull the ladder down behind them instead of up. The most surprising thing about this relationship is how much it has shaped my own identity. I became a clearer version of myself through their belief in me. I am a better advocate, a braver scholar, a more grounded mother, and a more intentional wife because I am in community with people who refuse to let me dim. Being held to a higher standard by people who love you is one of the greatest gifts a person can receive. It has taught me that love is not a soft, quiet agreement. Love is sometimes a hand on your back that says, " Keep going, I see you, and I am not letting you quit on yourself". That is what my cofounders have given me. That is what I now try to give to everyone I am lucky enough to call mine.

Student loan debt is one of the most honest conversations I can have about my life right now. I am a disabled veteran and a mother of two, and I made a decision early on that I would do whatever it takes to keep my education from becoming a burden my children inherit. That decision shapes how I work, how I budget, and how I plan for every stage of my academic journey. The truth is that my military education benefits, while deeply appreciated, were not enough to carry me through my associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees. By the time I finished my master's in Human Resource Management, I had accumulated student loan debt that I am still actively paying down today. I do not say that with shame. I say it with clarity because I know I am far from alone. Many veterans discover, the way I did, that the benefits we were promised often fall short of the real cost of higher education, especially for those of us pursuing advanced degrees. To address the debt I already carry, I work multiple jobs. Alongside my role in Culture and HR at a nonprofit, I take on additional work wherever it fits into my schedule, because every extra dollar is another step toward freedom from those balances. I budget carefully, prioritize my payments, and treat my debt like the serious responsibility it is. It is not glamorous work, and there are weeks when I am exhausted, but I remind myself often that paying down what I owe is part of protecting the future I am building for my family. For my PhD in Organizational Leadership, I have taken a different approach from the start. I refuse to finish this degree with more debt than I began it with. That is why I am funding my doctoral journey through a combination of scholarships and my own savings. I apply for scholarships consistently, including this one, because every award is a door that stays closed to debt. I save intentionally, plan semesters in advance, and make financial decisions with my long-term goals in mind rather than short-term convenience. My PhD is a significant investment, but I am determined that it will come from hard work, community support, and earned opportunities, not from loans that will outlast the degree itself. The deepest reason behind all of this is my children. I have two children watching me pursue this dream, and I want them to see that education is worth fighting for. I also want them to inherit possibilities, not payments. I do not want my daughter to watch me struggle under decades of debt and decide that her own dreams are too expensive to pursue. I do not want my son to grow up believing that advanced education is only for people who can afford to drown in loans. I want them to see that their mother earned her degrees with grit, strategy, and a whole lot of faith, and that they can too, without mortgaging their future to do it. Addressing my student loan debt is not just a financial goal. It is a values-driven commitment. I am working hard now so that I can keep my promise to myself, my children, and the veteran behind me, who is wondering whether this path is possible. Scholarships like this one are not just funding. They are a lifeline that helps me keep that promise.

For a long time, I did not have the language for what I was experiencing. I only knew that I was tired in a way that sleep could not fix, that I was carrying something heavy I could not name, and that I had become very good at convincing the people around me that I was fine. As a veteran, a mother, and a Black woman, I had absorbed every version of the message that says you are supposed to be strong, that you are supposed to keep going, that your pain is something to manage privately so it does not become a burden to anyone else. For years, that is exactly what I did. What changed me was the moment I stopped performing wellness and started pursuing it. Getting honest about my mental health, with myself first and then with the people I love, was one of the hardest and most transformative things I have ever done. It required me to unlearn the idea that asking for help was weakness. It required me to sit with grief, with anger, with fear, and with the parts of my story I had tried to outrun. And on the other side of that work, I found something I did not expect: clarity. I finally understood who I was, what I valued, and what I wanted to build with the rest of my life. That clarity reshaped my goals completely. I am pursuing a PhD in Organizational Leadership not because I want a title, but because I have seen how workplaces and systems either protect people's well-being or quietly erode it. I founded my nonprofit because I refuse to let anyone else feel as alone as I once did. I want to teach, write, and consult in ways that push institutions to lead with humanity, and to create spaces where honesty about mental health is met with compassion rather than stigma. Every goal I have now is rooted in the belief that healing is possible and that the people doing that work deserve support, not silence. It has changed my relationships just as deeply. I love differently now. I listen more carefully because I know how often people say more than their words carry. I have learned to be honest with the people close to me about what I need and what I cannot give, and to receive honesty in return without taking it personally. As a mother, this matters most of all. I want my child to grow up in a home where emotions are not something to hide, where asking for help is treated as wisdom, and where love is expressed in words and not just in sacrifice. Breaking cycles is slow, sacred work, and my mental health journey is what gave me the tools to do it. It has also changed how I see the world. I used to move through life assuming most people were fine, and those who were not were simply struggling more than the rest of us. I know better now. I know that almost everyone is carrying something, that so many of us were taught to hide it, and that the systems we live and work inside were not built with our humanity in mind. I see the mother exhausted in the grocery store, the veteran who cannot sleep, the coworker who has gone quiet, the student who is one hard week away from giving up, and I recognize pieces of my own story in each of them. That recognition is not pity. It is solidarity. It is what drives my advocacy, my research, and every conversation I have about what it really means to care for people. My experience with mental health did not just shape my goals, my relationships, and my worldview. It gave me my purpose. I am here, in this program, in this work, in this moment, because I decided that my struggle would not be wasted. I want to use what I have learned to build something better for the people coming after me, especially young women, veterans, mothers, and anyone who has ever been told to be strong when what they really needed was to be held. That is the legacy I am working toward, and it started the day I stopped pretending I was okay.