My dream life is overall learning how to find purpose and reach one's fullest potential in life. I want to be a life coach in the city, teaching others how to be fulfilled in life. I've been studying my whole life how to turn pain into gain, it has always been my core personal interest. I find it fascinating how limitless we are, although we struggle to recognize our potential. Learning how to go through the healing process has been my survival coping mechanism. It's taught me so much about myself, life, others and you truly learn something new everyday. If I'm hurting, I might as well try to heal. No matter how unfamiliar or intimidating it may be, it's the way out. I'll help anyone to feel secure in reaching their limitless goals. With the client, I'll make it strategic and something for them to look forward to. I'll simplify a plan with steps on their future goals, ideas and passions with the client. No one's born rejected, abandoned, angry or without worth. Where did this pain come from? What is it saying? Why is it there and what do we do with it? We hold onto things until we decide to let go. I have grown so much since I've learned how to heal. There will always something new for us to learn. It's simply not just accepting and expressing what is, it's also what you do with it that creates the quality of your life. I've always needed a safe and peaceful place with a sense of direction, so I created it for myself. I live in spirituality and I want to pass on that love. I had breakthroughs, realizations and now I want to impact others by showing them they can do it to.

I know there is no one else like me so therefore I am special. This goes for everyone. I taught myself how to be comfortable in my own skin instead of striving to be accepted. Self-love comes first and I put trust in who I am by allowing myself to be. I now surround myself with people who are good for me and accept me because I accepted myself. I would know if I try to reach these unrealistic standards of being someone I'm not, I will be completely drained and unhappy. I put myself out there to see who is alike. I realize being myself makes a big positive impact on myself but also on others. People love me for me and if someone doesn't like me, sounds like a personal issue. I follow my intuition, or what feels true to who I am. I express myself from the heart and act on what I want. It's too much pressure and effort to be something I'm not. Accepting myself is self-love, so without that, I wouldn't like myself and then I wouldn't know who to be. I reaffirm to myself that I love myself as much as I can. I realized I like being me and so I attract those who agree.

1. I would argue I deserve this scholarship because of needing DoorDash. I'm a suffering college student who eats cheerios from the box. 2. I don't have a goal, I stopped playing field hockey years ago. My team had one of those. 3. Hi. I had to get up from my seat in a class to confidently blow my nose in front of people.

Self-care is essential for self-love. When I wake up, I think of the people and things I'm grateful for. It's easy to forget how much we take for granted. Even ourselves. Gratitude helps me feel grounded and happy. Then I set intentions and goals for the day, for a sense of security. Skin-care in the morning and at night always helps me feel awake and refreshed. When I practice yoga, it's like a meditation stretch for my body. Conscious breath in, then, slowly out releasing all stress and tension. This habit gets me into the groove of being more active and present. Every day, I journal for self-development. I reflect on my mental, physical, emotional, spiritual health and look for places to heal. This creates momentum in the growth progress and creates clearer goals. Reminding myself of the things I love (or should love) about myself feels like a warm hug. When I'm feeling sad, I'll listen to music that makes me feel seen and touches the soul. I'll vent to a friend. I'll remind myself that I am worthy of love, I am good enough, and I deserve to be kind to myself. When I'm angry, I like to work out to release static energy. Taking care of my body always makes me feel accomplished. It makes me feel motivated and energetic. Releasing negative energy with healthy outlets will always bring bliss. Nourishing the self sends love to the body, mind, and soul.

In recent years, I started validating myself instead of looking for it outside of myself. By making this change, I love myself for always being strong. One of the main traits I am grateful for is being empathetic, I know what it's like to be mistreated and I wouldn't ever wish that on anyone else. Resiliency is another main trait of mine. I have been painfully attached to unfortunate situations and I still manage to find the will to overcome. I love how strong I am. Not only that but to practice self-love, I will always commit to the healing process. What I love about myself is the amount of passion I have, especially for self-devolpement. This is my healthy coping mechanism to find inner security, fulfillment, growth, and peace. I value spirituality so I learn something new about myself daily through self-reflecting. This helps me love myself more in all areas of life. I love being optimistic, I always think of the glass half full. I am realistic but I also know to never take anything for granted. I shower myself with positive affirmations when I get ready in the morning so I feel love for myself. I value loyalty extremely and I love myself for having that nature towards people. I love myself for now knowing I am worthy of surrounding myself with people who are good for me.

Mental health has always been avoided talking about in my family. I always spoke about how I felt but my emotionally unavailable family didn't think much of it. By the age of 12-13, I started becoming hyper socially anxious, self-destructive, insecure, impulsive, stuck, unmotivated, and depressed. My parents considered it to be just me being lazy, devious, unhealthy, "all-in-your-head." I felt invalidated and confused. Claiming "everyone has ADD/ADHD" when I brought up believing I have it. I thought I was a bad person just because I couldn't help being the way I was. Like I couldn't do anything about my internal suffering, causing me to be suicidal at 15. I started being addicted to nicotine and unhealthy sexual validiation. These addictive traits, mood disorders, ADHD, depression, social anxiety are all major generational patterns of my family. My dad and grandpa now take medication although they struggle, as do I sometimes. Stigmatizing mental health makes those feel like they are "different" or "crazy" for being vulnerable about what they are going through and makes it all worse. Their inner world suffering makes the outer world for them just as bad, lost, scared, and hopeless. Now that I am 18, I see that my suffering was valid. I started taking medication almost 2 years ago, it has helped me feel more balanced. I still have my ups and downs but my goal is to be more loving to myself. I am super overly critical of myself, that's what I've been told a lot and I agree. It's getting better as time goes on. It's difficult because I love my family so much, as a person who gets attached easily, and them being fully emotionally unattached not being able to give that back. I understand now that love is unconditional and people can only meet you as far as they've met themselves. They can only love me so much as they know how, even if I can't see it, they do. They struggle, and I have to empathize and accept them, they are only avoiding emotions because it's a trauma response coping mechanism. I used to take it personally, I thought I was "unloveable" or "unworthy" but I know now that nothing is personal. I'm healing my relationships again and my goal is to continue finding that inner peace to create it also in the outer. It's hard seeing the ones you love so much struggle and you want to do something about it, but you can't. I'm starting to see how their mental health affects them and even if I'm hurt by them, I can find a balance to communicate and dissociate. I start validating myself, knowing they are just projecting. Especially with my dad, I have always loved him so much but I've been deeply hurt by him emotionally, I felt rejected, abandoned, ignored, a burden. I started talking to him again recently, and I have sobbed reading his letter in reply to mine, the fact he understood where I was coming from. My personal letter was from the heart, wondering where did it all go wrong? I explained why I emotionally lashed out when I took things to heart and that I'm sorry I took our relationship for granted. He said he's sorry too and that he never wanted to make me feel unworthy or unloved and how it breaks his heart also because of all the resentment and disconnection. Things and people aren't perfect. I am trying to stop burning bridges because of my abandonment wound, I'm learning something new about my mental health every day. I support normalizing mental health issues. It affects people more than they even know and they wonder why they seem like nothing seems to work out about how they feel or think. I started really understanding the why behind mental health recently, learning how to heal. I choose to apply it to myself and others. Self-love is forgiveness, releasing hate and anger. This wasn't easy at all. Every day I find ways to treat my mental health, it can be journaling or just being with friends. I'm grateful I was able to find myself and come this far. People are pure unconditional love and it hurts seeing them not being able to see it within themselves. As generations go on, we continue to grow and acknowledge the truth behind mental health through love and support. I am shocked by I am where I am today in comparison to 3 years ago. It's scary to face your issues but you will be glad that you did it in the end.

People are art because everyone is their own individual, self-made beauty. I love painting and drawing people because they fascinate me. We learn from each other's unique inner beauty then evolve. Just like making art, you can be creative with yourself and life. I visualize a world where we are appreciated for our differences along with seeing and being the purest version of ourselves, without fear. I experience or see too many people being degraded for things they can't control. Things that make them beautiful, who they are. I've learned hate is envy, why put so much hateful energy into a person you don't like? Haters are too focused on their "lack" of art instead of appreciating others' art. I dream of a world where people are more aware of hurtful generational patterns before them causing them conditioned low self-worth. In reality, we are all born worthy. We are imperfect. We must let go of the idea we have to be or are a certain way because others told us so. This passes down insecurities and then that child won't know how to be confident in themselves if they are always being compared. Individuals, or art, should be celebrated for their diversity. This self-portrait I made was inspired by Picasso. I relate to his personality, he was driven by sharing the idea of pushing our potential in confidence. Like art, there may be "mistakes" in life but these are not mistakes. I believe we make "mistakes" to learn from them and that only helps us to get to know ourselves. Challenges have a purpose so I try my best to not let fear hold me back. Wondering who you are should never hold you back from expressing that undeniable inner art. You are limitless in creation.

I find inspiration and comfort in knowing nothing lasts forever. Pain is temporary and it only makes you stronger. If you worry too much about the issue, it only makes it worse. Paying attention to the purpose of your hope drives you to look for solutions or for reasons it will get better. As generations go on, I feel we not only learn more but grow as a whole. I feel my generation finds a lot of value in having awareness of who you are and what could be. This drive to be better as people is a historical pattern. We have made a lot of progress in the past century. Discrimination isn't completely gone but our awareness only grows and so does our humility. This gives me hope that as time goes on, overall we only evolve. We learn from history by comparing it today and seeing what toxic patterns apply. This is extremely important and I'm glad schools are teaching about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. History shows us that generations pass down conformed knowledge whether that's "good" or "bad." Everyone has a free conscious and today isn't like how it was in the 1950s. Women have a voice, whites speak out for blacks, and LGBTQ+ movements and we are only getting better as human beings. Empathy and realization seem to be something that grows over time in history as well. If we all work together, what can't we accomplish? My hope tells me that the future will involve more action towards equal treatment and being understanding of others. This also gives me hope for financial security, stronger relationships, a world where we give to others for just the sake of sharing love. This can go a long way in terms of better mental health, motivation, support, ideas, and positive change. This is so underrated because humility isn't spoken about enough. Empathy isn't practiced enough. Like in government, how are we women still not getting equal pay? We speak up with our voice with women supporting women because that's all we can do. As time goes on, more voices come along and will grow louder until the government has no other choice but to obey. We can make the future better. There's nothing we collective humans can't do. We made change happen countless times in history. Putting out your intentions, planning what could be, and sharing that love will always bring you good.

Lorde - Team "Team" is the song I can never overplay, it gives me power. It's motivated me to work through childhood self-esteem issues. Ever since this song came out when I was 9, my soul never got tired of it. When I hear the opening I feel like a beautiful, rich, royal queen showing up to her party fashionably late. Hearing this song made my heart overflow with passion, it caused me to see and accept who I am. I remember who I am and how I rebuilt myself from the ground up every time I hear it now. Then I feel like I can do anything. Music plays your heartstrings like a harp (and may tug them a little, too). When I feel that inspiration within myself, I feel limitless. For context, during my upbringing, I felt unseen and unworthy. When I listen to this song now, I feel like my soul is being nurtured like when I first heard it. Her lyrics have inspired me to change those lying negative beliefs into actual truth. Which is, I choose how to see myself and deserve to applaud my strengths. I can choose to love myself unconditionally. I am valid in my emotions. I am born more worthy than royalty. Even if I didn't see it at first, the truth is I've always had this power. "We're on each other's team." This common lyric in "Team" connects to my want for healthy relationships between all people as a human race. We are all in this together. We are all dealing with something, so why make someone else's life harder? Humility has always been my main value. Humility motivates me to be a better person for a better world.

I believe the pandemic was meant to be in our lives to show us how to slow down, take a breath and self reflect on our inner world, instead of constantly looking for our value in the outer world. This is helpful in remembering who we really are. We are not our thoughts or body but we are our soul, the higher self. From this pandemic, I have learned self love, patience and a deeper understanding of myself and others. Everyone is on their own path but this pandemic could be showing us all how we shouldn’t take things like gratitude for granted. It’s important to appreciate having connections with people, especially since society is more connected with their phones. I used to burn bridges easily but now I know that we are all human, just doing the best with what we know. I’m proud of myself for knowing my worth now in what I tolerate and what I don’t. This pandemic has taught me a deeper gratitude for socializing and self awareness. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve learned so much about myself and my inner world; My emotions, thoughts and perspective which has helped me with a better understanding of my outer world. Knowing yourself is important for self improvement and change. I’m thankful for this experience in the sense that we are looking more within ourselves. We are all in this one together, a collective effort to save as many lives as possible. Life is taken for granted because when we feel pain deeply sometimes, I think we forget that experiencing anything at all is something to be grateful for. Without pain, you wouldn’t have pleasure. I say everything happens for a reason so I’m an optimistic. I believe you can learn something from everyone and anything. Not everything is black and white (“good” or “bad”) so it’s important to be open to other perspectives. Now I have a more open mind, but with an intuitive filter I’ve always had that only gets stronger with age. I believe there is a lesson in this, as there is in everything else.