Week 13- Integration Understanding My Evolution Over this semester, I have experienced isolation and discovered the importance of community. Inclusion is a core part of Notre Dame and as a student, I believe I have a role to further that sense of inclusion. This feeling has developed over the semester as I have been lucky enough to be welcomed into the Notre Dame community by my peers. I realize how much of an impact this sense of belonging has meant to my college experience. I feel that my desire to share that community with others has increased as the semester has progressed. During my short time so far at Notre Dame, I have gone from feeling like an outsider to knowing that I belong as a part of the Notre Dame community as a whole. When I first arrived at Notre Dame I felt an enormous amount of pressure to succeed. In Hawaii, the quality of education is generally lower than in mainland states. I was unsure that I would be able to keep up with classes. In all honesty, I was afraid to fail. Through the first few weeks of classes, I hesitated to ask anyone for help with the material assuming that everyone else already knew what was going on in all of their classes. My perception of Notre Dame was that every student needed to excel academically to fit in here. Over the course of the semester, I began to find my place with friends and hear that other students felt the same way. This helped me to recognize how dangerous these thoughts were to my mental health. When we reached week 9 this quote stuck out to me particularly “This is a stressful and discouraging way to live. Remember that none of us is perfect. We all make mistakes. We will disappoint people. We’ll disappoint ourselves. But the world doesn’t have to end when that happens.”("Why Letting Go of Expectations is a Freeing Habit" by Julia Hogan - Moreau FYE Week Nine) I was only able to overcome this way of thinking that caused me to isolate myself through the support of the friendships that I had formed because of the excellent community at Notre Dame Through these experiences, I came to recognize that not everyone seeks out community, some need to be welcomed to it. I was too afraid to be honest with others about my struggles. My isolation came from myself. Other members of the community made an effort to include me which helped me understand the flaws in my perception. This quote from the with voices true video reflects my experience “I think we should be more curious and not treat people like an alien” ( “With Voices True Snapshot Summary” by Klau Center Archive on Race - Moreau FYE Week Eleven) It was through questions that lead to conversations that I began to feel accepted in my new home. Simple chats have come to mean quite a bit for me. I feel that asking is an effective way to get to know someone and grow closer to them. This feeling has only gotten stronger as I have spent more time here. As a part of my attempts to help strengthen the community around me, I try to have honest conversations and ask about people’s lives. Many people here are surprisingly honest about what is going on in their own lives. Their honesty and willingness to share about themselves remind me of our section on vulnerability. One of my uncles back in Hawaii, uncle being a term associated with any older friend of the family, liked to talk a lot about abstract concepts. One day he told me he had been reading the work of a mystic poet and was thinking about a particular quote “It is only through suffering that one is able to understand all the chambers of the heart.” Unexpectedly this quote has stuck with https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/24970/modules/items/105060 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/24970/modules/items/105060 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/24970/modules/items/105095 me for about two years. It helped me to begin thinking of moments of trauma and hurt as ways to more fully understand myself and my emotions. To learn to accept both highs and lows as part of life is difficult, however, I believe that by doing so I can be a more complete and empathetic person. This reminds me of the following quote from the Kintsugi video “I want people to also know that their hearts are breakable, and it’s a very good thing, that it’s worth celebrating because it allows you to grow and expand.” (“Women Find Healing Through Kintsugi Workshop” by Grotto Network - Moreau FYE Week Ten) For the semester, I feel that I have come to place a greater significance on my mental health. I think my understanding of the importance of experiences good and bad in the process of emotional growth has increased significantly and helped me to grow as a more conscious, kind, and understanding person. This semester I have encountered adversity in a number of forms. In our reading from Holy Cross and Christian education, there was the following quote “One does not have to be a Christian to believe that adversity does, or at least can, make people stronger and prepare them for harder challenges in the future.” (“Hope - Holy Cross and Christian Education” by Fr. James B. King, C.S.C - Moreau FYE Week Twelve) I believe that through the course of this semester I have recognized my shortcomings, identified areas for improvement, found a reliable community of friends and grown as a person. Moving forward I have come to realize that I can overcome any obstacle I face. The reading on hope helped me to understand hardship and adversity as an opportunity to grow and become better equipped to handle similar challenges in the future. Throughout the semester I believe that I have evolved and changed in ways I did not and could not anticipate. I recognized the importance of community and inclusion in supporting others. I acknowledged areas in which I could grow despite the uncomfortable feelings it could cause. I know that this semester I faced new and unique challenges, responsibilities, and situations. I know that my experiences both positive and negative, are steps on the path to becoming a stronger, more resilient individual who is ready to approach future obstacles constructively and healthily to overcome them. https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/24970/modules/items/105078 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/24970/modules/items/105078 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/24970/modules/items/105110