Integration One 12 October 2021 Integration One: The effects Notre Dame has had on my root beliefs When growing up, I was always taught specific things that helped to space my root beliefs. Although my root beliefs might have been changed a little throughout my childhood and my life, they essentially stayed consistent throughout the years, but that was until I came to Notre Dame and started school here. Being at Notre Dame and simply learning within this community has caused me to reflect and alter my root beliefs more than ever throughout my life. While they still haven’t changed majorly, they changed more than they would have in the past. I believe that the people that a person chooses to surround themselves will reflect upon how they view themselves and their lives. I believe that the people that I surround myself with are the people that lift me up when I need them and help me feel as if I can do and be whatever I want. In the past, I had been in a toxic relationship for the majority of my life, all the way from when I was two years old until I was 14, with my best friend. My beliefs surrounding friendship and relationships had always been that, to me, the people I know are nice and the right kind of people, but I never truly went deeper than what they were showing on the surface. But, now I have learned the lesson to always look deeper into the people I choose to surround myself with and call my friends because I never want to go through the pain of another toxic relationship. From week 4 of Moreau, I truly learned the signs of a toxic relationship, and it helped to further alter my beliefs about who I surround myself with. The article "Five Signs You're in a Toxic Friendship" explains that being in a toxic friendship is like feeling "both accepted and rejected by someone with whom you want to be friends. Feeling both good and bad about a friend, however, is the first sign of a toxic friendship" ("Five Signs You're in a Toxic Friendship" by Olivia T. Taylor - Moreau FYE Week 4). This really stuck with me and reminded me of my past relationship because it was how I always felt. When I was around the girl I called my best friend, I never felt good and truly happy. I always felt that I had to conform to what she said and what she wanted to do because, in the back of my mind, I was scared to lose my longest and pretty much only friend at the time. After finally getting out of that toxic relationship, I had really started to change my beliefs about the people I surrounded myself with, and not just friends but also simply within my community. Regardless of my one bad experience, I was lucky enough to grow up in such a tight-knit community in which people love and support you regardless. The time that really opened my eyes about how blessed I was due to my community was during week 6, when we wrote the "Where I'm From" poems. In the example, "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon, he wrote his poem about the physical aspects of his community around him, so I wanted to do something similar, but instead of the physical elements, I chose to talk about the people. ("Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon - Moreau FYE Week 6). Within my poem, I explained the community and the people https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships/ http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html that surrounded me as a town that goes out of its way to help others around them, which loves to throw events that benefit others going through a rough time. Being surrounded by such a positive and loving community helped shape my belief that the people around a person can influence the person they become and their values within life. I believe that I am constantly searching for what I want in life and who I want to become in life. I believe that no one person knows who they are early in life and keeps that same idea of themselves for their whole life. Our views on the world, especially on the type of person we are and want to be, are constantly changing due to the influences around us and the new information we learn. Within week 3, we learned about making a framework for our lives and what we truly want within life, and what we want to accomplish and become. In the video from Father McCormick, he uses the analogy of three steps of tying shoes compared to creating a framework. His steps are (1) be patient, (2) know that each “knot” or situation is different and to always look at it with fresh eyes, and (3) to be hopeful and keep believing that you are almost there (“Student Reflections on Faith” by Fr. Pete McCormick - Moreau FYE Week 3). From learning about these steps to getting through life and making decisions, I started to reflect on my own life and my own framework. I noticed that I don’t specifically have a concrete framework for getting through life and becoming the best person. So, when I saw this, I started to create my own framework from everything I started to learn within Moreau and simply from being at Notre Dame. A key aspect of my framework is that I want to be a person who helps other people and is compassionate and kind. From week 2, we learned about two parts of a person, Adam I and Adam II. Within the video, it explains that Adam II is “hears a calling and obeys the world” and “savors inner consistency and strength” and finally, its “motto is love, redemption and return’” (“Should You Live for your Resume or Your Eulogy” by David Brooks - Moreau FYE Week 2). From learning about creating a framework and the values of being “Adam II,” I started to make it my goal to be more of a compassionate and kindhearted person towards others and toward the world. My beliefs about my life had changed dramatically simply from starting at Notre Dame, and it has helped open my eyes to the value of continuous learning and changing my beliefs, regardless of what they are about. So, I plan to have and live by my framework now, but always leave my mind open to the new experiences and things that I learn along the way that might alter my framework. I believe that the most powerful aspect that makes me and makes people who they are is simply through what they have experienced. Within just the short amount of time I’ve been alive and actually remember everything, I have always valued the experiences and new things that I have been introduced to within my life. I have never gone to a new place without having the goal of learning something new about the people I am meeting and even about myself. I think it is essential that people value their experiences and the experiences of others when creating their beliefs and views on specific subjects. In the video “Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains her own experiences of only being https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcZMeqWWOIs&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=UniversityofNotreDameCampusMinistry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlLWTeApqIM taught and surrounded by one thing and how it influenced her views on her life and the lives of others. She explains that “because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify” (“Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Moreau FYE Week 7). Ngozi explains that she didn’t experience much when she was younger, leading her to make many generalizations and assumptions about literature and sometimes about her places. Because of this, Ngozi’s story just helped to reinforce my belief that is learning everything a person can about another and need to experience these new things to fully understand them. Another aspect of Moreau that really helped support my belief about the power of experiences on a person was during week 7 when reading the letters that Father Sorin wrote to Bl. Basil Moreau. Within these letters, Father Sorin tells his story of traveling to South Bend and creating Notre Dame. He explains his difficult journey and how he felt when first seeing the environment: “Everything was frozen, and yet it all appeared so beautiful.” He saw them as symbols of the “stainless purity of Our August Lady” and the “purity of soul which should characterize the new inhabitants” (“Letters to Father General Moreau” by Father Sorin - Moreau FYE Week 5). Reading about Father Sorin’s new experiences and how he turned the negative aspects into positive ones helped show me that it doesn’t matter what the experiences are that a person encounters, but instead what that person takes away from those experiences. Father Sorin and Ngozi could have let their negative experiences affect them and their lives, but rather, they chose to see it as positive and as a promise of further learning and further hope for better things to come. Learning all of this and talking about it in class not just reinforced my root value that experiences are one of the most powerful things that influence who a person is, but it also helps alter my belief by introducing that no matter what the experience involves and is about, the person must always see it in a positive and hopeful way to fully gain from it. I believe that vulnerability is a powerful thing. While I used to believe that it is something to be hidden for others and locked away within oneself, I now believe that the only way to be one’s true self is to embrace your vulnerability. I used to have such a negative view of vulnerability; it was something that others would only judge me on and something that would ostracize me from the others around me. But by coming to Notre Dame and being introduced to the Moreau class and objective has opened my eyes to the power of vulnerability and how it can only help people grow instead of holding them back. In the first week, we watched the video “Power of Vulnerability” in which Professor Brené Brown explains the aspects of vulnerability and how by people embracing their vulnerability, they will be “whole-hearted people” (“The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown - Moreau FYE Week One). This video changed my beliefs about vulnerability and turned them from a negative view to a positive view. It helped me learn that embracing vulnerability is the one true way that I and others can become our true selves. Because by https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript#t-89156 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o56woQDq3QrRkziT8eYrvYly5CQaP2Vb/view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0&feature=youtu.be hiding my vulnerability from others, it means that I am hiding a part of myself from others, leading them to not see and get to know my true and authentic self. Also, Moreau has helped to open my eyes to the benefits of being vulnerable simply by using the exercise of a person per week sharing their life story. Everyone is willing to be vulnerable in front of the class every week by telling their life story and reflecting on their past, and the things they learned have helped me understand how powerful being vulnerable can be when growing as a person. Many people in class talked about the times when they struggled the most within life and how they overcame that period and became better people. For example, Mike explained that almost losing the ability to walk for the rest of his life allowed him to reflect on the type of person he was and the type of people that he surrounded himself with. Mike was vulnerable and open to the class when explaining that when he looks back on the kind of person he was, he doesn’t like what he sees and is embarrassed and ashamed of the person he used to be. Learning about Mike and many of my other classmates’ stories and vulnerabilities has slowly helped me embrace mine more and open up a little more than I would have in the past. Because of this, my plans and goals for the future are to simply start to embrace my vulnerabilities and try not to hide them from others around me simply because of the fear of rejection or embarrassment.