Integration 1



Integration One
Moreau First Year Experience
October 15, 2021

Healing my Mind in South Bend

I believe that I value and care for my mental health. I came to Notre Dame eager to
improve my mental health and coping mechanisms for stress after a tough 18 months in
quarantine. Reflecting back I realized I struggled so much because I chose to numb my emotions,
but as Dr. Brene Brown noted in Moreau FYE Week 1, “you cannot selectively numb emotion”
(The Power of Vulnerability”). By numbing my unhappy emotions, I was also numbing my
positive emotions and found myself in a cycle of looking for happiness to feel better, failing to
find long term happiness and feeling more alone than ever. After this realization I did a lot of
self-reflection and transitioning back into normal life has reaffirmed many of the conclusions and
values I found. In the following paragraphs, I will detail how these changes gave me a focus on
forming healthier friendships and finding happiness in everyday occurrences. A big factor in my
success was also taking more time for reflection and focusing on vulnerability as a way to
provide myself with more accurate ideas around my emotions and reaffirm my improvements.

I believe that I am choosing to be vulnerable with my friends. Choosing to be honest
about my mental health with my friends helped me find much of the joy, excitement and clarity I
had lost during the pandemic. It can be hard to open up when struggling, but honesty helped
force me to confront my emotions instead of numbing them. I found myself hiding certain
struggles or experiences from others for fear of judgment. I now see the red flags within this
thinking that show how unhealthy some of my high school friendships were. Changes to
friendships can creep in slowly and this realization helped me see that anyone who is “affecting
your life more negatively than positively” is unhealthy (5 Signs You are In A Toxic Friendship
by Olivia T. Taylor- MFYE Week 4). Here at Notre Dame I have used this experience to focus on
how I could better examine my own friendships and other relationships because awareness can
help me protect myself and my friends. My experience has made me excited for what’s to come
as I keep finding more people to make relationships with and helped me value strong friendships
even more. I have also used my different strengths and personality quirks as a way to slowly
show vulnerability. I began by sharing my sometimes controversial love for all things country
music as a way to spark conversation. In sharing that, “I am from a 6,942 song music library that
is strictly iTunes purchases with Van Morrison, Jimmy Buffet, “Uplifting,” “Toes,” “Endless
Surrender”” I discovered my friends Anna and Olivia loved Zac Brown Band too (I am From By
- MFYE Week 6). Additionally, I have embraced humor, both as a way to make
myself happy and show vulnerability to connect with others. In accordance with the Character
Survey by VIA in MFYE Week 2 I love to “[bring] smiles to other people, [see] the light side”
and laugh.  I often joke that I find myself hilarious, but humor is a trait I choose to hide in most
settings. I tend to view humor as a negative which will diminish others’ opinion of me,  and I
feel very vulnerable when making jokes even though they bring me a lot of joy. But reflection
around relationships and vulnerability forced me to rethink my judgments about humor. I have
started making more jokes and sending silly selfies or talking about little random things which
excite me that others might find funny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o
https://grottonetwork.com/navigate-life/relationships/signs-of-toxic-friendships/
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/181QYgdWc5o3mXbsV5c1VScKoEwQ6vzbAPxpmwd4a81A/edit
https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/surveys/finished/20064124
https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/surveys/finished/20064124


As a consequence of this vulnerability and intentionality, I believe that I am being
intentional with my time. I look at the comparative amount of time I spend with different people
to ensure I have healthy connections and don't find myself pulled away from or too invested in
certain people and priorities like my faith and family. I have used Dorm mass as a way to
prioritize my faith because I know how important it has been in making me feel a part of Notre
Dame and reminding me how grateful I am to be here. I have taken a small step approach to
college faith following Fr. Pete’s “knot advice” from MFYE 3 to “first, be patient… second,...
not operate under the belief what you did before will work again third, remain hopeful” (“The
Role of Faith in Our Story” because starting college has a lot of changes, and I want to build
simple habits into my routine like dorm masses or prayer before overextending and placing too
much pressure on maturing my faith.

I believe that I am creating a welcoming community. Finding my college faith and
making friends at Notre Dame specifically has given me a better understanding for the
community I want. I enjoyed the opportunities to learn more about what differentiates Notre
Dame and the way that it focuses on certain values to do that. The focus on strength of
community, actually family, here at Notre Dame which pushes people to do more for all people is
inspiring. This also helps me start to frame the intentionality of the experiences I have already
had at Notre Dame. I think about the things in residential life like section dinners and
one-on-ones or hall council as a part of Notre Dame welcoming me even if they just felt like
simple, new activities. I liked that both Fr. Grove and Dr. Harris talks in MFYE Week 5 brought
up the connection between people’s work at Notre Dame and their service community. It helped
me see tangible examples of what it means to be Notre Dame and connected the idea of love and
family to both on and off campus outreach. It made me proud and excited to be here where
students, faculty and more are attentive to others no matter their connection. Notre Dame also
helped me see diverse perspectives and ensures freedom of all stories on camps. This reflection
is an important check in point for my own bias and a step toward making a more welcoming
environment for all people and their stories to create the world around me. This connected a lot
to the Scientific American article in MFYE week 7 which explained harshly blaming or profiling
bias can do more harm than good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcZMeqWWOIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcZMeqWWOIs