A generational curse lurks within my family, and I intend to demolish it once and for all. With a long familial history of vulnerability to mental health issues, from depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, severe anger, and more, I felt like I was destined for doom. I had personally dealt with on-and-off depression for years, and what brought me out of it was the compassion and rest I found in Jesus. In my undergraduate degree, I worked on an independent research project where I journaled my experience learning an artistic medium and how I felt as I progressed. My goal is to find out if we can become more self-aware of our emotional regulation when faced with artistic challenges and overcome frustration when our art doesn't turn out in the ways we plan. This is because I believe art has incredible possibilities for emotional and mental health, leading to my dream career to become a licensed Art Therapist. There is one verse in particular that has molded my career decisions. In Romans 14:19 (NIV), Paul says, "Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification." The words, mutual edification, spoke to me the most because change and inspiration are not one-way streets. We should be changing and improving ourselves along with the people we aim to inspire. That's where I am now with my current research and education. I know there is value in improving our artistic skills, not only for ourselves but for others. I have been involved with the arts for more than ten years and want to use the techniques I have learned to show others the value art has in helping us better understand ourselves. I plan to research the potential benefits of learning to challenge ourselves with what I tend to call, "healthy risks". In 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27, Paul gives us an analogy to explain the need for self-discipline. Paul mentions the strict training an athlete or a boxer must endure to win the prize. Verse 26 says, "Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." My goal is not just to advocate for the arts because it's stress relieving and helps us forget our concerns for a time, but rather to put our minds into submission and learn to use frustration and mistakes as motivation. The Bible says to take our thoughts captive to make them obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). We can find ourselves getting frustrated when learning complex artistic skills, however, by productively overcoming frustration, we can learn to invite challenges in our everyday lives. Improving and healing our mental health is not an easy task. It requires challenge, from the daunting task of staying away from our addictions, to the brave decision of leaving a harmful relationship. My battle with depression and anxiety felt like drowning, but it was easier to drown than to get up and face what worried me. I could barely get up from bed, and my dark thoughts overwhelmed me so much that I tried my best to stay asleep as long as possible. In Proverbs 6: 6-9, it says, "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep?" These words can be harsh, especially to someone who deals with worthlessness and already sees themselves in a bad light. Still, they made me realise that I was becoming complacent in despair. I wanted to drown because it gave me an excuse as to why I was not the person I wanted to be. I engaged in self-harm because it was easier to punish myself than to improve myself. I had the excuse of a hereditary curse that started with my great-grandmother committing suicide. How could I be any different than her? But I was wrong. My thoughts had told me I wasn't enough, but at the end of the day, Jesus was enough. Jesus was more than enough. "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast." (1 Peter 5: 10-11). His compassion and his mercy were enough. In my walk with Christ, I realised that staying asleep and remaining in the dark state kept myself in was not reflective of the love and sacrifice he had shown me. He sacrificed his life so I could live, not so that I could wish I didn't. My life had turned around and it was through him that I was restored and could see clearly again. I still battle with these thoughts sometimes, but I now have a place to find rest, in him. God had shown me my path through the experiences I had with mental health. Seeing my father dealing with PTSD and anger was devastating for me. My father was an immigrant from Nicaragua who joined the military and had received multiple injuries as well as post-traumatic stress. This disorder took form in his anger, towards my mom, and the world. However, I have seen God do miracles in him, and he has changed completely. He is working on his health, he let go of his addictions to alcohol and smoking, and his relationship with Christ is stronger than it was before. It was the first person I knew who had overcome PTSD. It led me to aspire to work with Veterans and provide opportunities to heal from PTSD through art. During my Arts in Medicine internship, I met a cancer patient who was severely addicted to smoking. So much so, that even after being treated with chemotherapy she still went home and smoked. She had told my supervisor and me that she began artmaking at home, and it was the first time she could forget about a cigarette for an hour. I have faith in a God who can move mountains, and I believe he has me in this career for a purpose. Through art therapy, I plan to bring glory to his name and just as he brought me out of darkness, I know he can do it again.

Success to me takes many forms. For me, it is raising a healthy child, reaching a financial goal, or hiking a difficult terrain. It can be achieving a career dream, or just making it past today. Success for me means reaching the potential of who we were meant to be and it differs from person to person. My personal success would come from helping others achieve theirs. I have experience with the Arts in Medicine field, providing creative art opportunities for patients battling cancer. This internship experience lasted a full academic year and taught me what it means to grow. Every new day is a goal to reach, and success can be found in our everyday. In my Personality Theory and Research class, I was asked what my biggest achievement was. This was to answer a personality test that measures my life satisfaction. The first thought that came to my head was the day before taking that test when I had spent three hours with a patient as she talked about her life, her kids, and her battle with cancer. By the end, she was so happy I was there to listen and make art with her. It was as simple as being a listening ear to a stranger that I felt was my biggest achievement. I knew I had made the right career choice, and that providing a listening ear as an art therapist was my idea of success. My goal for my master's program is to research emotional awareness and our reactions to challenging activities. I had touched upon this in my undergraduate research, dealing with ceramic and pottery making as my challenging activity. I wanted to understand how I dealt with frustration when things did not go my way. My results were a newfound openness to experience and a more creative outlook on my mistakes and errors in my artmaking. For my graduate research, I want a more in-depth look at how art can affect our emotional awareness and help us understand ourselves better. This opportunity would allow me to make my research possible and help me to cover costs for research materials as well as tuition and supplies. More than ever, our mental health is extremely important to consider, and I believe that art is a beautiful and productive way as a society to manage our emotions and worries. Success doesn't have to be an unachievable life only for the privileged and the rich. I believe success can be found in smaller things, like finishing today's to-do list, and it is vital to find success and happiness right where we are. When we challenge ourselves with something creative, like art, we give ourselves opportunities for success. There will be failures and mistakes as we learn which helps us appreciate every new concept and level achieved. We can feel the success of having made something with our own hands and having people we love see what we created. My values as a Christian provide me with an outline for a successful life. By following the actions of Christ daily, I can find contentment in waking up early, working hard today, and feeding my body nutritional foods that nourish my mind. I can be content with what I have while being productive and facing challenges as they come. I want to inspire others to face challenges and to reach their goals and my education will lead me to that. I believe that we should find satisfaction from making it past today's challenges, and become excited about the goals we are gradually working towards one step at a time. Success is a process, one where every step higher we can look back and see how far we've come.

As every Snickers commercial would say, "You're not you when you're hungry." It's a funny theme they use, proposing that people make bad or outlandish decisions when they are hungry, which would be solved by eating a chocolate bar. It's also funny when my dad's Hispanic accent comes out and pronounces it as 'Sneakers'. Though we laugh at the commercial, it references how attached we are to our emotions when making decisions. We can make great decisions when our head is clear and we're happy, but when we're angry or anxious we can do things we regret. My dad is a disabled veteran who retired as a Gunnery sergeant from the U.S. Marine Corps. He immigrated from Nicaragua to escape the Nicaraguan Revolution and gained citizenship while in the military with a second job as a mailman. He has provided for me and my brothers still to this day, and I am grateful to have him in my life. I know from experience that PTSD does not look the same for everyone. No one expects a man with a ten-hour work day five days a week and a volunteer youth pastor on the weekends to be dealing with a substantial amount of trauma, but it devoured him inside. His inner turmoil had to be put somewhere and the way my dad expressed it was through anger. He had outbursts of anger that he took out on my mom mostly, having once threatened to hurt her because he didn't know how much longer he could suppress it. He would want to divorce her over insignificant things and would try to cope with alcohol and smoking. My dad was given a prescription medication for his anger by a psychiatrist, but kept telling my brother that "once I went insane, just drop me off at the V.A. and leave me there." It was hard to hear him say that, as we were a very close family that would do anything for each other, but the story didn't end there. My dad has shown me that PTSD is possible to overcome, and in recent years I have seen a change in him that influenced my career decisions. He has stopped vaping, and alcohol, and has changed his diet and lifestyle dramatically. He wakes up at 5 A.M. every morning to exercise before work, and he speaks so much differently, with hope for his future, and determination to improve himself to inspire future generations. His story has led me to believe that I can help others with mental battles, and find love for themselves again. My dream career is to work with veterans as an Art Therapist to provide counselling and creative opportunities to others who have served our country. I know that mental disorders are not always the end of someone's story, and we are not doomed to give in to the negative voices in our heads. There is a way out, and I want to see others find their way just like my dad did. I know he still struggles and gets irritated and impatient faster than other people. He still has his prescription medication, but he knows that it is not a cure. He challenges his inner voice daily, and I too aspire to improve myself through my career and my attitudes. My career focuses on our ability as humans to use creativity and productivity to change our mindsets. I don't believe we are slaves to our emotions, and whether we're hungry, angry, depressed, or anxious, we have the power to take control of our minds.

There is a verse that has set up the foundations for decisions I made in my educational career. "Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification."- Romans 14:19 NIV Romans 14 gives us a good understanding of how we should treat our relationships with one another. Paul tells us in Galatians not to please people. He states, "If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ." (Galatians 1:10 NIV). Yet, in Romans 14, he explains that what we eat should not cause others to stumble, that what we do should lead to peace, and that if we distress others by what we eat, we are no longer acting in love. A little later in Romans 15, we are even told to "please our neighbors for their good, to build them up." So how do we manage our relationships with others, make discernments out of love, and stop from judging our brothers and sisters and what they believe is truth? The most important factor in maintaining our relationships and helping one another is to act like Christ. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and acting like Jesus would keep us aligned with the truth. When we believe in individual truths and stick to beliefs that do not align with God's word, that's when division starts. On the other hand, we all live different lives, and with the condition of free will and different talents, we were not all made to live the same life. God has called us in different ways and sometimes we don't agree with how others interpret their calling. As an aspiring mental health therapist, this is especially important to consider with clients. I will be put in a position to provide counselling, and to help people edify and improve themselves and their relationships. I am not called to judge or push someone away because of the way they choose to live. Jesus dined with sinners, and he showed love to others no matter their past. I want to demonstrate that same love but at the same time be a servant of Christ and show true discernment. As mentioned in 1 John 3:18, ". . . let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." That is how we can build each other up, by filling ourselves with the holy spirit and acting according to what the bible says. I had the opportunity to inspire a member of my church to develop his career in a way that worships God. In Hebrews 13, it says not to be in love with money and be content with what you have. This led him to be stuck in a job he disliked because he did not want to be in love with money. I thought differently, as I do not believe God called us to be miserable in a job we hate considering we have all been given different talents. On the contrary, I believe God calls us to use our talents to thrive in this world, and not to love money, but to provide for the generations after us. He had seen my passion for school and had decided to go back to school and became excited for his future. We can understand from Ecclesiastes that we should enjoy life and find satisfaction in our toil (Ecclesiastes 3:13 NIV). We should show the joy and peace that only God can provide, including the actions and attitudes we take in careers we intend to glorify God through.

"I didn't want you to be mediocre at both, so I made sure you were a master at one." My dad explained. A six-month-old baby has an astounding ability to pick up acoustics from any language. They can analyze tone and sound distinctions that we as adults can not differentiate. This period in a child's life is critical for choosing what is important for its mother language, and what to disregard. That's why it's strange and unfortunate that I struggle with my mother tongue. With an extended family of Spanish speakers, my Puerto Rican mom saw the value of beginning the first few years of my life teaching the language her parents spoke to her. My dad, on the other hand, knew what it was like as an immigrant from Nicaragua, finding himself as an outsider, unable to express himself in a new and unfamiliar country. He did not want the same for me. A year or two later, he refused to speak Spanish with my brother and me, and we quickly learned English. My mom eventually found it more convenient to speak in English and for the next twenty years, that was all we knew. I volunteered in a bilingual church as a worship leader and singer for the past eight years. We sing worship songs in the two languages, and the preacher always has a translator. Due to this, I can comfortably use a Spanish accent, but to this day, have trouble in conversations. Family gatherings were a struggle for me during my childhood. I wished to participate in and experience the traditions and values of my culture, but I had a hard time speaking with my relatives. As my Spanish improves, I now feel closer to them than ever, but it has caused a strain on the relationships I could have had with my grandparents on both sides. My parents both came from low-income households of seven people. Their parents had travelled to the United States due to strong fears. My dad's side of the family left because of the Nicaraguan Revolution, and my mom's family grew worried that her father was in danger of being targeted and beaten by jealous people from his job. They struggled with language barriers and the weight of raising five children in a place they didn't know. Escaping to Florida was an incredibly brave decision, but fear had dictated their lives. My decision to reach for graduate-level education did not come with excitement. At least, not from my maternal grandmother. My parents are both extremely ambitious, having been the only ones in their respective families to strive and fight for aspirations and dreams rather than settling for what was sensible. They were proud of me, and while they couldn't afford my tuition or the costs of attending, they knew my career mattered to me. My grandmother still lives with fear in her heart, and while I know she is proud of me too, she is scared of what might happen. She fears that the expenses and the risks associated with living alone in college are too costly. Additionally, my struggle with Spanish has affected her perception of me. It has not allowed her to see my independence or determination to achieve my dream. I am the first in my family to receive a bachelor's degree and the only one to plan for my master's. Understandably, these experiences are unfamiliar to everyone involved. But I hope to live without that fear. I wish to inspire change in others through Art Therapy and to do that, I must be unafraid of change myself.

We have all made decisions we regret. Whether it was an intended choice or the lack of a decision that came with consequences, they cause an impact that can affect our futures. Our mental health is vital because a mind influenced by depressed and anxious thoughts makes decisions that can worsen our state of being. We can't decide to pursue our dreams if we're unmotivated or too scared of the outcome. We can have a hard time removing ourselves from a bad situation when we have no hope that life could be better. In my undergraduate degree, I experienced the stresses of being a full-time student, working part-time, volunteering at my church, and balancing it all to reach my goal of getting accepted into graduate school. I had times when I felt overwhelmed and even burnt out. My mental health was important to me because I had a goal to reach, and that goal was to be someone who could inspire others. I'd be the first to admit that maintaining my mental health wasn't always, if ever, easy, but I realized that trying to be the ideal version of myself never will be. In my undergraduate degree, I studied the impacts of a new artistic medium on creative expression. My goal was to find out if the frustration that comes when faced with something new and challenging could have benefits for my emotional awareness, and my artmaking. I found that the more I challenged myself to learn and make mistakes, the easier it was to turn frustration into motivation and become more creative with my art. It may seem counterintuitive, but I believe that the decision to invite challenges is what helps us overcome them. Simultaneously adding an independent research thesis and an Arts in Medicine internship in my senior year of college was extremely difficult, but I learned valuable lessons about the potential that art has for our mental health and our community. I was able to expand my understanding of art and its therapeutical benefits which would help me in my personal life as well as my career. We must prioritize mental health considering mental illnesses affect more people now than ever. But we should also recognize that the improvement of mental health is not an easy route. It does not always involve playing it safe. Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zones to become a better version of ourselves. Sometimes we have to step away from the things that we think keep us safe, whether it's an addiction or a harmful relationship. Sometimes it is necessary to take risks to improve our minds and our environments, and the only way to achieve that is to try. The benefit of adding challenges and taking healthy risks is that we can see the progress of who we were and who we've become when we finished them. We only learn what our minds are capable of when we decide to learn something new. What helped me to maintain my mental wellness was being able to look back and see what I've accomplished, including the mistakes I've made along the way. I've learned where my strengths and weaknesses are and can make better decisions in the future. It was to see that despite the decisions I may have regretted, I didn't deal with the regret of not trying.

The quality of one's life starts in the mind. Not only as a student but as a human being, I understand that adversity is inevitable. We all face struggles that can tear us down and discourage us from achieving what we want for ourselves. In my belief, however, how we view and deal with our situations will determine the quality of our everyday. As an undergraduate student, I had the opportunity to pursue independent research involving the emotions we face when engaging in a challenging activity. I found that learning from mistakes and errors made when learning something new can encourage creative problem-solving and better emotional regulation. I aim to expand on this notion in my graduate degree, as I believe creativity and emotional awareness are linked. My aim as a student and researcher is to emphasize the importance of expanding our knowledge in visual art and creative activities for our mental health and our daily lives. Creativity and learning should never stop because we are too old, or too mature. In reality, art has the potential to help us grow emotionally and intellectually. When we get frustrated with certain outcomes we can train ourselves to take a breath and try again, not being afraid to fail. Our understanding of our mental health is extremely important because our mind shapes our decisions for the future. Our mind decides whether to take the risk or play it safe. Our mind forms relationships with other people and influences us to think in certain ways about others. Depression and anxiety are unfortunately too prevalent in modern society and keep us from being open to new experiences and from making the connections we need with other people. I know we have the potential to overcome these serious internal threats, and by engaging in healthy risk-taking and challenging ourselves to think creatively we can put them behind us. My goal is to become an Art Therapist and a licensed mental health counselor, advocating for the arts to improve mental health. I personally dealt with depression and found it easier to drown than to pick myself up and make the difficult decisions. I know what it is like to believe that my future is not worth waiting for and now hope to bring others out of that sentiment. I hope to inspire people to invite challenges that will improve their state of being, and no longer be complacent in despair.

My brother had once mentioned to me the atmosphere he experienced when dropping off a patient at the Department of Veteran Affairs building. My brother is a paramedic, giving him some credibility to compare the quality and support that health centers are truly able to provide to their patients. He told me, "Isabel, it is miserable in there, but you will have the opportunity to change that." That was the sentence that made me relentless to chase my career goal. I am currently an undergraduate student with a major in fine arts and a minor in psychology. I currently intern at Arts in Medicine, a program that works with the Cancer Support Community which allows me to share my knowledge and love for art with patients battling cancer. It is my duty and conviction to use art to bring light and hope to others. I want to be an Art Therapist, someone qualified to use art as treatment and healing for patients. I have been involved with the arts for nearly ten years and I want to use my expertise to leave a mark in the hearts of others. My father was an immigrant from Nicaragua and became a citizen while working in the military. He had gotten injured during his service and dealt with PTSD long afterward. He was my inspiration to strive for working within the Department of Veterans Affairs as an Art therapist. I want to give back to those who have fought for our country and provide healing for scars that may not be visible. I want to be an artist who uses art for others rather than art for art's sake.