My mental health journey has shown me how important it is to have support and how healing is possible. My grandmother and adoptive mother, Vickie, died unexpectedly and the call to grief work became central. I had educational experience in ecological and climate grief and socio-cultural grief, but the loss of my mother highlighted a need for personal grief work and later a passion for it. Within months, my brother attempted suicide and a friend completed suicide. My heart broke for what support they did not receive. I thought back to the students I taught within the Inward and Outward Project and realized I felt the urge to support people who are struggling even more directly. I keep uncovering meaning in my layers of healing and my experience has shown me that healing is possible. I want to be part of it for others and want further education to support people in grief, depression, and crisis. Last November, a sixteen-year-old boy took his life in the community I live in and his death has further clarified my desire to pursue supporting others in mental health. With my teammates in Remembering Earth, I facilitated a memorial for him which included a talking circle for 35 of his friends to share their feelings, a time to say words around his grave, and a talk about possibilities for being with grief. This came after his vigil, where I saw this young boy's body - empty and gray. Something changed that day. I know with full clarity I want to support young people and adults who are experiencing grief and depression, who have survived trauma, and who feel alone, unworthy, or hopeless. I want to guide them toward healing and over time to and that their life has meaning. Through Remembering Earth, I support people in accessing their worth, and meaning and felt a connection to their bodies and I want to continue this potent work with more tools, as well as be able to support lower-income populations. I am dedicated to learning more evidence-based practices, techniques, guidelines, and protocols for supporting people toward healing and wholeness. I practice healing and wholeness through connection with nature, with a support team of friends, a therapist and guides and through moving my body. These are the tools I use for my mental health and I hope to offer them to others. Thank you for the opportunity to apply for this scholarship and pursue a career as a therapist.

Dear Scholarship Committee, I am pursuing a career in the mental health field so I can provide well-rounded, compassionate, and professional support for people. Experiencing a trauma-filled childhood, finding relational and earth-based pathways to healing, and studying and working to help others live meaningful life inspires me to pursue this work. I have had many in my life struggle with mental health and take their life, and I can no longer not pursue ways to support and serve my community as I bring skills, knowledge, and passion. I am applying to the Darclei V. McGregor Memorial Scholarship to receive support in continuing my effort in this journey. My journey toward a career in counseling has been both tumultuous and life-giving. My mother and father were teenagers when they had me, struggling with addiction and engaging in physical and emotional abuse. Before I was three months old, I was taken by child protective services and given to my grandmother Vickie and grandfather Bob. My other grandmother, Mary, helped take care of me too and she was the light of my life. I would play in the mud after a summer rain with grandma Vickie, sleep under the stars with my grandfather, and would have my grandma Mary count how long I could hold my breath under crystal blue water. Mary died unexpectedly at 52 when I was 13. Her death was extremely hard for me and also moved me to live a life of service. All four of my grandparents were social workers and set forth foundational principles that connected me to the outdoors and this eventually inspired me to work helping others. Over time, healing from childhood trauma has helped me recognize how possible personal growth and change is and this inspires me to support others in finding their pathways toward it. When I moved away for college, my healing journey began in earnest. It started with finding meaning through community organizing at Northern Arizona University. As I saw systemic inequalities and began studying intersectionality and social and cultural transformation, I saw the ways my family history was connected with these systems and decided to get involved. Over the years, I facilitated hundreds of meetings where I learned why people believed they were living, for what and why. I began to study life's purpose in school and work. From the beginning, I organized professionally for seven years, creating change, and mentoring facilitators and groups. This opened the door for my passion for one on one and group facilitation and living a life I deemed meaningful. Though I felt I was offering empowerment in personal and community settings, the emotional or psychological well-being of the program's leaders, including myself, was suffering. I was left with the question of how to create transformation and continue sustaining personal and collective wellness in times of uncertainty, complexity, and struggle. I applied to NAU’s Sustainable Communities Masters program. I wanted to explore what diverse experiences and understandings led individuals to begin contributing to a just and harmonious world and what it took for them to devote themselves to such a purpose and maintain their well-being. I found answers and my healing in life story research, outdoor therapy, critical consciousness, IFS parts work, and eco-depth psychology. I finished my MA feeling well-resourced and resilient from practicing dream work, engaging in outdoor therapy programs, and completing my research. All these experiences and understandings prompted me to help others uncover their meaning, embody their authenticity, sense their belonging to their human and more-than-human community, and nd healing through modalities in alignment with their beliefs. These threads continue to inform my interest in counseling and my commitment to serving others. After completing my MA, I brought the findings of my research into the classes I was teaching at Northern Arizona University and eventually into my organization. I found the themes of living a meaningful life were effective for students in finding their pathways to meaning and belonging and they also increased student retention. Eventually, I advocated for and created courses with outdoor components to enhance student experiences because this was a missing aspect of student education and healing, according to my findings. This became the Inward and Outward Exploration program. I took two cohorts of fifteen each, mostly 18-year-olds who were underserved, to wild places on several overnight trips, held space for them, taught them eco-therapy practices, and witnessed both the suffering and beauty of our individual and collective experiences. I was often moved to tears, had immense energy without faltering, and realized I am called to the transformative potential in multi-day group work. As students began to trust me and one another, I learned of their struggles with depression, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, and feelings of meaninglessness and simultaneously saw the impact our time together was having on their well-being, growth, resilience, and healing. I started to grow the confidence to start my organization and gathered more skills in mirroring, group council, somatic experiencing, embodiment, deep imagery, meditation, and dreamwork and started Remembering Earth, a four-person organization dedicated to the above-named practices and frameworks, in March of 2020. These experiences offered me clarity that I desire to help people connect with their purpose, sense of self, self-esteem, and wellness. Since starting Remembering Earth, I have had more clarity of what life is asking of me and also see the need for more training in trauma-informed approaches. My grandmother and adoptive mother, Vickie, died unexpectedly and the call to grief work became central. I had educational experience in ecological and climate grief and socio-cultural grief, but the loss of my mother highlighted a need for personal grief work and later a passion for it. Within months, my brother attempted suicide and a friend completed suicide. My heart broke for what support they did not receive. I thought back to the students I started this work within the Inward and Outward Project and realized I felt the urge to support people who are struggling even more directly. I keep uncovering meaning in my layers of healing and my experience has shown me that healing is possible. I want to be part of it for others and want further education to support people in grief, depression, and crisis. Last November, a sixteen-year-old boy took his life in the community I live in and his death has further clarified my desire to pursue counseling. With my teammates in Remembering Earth, I facilitated a memorial for him which included a talking circle for 35 of his friends to share their feelings, a time to say words around his grave, and a talk about possibilities for being with grief. This came after his vigil, where I saw this young boy's body - empty and gray. Something changed that day. I know with full clarity I want to support young people and adults who are experiencing grief and depression, who have survived trauma, and who feel alone, unworthy, or hopeless. I want to guide them toward healing and over time to and that their life has meaning. Through Remembering Earth, I support people in accessing their worth, and meaning and felt a connection to their bodies and I want to continue this potent work with more tools, as well as be able to support lower-income populations. I am dedicated to learning more evidence-based practices, techniques, guidelines, and protocols for supporting people toward healing and wholeness. Furthermore, this summer I participated in a training that helped me further sense the possibility of healing and I felt that within my body. I have survived sexual, emotional, and physical abuse and with the support of mental health practitioners, I have been able to heal what has been held in my body and impacted my self-esteem and my relationships. I truly believe healing is possible and I want to help others sense that within their own lives. I am pursuing a career in counseling because I believe I can offer meaning and help people heal. I truly have witnessed that healing is possible and want to offer that to others. I bring knowledge, skills, education, passion, dedication, and unique frameworks that will contribute to the field and the larger world. I would sincerely appreciate the opportunity to receive this scholarship and see how it will help me on my path toward serving my community and the mental health crisis. This scholarship will help me achieve my goals of supporting people experiencing suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety, and grief and doing so in indoor and outdoor settings. I would be honored to live on the legacy of Darclei V. McGregor through this Memorial Scholarship and sincerely appreciate the opportunity. I am excited to take my next step along this powerful path and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, Madison Ledgerwood