How do you define mental health?

“I would define mental health as taking care of the way you feel and looking out for yourself on a deeper level than just physical.”

How do you define self love?

“I would say it’s like accepting every part of yourself and appreciating not only the parts you like about you, but the parts you would like to change as well.”

Is mental health an aspect of your life that you choose to focus on?

“Yes. Absolutely.”

Are there specific ways that you focus on it?

“Yeah for me I feel like there are a lot of different aspects to my mental health, but I’m always making sure that I make time for the things that bring joy. So whether that be my friends, like i make sure I see them multiple times a week, working out, doing my skin care routine, eating well, but also not restricting myself either t because I love sweets. Even with work like I love helping people, so just making sure I incorporate all those different aspects that make me happy into each of my days."

Have you had any struggles with your mental health that you would like to share?

“Yeah. I think I definitely have. Not so much recently, but there have been a lot of times where I think I have felt kind of lost or just not really understanding parts of life because there are just so many unanswered questions and I think that’s something I’ve struggled with. And it hits me randomly like I’ll be fine and then I’ll think about it too much and then that’s when it really hits me."

What makes you most happy?

“Being with the people I care about and helping other people.

What’s a moment in your life that you look back at with happiness?

“I just think each of my college years brought different realms of happiness, but I really like where I’m at now.”

Good! Aw that’s good. Okay., What’s a moment you look back at with sadness?

“Probably the greatest sadness was when I was really young when [my] uncle died and mainly seeing how it affected [my] mom and grandma and I just remember that being really hard for me to handle.”

If you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?

‘“There’s literally no reason to not be confident and confidence isn’t a bad thing. And that you should love yourself more than you love anything because if you don’t love yourself first then you’ll never be able to truly enjoy the other relationships that you have.”

What is one thing that you would change about yourself?

“I tend to be a little bit controlling and I get stressed out when I’m not the one handling things and I wish I could kind of let go a little bit and trust other people to do stuff.”

You and me both... (Both laughing). What is your favorite thing about yourself?

“I really like how much joy I get out of helping other people or working towards a cause bigger than myself.”

Yeah. You have a damn good heart.

“Oh thank you!”