Year: Freshman
Major: Strategic Communications with a minor in Human Service Studies
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
What are you involved in at Elon?
I’m involved in a few different things, but mainly I Am That Girl club, meditation club and my sorority Sigma Kappa.
What have you been doing in your meditation club?
We gather as a group every Thursday and if the weather is nice we meet outside. We meet in a circle and bring all of our little pillows outside and we sit together and meditate for 10 minutes. Our form of meditation is in silence, so we meditate in that form. Then our president brings and reads a passage about how to live a better life and is usually rooted in Zen philosophy. As a group we all discuss it and reflect on that passage and it’s a great way to regroup after a stressful day and kind of recenter yourself.
Have you always been involved in meditation or did you just start when you came to Elon?
I didn’t get into meditation until the end of my junior year of high school. One of my mom’s good friends introduced me to a yoga/meditation class and the first time I did it I actually hated it. I thought I could not sit in silence for more than a minute let alone 10 minutes. It was a six week workshop where each sessions had yoga for the first 30 minutes and the last 30 minutes were a guided meditation. Over the six weeks I started to get into it and I noticed how it benefited my physical and emotional health and how much that impacted my life. From that point on I made it a goal to incorporate it into my daily life and I’ve been doing it since.
You also mentioned you are a part of I Am That Girl club, can you talk a little more about what it is and what your role is?
I Am That Girl club is a women empowerment organization that values authenticity and vulnerability. I was actually just elected president so I’ll be president of the club starting next fall for the 2018-2019 school year which I’m very excited about.
Do you have plans for next year as president?
Speaking of wellness, it’s definitely something I want to include in our discussions. I think self care, self love and making yourself a priority is so important to maintain a healthy lifestyle and that’s something I definitely want to incorporate into the club. We meet once a week and we do activities to help our members take pride in the small accomplishments they have everyday. As females sometimes we don’t notice our little accomplishments let alone identify them, so when you get in a group and start discussing it, you begin giving credit to yourself and then you can feel better about yourself and become a better person.
Have you had a favorite experience with I Am That Girl thus far or something you’re really looking forward to doing in the future?
This past weekend we went on this phenomenal retreat to Lake Norman in Morrisville, NC and it was such a wonderful experience. We all came together as our last bonding experience for the club and we reflected on our year. As freshmen it was such a pivotal year in our lives and it’s important to identify the high points and the low points. We were able to do that with a very non-judgemental group of girls who just want to see your best self and see you shine. We even had a little impromptu swimming in a lake which was really nice and we ordered pizza and had really quality talks about life. Sometimes we forget to do that and I ended up having some of the best conversations I’d ever had.