In difficult times, remember to lean on your religious beliefs

By the day, our world is facing numerous unfortunate events, and it is easy to get scared or concerned for the world we live in. However, we as students, faculty, administrators and staff need to take a step back from what we are doing.

Everyone should recognize how they are feeling as they step back. Take a minute to process your emotions, as a lot of our emotions have been built up over time due to the United States’ norm of always having to be busy or be productive.

This way of living is not good for the mental health of any individual. We often hide behind being busy, so we do not have to sit with our own emotions. Once you do process your emotions, there are a few tips I have to offer to keep in mind.

The first is don’t let your emotions take over your actions. For example, do not let your built-up anger result in a negative action. It is okay to have an emotion, but one must be able to acknowledge that it is there and be able to cope with the emotion in an appropriate way.

The second tip is to talk to other people about your emotions, journal, pray or do anything to let them out. If emotions are not let out, they will embody themselves and cause stress, which can lead to all sorts of health effects.

The third tip is to remember where we are at. We are located on two Benedictine institutions where a lot of us have a sense of comfort \or belonging. Lean into the support systems here. Make a new friend, meet a faculty or staff member or go take a walk out to the Stella Maris Chapel to process your emotions.

The last thing that I want to address is the need to understand how much we have all let politics or outside forces dictate our emotions or how we feel about the world. It is very easy to do with the uncertainty with wars overseas and the rolling back of DEI initiatives in our nation.

Acknowledge the uncertainty but recognize that we do live in a finite world. Expecting perfection or the ideal way will set us up for disappointment.

This is where embracing the Benedictine ways of life can help one find stability. If we were to not put all our identity into the world around us that is finite and put it into the Lord our creator who is infinite, think about how this could change one’s perspective on life.

Our faith is the most important thing as it is the only chance we have at something that is infinite. We are not meant to go through our emotions and mental health struggles alone. Talk to others, allow yourself to be vulnerable to overcome grief, but most importantly, let God guide you.

For example, faith is what has brought me here today as I have had a lot of grief, unprocessed emotions and uncertainty in my life. I lost my grandmother, father and dog all within six months of my junior year in high school.

I realized I could not handle it myself and recognized that I can only control so much and that I needed to let God guide and lead me through an uncertain world.

This is something that we often do not think about because we think we can handle everything ourselves. Part of it is that this practice has been normalized, but the truth is, we need accompaniment from those around us, especially the Lord, our creator and savior.