Mentor Blog 2

During this meeting, my mentor went out to get some food off campus which was nice because I haven’t had enough time to eat out recently. Lately, I’ve also been skipping meals because of my responsibilities with Orientation Committee, Chapel Band, and tutoring a student. All of this is a testament to the hectic 2^nd Semester/B-Quad I’ve been experiencing which I got to talk to my mentor about. It was nice to have someone to listen to me and show an interest in how I was doing emotionally and spiritually. I feel like it’s hard sometimes to express how I’m feeling without being judged. In other words, if I were to express my frustrations, worries, or insecurities about my life, it could possibly come off as bragging about how busy and involved I am which I feel like is common in Wheaton College culture where everyone is expected to be involved, busy, or studying. It was comforting to have someone listen with an actual concern for my well-being without judgement or pre-conceived notions and it also released a lot of built up stress.

I talked about how balancing so many responsibilities can be taxing and how I’ve been neglecting to take of myself which I think is important. My mentor gave me this quote as advice which was “you can’t give out of an empty bowl.” Which I thought was interesting because to me it seems like balancing your responsivities is more important than taking care of yourself. But I learned that it is actually the care you have for yourself that allows you serve others or do your best with those responsibilities. It put things into perspective for me and put self-care on a higher standing than I would have otherwise.

We also talked about self-confidence. I tend to be really hard on myself which might come from my perfectionist nature. But even when I do a good job at something, I always think about ways I could have done better or dissatisfied that I didn’t measure up to a certain expectation. But my mentor talked to me about being proud of my own successes because we sometimes forget to be proud of ourselves when we see others doing just as much or even better. We should still be able to be proud of ourselves in the midst of other people’s successes which really challenged me and wanted me to try to change that aspect about myself.