Wellness Week: You are Enough.

During the first week of March, Saint John’s Prep celebrates Wellness Week. This is a time to prioritize student mental health, well-being, and self-care. Faculty members, counselors, and administrators organize a variety of fun and engaging sessions for students that include healthy lunches, morning teas, yoga, art therapy, weightlifting, improv workshops, meditation and prayer sessions, cooking lessons, and exercise sessions. This is a fun and meaningful week of self-care and mental health awareness. Wellness Week activities are made possible with support from the Gretchen Wenner Butler ’03 Wellness Fund.

Below is a personal message Dean of Student Life Manon Kuzara shared during an all-school prayer service.

I am grateful for the opportunity to share with you this morning during a Prayer Service that is very close to my heart. I want to remind all of you students that all of the teachers and staff here were once in your shoes. We were all high school students. and middle school students. I graduated from high school in 2011…so yes, if you do the math, I am old, but not as old as Dr. Glomski!

All jokes aside, I remember exactly what it feels like to see anything less than an A on my grade report (thanks to college calculus). I remember what it feels like to drop out of the top 10 in my class (thanks to college chemistry). I remember what it feels like to get a C in a college math class despite going to the math tutoring center every other day for 3 hours a day for an entire semester.
I also remember what it felt like to be told I had a stress fracture and was unable to run for the majority of my senior season of cross country. A lot of my worth and self-esteem was tied up in my identity as a runner. I had high hopes of being top 10 in the state and was on track to even maybe be in the top 5. I sat in the doctor’s office bawling and feeling like my entire world was crashing down. It was devastating. It was in those lows, those moments of feeling “not good enough” of not meeting my own very high standards that I learned a valuable lesson….

I am enough. Say this with me: “I am enough.”

You are enough just because you are you. Not because of achievements, not because of your social status or likes on social media. You are enough because you were created in the divine image and likeness.

I encourage you to remember that phrase “I am enough,” and then keep going.

Give yourself grace in the moments when you are struggling, when life is hard, and it feels like you aren’t enough. “Give yourself grace” means to treat yourself with kindness and forgiveness, especially when facing a tough challenge or after you made a mistake. Let yourself be imperfect. Accept who you are right now, stop any self-criticisms and let yourself feel your emotions.

Give yourself grace and keep going. I want to be clear that giving yourself grace does not mean giving up. It means accepting your imperfections & allowing yourself space to be an imperfect human being and then continuing to forge on the next day and be the beautiful, valuable, worthy person that you are. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I would have given up on myself after the heartbreaks I experienced in high school. Back then I could never have imagined the wonderful life I have today. There is more for you… give yourself grace, know that you are enough, and keep going.

Give yourself grace, know that you are enough, and keep going.

Thank you!