Wonder Day 6.11.15

I discovered that I can feel both sad and happy at the same time. When I'm sad leaving the friends I made while studying in Italy, I'll also remember all the fun times I had with them. - university student

Wonder Day 5.29.15

I started to believe in angels--that they are around, protect me, and help me if I ask. -university student

Wonder Day 5.20.15

Be in control of my future. Since it's mine, and I'm the one living my life, I want to be able to choose what happens in it. But if I put it that way, it sounds too easy. It's not always easy especially if you lack energy or direction or both. - university student

Wonder Day 5.18.15

Sometimes I'm nervous around people. A positive change I'm making is I will smile at the people I'm with even if I don't know what to say.  - university student

Wonder Day 5.7.15

Growing up, and being part of school and programs, travels, events, all on my own, I have found myself thinking a lot about what characteristics of my personality I value and what I would like to change. Further more, I have found myself noticing characteristics I have formed that mirror that of my parents--their influence on me, and what has stayed with me in comparison to what I have formed on my own from my own experiences away from home.

In all my thought process, I have realized I have several personality traits I have inherited from my father that I would more than anything like to change. My father comes from a very religious, conservative, traditional, and controlling family. And his tough upbringing has taken a toll on who he is as a person. Granted he has strayed drastically from the way his family is and considering he was physically and verbally abused and controlled as a child, he has done a lot of self work to be a much more kind and respectful and respectable man. However, he still took his influence and brought me up with his background taking an effect. While I was not physically abused, I was definitely emotionally and verbally abused, and I have been witness to my father's odd mood swings, bursts of anger, and his desperate need to control others. My parent's divorce also made it so that when I lived with my dad, I had only his influence, in a household.

A positive change I would truly like to make would be to work to erase or better my qualities that I have gotten from or learned from my father. I see my mother's shy, gentle nature in myself, but I also see my need or want to control others around me and my inexcusable anger that flares up in reaction to mild things, anger I often have no way to explain. Occasionally I lash out or snap at people or seem off standish with no explanation and then instantly regret it.

I would like to find peace with this part of me that reminds me so much of my father and improve it in order to become a more sympathetic, empathetic, kind, and understanding/accepting human being.  -university student