What’s Love Got to Do with It?

The life and work of student life professionals provide the glue in the academy. Being attentive to students’ health, well-being, success, and leadership development is what we do. It is what keeps the heart of our institutions beating. While dedication to this field requires passion, it can also run us dry. Love for the profession and love for oneself are essential to be whole, resilient professionals and human beings. Professional development includes personal development. This article is both a scholarly personal narrative and a call to action. It weaves the voices of a young professional and her mentor through their own journeys of discovery with research in the importance of heart in higher education. This article offers insight about the need to integrate the essential inner work of self-love into our profession

Finding My Way to Me: Coming Out and Becoming Enough

For years, I have been on a journey of self-discovery. I have a history of self-deprecation, as well as a lack of believing in being worthy of being truly loved. I have suffered, and I have triumphed on this journey. Brown’s (2010) TEDTalk surrounding shame and vulnerability spoke directly to my heart. This essay will contain those who have words that help me heal. It will focus on how I have or have not made strides to create my own meaning. The content will come from my core. It will encompass the transition and rollercoaster that is my journey to becoming “enough.” I will focus on my background, the story of my mother and I, discovering the possibility of being “enough”, and where I am today. Examining these components and briefly considering theories by Ruthellen Josselson will illuminate who I am and why I am. I say all of this to illuminate the drive behind this scholarly personal narrative. This is my truth