Students learned how to teach themselves self love and self motivation at the Love Your Reflection event on Wednesday at the Smith and Carlos Lawn.
The event was hosted by the César E. Chávez Community Action Center, the event focused on two workshops dedicated to helping students discover self-love and improving students' overall relationship with themselves.
The César E. Chávez Community Action Center (CCCAC) is a group that connects students at SJSU to civic engagement and educational experience within creating community service projects.
Political science junior Ange Grate, who runs events and operations for the César E. Chávez Community Action Center, said her influence and inspiration for putting on the Love Your Reflection event was that October is the month of Eczema Awareness Month.
According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation in America website, Around 16.5 million adults and 8 million children in the U.S. have eczema, and October is National Eczema Awareness month.
Grate said that she had dealt with her own severe symptoms of eczema, she said the condition has put her in the position to learn to love and appreciate herself. She said she wanted to share that journey to self-reflection with the San José State community for students.
“I was really inspired by Eczema Awareness Month so I wanted to hold a workshop surrounding body empowerment,” Grate said. “We also are passing out some resource cards to give more research to students surrounding body positivity and mental illness.”
Grate said that the Love Your Reflection event was centered around body positivity and creating a positive outlook of oneself’s self image for the community within San José State’s students and organizations.
The event began with a journaling workshop, where leaders read prompts that asked questions surrounding the students’ experiences with self love and growth over the past years.
Sociology senior Jisel Mozo said her friend sent her a flyer for the event on Instagram, and that it looked exciting so she knew they both had to go.
“I don’t really go to events that much at school, because I feel like I’m shy, but this event was encouraging and makes me want to go to more events,” Mozo said. “I’ve been trying to get into journaling so I like these small entries for inspiration for what to write about.”
The second part of the event was a painting workshop with event organizers reading prompts to have the students focus on words and symbols to paint on mirrors provided by the César E. Chávez Community Action Center, to remind them of positive thoughts.
Software engineering graduate Pravin Ramasamy Balachandra said that he’s been to many César E. Chávez Community Action Center events before, and has enjoyed the thoughtfulness behind each of them.
Ramasamy Balachandra said that he really appreciated the event and the message surrounding it. He said this event in particular stands out in different ways from other community-led events on campus.
“They make us think about ourselves and reflect about the good parts about ourselves,” Ramasamy Balachandra said. “I like how I spent just a couple of minutes today thinking just of myself, and all the good things about me and what I should be proud of.”
Ramasamy Balachandra said that he looks forward to the César E. Chávez Community Action Center’s next event and what they have in store for the San José State community and students.
Students walked away from the Love Your Reflection event with a personal journal filled with reflections of their own self-love positivity journeys and with a handheld mirror painted and customized by them to remind themselves of their confidence.
