Throughout a person’s lifetime, both positive and negative events help shape the way they come to define themselves. This was the message broadcast to those in attendance of the LGBTQA Pride Center’s event, “What Makes You, You?”

The event held on Dec. 2, encouraged self-acceptance, understanding, and reflection on one’s past experiences. Through an arts and crafts activity, students were encouraged to practice self-affirmation theory through self exploration.

At the beginning of the event, a presentation on self-affirmation theory was given by student leaders of the Pride Center. The theory, developed by psychiatrists within the last twenty years, asserts that the way a person responds to both the positive and negative events in their life will ultimately affect their resilience in the future. Students were taught ways to practice self-affirmations, such as positive thinking and developing a healthy mentality toward oneself.

After a brief presentation, students were given a moment to reflect on past experiences that were significant to the development of their identities. While some students offered to share both positive and negative experiences, others chose to depict their experiences through the craft project, the center of the event.

The craft project included coloring on T-shirts provided by the Pride Center.

The event wrapped up with students sharing the art they had created on their T-shirts. The front side of the shirts represented a positive experience in the students’ lives and the back of the T-shirt depicted a negative experience. Then students were asked to share how these events impacted their lives and how they could cope with similar threats or stresses in the future.

As the event came to a close, students continued to share positive experiences in their lives and wished each other good luck for the end of the semester.