Meet Rosa from Puerto Rico

She was 34 years old when she and her three children moved from Puerto Rico to Utica, New York. She retired from law enforcement after serving as a police officer for fifteen years. Her primary concern when she moved off the island was the transition from island life to upstate New York life; especially for her school-aged children. She said she was pleasantly surprised by how quickly they adapted to their new environment and school. She believes that children are resilient, versatile, and incredibly adaptable; maybe even more so than adults. When she was 40 years old, she went back to college and got her masters degree in clinical psychology and became a therapist. She said, “The hardest part of the journey of our lives is truly understanding who we are. To be able to find your authentic self, you have to be ready honest with yourself and look at who you are as an individual on so many different levels. For instance, who are you as a child to your parents? Who are you as a husband or a wife or someone who is living a single life? Who are you when it comes to your work ethics? You truly have to look at all of it honestly and call yourself out on everything- the good and the bad. You have to be able to wrestle with all of those things so you can decide if you are living life to its fullest potential. There is no written manual on how to be you. When my children were growing up, I held it together all the time. I never let them know that there were times that I struggled. Today with my children, I am verbal about those experiences for their own good. I don’t want them to believe that they have to hold it all together all the time. I want them to understand emotional intelligence and that life isn’t always pretty. Sometimes things are messy and hard. It’s okay to struggle and it’s okay to ask for help. If there was one thing, I could’ve told my younger self it would have been to be fearless in everything that you do. You are a bundle of your experiences. It takes courage to make your own choices and to hold yourself accountable for those choices.” The one thing she wants to tell the world is, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” Thank you for visiting!