The End is in Sight

Tyler and his wife, Anna.

To the best student leadership ever!!

My name is Tyler Ladig and I graduated May of 2014 after the best five years of my life (so far.) Student Leaders have to be the craziest people I have ever met, but are quite possibly the greatest people I have ever had the pleasure to know. I pray that God will allow your eyes to see the blessings each of your “co-workers” truly are.

Today, I find myself at the end of the busiest time of my life (so far.) Long hours, long commutes, and a never ending pile of work. The first 4 months of the year are what the people in my profession of public accounting not so cleverly call “Busy Season.” It means leaving work only to go home to work some more. It means constantly looking ahead for the light at the end of the tunnel, which by the way moves at an astonishingly slow speed; yet when looking back over the past year I wonder how I am already 5 months into 2015.

I had these same feelings as a student leader. The feeling that there will be an “end” to the stress, frustrations, school projects, finals, and overbearing student leadership demands. This end was appropriately named Graduation, and I unwittingly believed that I would graduate from all the stress and frustrations I felt.

God has this funny way of teaching us lessons we never signed up for. For me that lesson has been that there is never an end to our work. The stress of life will always be there.  It just changes it’s medium. I traded homework for deadlines and overbearing residents with overbearing clients.  Amazingly God never stopped loving me when I was ungrateful.  He did not withhold his blessings even though I am undeserving.  And He never denied me grace when I miss-handled the blessings he gave.

The stress I feel today reminds me of how blessed I truly am. I have a job, a loving wife, a crazy dog, a beautiful family, lifetime friends, and a forgiven soul. I pray that God will open your eyes to see all the blessings before you instead of becoming obsessed with having the green grass on the other side of the fence, like I did. 

SLT, 2013-2014

Romans 5:3-5: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Tyler Ladig
Apartment RA, 2012-2013
SLT Intern, 2013-2014

Breaking the Cliché of Self-Care

Student Leaders! WADDUP!

I’m Chelly Neuenschwander, and I graduated last May with a double major in psychology and business administration. I’m now working on my master’s in clinical mental health counseling at Ball State, and I also teach the baby undergrads here for the mandatory Introduction to Public Communication course. I want to share with you the most important part of life I’ve learned this year: do more self-care.



First, let’s define what self-care is. Self-care is the active participation in improving the quality of one’s health. You need to do this every day. Trust me, actively trying to improve your health on a daily basis can lead to greater job satisfaction, higher psychological well-being, preventing burnout, work-life balance…etc., I can send you the plethora of research articles to support why you need this. You need to be replenished for your own health, your professional endeavors, and your personal relationships. 

Jesus wants you do more self-care too. Your capacity to enjoy life and have good health is a gift from God. You are lovely, worthy, important, valuable, and deserve His love—as much as that doesn’t make sense. God sings with joy because you are His Beloved! And, He wants you to focus on yourself sometimes. “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2). Even if it seems selfish, you have to take care of yourself. You can’t give of yourself to others when there’s nothing left to give.

Martin Hall Staff, 2012-2013

At this point, maybe you’re thinking, Yes, I do need more self-care. But, I don’t have time in my schedule for this. And I’m calling bull on that. The more you have on your plate, the more you need time for self-care. I worked three campus jobs my last two years at AU, and all parts of my life suffered in those times I didn’t do self-care. So, I get you. You’re busy. You’re flat out exhausted. And you DEFINITELY don’t have time to add one more thing to your plate…but you have to add this. You can’t serve others well unless you have a full tank yourself. My self-care usually revolves in setting aside time with the Lord with no distractions or having life-giving conversations with friends. Maybe you just need to read a book, or exercise, or just be still. You do you, in whatever way you want to improve the quality of your health each day.

Another way student leaders may add stress to their lives is “should”ing on themselves, where they worry about the “to do” along with the “not to do” in their actions and what should have been done. This correlates with ineffective self-care since wishful thinking reduces problem-solving abilities, and self-blame perpetuates distress and restricts adaptive resources (Norcross, 2000). “Should”ing on yourself likely takes away from your other mental tasks and increases your cognitive busyness. Other people don’t see those things you “should” be doing, so, give yourself grace. You are enough. “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness’” (2 Corinthians 1:9).

TaFaSo (Apartment RAs), 2013-2014

God sees the good work you do, and that’s all that matters. Keeping doing it. And do more self-care.

As you go with God, give yourself rest, and rest in Him. As it is well with your soul, make it well with your health.

~Chelly Neuenschwander

Peer Mentor, 2011-2012
Martin Hall RA, 2012-2013
Fair Commons RA, 2013-2014
Mocha Joe’s Barista 2011-2014
Psychology Assistant 2012-2014

Failure --> Success

Anderson is a wonderful place full of memories for me. Each time I visit Anderson it feels like I am entering sacred ground. I have found that while my successes at Anderson were valuable and exciting, I feel that I learned more from my many failures. 

Dunn Hall Staff, 2011-2012

Failure is a word, which causes many people to cringe. This can be interpreted in many different ways and be used in many different contexts. I failed to realize my mistake. I failed the test. Some may even say that someone is a failure. 

Let me pose a question.

Why can’t failure be seen as but a step toward success?

Each time we fail we have found one more way that doesn’t work. Learning from the failure we then try again with a more informed mindset.

It’s like playing battleship, each time you miss you become one step closer to finding your target.

Anderson is a great place to learn from failure. The staff and friendships at AU are a unique source of strength that can help pick you up if you struggle. Don’t waste such a great opportunity!

Explore! Adventure! Serve! Love! Live a life full of failures and successes.

Don’t let failure slow you down. Instead, in determination, we should continue forth encouraged that success is only one mistake away.

Failure is inevitable. Success is a result of determination. 

Justin with one of his students.

 “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take." – Wayne Gretsky – Michael Scott – Justin Turpen

 

Justin Turpen

Dunn Hall RA, 2011-2013

Boosters Production Officer, 2012-2013

Boosters Chaplain, 2013-2014

SGA Secretary of Communication, 2013-2014