Hello and welcome

I'm Alejandro, and I'm a recent graduate of Tulane University, with a degree in finance and real estate. Meditation has been part of my life for years, and it started well before college. Here's how it began.

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I started meditating regularly in March of 2020, when we went into lockdown for COVID-19. Around that time, a lot of feelings I had been pushing down started to surface, and I realized how out of sorts I had been for the previous few years. So I began looking for guidance on how to live a happier life. My English teacher had introduced our class to meditation earlier that year, so I decided to research it more. I had been skeptical before, thinking meditation was something weird that monks did. But after reading about the science behind it, I was intrigued and wanted to explore it more deeply.
 

The first few weeks were hard. I couldn't concentrate, and I got discouraged easily. But I stuck with it, and eventually I could meditate for more than 20 minutes at a time. Whenever my mind wandered, I had to learn to bring my attention back to my breathing. That took patience and persistence, but it paid off. I slowly felt a shift in how I reacted to everyday things, and I started to feel more at peace. Now when something doesn't go my way, I can let it go instead of getting angry or frustrated. I keep refining my practice, and I feel more at ease every day.

I started this website as part of my project for the Jared's Fund Youth Fellowship. Jared's Fund began in 2016 after the death of Jared Zimmerman, who tragically passed away at the age of 20 as a result of his mental illness. To honor Jared's life, his family started the Fund to "reduce stigma about mental illness, to create spaces where we can support our own, and to encourage research, conversation, advocacy, and art that creates space for silenced individuals, both those we know and those we don't." I was honored to be chosen for the fellowship, which provides paid fellowships to current Montclair High School students or recent alumni to work with a mental health-related nonprofit or to take on a project of their own choosing.
 

When I heard about the Jared's Fund Youth Fellowship, a project based on my interest in meditation felt like a good fit. Kids my age are under a lot of pressure, and many of them don't know how to handle stress. From my own experience, I know how that stress can build up and get in the way of living a happy, fulfilling life. Meditation is a gift I wanted to share with other students to help improve their quality of life, and the fellowship gave me the chance to do that.
 

I was fortunate to partner with an organization called Mindful Awareness Academy for Children, which works to support children of color academically, emotionally, and socially. With help and guidance from my mentor, Andrea Smith-Morgan, I organized mindfulness meetups in parks around my town during the summer of 2021. Below is a photo from one of our meetups, along with one of the graphics we made to promote them. The experience deepened my connection to my community and to others working on mental health and well-being.

A lot has changed since then. I went on to Tulane, and meditation came with me. It helped me through the busier, more stressful stretches of college, and I still practice today. What started as a way to get through a hard time has become a steady part of my life. I'm keeping this site up because the practice made a real difference for me, and I hope it can do the same for you.