Students were welcomed back to campus a week early the morning of Jan. 13 with a breakfast buffet and an interactive workshop hosted by Marianna Sousa, former City College student and author of the workbook, “Own Your Shit.” 

Sousa, who served as Student Senate president and graduated in December 2018, is now an author, nontraditional educator and multimedia journalist. She returned to City College to share her knowledge of healing through her own experiences to help others do the same.

“Our power through our experience alone is intelligence. Our emotional intelligence is a power itself,” Sousa said in an interview following the workshop. “You bring those experiences and that emotional intelligence with you. I’m just here to share my experience to help people navigate.”

The workshop was hosted by EOPS, Extended Opportunities Programs and Services, which is a support program for educationally and economically disadvantaged students, and CARE, Cooperative Agencies Resource for Education, a program that supports EOPS single parents. The room was full with about 30 students from different backgrounds of life.

“It’s important to self-heal, but it also takes a community. I think there needs to be a balance of that. The initiative needs to come from thyself, but the community needs to understand the importance of connectivity,” said Sousa. “I think that’s what’s so great about EOPS, about CARE, and organizations that exist on campus that really need to continue to get the support and funding, because so many people fall through the cracks.”

Sandra Ruedas was one of the City College counselors to attend the event who provides support for EOPS students.

“[The workshop] is to help provide motivation, to help [students] learn more about themselves, help them to just be ready for the semester emotionally as well as getting their books and stuff together,” Ruedas said.

Sousa started the interactive workshop by going around and greeting everyone with a smile. She started by sharing her own trauma with issues such as abandonment and domestic violence, then explained her journey through healing. Though the conversation revolved around trauma, Sousa approached it warmly and with humor, and students responded with their own experiences. 

“I was successful to a point, and I was like, ‘Dang, if I can be this successful with the trauma affecting me, what could I possibly be doing if I can unearth some of these issues?’” said Sousa. “All these different things that I had either experienced through conflicts, traumas, directly against me or to me or my mother; they were weighing me down. They came up in my attitude; they came up in how I would react to certain situations.”

Sousa explained that she would see her past traumas manifesting in her present life, and she knew she needed to change.

“It was carrying over to brand new experiences, and I just got sick of my own self,” said Sousa. “We can be sick and tired of the world and everybody else, but I got sick of feeling exhausted from not knowing how to navigate through challenges because they may of connected or triggered other issues.” 

Sousa asked students in attendance to share their own feelings of brokenness and the trauma that has affected them. Sousa compiled a list of trauma students shared, writing them on a white board in the front: depression, domestic violence, molestation, anxiety, death and other types of trauma.

Students then were invited to the front of the room and asked to find their “Trauma Tribes” and encouraged to find someone who had gone through a similar experience. At first, students seemed uncomfortable with the idea, but they quickly rose to the challenge, separating into smaller groups. Some people hugged, others cried, all students supported one another.

“There’s a lot of pain. As I looked around the room, I just seen everybody is in pain. I know I’m a full-time student, and I’m a mom, too,” said participant Valerie Franklin, a cosmetology student. “I know what I’m dealing with in my brain, and I’m walking around the room and seeing everyone else is dealing with it, and school is about to start—we need an outlet.” 

Franklin said during the workshop she connected with a group of people who’d dealt with similar experiences, and she hopes to organize a time when they can meet and continue to heal and support each other. 

“We all need to be able to have that one day, if it’s every week or once a month or whatever it is, that we can just sit, talk, and just let it out,” Franklin said.” So we can try to start healing and helping each other so we know that hey, I’m not by myself in this. There are other people out here that are dealing with some of the same stuff I’m dealing with, and we can talk and try and work through and come through with different plans and actions to help each other try to get through, like the stuff we were doing today.”

Sousa gave all the participants a copy of her workbook to aid in the continuation of their healing process.

“A healthier person is a healthier everything. So if you’re saying you want to be a student, if you’re healthy and more validated and whole and at ease, mentally, emotionally, and physically as a human, you’re going to be a more effective student, a more effective educator, a more effective parent—whatever it is,” said Sousa. 

“I think that’s part of the quest to coming to Earth. You come with so many challenges, and then you come with so many gifts. If we’re sharing our gifts amongst each other, those gifts will eventually help us to heal ourselves and heal each other, too.”