07/18/2025
Atleo, Alexandria
Graduated with: Bachelor's of Art, Major in Applied Psychology
Institution: Douglas College
Alexandria's msg to future PS students:
"Hello to all of Ahousaht's current and future post-secondary students!
It's been a long journey! I began taking courses back in 2013.
It's 2025 now, and yes, there was a long break in between.
I didn't know what I wanted to do yet. I didn't have enough life experience yet to figure out what spoke to me. I achieved my Associate's Degree back in 2016, and then I began working. I tried security, thinking maybe I wanted a job working with people. I tried fraud analysis, thinking maybe I wanted a job working with numbers, data, and intelligence. I was about to try to get into a trade program in 2019, thinking maybe I want to work with my hands...
I was involved in a major motorcycle accident in 2019, and I had to learn how to walk again. I broke many bones, but never my spirit, and six years later I am thirty years old and beginning a new transition into a Master's degree. I returned to school in 2022 and new doors began to open up for me. I may not have the same physical prowess I did when I was a little bit younger, but my mental power and energy is by far superior than it ever was. Slightly wiser, slightly more experienced, and definitely more motivated by my dreams and goals.
In the last six years I have learned that healing requires a lot of vulnerability. When I couldn't walk, I had to ask for help. When I wanted to give up on my daily physio workouts and stretching, I had friends and family encourage me. When I got bored sitting at home and wanted to do things, friends and family let me come along, listened to my troubles, and also shared in my joys and found many reasons to laugh together.
Rehabilitation is hard work. It's good work. It's going the right way.
My Honour's research was on the concept of redemption. Transforming your life and going the right way. I spent eight months creating and evaluating a psychological tool meant to measure the amount of 'redemption' in people's lives. The process was more important than the outcome for a Bachelor's degree research project, but I learned so much in those eight months about myself and what is out there in terms of careers, research projects, and community groups and events. I also learned a lot about believing in change. Rehabilitation and redemption are long-term processes of change that require consistent action. There are always relapses along the way, there are always temptations. It is easy to become a victim. It is easy to give up. It is easy to blame external things and forget to harness and cultivate that inner strength.
Spirit strength.
I turned to my grandparents many times throughout this process for their stories on healing. I began reading books and articles (and even watching Youtube videos), both fact and fictional, on Ahousaht and Nuuchahnulth traditions and culture- including other tribes up the Island and the Coast. I rooted myself in culture wherever I could, including learning little ceremonies that could help cleanse my spirit when it was restless, overwhelmed, overworked, burntout...
Everyone requires different support because we are all different.
My advice to people on their post-secondary journey, is to learn about yourself. What makes you feel strong? What makes you feel helpless? What makes you feel connected? What makes you feel like you are going the right way?
Meditate often. I sit or stand in a cold shower and breathe and let my thoughts wander. It's as close to the ocean as I can get from the city sometimes. I will sometimes walk to nearby streams and put my feet in them and sit and watch the animals and the bugs. I also spend time with children and the elderly. My grandfather always told me that they are some of the best teachers. Children teach you new ways to see the world just as much as elders do.
Don't just learn from books. Learn about your own spirit and your own self. You can combine the two to make powerful waves in this world.
Never think you know everything. My grandfather always says that our ancestors used to say, "I don't know", and leave it at that. Be curious. Someone always knows more than you and you can learn from them. We don't have to know everything. That's why we share knowledge with each other and lean on each other. Collaborate with others. Sharing is powerful.
Expect that you will always be learning about yourself. There will always be phases in your life where you get that "ah-ha" moment, "ohhhh, so that's what that was!" There will even be times where the learning is slow and quiet and things just begin to make sense, no dramatic moment to mark the change.
Learn about who you are. Find yourself beneath all of the pain, the noise, the distractions. Can you sit alone by a stream for half an hour in silence and be with nature? Be with your thoughts? Can you find a part of yourself that you are proud of, even if there are parts you are ashamed of? This is being human. Find who you are is my best advice because you will be able to bring value to your own life and the lives around you. When you know who you are, you will move in the right direction, and you will connect with people and engage with the world in a good way.
Good luck on everyone's journey, and I don't believe in failure these days. Every mistake is a learning opportunity. Every failed course, failed exam, failed friendship, failed relationship- it has become an opportunity to ask myself, am I going the right way?
(And I have failed multiple exams, by the way! I just worked harder to study the next sections, walking around my kitchen teaching stuffed animals as if I was a professor, until I knew the topic so well I could teach it to anyone who listened. Now I am a professional tutor for the subjects I thought I was the worst in, including statistics, and I am beginning my own professional Executive Function coaching business in August (to teach skills like organization, planning, self-confidence, and time management so people can feel in control of their lives, their work, and their school). If you are afraid of something, that's when you have to face it. No one else in the world can make you do anything (although you are always allowed to ask for help and guidance!). But in this life, you have to choose the good way and the right way.)"
Congrats Alexandria. Regardless of how long this road may have seemed at times, you have come out on top. Despite your hardship and difficulties, you manages to shine.
Alexandria is also the successful recipient of ʕaaḥuusʔatḥ Bachelor's Scholarship. She has also applied to SFU to further her studies and earn a master degree. We look forward to all the future has to offer you. Congrats again Alexandria.
