See, I'm fresh on the other side of my quarter life crisis.

Now, to be clear, the crisis is still here.

I just turned 26.

So you girl aged out.

I'm on the other side of that quarterlife side if you're not familiar.

1/4 life crisis is basically like a midlife crisis just 25 years early.

So you're still asking the same questions of who am I?

Am I using my time?

Well, what are the things that I really want to do in terms of family career, health, drinking, water, staying hydrated, all of those important things that we have to pay attention to and for millennials, this is actually a pretty big phenomenon.

According to the Center for Disease Control, one in three millennials have a diagnosed anxiety disorder.

And anxiety is one of the key elements of any kind of crisis.

It's proven math, I promise.

And for us, it's not just about figuring those things out, but we're doing so in a world that really human history has never seen before.

We have things such as the Internet, which is endless information.

We're living in some of the most innovative and prosperous times, according to the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, and also are still seeing persistent inequalities that seem like they haven't really moved much and centuries.

According to every credible climate scientist, If we don't change what we're doing by 2050 we will have irreparably damaged our world.

So there's a lot sick in there, right?

And when you're looking for purpose, which usually comes on the question of what do you want to do with your life?

That's a big challenge.

And I have a theory that for Millennials and for all people, we're probably a little scared.

So in the spirit of new friendships, it's timeto overshare.

We're going to dive into my quarter life crisis toe work through how I believe that following purpose has kind of kept us stuck.

And really, we should be focusing on wellness, and I believe that that will give us the answers we've been searching for.

So I've had the fortune of basically knowing my deepest fear since I was really little.

Some people call that precocious other people call that an undiagnosed anxiety disorder.

Tomato, tomato.

The first time I really recognized what was going on tonight, I always felt like something was there.

It was when I was in Trinidad with my family, visiting my other family.

My mom's from Turn it on tobacco, and I adored my grandmother.

She's incredibly creative.

So when she was getting up to do art projects like I'm there, you know?

So we're walking one morning to her killing to get her new ceramics, and I'm holding her hand and ice notice for the first time that her fingers were really wrinkly.

And the verdict green veins in her hand were popping out more than I was used to.

You and her fingers were also a little thin.

And it hits me that, you know she's older and she's not gonna be here forever, and I'm like her.

So I'll be older and I won't be here forever.

It's a little eight year old Me is like walking into an existential crisis, and I have to let that go pretty quickly because my fan had been like a limp fish and hers.

So she's like Cluny.

You don't love me anymore, thinking I don't want to hold her hand.

So I squeeze it really tight to prove to her that I love her and I get out of my existential crisis.

And I'm like, No, I'm here.

And that moment really shaped how I went through life going forward.

I told myself, Okay, I know I'm scared to not be here, so I'll love on my loved ones really hard.

I'll figure out how to be a very good person in the world, and I'll foul my purpose and dive deep into it.

So I'm doing this.

I'm on it.

I'm deep in school and I get to college.

I'm ready.

So I join all these kinds of clubs.

I don't just join them, but I volunteer myself to be a leader in them.

I'm an r A.

So I'm taking care of 30 women every year, Which one of the best things I had ever done.

And I'm in school honor student, and I'm doing all these things.

I'm like, great.

But something was feeling off like I didn't really feel like myself.

And so I thought, Oh, well, maybe I'm just busy.

That's the price of purpose, right?

Like you're just really busy.

You stress it's cool when you go to a liberal arts school.

So I'm like, Okay, I'm doing the thing.

This is great.

And but at the same time, I recognize, you know, I probably need a rest or what they call a vacation at some point, And that moment seemed to come for me in the summer of 2015.

So I had a mentor in school who are names Julia Hannah bring, and she was shepherding a grant with the National Institutes of Health.

And so we partnered together to bring that to Trinidad and Tobago and work with the University of West Indies, serving a project that served people with disabilities.

I'm like, Cool, I'm still in purpose.

But I get to go back to Trinidad, which is the first time I've been back since my grandmother had passed and I would get that kind of rest, and I was so ready.

Be back on the island to see my family there, And so I get there and going through the work, trying to make friends with my fellow researchers and doing all these things and whatever was going on with me was still there.

I thought, you know the ocean air, the island breeze, which is like, melt this away.

Look, maybe I shouldn't be here longer.

It's about halfway through.

We get invited to a harvest festival at a friend's Catholic church and I'm not Catholic, but my grandmother was.

So I'm thinking about her a lot on the drive over.

And, you know, I'm thinking about her and then all of a sudden, a curse me.

Oh, I don't know how to do the thing right.

And so I'm just like, okay?

And so I like I get in line and I'm like, watching everybody else do the same.

And when I get up to the priest, I just freak out.

So whatever I did was not it.

And I was like, Okay, so he's just gonna throw more holy water on me to cleanse this and like, we'll just move on.

But it really had me thinking through all of the rituals my grandmother did to be such a devout Catholic and to be so wonderfully steeped in her purpose and give good to the world.

So, to be honest with you, I have no idea what that sermon was about.

I was just sitting there thinking of my grandmother and thinking about purpose and the kind of feeling all this feeling was bubbling up right.

And I'm just unusually distracted looking at any and everything except the message.

So everybody breaks for lunch to celebrate with the feast.

I kind of sneak away a bit because I needed just some space to figure out what was going on and get my head right.

So that could be all smiley with people, right?

Like that's the thing.

So I go out and I look over at the edge of the mountain and I'm looking down to the south of the island trying to see if maybe I could see Princess Town.

I had no idea.

I was actually gonna know if I'd seen it on.

It's just way down there.

But looking at that large expands and also be in the mind state.

I was in, something felt different, and all of a sudden I felt like a freight train hit me in the chest, carry emotions that I didn't know before.

I felt like the whole world was trembling like I was being pulled apart.

I'm having a panic attack I never had one before, so this was crazy.

It felt like an earthquake in my body.

I'm looking around to see if everything else is also shaking.

And it's not so I'm just like freaking out.

I hate how I'm feeling and I can't stop it.

So I go back into the church, right?

I also don't want people to see me like, and I just get on my knees, I start praying and I'm crying and I don't know really what I'm saying.

I'm just like, this feels really intense.

And to be honest, I just want some help.

Please make it stop.

That moment was very serious for me to slow down.

When I got back to the States, I decide.

Okay, I'm gonna check out therapy.

And I was on r A.

So I always told my residence, You know, if you're feeling off, you should go see a counselor because it's so easy to tell somebody else to go see a counselor.

So I get there.

But I'm, like, prepping for, you know, and I'm someone who needs time to process.

So it's like, Ok, well, this therapist is really not gonna tell me anything I don't know about myself.

And so I'm gonna write down.

And I brought it for you because this is me being wild.

I wrote down everything I had gone through in my life, and I thought to myself a camera read her my checklist and she's just gonna tell me the things that I already know, which is I need to sleep more, drink water to care myself.

Rest.

And I thought, Okay, cool.

I'll get the therapist told me this.

So my friends say, Hey, let's go out.

I could be like, Oh, sorry, Mary, I gotta sleep.

You know, therapy is crazy.

So that's what I'm that's That's what I'm on.

Okay, so I walk in there, I got my little list and she's, you know, smiles at me, that kind of building trust, smile like Pete game, you know, And she's like, So how are you?

And I'm like, I'm great and she's like, Okay, so what brings you in today?

So I pull out my list.

Unlike sitting there, I'm Leah.

Susan here, all the things.

I go down the list and then I look at her at her trusting, inviting smile had turned into a look.

So how are you?

And I don't know what voodoo magic she pulled on me, but I start bull.

I mean, it is like Niagara Falls is falling from my face.

I am just like thorn apart.

And the truth is, that was the first time I had been honest out loud about what was going on.

So what I didn't share with you and it's because I have also not been showing you myself was that I was heartbroken the person my high school sweetheart I had been with for five years who I thought was gonna marry.

I broke up with him not too long before, because we didn't really know about ourselves outside of our relationship.

And he hadn't been there for me when I had a tumor in my breast for nine months, not knowing if I had cancer after the stock market crash in 2008 there's financial strain on my family and dealing with that as a younger kid.

That's a lot of the world to try to figure out.

I was also feeling anxious.

I had depression and I didn't know it.

There are also tons of things on this list, but we're not that close yet, so you don't get to know them.

But the gist of it is is that I was really not being honest with myself and pursuing all of these things outside of myself, thinking that if I pursued them hard enough, I could push my anxiety down and all of this fear.

I had all the challenges I had and they just take their bags and go packing right, like get out the paint.

You know, that's not how anxiety works.

That's not how life works.

And that's certainly not how death works, which is what I was scared.

So the next five years, what I really had to do was get back to the very basics I had to learn how to be healthy.

And what that looked like for me is I had to figure out what this health look like for me physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and socially, and make those things my number one priority, which is code for I had to make me my priority.

That's a wild thing to do when you're so used to dreaming everything external, to serving toe loving, to trying to push everything around the world to be peaceful.

But when you're avoiding yourself, that's not possible.

So I developed a wellness routine, and for me that looked like all those things I thought my therapist was gonna tell me.

Just sleep.

Drinkwater Exercise.

Take time for yourself.

Go to therapy.

It's important.

It will save your life.

And honestly, that was the basics for me.

And then on top of that, I had to figure out okay, what are the things that I need to nourish myself on?

One of those things is flowers.

Uh, my parents probably knew this when I was little.

They named me Chloe, which means blasphemy, which I think is kind of cool.

Um, but those are the kinds of things that you really get to know about yourself when you take a pars and look inward.

So on top of getting to the basics, getting to know myself, I started having moments where I felt peaceful inside, no matter what was going on.

And this brings us to 2019 the best and honestly hardest year of my life.

Thus far.

So is the best in the sense that the program I've been working on for the past three years got funded, which was great, and I now run that program.

I got named to a few professional list, including the Forbes 30 under 30.

While didn't see that coming, I also fell in love even while dorks.

I definitely didn't see that coming with an amazing partner.

And we got to travel all over the U.

S and Europe.

And honestly, it's the healthiest relationship I've ever been in.

On the other hand, it's also been the hardest of my life.

I had debilitating anxiety that really I would be in the bed for so long and feel like I couldn't move.

I lost loved ones and to gun violence.

I did not expect I had all of these still questions around.

How do we make change in the world?

How do we go through and make meaning out of our lives when they're so much pulling at us?

How do you rest?

And what I would say that I'm most proud of through all of it is that through every moment I was present, I was healthy.

I was myself, and I could confidently say that I thrived throughout all of what was challenging and wonderful At the same time that is called wellness.

It's being able to manage the internal and the external in a way that creates a harmony for yourself, to where you know you are still grounded and who you are.

You're at peace with all of what is in you and around you and figuring out Okay, what are my next best steps?

So let's go back out and look at the world for just another second.

Aside from all the apocalyptic fax I've told you in the beginning, they're also a lot of great things going on.

We have people who are promoting causes who are protesting in the streets, saying, We know we deserve more.

Look at Hong Kong.

Look at what's happening in India.

Look, it honestly was happening in the U.

S.

Every day.

We're trying to figure it out, and really, the reason I think we haven't figured out just how to do this together is because we've all been so wrapped up in what is our purpose.

Purpose has two options.

You can set a goal.

You could meet that goal, but then you're bored and you have to figure out new goals.

It's like this endless cycle right of chasing external things.

Or you could set a goal for yourself that is so far out that it's actually unattainable and peace and fulfillment always just beyond your reach.