What Triggers a Change in Us?

By Ivette Villa, Former Fellow

My brain is split in two hemispheres: right and left.  My hemispheres are split into four lobes: frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital.  I have a brainstem and motor functions.  I have one billion neurons giving information to dendrite fibers that pass this information to my axial fibers, which then release neurotransmitters building up a communication of 1,000 trillion synaptic connections.  The world that lives in my head is limited by my skull; I am trapped by bone and large surface areas.  The actual mechanics of my brain could not be more beautiful, or more complex.  Except, I have not taken full advantage of my brain.  I have not pushed my brain to its fullest potential; I did not feel like I had a sense of purpose, especially going into college.  Yes, I had many dreams stuck within the mesh inside my head.  But how could I get them out?  If there could be an apparatus with the capability to reach into my brain and take a figment of my imagination out and transform it into something tangible, that would be great.  However, we live in a complicated world where dreams are not plucked and made palpable.  You have to force them into being, all while suffering a pinch of failure.

There are certain points in our lives where we encounter people, programs, or events that trigger a change in us.  The trigger might be through an inspiration or a lesson.  For me, however, my most significant trigger for change has been LAW SCHOOL … Sí Se Puede (LSSSP) and the relationships I have cultivated with my mentors.

While some of this change might be attributed to the incredible transitions I have experienced in going away for college for the first time in my life, I do know that being a part of this program gives me sense of support and an advantage that I have rarely felt.  It gives me hope that my dreams are not merely stuck inside my brain, waiting to be pulled out, but that there really is an apparatus in the form of this community to transfer my dreams from a figment to a reality.  LSSSP is the apparatus handing me hope, and tools, and leaps of faith when I most need it.

Whether I am attending the workshops, listening to my peers, or talking to my mentors, I prefer to stay silent as I observe everything that surrounds me.  I take in as much as I can because it is in those brief moments where I feel an internal shock run from my brain, to my heart, and finally to my hands.  Some might say that feeling engaged and motivated has everything to do with mental means; however, I know that motivation can be felt through physical means.  One would think it would be a chemical laboratory with secret potions and deadly flasks where my dreams go wild.  And not wild in the same way they are crazy but wild in the way they are free to go everywhere without causing any harm.  LSSSP and my mentors do exactly that; they give me the freedom to make the dreams in my brain go wild which, in turn, allows me to transform them from mere thoughts into reality.  With the support of LSSSP and mentors, being motivated no longer lingers just in my brain but it has become part of an everyday ambition to make everything tangible. My brain is not solely made up of neurons; it is made up of working neurons whose limit is no longer a skull.