In the fall of 2013 I started an intensive graduate school program to get a degree in Integral Counseling Psychology. My first year in the program gave me a solid foundation in the basics of psychological counseling. At the same time, it allowed me to delve deep into my own soul, cracking open my own misperceptions of myself and offering me the opportunity to recreate my personal narrative into a story better suited to my current self. This book is a collection of my academic essays, creative writing, journal entries and thoughts from the first year of that program. It is part-memoir, sharing my journey as a growth-in-process. It is part academic, introducing the basics of psychological theory through my own writings about what I read. And it is part just a human story, the story of what we are all going through and how confusing and inspiring that journey is.