In this third and final post on the creation of our Positive Mindset cards, I introduce you to my granddaughter Treya.
Treya is 17 years old. She's a sensitive, empathic soul. She's just started her senior year of high school. She has an older brother and a younger sister, so she's that middle child just like her mom.
Treya had a lot to share about these cards we created. She truly has her heart in the right place when it comes to helping others. She has experienced way more than I realized but working on this project with her has given us the chance to get to know each other even better.
Treya is a cousin to Brendin and Eleanor who were spotlighted in Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog series. You can read their posts here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.
I hope you enjoy getting to know Treya a little bit through her interview.
Treya’s Interview:
Me: What made you want to make these cards? What was your inspiration for it?
Treya: Um, the fact that I’ve have gone through a lot and I think hearing a lot of those things would have helped me, if it started off at a younger age. (talking about the positive phrases on the cards)
Me: Okay, that’s perfect. What has it been like for you growing up? You are 17 now so you have quite a few years behind you. (smile)
Treya: Um, I think worrying about what other people think, and letting it affect how you think about yourself. The hardest thing for me was like, being, wanting to be liked by people and wanting to fit in, even though it’s like, the only way you can do that is if you aren’t yourself. It was really hard to grow up without, you know, not being told that it’s ok to not be liked by everybody. And, more of the cards in there relate to what I’ve been through but I’d say that would be a big one for me, just because of the bullying in school. I think if I were to know that I don’t have to be liked and fit in, because I always thought that I had to, I had to make everyone be okay with me. If they are mad at me, I have to fix it. But it's like, I have to realize some people are going to be upset and they are going to have opinions on me that I can’t change and I might not have even done anything to make them feel that way. So… (the card she’s talking about says “Not everyone likes me and that’s okay” )
Me: So, you’ve answered my next question which was, which of the cards in the deck is your favorite and why. You already took care of that so what is your hope for these cards? What is your vision?
Treya: To start off kids on a good path, to like themselves. I think hearing things like that at a younger age instead of an older age before you have opinions on things like actual opinions on things. You grow up to know you have to decide yourself what’s right from wrong. Like being a kid and pointed in the right path with mental health and stuff is like a bigger thing. Cuz I feel like it’s more so you point kids in the right path when it comes to drugs and like things like that. I think the bigger part of it, the reason kids do stuff like that is because of their mental health. So starting off with mental health at a younger age and focusing on it is really important.
Me: Yep, I agree. You may have answered this already, but there may be another twist to it. What was your biggest struggle as a teenager?
Treya: Hum, I would just say, loving myself. That would be it. Loving myself and realizing I don’t need to have validation from other people to feel good.
Me: Okay, so how was your experience creating these cards? How did it make you feel? What was it like for you?
Treya: I mean, I’m really passionate about mental health and I would really like to be a therapist and change the world because I think I could. And I feel like um, thinking about some other tarot cards I’ve seen before, a lot of them are the same so to come up with some of my own was way cooler.
Me: Yeah! Do you have any vision of some other kind of product or process?
Treya: Um, I don’t know
Me: Well you think about that. We may need to create something else in the future too.
Treya: Yeah.
Me: So we have these cards for pre-teens and teens and we have enough sayings collected already to make another deck if we choose to. The cards for the Littles have been ordered and should be shipped any day. We can use our imagination to figure out what else we can do. You just think about it. So my next question, what did you learn from this process; working with Brendin and Eleanor and having them actually be printed and able to be purchased now?
Treya: It was kind of crazy to actually hear Eleanor and Brendin come up with opinions on what they think, because it just shows that everyone goes through things and everyone goes through something different. It shows what you struggle with in that generation, you know, like Eleanor’s generation, I never expected her to be like, have a hard time like that until Brendin told me. I felt really bad, but um, yeah, it was good to hear just what they go through cuz I’m nothing like them and it’s like, I hang out with different people that Brendin would and stuff like that so it shows a lot.
Me: Right, and you’re all different age groups. Brendin is in college; you are in high school and Eleanor is in grade school. It was a great combination of input to put together.
Treya: I agree.
Me: Do you have any last words you want to share with my readers or to parents and grandparents?
Treya: Well I think that altering your negative thoughts into positive thoughts right when they come is a, is like, important. I’d say pay attention to your kids mental health and um, I think that paying attention at a younger age is obviously going to fix this. I just wish that I had therapy and I had all that at a younger age and I had someone to talk to before things got worse and I held more and more in. I have more trauma now than I would have had if I had help when I was younger. I would say don’t give your kids trauma (and she giggles). Just focus on your kids mental health. There are mean kids in school too, so, that’s where it usually starts.
Me: Thank you Treya for taking time out of your summer fun to share with me and my readers. We appreciate your input.
Do you believe in Divine Intervention or Divine Inspiration?
Well, that's where I believe the idea for the Positive Mindset cards for pre-teens/teens and the Little's cards for ages 3 and up came from. I woke up one morning with the idea, asked the grandkids who wanted to help me and just like that, we have two decks of Positive Mindset cards for children and teens.
If you'd like to order a deck or get more information on them, you can go here.
Comments