Jong Yoon opened the seminar with a very raw biography of himself. Instead of showing his ethos or success, he gave brief descriptions of his life-time struggles with depression, anxiety and body image disorders as a way to open the seminar with “real talk.” This “real talk” centered around the two main topics that taught us to “un-love ourselves,” mental disorders and sin.

Among mental disorders, anxiety, depression, body image disorders and suicide are the number two cause of death for college students in America. It is not only society, media or friends that teaches us to un-love ourselves, but even the Church does so, using phrases like, “Women, cover your bodies because that causes men to lust.” Phrases like this engrave into women that their bodies are something to be ashamed of and something you should hide. Yoon provided plenty of research and statistics on mental disorders, including that two to three suicides happen every day in America, one person dies every 62 minutes from an eating disorder and 75 percent of people who suffer with anxiety experienced it for the first time before 22 years old.

Although mental disorders play a huge part in not loving yourself, sin also does. You learn to un-love yourself when you decide to hide and abide in guilt and shame instead of God’s love and grace. And Yoon said, “Sin nature has taught us from a very, very young age to hide our badness.” It is when we decide to ignore our sin, weaknesses and struggles that we provide Satan with a platform to speak lies over our life.

Yoon closed this session with the message that “God is not bothered by your persistence, keep asking for help,” we were created to be loved and we all deserve help because “you are cute, you are smart and you are beautiful.”