A year after Glee star Naya Rivera's sudden death, her sister, Nikla, is speaking out about breaking out of a "dark place" and rediscovering herself after a loss.
On Monday, Nikayala Rivera uploaded a video to her YouTube channel, titled "Allow me to reintroduce myself."
She was active on the platform earlier, but stopped posting videos for the past four years.
In a nearly 10-minute video, Nayakala elaborates on her upbringing and her involvement in the modeling world at an early age.
As she talked about her childhood and chasing her dreams, clips of her playing as a child with her lae older sister appeared.
'A dark place'
She opened up about how comparing herself to other models undermined her confidence and affected her mentally to the extent that she was in a "dark spot".
However, she felt that 2020 would be a year to bounce back by taking more modeling shoots and risks.
"Then five months later, COVID hit," she recalled.
"I got to spend a lot of time with my family, which I didn't have before because I was always traveling and I was always working."
“But then five months later my family and I had a tragic loss in July of 2020.
“My sister, Naya, passed away.
"And when it happened, I was in complete shock. My whole family was in complete shock."
She said the experience felt like "someone pulled the rug out from under us and we didn't see it coming."
"The dark place I was in before only moved on when it happened," she shared.
“At that time, I had no idea about my future. I really had no idea about myself.
"I was just experiencing pain."
She said that she realized that after losing her sister her pain would not go away until she "decided to find the good in this world."
"So, from then on, I went on this journey of finding out who I was," she said.
He started making some adjustments in his life.
The first change she made was to quit vaping, a habit she picked up because of her stressful experience in New York City.
"And it was really hard to quit, but when I did, I felt so empowered," she explained.
"I thought I could do anything after that."
Nikayala made some other changes such as going to therapy, journaling about her feelings, being mindful and coping with the hurtful experiences from the past that she was still holding.
She ended the video with an encouraging message, saying, "They say we only have one life, so live it."
"But, I think we only have one day," she said.
"We only have this one moment. The next moment is not promised.
"So, live this moment as if you're still living."
On July 13, 2020, the Ventura County Sheriff's Office in California confirmed that Naya Rivera's body was found after a day's search at Piru Lake.
She was 33 years old.
The actor went missing weeks ago after renting a pontoon boat with his then four-year-old son, Josie.
Later his son was found sleeping alone on the boat.
Autopsy reports performed by the Ventura County Medical Examiner's office determined Naya Rivera's cause of death to be accidental drowning.
During a press conference at the time, Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayoob said officials believed Naya Rivera spent her final moments trying to rescue her son by getting him back on the boat.
Weeks after the heartbreaking incident, Nikayala, who often posted pictures with her sister on social media, shared a post about her grief.
“Aside or miles apart, our relationship is infinite. Our bond is unbreakable,” she wrote on Instagram next to a black-and-white photo of her kissing her older sister on the cheek.
She ended the post by writing, "My Shyama, I will love you for eternity and will miss you in every moment of my life."