To New Beginnings; New Executive Team, Philippine National Directors, & Growing the Mental Health Advocacy
Margaret Lee (She/Her/Hers)
Founder & Executive Director
September 30, 2020
Category - News
Updates
Hello everyone!
Welcome to our new blog, we’re very excited to be moving forward with our new website for the year. In the past few months, we have been experienced a lot of growth within our organization. The whole executive team here at Talang Dalisay are very excited to share that with all of you.
The COVID-19 Pandemic instilled a lot of fear and anxiety in our communities, as well as a large number of social issues happening in and out of the Philippines. Our organization tried our best to respond to these issues and are still working towards addressing most of these in future projects.
In the process of reflecting and ensuring that Talang Dalisay remains accessible to as many Filipinos, the executives have decided to expand Talang Dalisay into different branches outside the National Capital Region. While all projects, events, and interactions remain remote during this time, we envision branching out to different parts of the Philippines vital in our mission to make sure Filipino youths have some kind of opportunity to spread mental health awareness. We are now present in 7+ regions in the country, which includes South Leyte, Puerto Princesa, Zamboanga Del Norte, Surigao City, Davao Del Norte, Batangas Province, and many more.
In the past month, we were also able to have our general assembly of our new executive team both for Talang Dalisay and our global branch, My State of Mind.
I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to meet these wonderful youth activists from all over the world and all over the Philippines. I was able to witness so much love, passion, and concern for mental health from a very big number of people. I’m amazed and excited to see what kind of impact our team can contribute to the world’s current situation and how we can continuously learn from experience.
We have many initiatives about to launch very soon, including our first Zine, Newsletter, and project “Wellness Wednesday.” Aside from that, we’re also opening a volunteer pool for our outside NCR branches in the Philippines. If you would like to sign up and get an experience of what it’s like volunteering for Talang Dalisay, you may sign up here.
Reflection
Aside from all the activity I have been involved in these past few months with both Talang Dalisay and My State of Mind, I always seemed to find myself drowning into an absurd amount of self reflection. With slower, more spacious days during quarantine, I’ve been trying to completely reinvent myself for some reason. I felt like I was given a task to completely change into a whole new person because of the sole fact that we had too much free time in our hands. Going on social media applications like TikTok reinforced my way of thinking; changing my style, my aesthetic, etc. The idea of “a clean slate” appealed me so much that at one point, I wanted to completely disregard my past mistakes.
Change is good, and change is needed to move forward. But real self change comes with acknowledgement of the kind of person you were before and embracing that. I’ve been reminded by many people that this is vital for true change. We are works in progress.
In my time of introspection, I also found myself feeling anxious from various toxic situations and people. Growing up as a “people pleaser”, I was always afraid to block out any kind of toxic activity or people in my life. I had the notion that kindness and respect was equivalent to being able to suck up whatever negative experiences you get from people or places, simply because you were a “nice” enough person to do that. But you also need to take care and love yourself. I learned that you can block out toxic things and people in a kind and respectful way. Be subtle yet direct to the point. Handle your situation with firm kindness. Really do yourself a favor and do whatever it is you need to do to feel better. With social media as a our main platform during communication during this time, people have enhanced confidence to throw out their ideas and thoughts without filter simply because they are behind a screen. So be a good user on the internet and make yours and other people’s mental health a priority.
One last thing I wanted to share with all of you is the magic of manifesting. I keep going back to this whole pandemic, but it has truly changed our lives one way or another. We can only do things up to an extent during COVID times, and one thing that energizes and motivates me is the number of things I can finally do again when the pandemic is over. The magic of manifesting is claiming good energy and things that will happen in your near future. This isn’t some kind of voodoo magic, but it’s the simple idea that when you think positively towards a certain idea or situation, most likely it will happen. It’s similar to the law of attraction. Manifesting and believing that many great things will come my way has tremendously helped the way I have looked at life during this pandemic. Reminding myself that my friends, family, and team supporting me in everything I do also helped me have a better and brighter outlook to what’s to come.
I hope all of you are doing well, holding up, and trying you best during these difficult times. Our sense of community should always be kept in sight until the end of the year. Check up on yourself and others. We’re in this together, and we hope to help out in that one way or another.