Prepare for Self-Care this Holiday Season 💛🎁

Our first holiday letter will be released next Friday! 💌

In the meantime, enjoy last year’s kick-off letter:

181: "Are you going home for the holidays?" — A Filipina Redefining Family

Additionally, here are some mental health resources and education to help you prepare for self-care this holiday season. 💛🎁

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Organizations —

The Filipino Mental Health Initiative of San Francisco

“Some people don’t like to use the word, “mental health” or “mental” because then it makes us feel like we’re sick, but I think that if we imagine, we focus on the word “wellness” and then we focus on the word “healing,” we really find ourselves knowing that it’s in our history, it’s in our herstory, it’s in our blood, and we’ve been doing this for generations. We’ve been healing ourselves, we’ve been healing each other.”

— Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Usap Tayo! Participant 2018 (& past guest Ep. 075)

Amado Khaya Initiative

We began our healing justice work by hosting, “Healing Multigenerational Gender Expectations” with our Brokada Healing Circle for a Brown Table Talk! We were joined by an exciting group of panelists, including Jen Soriano, author of the critically acclaimed book, Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing. While this intergenerational conversation discussing the impact of gendered emotional labor and how to initiate these conversations with our families was not recorded, we are happy to share our resource doc curated for the program.

Filipino Advocates for Justice

Mental Health Map and Report

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Books —

Filipino American Psychology by Dr. Kevin Nadal

Filipino American Psychology: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice, 2nd Edition compiles the latest and best information about the psychology of Filipino Americans into a single, indispensable volume. Distinguished and celebrated professor and author, Dr. Kevin Nadal, explains in thorough detail the mental health issues facing many Filipino Americans today. It also covers effective techniques and strategies for working with the Filipino American population today.

Patterns That Remain: A Guide to Healing for Asian Children of Immigrants by Stacey Diane Arañez Litam

In Patterns That Remain, Stacey Diane Arañez Litam empowers readers to heal from diasporic wounds and become people, partners, and parents who embody abundance mentalities grounded in joy, balance, and gratitude. This unique book combines complex and nuanced facets of Asian American history, research, and therapeutic modalities in ways that validate Asian American worldviews and promote a deep sense of universality and community. Each chapter addresses culturally relevant topics among Asian Americans and children of Asian immigrants and is informed by academic research in addition to author-conducted interviews with diverse Asian American community members and thought leaders. The book effortlessly blends history, storytelling, and culturally grounded perspectives to provide an inspirational, validating, and practical framework toward healing.

Protecting My Inner Child: Stories from a Filipino-American Teacher on Her Path to Healing by Leila Grace

My name is Leila Grace. I wear many hats: daughter, sister, wife, mother, teacher, friend, and now published author. This memoir is the messy yet beautiful story that God planned just for me. With a focus on my relationship with the Lord, I invite you to join me on my journey. I address the hardships of being a Filipino-American minority, traumatic events of childhood and young adulthood, the extreme stressors and pressures of education, and various aspects of mental health. I wrote this memoir because one day I found myself alone in a locked room in a mental institution. I heard God’s voice saying, “Write your story.”

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Do you have any more mental health resources to share?

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