For World Mental Health Day, I gave a short message on the importance of home at the opening of an art exhibit. In a very fundamental way, the invitation of my field of study, Sikolohiyang Pilipino, is a call to come home. The field of Filipino psychology teaches us that we have been assessed, analyzed, and diagnosed through foreign standards. So, its call to come home is really a return to our collective common sense.
It is a return to what we grew up with—our folk beliefs, social dynamics, and ways of talking about everyday things.
Historically, these aspects of our culture have been called “superstitious,” “primitive,” or even “unscientific.” But there is nothing more meaningful to real science than the realities that real people live in. This means looking at how the bahay, barkada, and barangay have shaped our lives—our buhay.
How home teaches us love
The dynamics we learn at home teach us about who we are. Home teaches us about right and wrong, about acceptable versus unethical behavior. For many of us, the love we look for—in friendships, romantic partners, and even in mentors—is influenced by what we have grown up with. By the love that has always been familiar to us.
The kinds of love we received from parents, guardians, and other authority figures—such as teachers and spiritual directors—have taught us about what we “deserve” as people. We carry this, whether we are aware of it or not. We often look for partners and mentors who echo dynamics we have grown up with… for better or for worse.
So it is not surprising that people who are always mean and cranky are accused of being “kulang sa aruga.” We believe that they were not cared for properly by the people whose task it was to teach them about love.
This is a good time to remember, too, that many parents are doing things for the first time. They are learning. They are bound to make terrible mistakes. But it is only a matter of being aware of how our own parents raised us, and how much of that we want to pass on to the next generation.
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Relearning conversation
My wife and I are conversationalists. We like talking to each other. A philosopher once said that marriage is really just a long conversation. But in any relationship—whether parent and child, friend to friend, lover to another—communication is always vital.
But as we Filipinos know well, conversation is not always verbal. It is often through pakikiramdam, pahiwatig, and even pagtampo that relationships are deepened and built.
It is often through pakikiramdam, pahiwatig, and even pagtampo that relationships are deepened and built
It is about being open to one another, which is the core of pakikipagkapwa. It is in the home that we meet each other for the first time, and it is also in the home where we start to know who we are.
This may also be partly why some people feel more “like home” than others. Some people may feel familiar—reminding us of how a parent treated us, for example—or they may give us the space we need to feel heard and known. It is in the depths of our relationships that we meet each other.
READ: Why are adult friendships so much harder to maintain?
Home as healing
When a person is sick, when they have no appetite (“walang gana”), or feel down, the albularyo might say that their soul has gone out of their body. Maybe the soul was stolen by an entity, or maybe it wandered too far away out of stress or confusion.
In Philippine folk tradition, the usual cure for this is calling the soul back: pagtawag. “Come back, soul, come home. Your family is waiting for you, and the food is ready. Come home…”
Because ultimately, good mental health is when we are at home with each other.
