BUTUAN CITY (MindaNews / 11 March) — I did not expect to cry.

The question was simple: Which assignment stayed with you?

But somewhere between remembering and speaking, my voice cracked.

The session was called “The Assignments That Stayed,” facilitated by Vina Araneta-Pilapil. It was the first day of Bayi-Lines, a two-day safety and healing retreat for women journalists of Mindanao, organized by MindaNews through its Media Impact Philippines project with International Media Support.

We were seated in a circle of women journalists from across Mindanao, sharing stories that had lingered long after the bylines were published. When it was my turn, I began talking about covering Super Typhoon Odette in December 2021.

I was only in my first year as a journalist then.

I remember the smell of debris after the storm, the silence of communities without electricity, the faces of people trying to rebuild homes that had been reduced to wood and metal fragments. Back then, I thought I had moved on from that coverage. Journalists are trained to do that, to move on quickly, because another story is always waiting.

But that morning in Bali-Bali Beach Resort in the Island Garden City of Samal, tears came without warning as I spoke.

It surprised me.

And then I realized something that startled me even more: since Odette happened, that was the first time I had actually talked about it.

After the Odette coverage, life simply continued. Christmas came. Then New Year. Then my undergraduate thesis. Then the next assignment, and the one after that. There was never a pause long enough to feel what I had felt standing in the aftermath of that super typhoon. Journalists are taught to move quickly. The news cycle does not wait for you to grieve.

But in that circle, no one moved quickly. And no one looked at me with judgment.

That was the moment I understood what sisterhood in this profession could feel like. Not the casual solidarity of a shared press ID, but something deeper, the recognition that passes between people who have stood in the same kind of rain.

I was the youngest in the room, surrounded by women who had been doing this work for decades, women who were mothers and wives and reporters all at once, women who had covered conflicts and disasters and injustices that would take years to fully understand. And yet when I cried, they did not treat my wound as smaller than theirs. They simply held the space.

And a realization lingered: journalists spend so much time listening to other people’s pain that we rarely pause to acknowledge our own.

Perhaps that was why the next activity felt necessary. Later that afternoon, we were introduced to art therapy by Amanda Echevarria of The Art Pavilion in Davao City. One activity involved clay. We were asked to sculpt a creature, but with a twist. After a few minutes, we had to rotate our work to the person beside us, who would then continue shaping it. The clay would keep moving around the table until it eventually returned to its original creator.

When my clay figure came back to me, it looked completely different from the butterfly I created and intended.

Someone had added green-colored wings, different from the pink ones I wanted. Another had shaped the head into something almost comical but cute. Instead of feeling frustrated, I found myself laughing.

It was probably the happiest clay-making session I had ever experienced.

When I was younger, clay meant school projects, something that had to look good enough to earn a grade. This time, there was no pressure to perfect anything. I allowed my creativity to move without worrying about whether the result made sense.

And perhaps that was part of the lesson: healing does not always happen through serious conversations. Sometimes it arrives through play, through laughter, through letting go of the need to control the outcome.

We also painted.

I painted something simple: a sunset over the sea, my comfort place.

It may never hang in a museum beside works by Pablo Picasso or Vincent van Gogh, but it was one of the most honest things I had created in a long time. There was no editor waiting for a headline, no expectation to make it “good.” Just colors blending across the canvas.

For a moment, imagination was enough.

When the activity ended and the brushes were set aside, we walked toward the beach.

The sky was slowly turning pink, the kind of color that only appears briefly before dusk. The waves rolled in quietly, their rhythm steady and calming.

We were asked to write down things we wanted to let go of — memories, fears, burdens — on stones and leaves. Then we released them into the sea. I watched as the water carried them away.

Of course, letting go is never that simple. But there was something powerful about the act itself. A reminder that we do not have to carry everything forever.

The first day ended not with applause or formal speeches, but with silence and reflection.

On the second day, we participated in a candle-making workshop with Yenna Angkang, founder of the Davao-based intentional candle brand, Kandiletita.

At first, I approached it the way journalists often approach instructions, with careful precision. I worried about the temperature of the soy wax, the amount of fragrance oil, and the proper steps to follow.

Then I realized something. I was holding myself too tightly to the idea of doing things “correctly.”

So I let go a little.

Instead of worrying about perfection, I allowed myself to experiment. The candle I made turned out fine. But more importantly, the process reminded me that there are many ways to create something meaningful.

Every candle in the room was unique.

Some carried stronger scents. Some had small imperfections. Yet each one was complete.

In a way, it felt like a metaphor for journalism itself. Each of us writes stories differently. Each of us arrives at the profession through different paths. But our voices, all of them matter.

That sense of shared yet unique experience carried into our next session. Later, during a dialogue session with psychologist Dr. Gail Ilagan, I was grouped with two journalists from Zamboanga and Surigao. They were older than me, both mothers and wives, and had spent years navigating the same profession I am still learning.

Listening to them was like receiving a gift I had not known to ask for. They did not soften the truth: this work is hard, and it will ask more of you than you expect. But they were still here. Still telling stories. Still believing in what journalism in Mindanao can do.

But as we reflected on the question of what kind of journalist we want to become, something inside me felt clear.

I want to keep doing this. I want to see more of Mindanao. I want to meet more people whose stories rarely make it to the headlines. I want to listen, to write, and to witness. Even when it is difficult.

As the day drew to a close, that commitment found its expression in a quiet ritual. In the evening, we lit candles together.

Holding the small flame in my hands, I spoke the words we were asked to say aloud:

“My voice as a woman is all about empowerment.”

I meant it in a way I had not anticipated when I boarded that bus on Sunday, March 1 at 2 in the morning from Butuan just to arrive at the venue in Samal Island. I meant it with the weight of everything the retreat had unlocked in me, the grief I had finally named, the creativity I had finally allowed, the community I had finally found.

I am 26. I am still a newbie. But I now know that the need for healing does not wait until you are senior enough, experienced enough, or wounded enough to deserve it. 

It finds you early, in the first super typhoon coverage, in the Christmas that comes too soon after the disaster, in the quiet moments when you realize you have been writing everyone else’s story while yours piles up, unwritten.

What the women of Bayi-lines gave me was not just rest. It was permission to feel, to create, to cry in public without apology, to understand that softness is not the opposite of strength. It is, in fact, how we survive long enough to keep telling the truth.

I came for a retreat. I came home with a community. A circle of women who had held space for my grief, my laughter, and my questions. A reminder that in this profession, we do not have to carry everything alone. That our stories and our wounds matter just as much as the stories we tell.

And as I step back into the world of deadlines and bylines, I carry with me not just memories of clay and candlelight, sunsets and sea, but a quiet confidence that even in the hardest storms, there is connection, there is healing, and there is a shared courage that will guide me forward.

(Ivy Marie Mangadlao is a MindaNews correspondent based in Butuan City who reports on stories across the Caraga region.)

[BAYI-LINES is part of the Safety Training Series of the Media Impact Philippines project implemented by the Mindanao Institute of Journalism (MinJourn), publisher of MindaNews, in partnership with the International Media Support (IMS) with funding from the European Union and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.]