Anjali Dubey
What are you fighting for? Why do you think it is so important?
Mental Health Awareness. We all need to be aware and have an understanding of our mental health & emotional well-being just like we are informed about the physical aspects of our lives. It is important to upgrade our emotional vocabulary to express ourselves better. I am seeking to streamline safe spaces, to infuse them with more understanding and open minds, with no room for judgment rather just love, support and inspiration for each other.
Leaning into more openness about sharing our emotions is the way forward, and together, we need to change the existing narrative on mental health. I believe it is high time we learn about our minds and emotions and about ourselves. The world demands that we decondition our thinking to seek higher ground for ourselves. Together, let us amplify and accelerate authentic conversations regarding mental and emotional health to reach a mainstream stage.
Tell us about yourself. What's your background? How did you become involved in your cause? What inspired you to begin living for change?
I am 24 years old. I am an Associate NLP Practitioner (Psychological/Emotional First Aid & Neuroplasticity Basics). I worked as an intern and a member of the core research team for a white paper titled "Women of My Billion" which was presented to the National Commission for Women (Domestic Violence and Marital Rape Section) at Crossbow Miles. I also hold a post graduate degree in Management, Business & Entrepreneurship.
Growing up, I had social anxiety. I always placed other’s opinions ahead of mine which was soon followed with this fear of being judged. Anxiety demoralized me to even have/form my opinions, and voicing them out was like a nightmare then. So, the safe space I found was to just wallow in silence. My self esteem was a big question mark back then. At 18, I was in depression and during that point of time I was totally unaware of what was happening with me. It took me a really long time to read the signs and understand my behavior patterns (which were alarming because I knew that wasn’t me). But I was unaware of the word “Depression” to even label and express it to my close ones about how I was feeling? I felt helpless until I started doing my research on it. Since then, I have been on this journey of personal development. I don’t want anyone else to suffer in silence.
What have you been doing to spread the word and/or to help your cause so far?
It has been almost a year since I started an organization called Trancepower. Trancepower is inspired by my personal story to change the narrative around mental and emotional health.
I have been trying to create content which is engaging for everyone based on personal experiences. I have organized and hosted a few events with the same purpose. For example, our camping retreat with art therapy is an overnight camping and hiking retreat with the aim of getting youth to soak in nature and while sitting around bonfires, share their perspectives and life stories, which in turn evokes thought-provoking conversations. That is followed by live music and art therapy. Another event is a free-flowing event where two strangers sit across the table and ask each other a few sets of questions curated by us… and hear each other out with no prejudice. We found that conversations with strangers sparked new perspectives and found a whole lot of similarities.
At this unprecedented time, we have introduced our online event series named as “Reimagine Well-being”, asking intriguing questions to spark meaningful conversations and open an honest space to share ideas, perception, and emotions which is followed by live music which encourages artists to perform their original songs for the participants. We also got the opportunity to host webinars in collaboration where we educated youth on ‘How to seek support and help’ and ‘How to support ourselves and close one’s’ during this time.
Trancepower is born to give people hope, to let them know that whatever they are feeling is all valid and we are right beside them supporting and listening to everything without any prejudice. I stand by this strongly because I have experienced it - I know how it feels and since then I have the urge to change the narrative around mental & emotional health.
This is the ongoing journey of Trancepower, but as we move forward, collaborating with colleges and schools to initiate conversations that really matter with cool, fun and thought-provoking exercises is what we are seeking to do. We’re a new generation of artists... therefore, we are looking forward to destigmatizing mental health and mental illness conversations in a fresh, artistic way. Immersing elements of performing arts for an experiential awakening is the vision moving forward.
How and when will you judge success? What’s your end point?
There's no end to this. It’s always going to be an ongoing process... We'll find new means for sure. But yes, when people share their stories more openly and accept others truly for who they are and not who we want them to be, is [the success] we can aim for in future. In the end, we all want to feel seen and be heard, getting in this loop to understand and be understood. It’s important to understand that just preaching online or on social media will not work unless we quite literally practice it in real life. That’s something that will give meaning to everything.
Complete this sentence: "I am #LivingForChange because..."
Not changing is scary. Period. If we don’t evolve and unlearn, we’ll make no progress. I firmly believe we constantly need to remind ourselves to see beyond our formal identities given by the society. We have so much more to us than that. We stay afar from unleashing our true potential. I don't want to look back and have regrets about not speaking up for what I believe in. Have a voice? Channel it. Amplify it.
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