I write this newsletter with a knot in my stomach, after much agitation, many changes and much transformation. Life is change, and sometimes it's hard to go along with it.
I have just started capoeira lessons; it's a Brazilian martial art, and last week mestre Rudson was teaching us, as part of the technique, to accompany the fall, so as not to fall with a stiff body and hurt ourselves. A friend made a reflection which hit afterwards: "I will bring this metaphor into my life. How good it would be to accompany myproblems, not to fight against them, to accompany them along the direction they are going"...
There are places where I have a hard time being vulnerable. Where being professional and always having a correct, strong image, always moving forward, is what I learned to do to survive, as a child. I have conquered many spaces in my life where I allow myself to be fragile, but there are places where I still don't give myself permission to be as I am. And then the internal struggle is served.
What about you? Do you give yourself permission to show yourself and your feelings, when you are not okay? When you are sad, tired, vulnerable, moody, angry...? At work, in front of the children, or with the partner it is more difficult to show ourselves like this. We don't want to "bother" or "burden them with our emotional states". We have learned to suppress them, to be good when we are in society, for others, we have learned that sadness, nostalgia, low mood states and other emotions that are not happy make us look weak and we have to hide them. While we are with others we cannot have our emotions.
The world has many problems that are coming to the surface as symptoms of diseases that have been sickening the Earth for years. Armed conflicts, political changes, natural disasters, illnesses in people and mental health crises... how difficult it is to remain stable in the midst of all this chaos. I wish for you that, wherever you are, you treat yourself well and take care of yourself, because - and this has caused me a lot of pain - unfortunately, as an individual we cannot save others, nor the world (or its languages), we can only learn to take care of ourselves. Finding the courage to do it is very difficult, it is a RADICAL change. The transformation I'm talking about is this one. It is happening even if you are not aware of it. Learning to take care of ourselves is possible, if we prioritise ourselves, if we listen to each other, if we choose according to our values, if we learn to ask for help, to give ourselves what we need. This is our vote, our margin of action, small but powerful, that changes everything.
And if you have to be on the floor, that is the step that requires more courage; breaking, in the flesh, letting yourself drop: do it.
