Everything Good Takes Time
Tudo que é bom precisa de tempo.
That’s what an experienced capoeira Mestre said at the end of a great weekend event while we were all sitting down after training for hours, spending time with friends, dancing, eating, sleeping too little and talking about life and capoeira. A Mestre is someone who is a Master in the art of capoeira. Capoeira is a Brazilian form of exercise mixing martial arts, dancing, music, acrobatic and Brazilian culture. For those who don’t know, the main language of Brazil is Portuguese.
Tudo que é bom preciso de tempo.
Everything that is good needs time.
In your post, you talked about insecurities. You are not only my friend but also my capoeira teacher for 12 (duuude!) years so you know more than well what capoeira is and what kind of an effect it has had in my life. For those who don’t, don’t worry. Ultimately I’m writing about insecurities, limitations and how I’m learning to overcome them. You wrote about insecurities related to relationships and I have those, too. I will get back to that at the end.
The reason why I wrote about capoeira is that it has been, for me, not only a form of physical exercise but also something more spiritual. It’s not that it needs to be but, just as anything you commit to, it has been a way for me to challenge myself, to get out of my comfort zone — and to face my insecurities. Capoeira involves a lot of talk and especially older teachers often make comparisons between your capoeira journey and your life. It’s a bit corny, yes, but true as well. And it doesn’t apply only in capoeira, I think. It applies to anything you commit to: how you operate within a certain sphere of your life can be a microcosmos of how you handle your life as a whole.
In capoeira I have learned kicks, acrobatics and jumps. And I have learned to play different instruments, to speak Portuguese and to sing and dance to different rhythms. But much more importantly, I have learned to face some of my insecurities. It’s a very social sport and many people see me as a happy and sociable, outgoing person who talks, hugs and dances around in capoeira classes. But I wasn’t always like that. When I started I had a very active social life, yes, but I was much more distant, reserved and bitchy than now. I was overly defensive and it was super important to me that other people thought I was cool, smart and that they think that I don’t care, I sometimes talked in a rude way. Maybe I wasn’t the human monster I just made myself sound like but these were the downfalls of my character.
The reason for my behavior was mostly that I had been very depressed many times in my life, I’d been an outcast in school as a teengarer and had some traumatic experiences in the beginning of my 20’s. I was never a wallflower: I was outspoken and proud to be different. Many people made fun of my character and mannerisms because both me and them figured that someone like me can take it. And yes, I could take it, any comments or well-meaning jokes didn’t hurt me. Everyone deals with these things differently but I think that taking yourself too seriously is harmful (just in case: I’m not saying you should be ok with bullying and laugh about it). What hurt me was that I had built a character as a defense to protect my sensitivity. When I started capoeira, it was a time of my life when I was very defensive. And I was cool and distant. For some reason, people often told me I was cool. And I was ok with that. And I don’t mean cool as in being liked by people. I wanted to be perceived as intelligent, artistic, witty and deep. And I was all of those things, in a naive way. But then became a time when I didn’t want to be perceived as cool anymore. I didn’t want to control how I was perceived anymore. I just wanted to be me and work on myself, because the only person I can affect directly is me. It’s called learning about your insecurities but I guess it’s also just called growing up.
This has been a long process and it’s not finished (probably never will be). It seems like I’m a product of my time. I’m a white Western woman, highly educated, successful in working life, well-traveled, sociable and engaged in many interesting activities. I’m also familiar with depression, burnouts, break-ups and a general feeling of being lost. I read about mindfulness and meditations, use apps to follow my well-being, travel, take walks in nature, eat vegetarian food and write a blog about my emotional experiences. I’m basically a walking cliché.
Relationships. Unlike you, I have spent most of my adult life in relationships, some of them more successful than others. I love sharing my life with someone. I have no instinct to protect myself: I go deep and I go fast. I’ve been hurting so many times that I’m not counting anymore. And there is always the fear that someone will take something away from you if they don’t love you the way that you do. But I don’t believe it’s true. You can’t keep a score about love. For me, the biggest challenge has been to learn to trust myself and to love myself. The most important things that relationships have taught me are the things I’ve learned about myself. How I love, hurt, communicate and treat others. Ever been hurt by someone, called them an asshole, wondered why they do the things they do, let you down, are confused? I have. But relationships also forced me to look in the mirror and it’s not pretty — and on top of it all, that’s the person I have to commit to for the rest of my life. It’s typical for people to look for love in others but I believe that you have to find the love in yourself. As I said before, I think it’s essential to trust oneself. I think love is complicated and sometimes loving someone or being loved by someone can help you to love yourself and grow. But at the end of the day, the goal should be to find the love in yourself. Not only love for yourself but in yourself.
I talked about capoeira. And in my last post, I talked about trust. All of this is related to my insecurities regarding (romantic) relationships or life in general. One of my insecurities used to be to be open and vulnerable in front of others, not necessarily in a romantic relationship but elsewhere. Romantic relationships were the last frontier of my defenses, my walls usually came down in these relationships.
You and me have very different life experiences with relationships. Those experiences shape our expectations and create different kinds of insecurities. However, the more I think about it, most insecurities are related to being comfortable with oneself. Maybe for you the challenge is to be comfortable with someone else, for me the challenge is to be comfortable without someone else. And as I feel that I’m finally reaching this goal of being content on my own, I feel very relieved and happy. And more than that, better prepared than ever to be comfortable with someone else. All I can say that I nothing good comes easy or fast and the most precious things require facing our own insecurities.
As you said, it’s weird how we choose to discuss some of our biggest insecurities in public. But we had this discussion once and agreed that people relate more to personal stories. Perhaps because as intimate and personal they are, they are also universal. And admitting our insecurities in public, maybe it’s a step forward again, one limit left behind.
