Insights from Brazil
I am so incredibly lucky to have been able to spend 4 weeks in Brazil.
Especially having gone last year…
I deliberately went to Brazil this year with the intention of being present, learning from what was around me and slowing down…
Why Brazil?
I am part of a samba reggae band based in Portsmouth called Batala. The founder of Batala, Giba Gonçalves, is from Salvador in Brazil. He started this project in 1997 whilst studying in Paris and there are now Batala bands all over the world.
Find out more here: https://www.batalamundo.com/history/
All our drums and costumes are made in Salvador – and as such Giba ensures that we are supporting the local economy. Every year we have the opportunity to go to Salvador, the home of samba reggae, and play in the carnival (yes, really!) with an incredible Afro Bloco band called Cortejo Afro – Giba is the musical director of this band too.
Here are some of the things I discovered…
1. Busy-ness is STILL my default…
Being busy, doing anything is still my default…
Until I totally stopped, I thought I actually no longer had this trauma-response.
I spent the first week of my trip with my awesome friends, nearly an hour outside of Brasilia. The views are stunning. It is super quiet. Properties spread out, the nearest shop is a drive away…
I felt so fidgety, a little lost and kept thinking, feeling like I had forgotten something.
Nope.
I just needed to get used to actually doing nothing, chilling and just being with whatever came up…
You see, for so many, keeping super busy can actually be a trauma response – I know that business is rewarded, being super busy with ‘no time’ for anything is applauded in our culture, but in many it is a protective mechanism.
You see, when we are busy, we don’t have time to be. To sit with emotion is hard. It means ‘stuff’ can come up, which we would rather not look at.
So, it is a protective mechanism to push it all down, and be busy instead…
I have been working this for years… and am MUCH better. In the past whenever I went away, I would take my laptop and not put an ‘out of office’ on emails. So, flying away for 4 weeks, no laptop and out of office on, with my awesome VA on hand to answer emails in my absence.
But oh, my goodness it was hard!!!
I did get the hang of it after a few days but super interesting to notice my responses.
Funnily enough, when I got to Salvador, I thought I was super chilled, but the Brazilians often said to me “Susanna, relaxa-te!”
2. What is behind the smiles
I want to be honest here about the reality of what can be behind the social media holiday snaps…When we see photos of beautiful places and loads of smiles, we may not realise what is going on behind the camera.
My next stop was Salvador – for 3 weeks, to experience some of pre-carnival. I stayed in the Batala House, an old colonial style house on the outskirts of the old town. This is where many other Batala Mundo members stayed, especially if like me, they had travelled to Brazil alone. This provides to incredible experience to meet people from all over the world! The Batala house is where all the drums are kept and is a general hub – especially during pre-carnival, with occasional adhoc rehearsals happening and sometimes random musicians popping by for lunch or a drink in the evening.
Quick note about carnival in Salvador, I suspect this is similar across Brazil - officially Carnival is 6 days from Thursday to Wednesday. However, it unofficially starts on the Wednesday. And there is Pre-carnival which lasts around 3 weeks, and is where the musicians, bands and singers do gigs to practice for carnival. Oh, and there is a bit of a post carnival for a week or so, because, you know, the end of carnival is hard…
This meant I went from being pretty much in the middle of no-where to landing in a busy, full, noisy house. It was a bit of a shock to the system!
When I arrived, I could not have been made to feel more welcome – literally as soon as I got there; lots of hugs and welcomes and then immediately drink put in hand, food heated up and placed in front of me. Once I had eaten (to their satisfaction), shown around and got bed set up. And then we went out to a brilliant gig, danced and laughed – amazing!
And yet… despite this…I had this nagging feeling I didn’t belong. Didn’t quite fit.
And it grew.
I knew it was all in my head…and oh so familiar…Questioning my decisions, my choices, feeling guilty for focusing on myself…
What was I doing there?
How did I have the right to take 4 weeks off?
Should I just change my flight and go back early?
Fortunately, I had an amazing friend who reminded me to just be. To allow what I was feeling rather than push it away (yes, I had just spent a week being with and still forgot!!) and to remember why I can come out in the first place.
And it was that, the slowing down, allowing space – with curiosity and non-judgement that allowed me to reconnect with my intention, my purpose.
And how often does this come up in life, in work? That we get so quickly and easily sucked into spirals of negative thinking, rather than reminding ourselves of the wider picture, our purpose, our vision.
Literally within hours of giving myself that space to reconnect with my intention of being in Brazil for 4 weeks, I was fine!
All I needed was to be kind to myself and a little time.
3. We can do hard things!
I unexpectedly was invited to play drums on a Batala CD recording…
An incredible honour and a lot of fun…
I ended up playing Fundo on 4 tracks, the drum type I played for 7 years, until I changed to Dobra 2 years ago.
The morning after, at breakfast, 3 of us were discussing the recording experience.
All I could think about what where I went wrong. I’ve often felt very lacking in confidence; not good enough, don’t learn fast enough, make too many mistakes…
And one of the people held up his hand to stop me.
“No, you were actually very brave. You could have said no. You were still covering from a migraine. It took courage to say yes and go all in- which you did. And you worked hard”.
Well. That was unexpected. But a brilliant reframe…one which will always stay with me.
It made me think of all the times I’ve jumped to judgement and self-criticism - rather than remembering the ‘Man in the Arena’ quote from Roosevelt, which Brené Brown talks about.
So, I now remind myself that I chose to step into the arena. And will continue to do so over and over.
And yes, I will make mistakes. But I will also learn and grow. And through that, we can create change.
Here is that quote, I think of it so often now:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
4. What happened when I truly honoured my needs
After being in the awesome but hectic chaos that is Salvador during pre-carnival, for a while, I realised I needed some quiet time. Both to slow down and to process things that I had deliberately been turning towards internally.
So, literally the day before ‘proper’ carnival started, I found myself in a beautiful tiny place called Imbassai, a 90-minute drive up the north coast from Salvador. I stayed in a place literally on the beach, where I could eat, sleep and stare at the sea.
It was breathtakingly beautiful.
And also, a little lonely. This place was in the middle of no-where. I didn’t speak to anyone other than the odd waiter for 5 days.
I did question my choices – I mean seriously. Leave Salvador during carnival?!!?
What was I thinking?
This is why I was here, right?
I flicked on the TV. Out of 17 channels; 1 had a drama, 6 had religious content and 10 just about the carnival…
But, I reminded myself of why I I had travelled to this remote place.. That I needed to ‘Just be me’.
For the first time in my life, I have been acknowledging that whilst I love noise, people, load music and chaos, I also need to balance that with quiet.
Space to just be.
To ground.
This was a massive step for me. To truly honour what I needed, regardless of what was going on around me.
So, I settled down to sunrise strolls along the sea, have naps after breakfast, afternoon strolls to find beachside hammocks and go to bed super early.
My body relaxed, and amazingly, I felt super charged with ideas – without trying. One particular afternoon I consolidated my idea for a TEDx talk in a hammock and applied as soon I returned to my room – amazingly, I have just found out this application was successful!
So, all the stuff we hear about research showing how slowing down opens up creativity in our brains…errr…there is a reason why true rest is so crucial!
5. What I learnt from being ill
Lots of people get sick around carnival – I thought I had missed it! We were at a friend’s house for an end-of-carnival party the day of my flight back home and I found myself saying ‘I don’t want to leave!’
She replied laughing, ‘then stay! We have a room!’
Within an hour I was sick.
Like unable to even sit up sick.
8 hours before my flight was due to take off…
A few things about me for context:
I have a phobia to being sick
I have never missed a flight despite having (been lucky enough) to have travelled a lot
Despite having travelled to remote places, I have not had a tummy bug for 25 years…
I am hyper-independent…and a bit of a control freak…
Hyper-independence is another trauma-response. If you have needed to rely on yourself, or been drastically let down – repeatedly – then rely on others seems pointless and unsafe. So, as a protective mechanism, you just do it all yourself.
And asking for help, well, requires a degree of vulnerability. It acknowledges that one might need another person and might take up time and space – again, things that with a history of trauma are super hard.
So, being physically unable to even sit up and dependent on others was NOT where I wanted to be!
However, I had no other option.
I was very lucky that I had amazing people around me who looked after me. And when I kept apologising and saying I don’t get sick like this, was told in no uncertain terms “will you just shut up and rest??!!!!”
She was of course right.
I had no choice but to surrender to the situation.
So, I did end up staying for a few more days – getting another flight was tricky – as they were full due to end of carnival and lots of people leaving Salvador.
Throughout those days, when I was still super weak and recovering, I met so many incredibly kind people; from a friend in the UK helping me navigate travel claims and getting another flight; to the receptionist at the hotel getting his mate to drive me and my luggage (three drum bags full of costumes and drums) at short notice to the airport.
It was a huge lesson in surrendering to what is, and the innate beauty and kindness of friends and strangers.
6. Embodiment and the power of rhythm
One of the most significant impacts of trauma, is the disconnection from self, from the body. Think of almost a person walking around like a head on the end of a stick – disconnected from the neck down.
What are the implications of this?
When we cannot feel our bodies, we may struggle to feel the body’s natural sensations, such as hunger, feeling full, ‘gut’ instinct, discomfort or illness.
The poet and author V, (formerly known as Eve Ensler) talked about being diagnosed with cancer the size of a melon in her womb, but had been so disconnected, they were totally unaware of this growing mass until it was huge.
When horrific traumas are experienced or witnessed, it is safety mechanism to not be fully present, to not be fully embodied, so as not to have to feel the horror. But if the body does not recognise the traumatic event has ended, or if repeated/frequent, the body/mind can end up staying in this disconnected state.
A crucial goal of trauma treatment is to gently, very slowly, at the pace that the individual feels is right for them at that time, explore feeling the way back into the body.
There is no right or wrong way to do this – but movement is a key part. Any movement.
For me, dance and drumming have been my ways ‘in’. I first read about this in Bessel van der Kolk’s seminal book “The Body Keeps the Score” 9 years ago. Shortly after I first saw Batala play and asked to join. Instinctively, I knew this worked for me, having spent much of my time as a student dancing in clubs during my 20s.
There is now more understanding of the physiological power of dance, drumming and rhythm on our nervous systems and even immune system – something indigenous cultures have been practicing all over the world.
During the time I was in Salvador, there was the sound of drums everywhere – and people just dancing in the street, anywhere. Just being around this environment, surrounded by rhythms, felt profoundly healing.
7. Embracing joy and little moments of pleasure
A further consequence of this disconnection from the body due to trauma is not feeling emotions – this can feel helpful, to not feel the despair, the rage, the grief. But unfortunately, this also means we also struggle to access emotions at the other end of the spectrum, such as joy, gratitude, pleasure.
And we all need to feel. Both the uncomfortable and the enjoyable emotions. However, this can be super challenging.
The invitation is to explore this slowly, with curiosity.
And again, there is no right or wrong here – what makes one person smile will differ from the next.
The trick, I have found, is to slow down. To be more present, even for moments.
Just noticing…
The sunlight streaming through a window.
The patterns clouds make
Kicking the waves in the sea
And this is like a muscle, the more we do it, the easier it becomes.
Whilst in Brazil, I saw, of course, a lot of poverty and deprivation – it was very visible. However, I was totally amazed at how many times people would notice something small and acknowledge it. Like whether it was sunny or raining, that there was music, so let’s dance!
I learnt so many unexpected things from this trip and am now embracing these and incorporating into my life back home.
