It's been a week now that I found out about Hive through my partner @ethereumkiller. We both meet @acidyo via a contest of the game Gods Unchained and reached out. A big thank you to @acidyo who kindly took the time to guide me in this adventure and helped me with basic questions 🙏

In this post, I will try my best to guide you, dear reader, through the main points I've discovered about myself so far. In the last 2 years, of my 27 year old life, a lot as happend. And I grew quite a lot. But one thing that was always difficult to me is talk about or describe myself. So the very first post I'm doing comes with a personal confrontation (note to self - more about confrontation issues later).

Dear Reader, are you ready to board on this discovery journey with me?

Now to the hard part

My name is Margarida and people usually see me as always similing and with uplifting energy. The picture you see above was taken during a difficult and dark period of my life this year. It as a black and white filter and is without the smile that characterizes me.

I've learned that I have a real need of alone time. And with the pandemic I lost that space. Which got me really down and with the feeling I was losing myself (note to self - maybe I was finding me 🤔). So this photo represents to me a reminder of allowing myself the space to honor that need.

You see, dear reader, I'm a very emotional person. Not like I'm always crying or laughing or showing emotion, I just feel each one intensely. Combining the fact that I have always been very observant of my surroundings with my emotional side, it was always easy to me to identify what other people's feelings or needs are (which is strongly related to my career choice, but more on that later).

With this being said, I'm forced to accept the fact I'm a people's pleaser. And when I lost that space for alone time, I lost my space to recharge, the space to just be me without expectation or a self-instilled responsibility of making sure everyone is ok nor the worry I might hurt someone's feelings. So lately I've been focused to stay more true to myself and I'm facing now the fact that this comes with more confrontation with others.

(note to self - remember this when you feel the need to say yes to something you don't wanna do)

Uff! I made it. Back in my confort zone 💪

This picture is what I look like when I'm genuinly smiling. It was taken during a day at work when we were trying to take a presentation picture for the clinics instagram page. Not very aesthetic if you ask me, always with my curly hair all over the place. But this is actually what I look like and I use the 😆 emoji very much because of that or when I feel shy. I also blush easily so this little photo session quickly turned into a jooking in front of the camera because I don't know what to do.

I love my job 😍! What I do for a living feels like part of my purpose in this life and world. I'm a physiotherapist and currently work with women who experience motherhood. I support women in their Pregnancy and Post childbirth, guiding on the best way to support the body, recover function and maintain the well-being and quality of life. My work brought me a lot of enlightement about myself, my relashionship with my parents and so many other things...

Even in my dark days, when I start to work I fully engage with the person I'm guiding. Everything else kinda disappears and I can go to that place of uplifting energy and big smile I always like. Don't get me wrong. I also have days were I'm tired or angry because someone canceled an appointment or other down emotions. But since I'm mainly dealing with a profound emotional and physical changes of the body and mind of a person, it's very important to me that the pacient leaves my office with a feeling of well-being and hope. So I always try my best to achieve that goal.

Here´s a picture to prove my sillyness at work

This lead me to another important part of my journey in this life. Defending Women's Rights. I put on my little bio - activist in defense of women's rights - but I was very unsure because honestly I ask myself "what are you really doing to fight for this" and the immediat anwser I think is -nothing-!

It feels like there are so many things we need to change, so many we still do wrong as a society and humanity that every little step seems insignificant...😓 But when I really think about it, my work allows me to share information with women, empowering them to make the choices THEY want on their motherhood journey, fighting patriarchal prejudices that widely exist in this context.

You see, dear reader, this year I've been to my first ever manifestation and it was against Obstetric Violence, a type of gender violence women suffer during obstetric care (during birth or in any time of their pregancy or post-partum period). I heard and read many reports of childbirth, some amazing and inspirational while others (too many) dark and violent. I've seen some of the physical consequences that comes with that type of violence. I've helped some of those women to regain trust and love on their bodies (or at least I hope I did). And since I've adquired some knwoledge about birth and physiology of the pregnant body this little step towards fighting for something I believe and continuously learning really resonated with my feeling of life purpose.

So in this regard I still feel I'm finding my way to make a real impact and help implement significant structural changes in the way we view childbirth and the way we treat the person who is giving birth. Still not enterely sure how and when I'm going to be able to do this, but on my time, I'm sure I'll get there 💪 (note to self - remember this when feeling you're not doing enough)

Damn this presentation got really intense!😵 Let's light it up for a moment... Dear reader, are you ready for some cuteness?

These are my two little cats 😻 This picture was taken on March of 2021 and I loved the way the sun comes lurking into this two cuties.

The white one is a 3 year old cat and her name is Jinx. Joined our family when she was 3 months old. She's a shy cat, very sweet but very scared. She runs for her life everytime there's a loud noise or a sudden movement. Maybe she had a hard time before coming to my house, I'm not really sure, but she is a very happy cat who loves to sleep between my legs all night and taking long sun baths.

The black one is a male, his name is Loki and he's about to turn 1 year in January. The sweetest cat I've ever met! His also a little prankster who loves to chew on anything he can find, push objects to the ground (note to self - breathe!) and beg to play with him at 2 AM. There's a big story behind how Loki come into my life and I believe he entered my life in just the right moment. He's already teached me a lot about myself and I feel we have a real connection.

You see, dear reader, Loki was my first contact into motherhood. He was 15 days old (me and @ethereumkiller estimated) when we rescued him from the street and couldn't find the mother. I didn't know a thing about newborn cats but as I've come to learn - there is a LOT!

Bottle feeding every 3 hours, cleaning the pus from his eyes (he had an infection), making sure he was warm (cats aren't able to regulate their own body temperature), making belly rubs (they need it to be able to poop). And yes, you need to stimulate the anus as well and basically give a bath everytime they poop because they make a poop mess (sorry about the graphics 😅). That reminds me I'm a person who REALLY needs her sleep. 7 hours/night at least to be functional, 10 hours to be at my best. So as you can imagine this was a time of little sleep and a lot of caring and searching for information.

Not the best quality picture but here's proof of my dark circles at the time

P.S: I also love to wear large and fluffy outfits and socks on top of my pajamas. If I'm home I need to wear some comfy pajamas, even when we have visits 🤣

I see so much potencial on Hive. Not only for myself regarding personal growth, allowing myself to create and express without fears, and even some money, but the opportunity to contribute with my vision to communities regarding women's rights and my professional experience.

My intentions for now are:

1. Empowering women's on Hive who experience motherhood with information and tools to help on their journey
2. Discover my creative self by not limiting myself on the subjects I talk about or different main interests
3. Discover other people perspectives about women's rights and the challenges they face in their country, what they feel we need in order to change.

Thank you, dear reader, for bearing with me this far 🙏.

I really hope you enjoyed my attempt of creating my story as much as I did writing it! I really think this was the first time letting my own confusing emotional self just express. Without the fear of what others might think so I'm a little nervous about what kind of reaction I'll get 😆 but also very proud of taking little steps to be truer to myself regardless of the challenges, negative feedback or clashes that may arise along the way.

Because that's when I grow the most 😚