🇬🇧 27 toxic references of love

Many things that some of us grew up believing to be love, because we saw examples of “love” in our family, in movies, on TV, in music, etc., are toxic, disrespectful behaviors that do not foster a healthy relationship. This is probably why the divorce rate is high and the number of people from the new generations who are not interested in getting married is also considerable. But no one needs to live as a slave to these limiting beliefs.

I am Nycka Nunes, a visual artist and in this blog I talk about art, what inspires me, what makes me reflect and who I am. I practice ethical polyamory, so when I talk about love, I am not limiting myself to the love of romantic relationships, I am talking about all types of love, because for me there is only one type of love, and what differentiates a friend from a boyfriend are other things, which include sexual attraction, but are not limited to it.

Below are 27 toxic references of love that may be preventing you from having an authentic and satisfying life.

1. Feelings of possession are not love. Many people raise their children as objects, usually seeking only to be obeyed and satisfied by their children, and so the children grow up thinking that treating others as objects is a sign of love. It is not.
2. Frequent fights are not signs of love. They are usually signs of incompatibility. Again, it is a false reference to love that may come from the way the person was raised by abusive parents. 
3. Avoiding disagreeing with the other is not a sign of love. It is a lack of self-love.
4. Excessive control of the other, of what they do, with whom, what they wear, etc. is not love. It is a feeling of possession.
5. Not knowing how to imagine your life without the other is not love. It is emotional dependence, low self-esteem, rejection trauma, among other possible causes.
6. Lack of privacy (such as wanting to know the other's passwords or sharing yours) is not love.
7. When the other distances you from your friendships or interferes in your friendships is not a sign of love. Wanting to distance the other from their friendships or interfere in their friendships is not either.
8. Keeping you from your hobbies is not love. Wanting to keep the other person away from their hobbies is also not love.
9. Wanting to define what is best for the other person is not love. It is a variation of the feeling of possession.
10. Thinking that you need a boyfriend/girlfriend to be happy is a sign that you do not know what love is and do not have self-love.
11. Not offering support to your partner when you know that he/she is having problems is not love, it is neglect. The same goes for when the person having problems is a friend. You cannot consider yourself someone's friend if you are not capable of supporting them in times of difficulty. Wanting the person around only when they are well is a form of objectification.
12. Not talking about your problems to your partner is not love. Read the topic above and, if you have reasons not to tell them, you also have reasons not to be in a relationship with that person anymore.
13. Getting into a relationship with someone without having in mind what you want for the future, for the relationship, without evaluating whether that person fits your vision of the future, your compatibilities and incompatibilities, is not love. This applies to all types of relationships, including friendships.
14. Starting a relationship without a clear vision of your goals, expectations, limits, etc. is not love.
15. Neglecting yourself to please the other person is not love, even though a healthy relationship has room for each person to develop, change, grow, and adopt new habits. Knowing the limit between sacrificing yourself and seeking to expand your repertoire is essential.
16. Psychological abuse (swearing, humiliation, threats, etc.) is not love. In the context of consensual BDSM, this is valid. Outside of that, it is not.
17. Financial abuse (controlling the other person's finances and assets) is not love.
18. Physical violence or the use of physical force to control the other person or interfere in the other person's relationships is not love.
19. Negligence is not love.
20. Disrespecting the other person's boundaries is not love. Boundaries should be respected even when you do not love the other person. Disrespecting boundaries is a sign of a lack of character.
21. Playing emotional games is not love.
22. Saying no when you mean yes and vice versa is not love or a sign of interest. It is a sign of immaturity.
23. Having no boundaries is not love, it is immaturity, low self-esteem and desperation.
24. Caring about the age difference in a relationship between adults is not love. Age is not relevant in a relationship between adults. Age is not synonymous with emotional maturity. Emotional maturity requires effort. Age only requires watching time pass.
25. Thinking that whoever has more money in the relationship, even temporarily, owns the other person and has the right to control or humiliate them is not love.
26. Meddling in someone else's life to "help", without asking if the person wants that kind of help, is not love. This includes things like trying to force the person to get close to someone they hate, or trying to get the person a job without knowing if they want that kind of job, for example.
27. Putting a hierarchy on love is an outdated belief. Thinking that a boyfriend or girlfriend is more important than friends (or vice versa) is a mistaken view of love, from someone who has never experienced it and just follows what others say, without thinking.

Follow my profiles on social media for more content about art, personal development and other topics that inspire me.

I would be immensely happy if you purchase my artwork (see the "Buy art here" page) and/or if you can offer financial support for me to carry out new artistic projects (see the "Maecenasship" page). To order an exclusive artwork or photo shoot, see the services page.

Respect copyright. Reproduction of this text in whole or in part without specific written permission from the author is prohibited.

Nycka Nunes

nycka@nyckanunes.art

🇬🇧 New Year's resolution

This is a text about an important New Year's resolution I made in November.

I am Nycka Nunes, a visual artist with many other skills. To learn more about my education and professional experience, read my LinkedIn profile.

I decided that I want to participate in art exhibitions starting in 2025, create projects and get paid for them before they start, and have enough capital to buy my own spacious property to work in. I want to have sponsorships to make projects viable, because many exhibitions do not pay the artist adequately, they demand a lot and pay little or nothing in relation to what they offer, and I know the value of my work and do not accept paying to work. After this decision and a little research to find out how to achieve this, I realized that I will need to dedicate much more time to achieving this goal than I had been dedicating up until now to working with art. To get there, in addition to making my interest clear here, because there may always be readers willing to help me achieve my goals, I need to dedicate more time to doing other things that I have not given importance to up until now and research places that can really bring my art to my target audience. In 2024, I have already successfully started to do this. Positioning is important in any job and in many other things in life.

Non-artistic services (personal style consulting, personal branding, consulting for companies, etc.) will continue to be available, but I will have less time to dedicate to them and I will write less about them.

The content of the blog will be mainly about my day-to-day research on textures and other images, reflections that inspire me, which are linked to finished artistic works, comments on my works of art, reflections on excerpts from books that inspire me, about films I have seen that also generated interesting insights, etc. An “old school” blog, an artist’s diary, but… not so daily.

My main communication channels will continue to be, as they have been in recent months, Tiktok, YouTube and Instagram, using the blog as the main channel to talk about art when what I have to say is more than one or two short paragraphs. I recommend that you follow my profiles on these networks. See the links on the sidebar. All my active social media profiles are listed in the sidebar of this blog. Never accept invitations from profiles that claim to be mine but are not.

To support me in achieving my goals, I recommend reading the “Maecenasship” page on this blog, where the main forms of support are described.

My art is mainly about self-knowledge and recognizing beauty in imperfection and differences, but it is not limited to that. My art is, above all, about my points of view and my own development as a human being and as a professional.

Let's build a much more beautiful and meaningful 2025 together!

Nycka Nunes

Visual artist

🇬🇧 11 reasons to hire my stylist services

Having style means expressing the best of your personality through your appearance, using fashion as a tool to achieve this goal and not as a central point.

In this text, I will tell you 11 reasons to hire my stylist services. It doesn't matter if all of them fit your needs. One reason alone is enough for you to visit the services page and hire me to take care of your personal image.

I am Nycka Nunes, a visual artist, graduated in advertising and marketing, and I also offer various types of consulting, including image and style consulting, to individuals and companies all over the world. To see my resume, read my LinkedIn profile. As a stylist, I serve men and women all over the world, offering advice on clothing, makeup, hair and everything related to appearance as a non-verbal communication tool.

1. My resume. There is no stylist in the world with my experience and repertoire. And experience and repertoire make a big difference in the final result of the work. It is a privilege to have access to the knowledge of a professional like me.
2. You, like me, know your value as a human being and as a professional and you want your appearance to reflect this.
3. You understand that beauty opens doors and developing your personal style is the least invasive way to enhance your beauty. And the only way to enhance the beauty you already have, whether you recognize it or not.
4. You understand that as much as you love reading about fashion, watching fashion shows, etc., this does not translate into skills to develop a personal style that represents the best of your personality and enhances your appearance. Being aware of this limitation, you seek to trust an experienced professional to guide you.
5. You also know that following “style tips” from media channels, influencers, magazines, etc., is the path that takes you furthest away from having true style, since thousands of people have access to the same tips and the result is standardization and lack of personality.
6. You understand that having style is not about dressing according to labels. Having style is knowing how to express your personality through your choices of clothing, hair, makeup, etc., while also enhancing your physical appearance by transmitting intentional and conscious messages about yourself through non-verbal communication. Personal style does not accept names.
7. Contrary to what some people say, fashion is NOT intended to destroy anyone's self-esteem. Generally, those who believe in this conspiracy theory already have their self-esteem destroyed for other reasons. An example of how fashion can have the opposite effect is my personal experience. I was bullied by some family members throughout my adolescence (and also in adulthood), and, as a teenager, I was forced to wear clothes in inappropriate sizes and designs that had nothing to do with me. When I started using the expertise of 13 years of career in fashion to develop my own style, at the age of 18, my self-esteem began to develop. Since then, I have contributed to strengthening the self-esteem of many clients and helped them reveal the best of themselves through their personal image.
8. You seek to convey credibility or another characteristic without compromising your personality. You may be, for example, a lawyer or a businessman, but you don't want to limit your wardrobe to black, gray or navy blue suits. The same goes for women.
9. Your self-esteem is healthy enough for you to know that you deserve this investment in your personal image.
10. You are planning to move to another city or country, you have gone through or will go through another type of change in your life (marriage, changes in your professional life, etc.) and you want your appearance to be consistent with this new phase of your life.
11. You are getting married, you know that white doesn't look good on everyone, and you don't want to appear with a literally yellow smile in your wedding photos because you chose the wrong color for your dress, or make other mistakes that will make the images of that special day a source of shame in the future.

I am Nycka Nunes, a stylist with over four decades of experience in the fashion industry, and to hire me you just need to follow the instructions on the services page. All my services are customized according to the needs of the clients.

My main work is art. I never lose sight of that. But I am privileged to have many skills and relevant experience that I can use to contribute to the development of other people and companies and, whenever I have the time, this knowledge can be shared for fair payment.

Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 Photography of pet products

In this post, I will talk a little about photography and video of pet products. The content is useful for brands of these products as well as for pet shops and retailers in general.

I am Nycka Nunes, a visual artist with a focus on photography. I have a degree in advertising, an MBA in marketing and have always been a pet mom. I have had dogs since I was a baby and cats since 2011, in addition to a multitude of other pets that I had as a child. Of these others, horses are my favourite, without a doubt. For reasons of disgust, I do not photograph snakes, lizards and other pets that are a bit too exotic for my taste.

All of my services are personalised, so the information below is a guide to give you an idea of ​​how it works. If you want something different, we can check the feasibility of what you want during the briefing meeting. Almost anything is possible if you have enough budget. Some things will not be done even with enough budget. I value respect for animals and respect for my work. It is common for pet product brands to emphasise the product, but from a marketing perspective, this view is a way of commoditising the product and making the consumer think it is worth little. There are ways to create richer experiences for the consumer, which make your products have a perception of greater value and greater benefit compared to competitors. Obviously, I will not tell you how to do this here. If you want to know, request the service and we will discuss the best options for your company.

How does it work?

You visit the services page on this blog, request the service and then we will schedule the briefing meeting. I gather the information to develop the photographic concept (which may or may not include videos), calculate the budget for execution and send it to the company. I usually offer two or three budget options. They also provide for the period in which the company can use the images and fines for non-compliance with the contract.

The briefing meeting may include leaders from your company and the advertising agency, but I don’t work solely to follow a creative plan developed by others. That would be a waste of my skills. We can plan together with a coherent strategy, but I insist on being part of the creative planning of the photos.

After choosing the ideal budget for the company, signing the final contract and paying any additional amounts required, the pre-production work of the photos begins, seeking the resources needed for the photo shoot, such as booking a location, purchasing or renting costumes, hiring models, etc.

The next step is to take the photos. Then comes the editing and delivery.

In general, that's it. Now, if you want your business to be successful, be smart and go beyond the ordinary by hiring the services of Nycka Nunes. The services are available to clients from all over the world.

Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 Interview with Nycka Nunes - Part 1

Where did you grow up? Did that influence how you became the artist you are nowadays?

I was born in Montes Claros - MG (Brazil), a city with about three hundred thousand inhabitants at the time, and with a small-town feel, because wherever I went in the city there were always people who knew my family. I lived there until I was 22, when I moved to Uberlândia.

I have always liked art and my experiences in my hometown certainly have an impact on my work.

My father was a farmer, and on the farm I felt free, I could be myself. I have very fond memories of how I felt in contact with nature, which was a huge contrast to how I felt in the city, living with my maternal family who never showed me any love, never complimented me, never gave me emotional support in difficult situations. What attracts me to big cities is art. Other than that, I prefer contact with nature.

When I started planning this new career I visualised myself photographing nude or semi-nude people in contact with nature. Then these images began to develop in my head, becoming more complex, and when I realised this complexity, I lost my fear of dedicating myself fully to art. When I realised that my desire to leave fashion behind was a desire to leave behind all the suffering of my childhood and adolescence and to eliminate abusive relationships from my life, there was no turning back. Now I am happy working on some projects and looking for sponsors to carry them out. During the period of career transition, I made some decisions that impact the way I work, aiming to create, in this new career, a better, healthier, more prosperous and sustainable reality than the reality I created working as a stylist.

When did you start taking pictures?

I was already over 18 years old when I got my first camera. I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was an analog compact camera that I used to do academic photography work during my advertising course. My professor praised my academic work a lot, my perspective on the subjects I photographed. Before university, I used it very little. Analog photography doesn't appeal to me because we don't see the results immediately and mistakes can happen that can ruin even great photos. Then I had another one, a compact digital camera, when I was about 32 years old, which stopped working properly after falling on the street during a travel writing course I was taking. In 2011, I bought my first DSLR camera, and my first photos with it were at the two biggest fashion weeks in Brazil at the time. I received the camera a few hours before a fashion show. Now I alternate between this camera and mirrorless cameras in my current projects, depending on the result I'm looking for.

Where do you think your photographic style came from?

My style is made up of countless references, the biggest one being my personal development. I like to look inside, see what I've learned about myself and the world, and show that in the form of images to people.

The awareness that some people will never love me, no matter what I do, allows me to take more risks; to explore possibilities, materials, places, textures, angles; to use something different to create the right lighting for a photo shoot; using different materials to dress the models (or clients)... Being authentic allows me to have the support of those who are also authentic and who have healthy self-esteem.

Self-knowledge also allows me to understand that the beauty of art lies in being interpreted in different ways by people according to their level of self-knowledge and their repertoire. I have a narrative in my head when I develop a photography project or a work of art, and I am aware that many people will not interpret the images the way I imagined them. This double meaning is present in several of my works. Sometimes the same work can be interpreted in multiple different ways and what the person interprets tells me a lot about him/her. I think that is beautiful!

You said that you like the viewer to have their own interpretation of your work. Why do you think that is more important than anchoring a different message or context in the photograph?

I don't think it is more important. It is about my way of seeing things. Imposing my worldview on my audience is not always the best thing to do. There are works where I explain the story and meaning, guiding people to understand the work as I imagined it. Other works, usually more complex, I leave open to interpretation, or I only give a superficial clue about the subject. I usually do this with personal development issues, because the clues are enough to guide those who are on the path to self-knowledge, and more direct explanations would not be understandable to those who are not seeking self-knowledge. In some cases, I explain complex works based on my personal experiences.

I want to express my vision. The interpretation that each person gives of my art depends on several factors that are not under my control.

I do not hide, I have many opinions and values ​​that are different from many people and I am authentic. I do not impose my opinions and values ​​as absolute truths and I do not accept that other people try to impose their values ​​and beliefs in my life. If someone serves me a dish that I do not like, I try to eat what I like in that dish and leave the rest aside. People can choose to enjoy the beauty of my work without thinking about what I want to convey beyond the beauty of each image.

****

Discover the patronage and sponsorship options on the "Maecenasship" page and support my artistic work.

Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧Ten reasons for companies to invest in annual sponsorship

Today I will present ten reasons why companies should invest in annual sponsorship of my work. I will talk about general reasons, but there are also reasons that depend on what the company sells and to whom, among other variables that interfere in well-designed marketing strategies. I can present these during a meeting with the company's leaders.

I am Nycka Nunes, a visual artist who focuses on using photography to create unique works of art, and throughout my life I have developed several skills that are very interesting for companies that choose to be annual sponsors of my work.

1. I have a personal brand that values ​​authenticity, and I have cultivated this authentic image since I started using the internet in the late 90s. Over these two and a half decades I have evolved, matured and my image has evolved along with it.
2. Maturity and awareness of who I am and what I want attracts certain people (and companies) and drives others away. The profile of those who walk away is always the same. People who don't want to broaden their horizons and feel threatened by me addressing topics they don't want to think about (and, of course, companies whose leaders and/or people who manage social media have a similar mindset). Knowing this, and having studied advertising and marketing, I can give a very clear picture of how much I can contribute to the success of brands that want to support my work if these companies are clear and objective about who their target audience is.
3. I love seeking out new experiences and getting to know different products and services. Trying out new hobbies, developing new skills, tasting different dishes, visiting different destinations, different cultures, wearing clothes with unique designs, testing out new electronic devices, appliances, things that make life easier and give me more quality time with the people I love (including my pets) and more time to make art, etc. Of course, I've tried a lot of things and some of them I know I don't like. Others that I've tried I would be happy to repeat and share with the more than fifteen thousand people who follow my profiles on social media.
4. Authenticity is also present in my works of art. Innovation and boldness are expected in my projects, especially in projects that include photography, which are my main projects at the moment.
5. I also love exploring new ideas to create art.
6. My art and content are appreciated by people all over the world, and that's why sponsorships are ideal for companies that can and want to serve well beyond the geographic limits of the country where they are located, regardless of their size.
7. I have a degree in advertising and propaganda and have been an internet user since 1999, having tried several social networks, mIRC, and other online tools for interacting with people all over the world. I can create ways to promote sponsors, in addition to those described on the Maecenasship page, by promoting brands that offer financial support to my work in a more authentic way, and I can work together with the marketing teams of these brands without sacrificing the authenticity of the results.
8. In the months that I have published almost nothing in recent years (the worst scenario in terms of visibility), my content has been seen by at least one hundred thousand people. The goal of seeking annual sponsorships is to have the resources to work all year long and generate content regularly, expanding the reach of my content and my art. And this also generates benefits for the sponsors.
9. I know how to deal with criticism and situations that can generate negative impacts for the sponsoring brands in order to neutralise the negative impact.
10. Since my upcoming works feature many nature and landscape photos, these will be valuable opportunities for airlines, hotels, restaurants, dog and cat product companies, pet-friendly companies, fashion and beauty companies, among others, to promote their products as annual sponsors while supporting my work.

Read the "Maecenasship" page to learn more about annual sponsorship and request a meeting with me to get a personalised proposal.

Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 This artist’s forms of expression

Life is curious. I decided to study advertising because my ability to write good advertising scripts was recognised by a professional photographer from Rio, with whom I took a modeling course when I was 16 (and I didn't even want to be a model). And during college I realised I had several other talents, which were recognised by the teachers.

After that, I experimented, learned, and made these talents available to clients.

I have a certain attachment to this entire journey, because I'm proud of what I've built. Proud of who I have become. Proud of my repertoire and my personality.

Although the options remain open, my focus is art and the more I focus on art, the less I have to say here on the blog. Maybe I maintain other services just to have something to talk about here from time to time. I don't like talking about art. It's like explaining a joke. I create art with an idea, critique or reflection in mind. I prefer to leave the interpretation to each client. Sometimes I try to think of ways to balance this, but I'm respecting my pace.

I recommend that you follow my profiles on social media, mainly Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube, as I post about my artistic work on these three channels.

Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 About cruel things I've heard

I grew up living with my maternal grandmother. I was never praised by my mother's family, and even achievements that should be seen as positive were ignored. “You didn’t do more than you had to,” they said. And I heard almost every day that I was ugly, stupid and useless. To make it even cooler, the only celebrity who had features similar to me in that remote past was the Brazilian actress Cristina Pereira, and I didn't see anything beautiful about her. Possibly because I didn't see anything beautiful about myself after hearing so much that I was ugly. Looking today, I might think the actress Mayara Magri looked like me at the time. She was beautiful. But I didn't think I was beautiful, so I didn't see this similarity.

It's hard to single out a single cruel thing from my past. I think that bombarding a creative and initiative child with criticism is very cruel, but it is an attitude of weak people, who see girls as dolls. In fact, they dressed me as if I were a doll. To this day, I hate clothes full of ruffles and ribbons for that reason. I prefer a tomboy image than a doll image. My style flirts more with androgyny than with the image of a romantic girl. Even when I wear fluid and delicate dresses, I break the romanticism with heavy boots or other style resources. I don't identify 100% with female stereotypes. And I feel perfectly comfortable in a female body.

The treatment of boys was different. I played with them and realised their privileges. None of my brothers or my cousin worked when they were kids. I did. And that's the smallest of differences. They respected me while those who used to disrespect me were female figures. This way, I have an easier time cultivating male friendships. Women who embrace the role of fragile, crying dolls irritate me. After the long and painful healing process I went through, I became very intolerant of adult snowflakes, who are offended by anything, regardless of gender. Because they are the ones who cause immense damage to children's minds. And we should really take care of the well-being of children, who do not know how to defend themselves from the cruelty that can exist in their own families. Not taking care of adults who should already have the discernment to take care of their own mental health.

Once, when Fátima Bernardes was an anchor on JN, she had a very nice cut with short hair (possibly straight like mine). And I said that I would like to have hair like that. I hated my long hair, which was impossible to style because nothing could keep them styled for more than two hours. I spent an hour in the shower washing and untangling them. And they weren't even long like many wear today. They generally didn't go more than 15 or 20cm below the shoulders. And when I made that comment, my youngest aunt who was sitting nearby said the following kindly: “the only beautiful thing you have is your hair. If you cut it, what will be left?” 😁 Cute. Loving. Only not.

But stupid I knew I wasn't. I don't see how someone who gets good grades without cheating (and often without studying) could be stupid. And I ended up changing my self-image, which was negative for a long time due to this strong negative family influence, by noticing this gap, this little finger of lies that made the whole lie fall apart. And yet they continued with the lie.

I've been wearing short hair for over twenty years. I wore beautiful cuts and sometimes the hairdressers weren't able to do a good job. I tried countless colours. While common sense says that hair is a frame for your face, I made my hair my canvas to create art, just like I've done with my wardrobe since I was 18.

Nothing said to an adult by third parties is more cruel than a shower of criticism and zero praise for a child from their own family. But even this can be overcome. So, nowadays, when I see people saying that we can't say this and that to adults because it's offensive, when the term itself isn't offensive, I just see a person with whom I have no interest in getting acquainted with, because I don't see anyone standing up against parents and family members who bully their own children or who educate them based on threats and punishments. In Brazil, even lullabies have a content that incites fear. It's ridiculous.

I learned a lot throughout my life. I can contribute professionally to people who want to leave victimhood in the past. It's not often that I have the time or interest in helping others overcome barriers that I overcame on my own, but it eventually happens. Follow the services available on the services page and follow my profiles on social media if my journey inspires you. I recommend that you start by booking a photo session, which is always available.

Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 Do clothes define who we are?

Do clothes define who we are? Do clothes define our sexuality?

I am Nycka Nunes, visual artist and photographer, and on this blog I write about different subjects, whether or not related to my work as an artist.

Who we are is something defined from birth. Our appearance is closely linked to our personality, which is why we are all different. We commonly repress our personality to please our parents, family, society, to feel accepted. The process of self-knowledge is the way to recover our identity, connecting us to our true Self. Repressing is not changing. It's starting to live like a character, unable to be true to yourself because other people's opinions are your priority.

That's why I think it's silly for parents to raise children based on gender stereotypes and other prejudices. Children are the way they are and parental prejudices will not change that. They will only leave their children insecure, repressed, perhaps sick. Just like any other relationship, a healthy relationship between parents and children involves accepting the other as they are, establishing personal limits (and not absolute truths), respecting the other's limits, etc.

We are born naked and our sexual orientation comes from birth. I often say that if sexual orientation were a choice, everyone would choose to be bisexual, as it greatly expands the scope for choosing partners. Furthermore, when it comes to sex in practice, we are usually naked, and this does not change our sexuality. And, when we are dressed, no matter what we wear, it has been with us since birth, it is not changing our clothes that will change what and who attracts us.

I am bisexual. From 18 to 31 I always dressed sexy, but always looking for a unique sensuality, an unusual appearance. I like being different. Anyone seeing what I wore before living in Curitiba would judge me as a heterosexual woman. And at this stage I had relationships with men without really liking them, much more to try to meet my family's expectations than my needs. I dressed sexy because I see myself as an attractive person, yes. And also as a form of protest for all the repression I suffered from my maternal family during my adolescence. A way to enhance my sensuality. But it was also a disguise for my bisexuality, as masculine elements were subtle in my style. And yet, bisexuality has not ceased to exist. If clothes defined our sexuality, it would change depending on what we wear, and disappear when we are naked.

In Curitiba, as it has a much colder climate, I started to take on a more androgynous look than before. Before, I already liked some masculine elements in the look, but it was much more subtle. I continued to love having a more different style and anyone who has followed my profiles on social media since that time knows how much I criticised Curitiba for years because it was impossible to find colourful clothes in the city. It seems to have worked, because after a few years the stores started to have more options for those who didn't just want neutral colours and pastel tones. At this stage I started to respect myself more, seeking to express my wants and needs more in relationships. And then came the phase of deeper self-knowledge, the healing of traumas, the break with family members who spent their lives criticising me and also with other people close to me who tried to force me to live according to their values.

There is a big difference between accepting differences and tolerating intolerant and disrespectful people in our lives.

Clothes are non-verbal communication tools. Understanding what we transmit when making each choice and our motivations for making them can contribute a lot to the process of self-knowledge. They do not define our personality or our sexuality, but they are a portrait of our self-image at the moment we choose to coordinate those pants, that shirt, those shoes and those accessories or any other clothes and accessories that we choose daily.

What do you think about the subject?

Read the Media Kit to learn how to support my artistic projects or hire my services on the services page.

Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 Demystifying ethical non-monogamous relationships and polyamory

This is a text to demystify ethical non-monogamous relationships, including polyamory. If you know a person who prefers ethical non-monogamous relationships or if you are a person who has this preference and cannot explain it to those who see themselves as monogamous due to lack of knowledge about other possibilities, read until the end, share and follow my profiles on social networks for more content. It is also useful as an introduction to the topic for people who know me, personally or virtually, and have no knowledge about ethical non-monogamous relationships.

I'm Nycka Nunes and on this blog and on my social media I talk about a variety of topics, generally related to personal development and broadening one's horizons.

People are used to thinking that we can only love one person at a time, and they think of love for a boyfriend or girlfriend as something essentially different from the love we feel for dear friends or family. And they see romantic relationships as a ladder or a series of steps. It is common for women to see marriage and children as life goals, but with each new generation such goals become more distant from the priorities of younger people, possibly due to the rigid and unnatural model of relationships in previous generations and because divorces are not a great inspiration. to marry. More information means more options and more informed decisions.

The way I see ethical non-monogamous relationships, including polyamory, and if you received the link to this text from someone, possibly they have a similar view to mine on the subject, is that love is equal, whether it is love for a boyfriend, a friend or a dear family member. In the case of romantic relationships, there is the addition of sexual attraction and compatibility, and any other criteria you have for dating someone.

Let's think about the issue of compatibility from other angles to make it clearer.

All of us, monogamous or not, have a variety of friends with different profiles. We have those friends who are great at accompanying us to shows of our favourite bands. And those with whom it's good to talk about books or films. We have those friends who console and advise us when we have problems in romantic relationships. And several other profiles. Trying to force friends to be great friends at all times is a waste of time because each person has their own strengths and limitations. Yes, we can have friends who are great for a variety of circumstances. But not all of them are like that and that doesn't diminish the value of any of them.

In romantic relationships, for those who live polyamory, we can also love different people simultaneously, because each person is unique and has different characteristics from the others. Each person has different qualities and different limitations, whether in the sexual field or outside of it. Although most people are “vanilla” (they have a certain sexual standard with a very limited repertoire of practices compared to the countless possibilities that exist), and this reduces the options for sexual differences, more due to lack of knowledge than by choice, still, the personal characteristics are different.

Even due to legal unfeasibility, because many countries only allow monogamous marriages, those seeking ethical non-monogamous relationships tend not to see the relationship as a sequence of steps. The relationship with each individual is a building towards getting to know each other better day by day, and this may or may not result in marriage or children.

If you analyse the phase of literary romanticism you will see that romantic love is not the most inspiring thing in the world. It's great that we can evolve, seek self-knowledge and develop healthier relationships.

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Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 One question

Getting to know yourself is a process that requires an effort to expand our repertoire instead of assuming that the repertoire we have when living with our family is enough. And it is also important to observe what we do for ourselves and what is done to please others. Filter experiences, know what really pleases us.

My mother made me drink my first glass of beer when I was 14. I think she expected me to be her friend, but since she was never my friend or anyone else's friend, that never materialised. I never drank to the point of doing things I didn't want to do, I never drank too much. I almost always drank to keep up with others, at my own pace, not because it was a pleasure for me. Nowadays I don't drink beer. I rarely drink alcohol. When I do it, it's for my own pleasure, drinking what has a flavour that pleases me. Most of the time I opt for a non-citrus juice or soda.

I have one question for you: How many things that only affect your life do you do just to please others, to accompany others, and not because it is a pleasure for you?

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Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 Expanding food repertoire

The process of discovering your identity can be long and, at times, a little scary, but it is fantastic. Getting to know yourself is a process that requires an effort to expand our repertoire instead of assuming that the repertoire we have when living with our family is enough. Today the example comes from my eating habits and how they changed over time. It's about how I expanded my food repertoire. The same process can be applied to other areas of life.

As a child I didn't usually eat vegetables. My lunch and dinner consisted of rice, beans, potatoes and meat. Sometimes I ate cauliflower. The food, both at my parents' house while they were married, and at my maternal grandmother's house, where I lived most of my childhood and adolescence, was ugly and bad. I have cared about beauty since childhood, so ugly food is not something that whets my appetite. As, besides being ugly, the flavour didn't help me like it, I ate it just so I wouldn't die of hunger. At my paternal grandmother's house the food was always very good and my grandma always made me feel comfortable, but there was no habit of consuming a lot of vegetables.

As a teenager, after my parents divorced, I started going to the farm less (my paternal grandmother's house) and decided to make desserts to lessen the suffering of only having the option of bad food.

But life started to get interesting from a food point of view only when I left my hometown. In Uberlândia, I learned to eat vegetables because I went to a Chinese restaurant close to the apartment where I lived. It was a buffet, so I could serve a little bit of whatever looked good. I started to really like yakisoba (and I started eating more too 😁). They used so much soy sauce that you couldn't distinguish the flavours of anything. Nowadays I prefer more moderate doses of soy sauce in yakisoba, as that was just the first step in getting used to vegetables.

Then I had the opportunity to try many things, including haute cuisine from renowned and very creative chefs. Haute cuisine enchants me because, unlike the Chinese food at that restaurant in Uberlândia, it is possible to identify different flavours, colours and textures in the same dish, and all of this has been carefully harmonised. This is seductive.

Expanding your repertoire and getting to know yourself means allowing yourself to experience what you have never experienced before, seeking to discover who you are beneath the shell of family and social influences. Of course this doesn't mean trying anything... you don't need to throw yourself off a cliff to see what it's like.

Expanding your repertoire is good because closed-minded people are generally unpleasant, immature and when they have children they cause immense trauma to them because they tend to use repression.

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Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 The impact of childhood on adult communication

The way we communicate in our personal and professional relationships is, initially, closely linked to the way we communicated with our parents as children. A person who spent their childhood without the autonomy to give opinions, express feelings and make choices without the risk of punishment may have great difficulty positioning themselves in relationships, negotiating salaries, etc. And this is just one example of how the way your parents dealt with you affects your communication in adult life and can cause harm in all areas of your life. Certainly your parents did the best they could. Now it's up to you to correct where they failed you to provide yourself and your children with better opportunities and healthier relationships. Hire my services to develop your communication skills in all areas of life.

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Nycka Nunes

🇬🇧 10 qualities you should value in relationships

In this text I present 10 qualities that you should value if you are interested in developing healthy relationships and having a healthier social circle that is conducive to personal development, from my point of view.

1. They act to avoid being dominated by their traumas and limiting beliefs. It can be through therapy, meditation, or other personal development tools. They don't let victimhood take over.
2. They practice self-knowledge. They identify their mental triggers and use this for their own development.
3. They avoid substances and situations that could negatively affect their relationship with their own mind. They realise that drugs, alcohol or anything else to try to escape reality does not contribute to their personal development.
4. They are reciprocal in relationships. They don't just want to receive. They are ready to support people in their close circles as much as those people support them.
5. They set limits, respect limits and try to communicate clearly.
6. They do not invalidate other people's feelings nor accept that they invalidate theirs.
7. They have well-defined goals and do not accept other people trying to divert them from these goals.
8. They are open to meeting different people, making new friends, listening to different opinions, and they know how to communicate without imposing their beliefs on others.
9. They enjoy their work and do not feel exploited or victims of the system because they make conscious choices.
10. They are aware of their own limitations and privileges. If someone doesn't consider themselves privileged in anything, they have a victimistic attitude that is not healthy to have around.

To have relationships like this, I recommend that you also develop these qualities. Discover my services and see how they can contribute to your personal development.

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Nycka Nunes