Ink
Well, I got some new ink today. And I think I need a blog post to explain what it’s about.
Before: Before the inking I got today, I already had a tattoo on my left arm. It says “011” and I got it in 2017 with my boyfriend at the time, Justin. It was my very first tattoo. The reason I got it had to do with the show Stranger Things. To me, Stranger Things is a story about a child with amazing, innate powers who was systematically psychologically controlled and indoctrinated, at times being forced to do things with her powers that scared her. This was a time in my life where I was just beginning to wrap my head around the effects of my own religious trauma in evangelical Christianity. That number “011” rang inside of my mind and my body, a validation of what I had experienced. Whereas, up until that point, I had kind of internalized this sense that I should just be able to “overcome” it. By virtue of leaving the faith, that should have been enough right? I had no sense of how much I had been conditioned and how I would carry that through my life regardless of whether I went to church ever again. Having “011” on my arm says to my eyes, “You’ve gone through some shit”, the subtext being, “be kind to yourself.”
Now, when I got that tattoo, someone in my life at the time had a very large reaction to it, accusing me of “appropriating Holocaust culture”. I did my research to see if I had really done something shitty. Even came up with a few enhancements of the tattoo that would remove the feeling of it looking like a concentration camp tattoo. I found no evidence to support that that is a thing at all. But this person’s reaction has always haunted me. That AND… recently I’ve entered a period of development in my life where I realize I am NOT defined by my trauma and my victimhood. Lately, when I’ve looked at that tattoo, it feels incomplete. It’s not the whole story. So I’ve known at some level I wanted to make a modification to it. But what? I wasn’t going to rush it. I don’t get tattoos unless it’s something I feel very deeply or have wanted for a long time.
In the last week, I experienced a major experiential understanding around the healing power of knowing you can control your attention. I started reading a book on awareness and it differentiated attention from peripheral awareness. I had never thought to conceptualize it like that. I realized that what has been going on with me is that I have a leak of fearful thoughts (installed throughout life) that my attention is permanently fixated on. And meanwhile, I am unable to turn my attention to anything else in life, including my partners, my coworkers, my clients, my friends, because the truth is, I am watching my fearful thought leak in my head all the time. I didn’t realize it was happening until I understood the different between attention and awareness.
I realized that attention is something we do have some control over. I can choose to let anxious thoughts pass by without holding my attention on them. I can choose to settle my attention on this present unfolding moment, a place I haven’t been in for decades. Attention is a powerful ape sound that makes me think about the idea of having a choice and finding that choice within my self. It’s something I have been practicing as I am able over the last few days, though, being sick for a week and a half has made it difficult. But when I realized what I had stumbled across, I looked down at that “011” tattoo and thought… could that click together with Attention?
Yes, it could. Perfectly in fact. I told my tattoo artist this isn’t a cover-up. I didn’t want to make it look like the old tattoo was just part of the new one. I wanted to always know that I was a victim for a long time until I figured out there’s a larger picture. Zooming out awareness and realizing there is attention, choice… can grant me the freedom to experience time unfolding as it is now without living in the past or the future. Without being sucked into anxious thinking.
A little more about the tattoo. The reason I chose the rainbow gradation is because the times I have spent hanging out with my mind and feeling like we are friends in harmony, I always get the sense of living in a pot of rainbow soup. Colors mixing like clouds. Consciousness feels like a fluid rainbow to me.
Another detail. The “O” in attention has a pupil in it. Why? I watched Everything Everywhere All At Once this week with my best friend Josh and that movie practically cured me of dissociation. Not true. I’m exaggerating. But their recognition and personification of the Nihilism living and breathing inside of me was so helpful for my mind to identify it for what it is. The nihilism and existential shock cause dissociation and disengagement. The googly eyes that Evelyn eventually puts on are what the pupil in the “O” is meant to indicate. EEAAO, to me, speaks to the value of recognizing NONE of us know what is going on here, we’re all scared, but we have each other and let’s do our best to be kind and optimistic. It also, to me, spoke to the deep value that our loved ones are to us, especially when we see their beauty for what it is in this mysterious existence we’re in.
So, yup! There you go. That’s why Marie got this tattoo. It’s meant to be a reminder to my conscious experience that there is an observing attention behind it and that you can choose what you’re looking at, which forces you to ask yourself, what am I paying attention to now?
