You are the gift. Unwrap yourself.

I finally got a tattoo last September after turning 41. My whole life I have been sitting with so many ideas of what to get, where to put it, what color, what if I get fat, or pregnant, what about when I get old?

What if my skin stretches sags or changes, or worse what if my mind does? What if I hate it?! What if they mess up? What if I get some symbol and find out down the road it means something else I never knew it meant? What if I get something on my back and then I’m mad cuz I’ll find something that would’ve gone perfectly there but now I can’t get it cuz something else took its place. What if I regret damaging my virgin skin? I don’t wanna follow the crowd, wait, since when was a tattoo following a crowd uhg.... the narrative goes on endlessly

and so did my struggle.

I saw the thought pattern reflected in my life.

I couldn’t choose a path in College after I burnt myself out going hard to get my associates degree at 19 I just stopped. I told myself I’d go explore a bit and get a better idea of what I really wanted to do before investing all that money. I never decided.

Yet I’d decided at 15 the boyfriend I was with was going to be my permanent eternal husband because I was raised Mormon and trying to stay with the standards even though I had already strayed leagues from them.

Decisions were a “never or always” narrative. I’d hold back for fear that once decided they MUST be forever, I couldn’t “un” decide them as if they were some indelible mark on my soul. If I changed my mind, back then it meant I lacked integrity or was wrong. So I just wouldn’t decide, that seemed safer. I was dead wrong. (More on that some other time).

Getting an actual tattoo reflected that same attached mind.

Ironically the practice of putting a permanent mark on my skin was paradoxically a practice in letting go of permanence and simultaneously letting it be.

Embracing uncertainty.

Imperfections.

Indecisions.

Insecurity.

And most of all the temporary quality of it all.

Essentially, life itself.

I looked at the fears listed in the beginning and I followed them. (Another paradoxical practice that I teach in 1:1 sessions).

Following fear brings me to Truth.

I simply faced each of them and said “yes, what if...” acknowledged and actually answered each one.

The summation of the answer was, “you might regret it, you might hate it, your body WILL change, nothing is permanent, you might make a mistake, you WILL die so do you want to get to the end of it and say you never experienced a tattoo? You, the artist, who has drawn a hundred of them all over her body and books, you won’t dare for fear of messing it up?...

...What about messing it up by never daring to do it?”

Uhg, that one hit, I messed up my whole life for 35 years because of that one. I just didn’t dare to live.

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” #seneca

That quote is at the bottom of the panel behind me. I’ve had that wooden screen since that relationship at 15, trying desperately to decide and simply dare to live...

So I decided.

The process is not easy for someone who cares so much about details, aka a perfectionist like me.

Last year on my 40th birthday I’d had a goal to get a tattoo on that milestone. Well actually for years I’d set a goal and the date would come, the date would go, and my internal struggle deepened.

So when my 40th bday came, I became ansty and frustrated, I just wanted to get it over with I was so tired of holding this perfectionist standard that was keeping me stuck. It reminded me of losing my virginity. The stress of trying have the perfect first sexual experience that ended in disaster and betrayal and deep trauma started surfacing.

James and I sat enjoying my birthday dinner as I expressed, “I don’t care let’s just go, I’m so tired of trying to decide, I just want to get it over with”! Tears crept up as I heard the words escape, which startled him, I explained what was being triggered.

He seemed concerned and disappointed that I’d just be so nonchalant about a permanent thing - which actually frustrated me deeper as I looked at HIS body of tattoos - and then heard his love under the message which was;

he cared about me.

He wouldn’t let me ruin it, simply because of a date and time constraint. He held my standard when I‘d dropped it. My heart felt heard. I was grateful.

I recommitted to the process. I started researching, asking around. I didn’t want to do the busy work of the journey, I just wanted to walk into a tattoo shop like you see drunk girls on TV, point to a picture and have it be great. Conversely, being an artist and perfectionist, I wanted to draw it myself. And again another reality check, although I’m an artist, I’m not a TATTOO artist.

So another year of that and I finally narrowed it down to “simple is better”. I picked up a sharpie and just drew vines in an approximate place and variable flow, took a picture of it, plus another idea of what might look good as a tattoo and brought it to Sierra at Lost Art where James had purchased my Christmas gift card last year to encourage my process.

She went to work.

The rest is here, on my body.

I thought about doing this with friends or James for support or momentum but in the end I knew I needed to do this alone. No other influences or opinions. Just me.

I felt terrible that day, but I don’t cancel things.

When she asked me how I was feeling I just told the truth. I was afraid, I’d just cut off my Sunday yoga class that had been flourishing for the last 3 years, was in a depressive reset from an amazing yet exhausting trip to Sedona, the end of summer was creeping, I felt ungrounded and uneasy. Everything was shifting.

She said “I get that”. Let’s just put this impression on your body and if you decide you don’t wanna do it today, that‘s ok, no pressure”.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I needed that permission slip, again, to just take my time.

“It’s ok to change my mind”. I re-mind myself. We continued. Funny how when you finally just allow yourself to do the thing you feel resistance to doing, it melts away. Openess eases in again.

Placing the drawing took awhile. I did change my mind and adjust a lot. I was so afraid she was getting impatient, she wasn’t, however I was!

I could hear my own head saying “Uhg just decide already”. I imagined if James were there and what he’d think about my finicky nature but she reassured me “this is your body, this is permanent, it is ok”.

I could barely hear her reassurance past my own urgency though. I think it WAS useful however because I almost backed out a couple times and then I just heard that voice “it took you 41 years to get here, just do it” “if you don’t do it now, you might never come back,” “be brave, go big, let go, dive in, have an experience, IF you hate it, tattoo removal is possible”. Ok I said, “let’s do it”.

It hurt.

It was like a meditation on pain. Breathing a being with it. I felt separated from my body after.

But the relief of finally deciding was so much greater than the pain.

The next couple days it felt like I had a cold, body aches and fever.

Mentally I struggled a bit afterward with “did I do the ‘right’ thing”?“Maybe I should’ve waited”? “Shit, I should’ve listened to the patient voice”.

And then I just decided. Again.

I like it.

I’m done deciding.

It is done.

Enjoy it.

And so I did.

And here we are months later.

It’s taken me awhile to just make time to get a picture of it.

So many boxes to unwrap. So many packages with in presence.

What a gift I had finally unwrapped in myself.

Every moment, every thought, every experience happening with in you is a pocket of presence waiting to be opened.

You are a gift. Unwrap yourself.

~Mikelle

If you want to practice opening to the gift of you, I have lots of public classes, yoga, meditation, moon ceremonies, workshops, as well as 1:1 Yoga Therapy, Meditation coaching, energy mastery/shadow work lessons I call Emotional Alchemy.

Message me or check my highlights and other page @mik_ella_ment_all @pulse_on_yoga_healing