Sezin Devi Koehler's Blog, page 18

The Heart of the Matter: Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking

"Reading The Art of Asking, I finally understood that requiring help is a fundamental part of life. Nobody is an island. Not even Henry David Thoreau in his mythical Walden." My 5th article for Huffington Post, published in December 2014.

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year? When the Holidays Aren’t So Jolly

"Social media is wonderful for sharing photos of trees and parties and presents waiting to be opened -- unless Christmas has negative associations; then social media becomes a new portal into personal hell." My 4th article for Huffington Post, published in December 2014.

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13 (Non-Pharmaceutical) Ways to Deal With PTSD

"So, each day I wake up and decide how I will find moments of peace, and over the years I've developed an extensive emotional apothecary, none of which involve pharmaceuticals." My 3rd article for Huffington Post.

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Living in the Shadow of a Gun Crime: 14 Years Later

"Jumping at one's own shadow is a perfect metaphor for living with post-traumatic stress disorder." My 2nd article for Huffington Post.

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8 Reasons I’m Not Having Children (Not That It’s Any of Your Business)

I don't need to push a child out of my vagina to be a real woman. My first article for Huffington Post.

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My Empathversary: Or How Bryan Fuller Changed My Life

One year ago on April 4 the universe gave me the most beautiful gift for my birthday, and it came in the form of a television show called Hannibal, a work of art that introduced me to the truth about myself: that I’m an empath, a highly sensitive person, and an introvert.

How could I not have known such fundamentals about my own self?

For most of my life when my true nature would emerge I was berated as if there was something pathological about being so sensitive. I was usually called crazy whenever I would express the ethereal things I instinctively know about people and places. I heard the words “What is WRONG with you?” more times than anyone ever should. There was nobody like me in my family, you see, and it’s always easiest to vilify the one who’s different; this seems to be true across the board.

As a result I internalized the word crazy and became convinced that there was in fact something wrong with me. I stopped trusting my instincts, writing them off as whatever madness I have, and second-guessed everything I ever did, leading to some horrendous decision-making, some of which haunts me to this day.

Throw into the mix that because I was raised a Third Culture Kid—country and school-hopping in faraway lands during my formative years—I was forced to become an extrovert even though it never felt and never was natural to me.

Since April 4, 2013 and the start of my incredible journey of self-discovery, everything has changed:

The first thing to go was my connection to all the toxic voices bouncing around my head telling me I’m crazy. I put that shit in a grave and gave it a headstone: “Here lie all the assholes who called me crazy. Eat crow, motherfuckers.” Every once in a while those jerks crawl out like zombies and I unapologetically take Michonne’s samurai sword to their heads.

I’m not crazy and there’s no such thing as too sensitive.

The second, and more painful thing, was realizing the truth about my relationships with people, and most especially several who were particularly close. I came to understand that because of my lack of self-awareness and the desperation to connect with people that comes with not knowing who I was, I had in fact been entrenched in a number of toxic relationships simply because I refused to accept the truth about them.

My Goddess, that second step of empath actualization was H.A.R.D. So many tears, so much anger, so much disappointment, poured from my eyes.

I took the time to grieve for all of those faux relationships. Years of those! I cleared my slate. I allowed myself to open up and see things for what they are, not just what I hope they will be. I made myself available to experience honesty in sharing in a way I’d never been able to before out of fear.

I began accepting myself.

Not surprisingly, creativity in the form of paintings, collage, and photography poured out of me. I made over 100 pieces of art last year after realizing the name for what I am is empath, and that creative fount has not abated in the least.

I suppose this is what you call connecting with one’s source of power, and mine exists in my extreme sensitivity.

I began to wonder what I would have been like had this gift been nurtured from childhood instead of all the years of attempts to bully the sensitive soul out of me. More tears, more anger, more disappointment, poured from my eyes.

As I was integrating the truth about my empath self and learning to trust my instincts I made some more bad decisions because damn, 30+ years of second-guessing oneself is really hard to get over. It’s one of the reasons I ended up with the still-ongoing tattoo nightmare.

Almost every day in this year I have sat with myself and worked to release all these decades of pent-up anger at all the people who helped dismantle my trust in myself and my ability to accept my own truth.

Seven hells, it has been a tough year.

But it has also been the most beautiful year of my life.

I know who I am now, and for the first time ever I don’t just like myself, I’m actually starting to love myself.

I love that a flower or one of those phenomenal final dance scenes in the Step Up movies will move me to tears. I love that I can shake someone’s hand or even just be near and know things about them and what they are going through, if I choose to. I love that I am able to feel so deeply, and feel so connected to the soul realm of this universe as well as the physical world around me. I love that even though so many people tried to make me into what they wanted, they didn’t succeed. I love how strong I am to have survived with my empath mostly intact, and I’m getting stronger each day.

And because I finally know who I am, accept myself, and love myself, I am finally learning how to control this gift as well as protect myself.

I don’t watch the news, and I don’t talk about politics anymore. If I’m forced to do these things I detach and my barriers go up. I will not spend time with toxic people, no matter who they are and what relationship they are to me. If I’m forced to be around poison folk my fortress goes up, and doesn’t come down until I’ve smudged with sage.

I’ve stopped judging people because I no longer care if they are judging me, calling me crazy or whatever in their heads (I can hear that shit, man). I’ve stopped giving unsolicited advice because I don’t feel the need to take it upon myself to fix things in which I’ve not been invited to meddle.

I finally have walls, and windows, and doors, and I’m now vigilant about who is allowed a space inside my heart and soul. That ridiculous Third Culture Kid reflex of instant intimacy is gone, baby, gone. And good riddance.

In a way I feel like my empath journey also lead me to getting my body in order, and I continue feeling fantastic with my amazing regime of green juices and smoothies.

I have never been this happy in my life. In fact, I never knew it was possible to be happy for no reason. Even on bad days I feel joy bubbling from inside me. I am constantly moved to tears from all the happy, the sad, the everything of being, and I am not ashamed to admit it. I’ve always lived in the rawness and now instead of hating myself for it, being sure something is wrong with me, being embarrassed by it, I embrace it.

Rawness is everything.

The outgoing personality I developed as a Third Culture Kid is not me. Extroversion is the mask I wear when in uncomfortable situations so that nobody knows I’m miserable. It’s a useful tool, but one I’m relying on less and less. And I feel sad that so many people only know me for that most superficial of characteristics.

Like most empaths I have spent years self-medicating with alcohol, and that time is coming to an end due to some unfortunate genetics: diabetes runs in my family and my alcohol use has increased the glucose levels in my blood. I’m not close to being even borderline diabetic, but if I don’t make changes it’ll happen sooner than I think.

Thus, this new year will be a different kind of adventure in self-discovery, and a new level of accepting and developing this beautiful and challenging gift instead of being overwhelmed by it and needing numbing agents.

Thank you, Bryan Fuller, for your beautiful work with Hannibal that has changed my life. And on my actual birthday, no less. You have brought me a measure of peace I never in a million years imagined I would feel in this lifetime. I owe you a huge debt, Sir, and to you I will forever be grateful.

And by the way, Mr Fuller, along with a green burial my living will now includes permission to harvest bees in my cranium. Hashtag EPIC.

©Sezin Koehler, images by Zuzu Arbus.

You can read my first confessional on Hannibal and empaths here.

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Tattoo Nightmares and #365Grateful

Just because there is a picture of His Holiness on the wall does not mean you will be treated with compassion.
Photo taken at A Stroke of Genius Tattoos, Boca Raton, Florida.

~One~

Ever since I was a little girl I was obsessed with drawing on myself. My notebooks were filled with little doodles and haikus, but so would the skin underneath my hems and sleeves. In spite of being a Third Culture Kid I was never exposed to tattoo cultures in any of the places I lived, and it wasn’t until 1990s American cinema that I began to see tattoos more regularly. I knew one day I would have lots of them.

There are so many reasons why people get tattoos. For me, it was always about owning my own body — making myself — and for memorializing people I love into my flesh. I never felt like I fit in, I was often bullied at home and at school for being “too sensitive” and in the crueler iterations “crazy” and “a nerd”, before it was cool to be any of those things. Always feeling the odd one out as I got older I began to embrace and exaggerate my difference through performance art-style dressing and eventually tattoos. Now, tattoos are one of many ways I choose to express my own creativity.

~Two~

At the end of 2013 I made the huge decision to move forward on the forearm sleeve idea I’d had in my head for at least a decade. I’m approaching my 35th birthday, I accidentally live in a retirement community, and unlike my exciting woman-about-town life in Europe and globetrotting, in Florida I’m housebound aside from my husband’s days off work.

I felt I’d lost my edge, and I wanted it back. A tattoo sleeve felt right.

My husband and I did our due diligence with tattoo parlors in the area, settling on A Stroke of Genius in Boca Raton, owned by “award-winning” New School artist Jason Ackerman, because of its reputation for excellence. We chose an artist, David Robinowitz, because of what appeared to be a solid portfolio, style, and experience, and began working with him to develop the design. My key words were feminine, delicate, colorful.

My tattoo day came and went, and will now go down as one of the top ten worst days of my life to date.

David Robinowitz proceeded to mark my arm with heavy, uneven line weights, wobbly linework, and explosions of ink under my skin from where he tattooed too deep. The entire tattoo is raised and scarred, the sign of a poor tattooist. The lines are a horrid thick black, like a really shitty “tribal” design, the opposite of what I asked for in feminine and delicate.

To add injury to insult, I had a horrific allergic reaction to the ink and tattoo materials that had my arm itching for six weeks like chicken pox.

What should have been a feminine, delicate, artful forearm is now oafish, mannish, and outright ugly from right elbow to wrist. Fuck.

And with it gone the vision of my self that I was creating, one piece of artwork at a time. In its place a stranger whose arm I would like to amputate, hence the lack of photos of the forearm that is no longer mine.

The owners of A Stroke of Genius completely blew me off and refused to meet with me so I could show them what their artist had done.

When I showed David Robinowitz the tattoo he informed me that he used an “animal-based” ink, something which is not standard at all in the tattoo industry, and is likely what caused the severe allergic reaction I had. He also said that if I’m not happy with the tattoo I should get laser removal. Can you imagine?

When I asked for the list of materials that went in and on my skin during the procedure, A Stroke of Genius told me I need to contact their lawyer for that information. Not to mention, I have to pay their lawyer to give me the information that is mine by right.

Stroke of Genius Tattoos in Boca Raton, Florida: what a class act. Not. If you’re in Southeast Florida avoid this shop like the plague.

~Three~

I’ve cried every day in the weeks since having my flesh raked over by a tattoo hack.

And every day my husband tells me it will be okay. The tattoo will eventually be beautiful. I’m going to someone I trust — Phill Bartell of Rising Tide Tattoo in Boulder — to fix it.

But still, the delicate-tattoo ship has sailed. And now I’m doing the work of accepting that I will never look the way I saw myself looking, in spite of having had the ability and the privilege to make that choice.

Instead of an empowering design on my arm, one that reminds me of my warrior and badass self, this arm resonates with the fact that once again some asshole man took things from me that weren’t his to take.

So much unresolved trauma now works its way through the scars. I can feel it itching to get out.

David Robinowitz and A Stroke of Genius Tattoos destroyed the image that lived under my skin, and I can never get that back.

And I’m furious they get to go on with their lives as if nothing happened. I literally and permanently get to wear the scars David gave me from his incompetence. Scars that have since begun to symbolize all the men in my life who have wounded my body and soul in all their different ways.

From warrior queen to victim in a mere forty-five minutes tattoo time.

~Four~

Searching for Falcor #2

To combat the deep depression this experience has resurfaced in spite of continuing my magical green juice and smoothie regimen, I joined #365Grateful. This daily gratitude photography project on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook has been helping me to meditate and focus on at least one thing a day for which I *am* grateful.

Even though I feel like absolute crap and want to crawl into a hole until my arm is fixed. Even though I don’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone, I’m so mortified by this terrible tattoo on my FOREARM out where everyone can see. Even though the last thing I want to do is find anything positive in this experience.

Some days it’s almost impossible to find something for which I’m thankful, but I do it anyway. #365Grateful is helping me get on with my life.

I’m waking up, I’m working, I’m making art, I’m juicing, I’m doing the dishes, I’m pinning images of how I can transform disaster into beauty, I’m looking forward to seeing my soul sister and brother when I return to Boulder later this year for Operation Fix A Stroke of Genius’s Fuck-Up. And look here: I’ve even started writing again.

I’m doing my best to acknowledge the pain this tattoo nightmare has brought up along with the reminders of physical violence in my past I’ve never properly healed.

I’m doing my best to look forward.

Because silver linings only exist in the future.

Feel free to share your own tattoo nightmares in the comments below.

©Sezin Koehler, images by Zuzu Arbus

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#365Grateful: My Schmoopie’s Laugh.

Day 20

I’m grateful for My Schmoopie’s laugh. And that after almost eight years of marriage we can still crack each other up like we just met. #365grateful #marriage

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#365Grateful: Dalí

Day 19

I’m grateful for visionaries like Salvador Dalí and the hybrid monsters of his dreams on paper. I’m also grateful to my friend Melo for telling us about this special one-day exhibit. #365grateful

 

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#365Grateful: Sofia Coppola

Day 18

I’m grateful for Sofia Coppola. A friend picked her for me in that Facebook Movie Poster game going around. This is my copy of The Virgin Suicides, all the way from Prague. It’s one of the few films I prefer to the book, so encapsulating being a young woman navigating the strange waters of dysfunctional family, boys, and sex. The soundtrack is gorgeous, and Sofia did a perfect job adapting this to screen. She also did a perfect job with Lost In Translation. I’m grateful for amazing female directors like her who just get it. She films the inside of my heart with these two movies. #365grateful

 

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