My previous entry explained the first two stages of my intuitive tattoo. The tattoos on my calf and arm both had their own separate intentions and both turned out absolutely beautiful in their own ways as well so damn meaningful to me in their own ways. (If you didn’t read about them then take a second to go do that so that the rest of this makes more sense.)
My third session with Justine was after the decision I’d made of wanting to connect the two tattoos that she had already finished on me. The final product would be a seamless tattoo that goes from my left ankle all the way up my body and down my left arm to my ring finger. So in November of 2022, about a year after my previous session with her, I headed back to LA.
We decided that we would work our way up my leg and then back and then eventually connect up to my shoulder. The only intention that we had for session three was the idea of growth out of that protective cocoon that was represented on my calf. I also had a tattoo on my low back that I wanted covered up, which she did a wonderful job of doing.
This was a pretty strange time in my life and to say that I was going through some growing pains is an understatement. I’d been exploring polyamory for the previous year but this was the point where I was starting to feel like I could actually, fully step into it and begin to actually, fully step into myself. I’d organically met someone who was poly a couple months prior and was excited to see her again for the first time and see where that relationship could go. The budding growth out of that safe cocoon felt like it was going to be something of beauty.
About a month later though, that relationship toxically exploded and any other previous connections I had had ended. The idea that those little tendrils of ink coming out of the cocoon were bits of hope that I had, that then exploded into the sharp leaves and shapes taking place on my hip where some kind of dangerous weapon would be sheathed, that then covered up a tattoo that actually symbolized hope, that then gently wove into the phrase ‘never give up’ was something that I didn’t even realize was incredibly fitting until long after the fact.
Often, growth doesn’t feel good while we’re in the midst of it. And often, we uncover one thing within ourselves that then leads to so many other new layers of healing and growth that then leads to even more that sometimes it can feel overwhelming to want to continue our healing journey or to want to begin it again. I think that this part of my tattoo represents that inner battle that we face every time we go through another big phase of our growth. It can feel so full of hope at times and it can feel hopeless at others. It can feel like we have to armor up and protect ourselves because new things – bad and good new things – can be scary. Sometimes those protections are vital as we expose new parts of ourselves because we’re exposing them to the wrong people or the wrong situation and other times, we need to shed those protections and lay down our armor in order to let the good changes in (and we don’t necessarily know which direction those changes will be until down the road).
The beauty of that pain is that there is always something better on the other side of growth. It might take a lot longer than we want it to and there might be hundreds of extra layers of shit we have to work through, but there is always something better on the other side as long as we’re working toward goodness and growth. My last session that I had with Justine was this past July (2024). We decided to not only make the final connection between my low back and my shoulder, but also decided to add some beautiful blue colors into my back and my arm. This session, I’ll admit, was probably one of the most painful. But it was also the most calm and comfortable sessions that I had, despite the fact that this was also the most naked I’ve ever had to be for a tattoo.
Our goal was to make the final connection, to show that final stepping into a new part of me and new part of life, and show the vividness or richness that can come from finally stepping out of those difficult stages of growth. Not to say that there wont be plenty more stages of growth for me, but just to say that this felt like a final part of these past few years. On top of that, this tattoo also covered up another tattoo that had been weighing on me. It had symbolized a friendship and family that I shouldn’t have had so much love for or faith in, so the cover up felt like a weight being lifted off my back.
One of the things that I loved about this session was that Justine managed to tie in the blue with some of the previous tattoos on my low back and had it trickle through the tattoos on my arm. It almost was like the idea of carrying some of that beauty from the struggles of the past into the future and allowing those lessons to make our future even more beautiful than we initially thought it would or could be.
My upper back and arm are probably my favorite parts of this whole piece now because of everything that they represent. The finality of it all and the bringing of old into the new and also the not having to bring some of the old into the new. It’s like I was given an opportunity to start new but with the wisdom and reminders of the old. After this session, it’s felt like I’ve been able to step out of my past and finally, freely start moving toward a new journey.
The wisdom of our past struggles can only benefit us if we actually learn from them so it’s important to carry those lessons we learned through to the next phases of our lives while letting go of the burdens, patterns, and weights that have held us back before. It doesn’t have to be a tattoo (and most likely wont be for most people) but finding a way to feel like you have the ability to close the doors in your life that you need to and step through other doors that you want to is essential to creating any kind of change in your life. I can’t begin to express how transformative the last few years have been for me, all so beautifully captured through this intuitive tattoo journey, but I hope that these last couple of posts have been able to express at least a little bit of that. Thank you again, Justine. This has been such an amazing experience and I feel honored that I get to proudly carry your beautiful artwork around with me for the rest of my life.
❤
Chelsea
CKB Coaching, LLC 