I had intended this evening to write a relatively simple post about my experience today with getting my very first tattoo. However, more important material presented itself. We’ll see if I can thread the two strands together through the same needle by the end here.

I’m what my therapist calls an empath. It isn’t meant in the literary, fantastical sense where magical characters can manipulate emotions of those around them; it’s more that I can intuitively understand and deeply appreciate other people’s feelings, and have a tendency to absorb those feelings. Empaths are compassionate, tolerant, and tenderhearted. They have a knack for reading the room and tend to lose sight of where their emotions end and other people’s emotions begin. I feel things very deeply, I always have, and I have been working hard for awhile now to untangle all the emotions I feel and learn to identify which ones actually belong to me. Empaths, as it turns out, tend to be very susceptible to victimization because they offer up the support and reinforcement that abusers seek, and believe their lies about being maligned and misunderstood. In hindsight, I’ve always been this way. Every feeling has always been big. Par for the course? My mother frequently would snap at me to “stop crying” because she clearly had no patience for it; there was only room for her feelings in our world, really.

Well, fast forward to this evening. My four-year-old was whining in the living room because she wanted to watch television, and my husband had told her no. I was attempting to clean the kitchen, and brought her in there with me to reinforce that just because she wanted something, doesn’t mean that whining would get her to have her way. The whining turned into full-blown crying then, which was fine; she was welcome to feel upset at being told no, but that didn’t mean she would get her way like this either. Lots of howling about what she wanted in between her sobs and crocodile tears. At some point during her outburst I let her go back into the living room; my husband and I were both in the kitchen then.

And then she said something that stopped me in my tracks.

“I’m not a brave little toaster!” she wailed.

(Some months ago when I was trying to teach her about gathering courage to do something that she felt was scary but needed to be done – I think it was taking eye drops for a bout of pinkeye – I taught her this motto of sorts, that we are brave little toasters because we can do hard things. It’s a callback to a childhood favorite movie of mine, but she hasn’t seen it yet, so she doesn’t get the reference.)

I’ve considered it before, but this situation thunked into place for me the realization that not only am I an empath myself, but I’m also raising one. This kid of mine also feels everything deep down in her core, and is constantly shaping her view of herself based on how she is perceiving others’ feelings and views of her. When I tried to tell her that this wasn’t a “brave little toaster” thing, she cried that she wasn’t a good person! All because she had whined about TV and been corrected accordingly! I don’t know about you all, but I won’t accept my kid thinking they’re not a good person when all they’re really guilty of is having feelings.

What did I do? The only thing I really know how to do. I talked. I talked her through this understanding that everything feels big all the time, and when I asked her if that sounded right to her, she nodded so vigorously I thought her teeth would clack together. I told her that this experience would get a bit easier eventually. I talked with her about how there’s a difference between being brave and being good. Then I emphasized to her that she is a good person, and being corrected or having a consequence doesn’t make her any less of a good person. I gave her affirmations: she is good, she is kind, she is smart, and she is loved. I tried to get her to repeat those affirmations back to me one at a time, but she said it was too much, so I told her we’d practice it, and work our way up to them all – but I insisted we do two right now. I told her repeatedly.

She is good, and she is loved. She is good, and she is loved. She is good, and she is loved.

The very thing that breaks my own heart will stitch my kid’s heart back together. The very thing I needed at her age, I will give to her with every breath I take.

I am good, and I am loved. I am good, and I am loved. I am good, and I am loved.

My dearest grownup readers, I beg you, please be aware of what we teach our children. You have no idea what they wind up internalizing, what becomes a crystallized fixture in their sense of self like the permanent ink of a tattoo on their psyche. For proof of this, I need look no further than the tattoo I got today, in fact; it’s simple, an outline of the state of Massachusetts with a heart in the spot where my hometown would be. It’s on my left shoulder, because I’m left handed and the heart is on the left side. It’s a piece I’ve wanted done for a long time, a testament to where I come from and how much a part of me that place really is. In all fairness, it’s a testament to how I’ve internalized my childhood home to represent so much more than a place on a map, traumatized by the fact that I was forcibly removed from there at age 11. I’ve heard that some people find tattoos to be therapeutic, that the process is cathartic for them in some way. For me, today was about putting in actual ink on my body a mark that I’ve carried around inside for a very long time.

My daughter is four friggin’ years old and already struggling a lot with existential crisis for fuck’s sake. If, as her parent, I’m inevitably going to leave marks for her to carry around inside of her, I’ll be damned if they’re anything less than that she is good, and she is loved. She deserves nothing less. I deserve nothing less. We all deserve nothing less. Yes, in case no one ever told you this, you deserve nothing less.

You are good, and you are loved.