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Invisible Ink

I have a saying that my clients think is funny, if not repetitive at this point and my co-workers think is me just being sarcastic. But for me it seems to sum up the situation well. I find myself asked my clients "Do I have 'I'm stupid' tattooed across my forehead in ink I can't see?" I ask this in all seriousness when my clients start feeding me a line of complete and utter BS. And then in talking with a friend this afternoon we talked about having messages on us that say "please dump your shit on us." So that makes me wonder - what kinds of invisible ink do we all have scribbled over us? In certain places people think I'm stupid, in others oh she's a "Christian" - whatever that means.

It is often easy to take on that invisible ink that others have written on to us and let it seep into our essence of being. It's too easy to allow people to write on us their own messages - full of values and assumptions - on us. And it's easy to believe that because it is written so it must be. Maybe what we really need to learn to do is learn to erase - not just cover up, cross out but erase the shit people pile onto us. I would like to say that we could stop people from writing us but as long as you're a breathing being people are going to want to write on you - label you, put you in a box or categorize you.

So erasing - scrubbing off the ink we don't see. It requires being incredibly self aware and to certain extent independent. You have to be willing to be the person you're meant to be. It's helpful to have a person or group of people who you trust and who know you well that can be a mirror and show you the invisible ink you wear. Even the most self aware people still have a community that talk with them and show them parts of themselves. The erasing part is not easy. If you've ever tried to remove ink from your hands it takes vigorous scrubbing, hot water and time. It can be painful. It can lead to removing the top layer of skin - a peeling away. But that comes to the surface is new skin. Will it stay that way for long? Probably not. There is always going to be people with those special markers ready to mark you. But there is hope that maybe on this new skin we can write our own unique messages in our invisible ink. Maybe3 instead of "I'm stupid" it could be "I have value as is." Maybe instead of "that Christian" it could be "a person of loving mindfulness."
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