Conscious Inklings Blog. IDEAS, INSIGHTS & INK-SPIRATION. / affirmation

Stacey Lorin Merkl, Founder & Executive Director of Realize Your Beauty, reached out to Conscious Ink for her nonprofit’s New York City event when she realized that her own mission and that of Conscious Ink were perfectly aligned. “Realize Your Beauty is all about youth empowerment and Conscious Ink is all about empowering people with their tattoos. The messages of positivity, working to empower others, and helping them to believe in themselves - though we do this work in very different ways, at the end of the day, we have that strong commonality.” The event was a wonderful success and as the pictures poured in, we knew we had to feature Stacey, her organization, this event and her mission. This is her story of outreach and impact.

At a young age, I fell in love with theatre arts, and I knew that in some capacity they would be a part of my professional life. When I was about 14 yrs old, I had a mentor who used theater/music as a means to help those infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. When I was 15, I began performing with his organization, helping with the fundraisers, and so on. It was this experience that taught me I could use what skills I had in theater arts as a means to help others. For me, that realization changed everything.

After years of struggling with my own serious body image and eating disorder issues, it became clear to me that I wanted to spend my life empowering young people to feel good about themselves, to see their value and truly to understand their worth. With my background and skill set, using theatre as a means for social change was the natural path for me. For all these reasons, in 2010, I founded the non-profit organization, Realize Your Beauty, with the mission of promoting positive body image and eating disorder awareness to children and adolescents through theatre arts.  

Conscious Ink so generously sponsored our annual event, Realize Your Beauty Day, which is an International celebration of inner-beauty, kindness and self-esteem: a day to celebrate what makes you uniquely beautiful. Conscious Ink sponsored our NYC Celebration, which was the main event for the organization. The event was so much more than what we could have hoped for! We had people of all ages in attendance: high school groups, parents and grandparents with young children, Girl Scout Troops - everyone was smiling and enjoying the activities! We had jewelry making, face-painting, a juggler, live music, live theatre performances, crafts, activities, and even a ‘Tattoo Parlor’ (sponsored by Conscious Ink!). All of the activities had a common theme: inner-beauty and kindness. The space was very generously sponsored by BALANCE Eating Disorder Treatment Center, and we were so lucky to have Denise Bidot (Plus Sized Model, Activist and Founder of No Wrong Way Movement) as our Guest Speaker. Everyone was so supportive and engaged with the presentation, and Denise Bidot gave a wonderful speech. It really helped the whole day come together, and reinforced the message behind the day: a day to celebrate what makes you uniquely you!

If I could tell the world one thing, it would be that we are the most beautiful when we are the most ourselves. Be yourself, let yourself just…be you. You bring something to this world that nobody else can, because there is nobody in this world just like you. That seems so overly simple and maybe even trite- but it’s the truth. We all have different life experiences, along with our natural personalities and strengths, that combine to make us unique individuals. And we all have something positive we can share and contribute to this world – and the word desperately needs more positive contributions! The beautiful thing is that the more you’re able to love and embrace who you are, the more you’re able to love and embrace others.

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Conscious Ink was honored to contribute to the Realize Your Beauty event. When Frank Gjata founded Conscious Ink, he wanted the simplicity of a Manifestation Tattoo to have lasting impact by using the power of words as a regular reminder of our power. Stacey shared her own thoughts on the power of words and they perfectly reflect the heart of Conscious Ink: “I think many people underestimate the power of their words. Words inspire us, they influence us, they help to shape the way we think. A positive mantra can have a very powerful effect on our day to day lives, by helping and teaching our brains to think of things in a positive way. Words have power, and the way we speak to ourselves on a day to day basis has a very strong impact on how we feel about ourselves. It’s time to learn to speak to ourselves with words of love, respect and kindness, and a positive mantra is a great place to start.”

We have 12,000-60,000 thoughts per day. Our brains are firing, wiring, and soaking up information constantly as we move through our lives and even right now you are likely processing these words while other thoughts are ricocheting off the corners of your mind. The fact of the matter is that our brains are turned on and are gathering and internalizing data at record speed and the majority of those thoughts are the same as yesterday’s, which were the same as the day before. But even more alarming is that it is estimated that 80% of those thoughts are negative. That’s right. As we brush our teeth, kiss our kids, get stuck in traffic, call for take-out, step in the shower, lead that big meeting, there are conscious and subconscious negative thoughts that are bombarding us.

But can our thoughts—negative or positive—truly have an impact on us? The answer is yes. In fact, in a recent interview, Conscious Ink’s founder Frank Gjata, mentioned Dr. Masura Emoto’s work in a recent interview. Dr. Emoto is known for his studies that showed the impact of positive and negative messages on water on a molecular level. Positive and negative words and phrases were spoken over distinct jars of water and then frozen. The water was then put under a microscope to reveal that the water that had been infused with negativity had a disfigured, asymmetrical, and almost blobbish molecular structure while the water infused with positivity had crystalline symmetrical shapes like a snowflake under the microscope. Balanced and intricate elegance. Our bodies comprising of 50-75% water and our brains processing tens of thousands of thoughts a day, the concept then forces us to ponder how our negative and positive thoughts impact our minds and our bodies.   

If you were put under a microscope, what would you see?

Would you see harmony and elegance?

Or would you see distress and pain?

The Conscious Ink tattoos are about claiming the positive for yourself.

They are about taking back your thoughts and words so that you can affirm your desires and your truth as you shift the statistics and biology to your favor. The consistent reminder and action of re-orienting yourself to the positive as well as by actively creating positive associations in your life, you are actually changing your neural pathways to accommodate a shifting mindset that breaks away from limitations, doubt and fear and moves toward infinite possibility and limitless power and true connection.

What words do you claim today?

How will you use them to rise?

There are few things more powerful than the simple act of standing.

Gandhi stood for peace. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for equality. Mother Teresa stood for compassion. Hardly pushovers.

So what makes this standing so powerful?

When we stand for something, we have an unwavering commitment toward it. It’s clear and definitive. There’s no wasted energy thinking and rethinking, deciding and un-deciding, hemming then hawing. So those who stand for something enjoy super-concentrated energy.

And that’s just the beginning.

Since the entire universe loves clarity, it naturally and bountifully supports it. For example, a tree is definitive in being a tree. The universe abides by the tree’s decision and thus fully supports the tree by supplying everything it needs – sun and water, etc. The same holds true with us. When we stand for something authentic within us, we will be supported by the entire universe. Yeah, baby, yeah … now we’re talking!

Let’s take a look at how it works the other way around. Until we make a conscious commitment to stand for something, we stand for nothing. And when we stand for nothing, we’re lost in no man’s land. And in no man’s land, we can eat up a lot of energy quickly … perhaps by standing then sitting repeatedly, or standing until someone tells us to sit, or standing until someone sees us standing, so we quickly sit in fear of judgment.

What a mess.

No worries though. It’s an easy fix. First, simply get in touch with something that’s authentic within the “real you” – your essence. Then make a conscious decision to stand for it.

Simple as that.

Now, here’s the trick: Make this decision when there’s no pressure to make this decision. Don’t wait for a set of circumstances to come up before you decide what you stand for! For example, if your essence likes the idea of integrity, make a decision right then and there that you stand for integrity. So then when a situation arises that might compromise your integrity, you automatically and effortlessly say no.

No questions asked. No energy leak. The decision has already been made. If, let’s say, certain circumstances arise before you’ve decided to stand for integrity, you may unconsciously get caught up in a particular story, rationalizing this or that, and ultimately make a dishonest decision.

The standing must come first.

One last thing …  sometimes, before we can stand for something authentic, we must surrender something false, which may first require us to fall to our knees.