Are You Prostituting Yourself?

I was.

Of everything I have ever written, this line certainly looks and feels like click bait. My 13-year-old son would be aghast if he knew I wrote something so risqué to draw a reader in. But behind this sentence crafted to garner your attention is a very real question rooted in the concept of archetypes.

Stated simply, archetypes are a typical example of a certain person or thing. You may be familiar with a few of them – wounded child. Saboteur. Princess. Queen. Perhaps you’ve heard of the trauma or drama triangle of persecutor, victim, and rescuer archetypes. Maybe branding is your thing, and you have a brand archetype or ideal customer archetype. I’m not an expert, but believe they arose primarily from Carl Jung’s model, and many folks have built and expounded upon them since then including most famously, Caroline Myss.

We all have different archetypes that shape us and show up in our subconscious by way of decisions we make and how we respond in certain situations. The prostitute is one of the most common archetypes and applies equally to men and to women. You may be defiantly thinking, “Absolutely not, under no uncertain terms am I prostituting myself.” (You may even be clutching your pearls as you say it.) While there are different interpretations of the archetype, a key characteristic of the prostitute is the selling of your talents, ideas, skills, and any other expression of yourself. We live in a capitalistic society where we exchange time, skills or some aspect of ourselves for a paycheck or other value. Where the shadow of the archetype of the prostitute comes in is when we cross into selling ourselves out, selling ourselves short or giving away our own power. It looks and feels like you’ve compromised yourself in some way and are out of alignment with your values, morals, or integrity.

As organizational development professionals and coaches, we come across this more often than you would think. When someone feels stuck in life or work, chances are they have given away their power in some way, shape or form. At work, it often looks like handing over time for a position where you don’t feel valued or appreciated. Maybe you need to log-in or be available during crazy hours at the expense of spending time with your children or family. Another sign is doing work that feels out of alignment with or not living up to your purpose. Another telltale sign is feeling resentful.

It is energetically draining and creates physical dis-ease in our bodies to live out of alignment and “selling ourselves” to someone or something else. You may be prostituting yourself if you think or say things like…

• “I’m really unhappy in my role, but I have to stay for the [insert benefit here – insurance, great pay, generous vacation days, or any sort of “golden handcuff” reasoning]. ”
• “I’d love to apply for that cool job that looks really exciting and more fulfilling than this, but they could never afford me.”
• “I lose vacation/time off because I have too much work to do.”
• “I owe it to [boss/company/team] to stay.”
• “I can’t leave, I have so much flexibility here.”
• Worry about disappointing others who want you to be a successful [insert role here that is stifling your creativity or what you are choosing to do instead of following your dreams so you can make others happy].
• Describe your situation as “soul sucking”.

Full disclosure: This list is generated from all the things I personally thought and said over several years when I was miserable doing work that I told myself I should be perfectly happy and content to have. Except I wasn’t.  And the mounting resentment and anger I was feeling? In my moments of reckoning, I got really curious with myself, only to realize everything I was directing at others was masking a deeper anger with myself. For staying, for putting up with situations where I felt like I compromised my happiness or creativity and felt hoodwinked into no escape route until I realized it all came down to me and my choices. I was prostituting myself to stay for good retirement and the façade of flexibility. But the flexibility to know I could pop in late every once in a while was at the expense of my personal freedom. If you answered yes to the above or felt a sensation in your body (possibly around your solar plexus, which is the seat of our personal power), take note.

The antidote is to reclaim your responsibility and your personal power.

How? It doesn’t mean to quit your job on the spot. We live and work within complex systems. (Health insurance is not cheap and hands down a key reason we stay in situations where we realize we are prostituting ourselves. This is real…and a blog post for another time or author). A starting place is to remind yourself that you have a choice. We often forget how much choice we truly have in life. If you’re prostituting yourself at work, every day that you show up you say “yes” to the job and this situation for yourself. Get really curious about why you say yes to the role/situation over and over and over. Hone in on the places where you give away your power. Where do you compromise yourself? Determine where your line is. Perhaps it’s asking for an opportunity within a new project to expand your wings (and your skill set). Maybe you are in a role that isn’t right, or you’re working in a system that is out of alignment with your values. If you don’t want your current situation, what do you want?

Start answering these questions to drive to your own inner clarity. And…sometimes the only choice we have is to change our view of a situation. Experiment with a new lens and tiny ways that you may reclaim your power and realign with your core essence.