Stripper’s burn out

“You can say anything, I think it’s a fucking hard job.” I really wanted to stop him and talk about it, but he was already about to leave. He is right. We’re constantly interacting with people using our private zone. Not like a waitress who takes the order, serves the customer and leaves the table. We let any drunk, ignorant, drugged person enter our comfort zone, so easy to collect all the negative energies, emotional rubbish from them. We have to deal with rejection, more than one time a night, and we have to participate in mind games. Easily lead into burn out, alcohol or/and drug abuse.

If you don’t make money, men are your enemies because they don’t pay. If you make money, your colleagues are your enemies because of jealousy. And the management also can give you hard time. Usually, when the club is not so busy – like here now–, they drive the girls crazy to sending them to customers. “You have to go to every client! You came here to work, not just to sit!” Which is true, but let me decide who I want to work with. I often don’t see the point to go over the table if I already know the guy won’t pay. But still, they want me to go the guy in the corner who almost sleeping because he’s so drunk or the one who didn’t buy a single dollar to give out to the girls. Pointless.

I tried to find out why I was so stressed and not so successful at work lately, but mainly I blamed others. (Of course, it’s always the easiest way!) Doesn’t matter how hard I tried, the end was always disappointment and failure. If something didn’t happen as I wished, I called the guy an idiot and left him. But lately I took the time to stop, I investigate my emotions, get rid of the old, useless things and habits and go ahead with a lighter heart. Now I just smile when a girl shut the door in the changing room with anger saying “These are fucking idiots!”

You know everything is okay when you sit and smile, then go on stage, shake your booty a bit and men start queueing to have a chance to talk to you or take you to the private. I know I’m okay and balanced when guys come to me at work. I don’t need to lift up my pretty bum from the chair, they come to me asking if I want a drink or a dance. (Hm, let me think about it.) They come to me because I’m smiley and easy to approach. I like when work is that smooth and I enjoy myself. I don’t need to pretend I like people, I really do and I enjoy talking to them. I’m radiant. But it took almost 3 months emotional cleansing. When nothing happened on the surface but a lot inside. You know the feeling when you just want to hide from people. Low energy. Lost motivations. Like stepping in the mud. The more steps you make, the deeper you get. In the mud, I was searching for helping hands but forget about my own. Some could help and lift me up a few inches and hold me there temporary, some just pushed me even deeper.

Enough! Let’s see what is under the water! I let myself to swirl into the deep emotions and I went through all the stages of anger, blame, despair, self-pity. But as a result, I came out as a stronger person. And now I enjoy the fruits of my work on myself as others can do. Last week I went shopping and realised men stop and staring at me. One guy literally stopped and turned as I passed by. No, he didn’t check up my behind, he looked my face. I was wearing the same radiant smile as at work. With these feedbacks, I know I’m okay. But maybe this time it took so long. Maybe this is a sign that I better stop doing this job, I have nothing left to learn from it. I must grow. Life is much more than wake up in the morning, go to work and pay the bills (maybe because of this way of thinking I never had lots of money although all my bills are paid.)

In this sensitive period, I had someone who pointed out my negative side, someone who pushed me down in the final. I believe everything happens for a reason and every person who enters our life has a message for us. This person disappeared from my life without knowing that he gave me an amazing gift. He held a mirror for me that I had to look into and face with my own self-destruction. But his job is done. Message delivered. The rest is up to me what I’m going to do with it. There is still much work, but the first step is to realise which part of your life you need to work on. At least I stopped destroying the things around me. Now I’m more centred and can focus on building up.