Have you ever contemplated taking a job just for the paycheck? Recently, I was talking with a client and she was trying to decide about taking a clinical role. As she described it, she's like, well, I'd have to see patients in this windowless exam room have this shared office. And she just kept saying, like, this small, little life, from her tone, you could tell she wasn't totally excited about the day to day of the work. It came with a nice paycheck, and so it felt hard to turn down. Or maybe you're already in a job with a good paycheck, and even though you dread every time you go into work, and even though you feel so exhausted after a shift. Even though you're sitting around in meetings, having this deep sense of knowing that like, this is not my work, knowing that there's other things that you want to be doing, other ways you want to be spending your time, you feel like you can't leave. Because life is expensive and you crave financial security and the only way you know how to obtain that is through hitching yourself to a W 2 job that is draining the life out of you. What it comes down to is in some ways you're selling your soul for a paycheck, for the promise of financial security. So what if this act of selling parts of ourselves for the sake of physical security is a form of low key prostitution? Stay with me, I know this sounds a little crazy, You're listening to Life After Medicine, the podcast for health professionals who want to make a difference, make a living, and still have the freedom to enjoy their lives. My name is Chelsea Turgeon, and my mission is to help you, the lost health professional, find your authentic path to helping others and generating stable income without having to sacrifice your own health and happiness in the process. I came upon this concept of the prostitute archetype in the book Sacred Contracts by a spiritual teacher, Caroline Miss. So first, let's talk about archetypes. Archetype is essentially a series of core traits that is an entry point into understanding a certain behavioral pattern. So, for example, you think of the archetype, the damsel in distress, and that tends to signify a weak female character in need of male assistance. When we label someone as their being a damsel in distress, that helps us to more deeply understand where they're coming from, what's happening, what sort of patterns and behaviors they're exhibiting. It helps us to bring awareness to these deep seated behavioral patterns rooted in our psyche. It creates this awareness that doesn't feel as personal. So that when we identify behaviors that we're not super thrilled about, it doesn't feel like this personal failing or a personal problem. It's just a way to bring our awareness to these things in a way that's more compassionate. And Caroline Mist talks about sort of the purpose of identifying and using archetypes in your personal and spiritual growth. She says, the more conscious you are about the patterns that influence your behavior, the more likely it is that your choices and the lessons you get from them will be positive. If your choices are formed only by your unconscious, however, and you're unaware of the archetypal energies influencing you, you will more likely act out of insecurity and defensiveness. But by remaining aware of the archetypal energies, you stay conscious of both your divinity and your potential and the everyday world. So working with these patterns, is the best way to become conscious of yourself, conscious of the effects of your action, and help you start to make choices that move you towards your full potential. Or if you're here, making choices that move you towards a career that brings you more freedom and fulfillment instead of staying stuck in an unfulfilling career path that is not serving you. And so what is the prostitute archetype specifically? I'm going to read some excerpts from Sacred Contracts where Carolyn Miss describes the prostitute archetype so that you can have a bit of an understanding of what I'm talking about. So this archetype comes into play most clearly when our survival is threatened. And it's core issue is how much are you willing to sell of yourself? Your morals, your integrity, your intellect, your word, your body, or your soul for the sake of physical security. The prostitute archetype also dramatically embodies and tests the power of faith. Because if you have faith, no one can buy you. You know that you can take care of yourself and also that the divine is looking out for you. Without faith, however, you will eventually meet the price that you cannot turn down. The majority of people embodying this prostitute archetype, are remaining in jobs that make them miserable or sick or violate their ethics or make them feel bad about themselves. for the sake of financial security. And many people talk about how unhappy they are and that they're waiting for just the right moment in their lives to make the big break and follow their dreams. These people are actually hoping that I can direct them on a path that will guarantee them money and peace of mind. this is what I get all the time from people. Coming to me and asking like, well, what are the options? Or I just want to know what my purpose is. And they're hoping for this guarantee. Confronting the prostitute within you transforms this archetype into your guardian. It will watch over your relationship to faith. Think of the prostitute as the ally who puts you on alert every time you contemplate shifting your faith from the divine to the physical. The prostitute appears when you begin to believe that you could order your life if you just had the money to control the world around you and to buy just a bit of everyone in it. It appears when you stay in a relationship that's not good for you just because you don't want to be alone. We all had moments where we've embodied this prostitute archetype where. we've put our faith in something outside of ourselves. And so what do we do about that? How do we use this knowledge of the prostitute archetype in our everyday lives? And the first thing to do is just to recognize it, to become aware when you're embodying the prostitute archetype. And this happens anytime you're convincing yourself to do things that you don't want to do. purely for financial security, purely for physical security. When you're unhappy in your job but you're staying there just because you need to pay back your loans or like a client I was on the phone with yesterday who was Unhappy in medical school, but thinking about committing to doing three years of residency, essentially throwing away three years of life, just because it came with this guarantee of a six figure paycheck on the other side. These are all moments when the prostitute, Archetype is alive within us and it's in these moments that if we can bring awareness to what's happening, if we can name it with clarity and honesty what exactly is going on, then we actually stand a chance at shifting and changing and moving into a new pattern, into a new way of relating. Our only point of power is when we have awareness and consciousness in the present moment. And whenever we have awareness and consciousness, then we actually have the ability to influence and change a situation. And instead of acting out of our old patterns of insecurity and fear and defensiveness, we actually have the opportunity To shift into love, to shift into trust, into faith, and to make decisions from a different place within us. So when you notice that you're embodying this prostitute energy, when you notice that you're convincing yourself to do things you don't want to do. purely for financial security, the invitation is to pause and to ask some questions. What is the price you're currently paying? Are you compromising your values? Are you compromising your integrity? Your moment to moment happiness and aliveness? Are you paying the price of time, of years of your life? Are you paying the price of your life energy? Are you specifically doing things that drain you because you don't know another way? What is the price you are currently paying? And then what are you paying it for? What are you receiving in exchange for that? What is the actual dollar amount? There's this quote from the movie Up in the Air, that movie with George Clooney and Anna Kendrick, he says, How much did they first pay you to give up on your dreams? And he's talking to people who were, you know, initially out of college and they had these big dreams of things they wanted to do, but then they settled for the first job. that provided them a steady paycheck. And he's like, how much, how much did they first pay you to give up on your dreams? And so what are you receiving in exchange for this? Are you receiving a steady paycheck? If so, how much? How much money are you getting? And where are you putting your faith? When you notice the prostitute archetype at play, that's one of the biggest, uh, risk. questions to ask yourself. It's where are you putting your trust, your faith, your belief. Usually it means you're putting your faith in some outside entity, something outside of yourself. Maybe it's a partner, maybe it's a W 2 job, a hospital system, maybe it's even an idea. The idea of a steady paycheck. The idea of a guarantee. What would happen if you started shifting your faith and building trust in yourself? What if you could really count on yourself to figure things out? If you could count on yourself to be resourceful? If you could count on yourself to find ways to make money that don't compromise your happiness, your health, your relationships? What if you could start shifting faith and building trust in the universe? Albert Einstein talks about the most important decision you make is whether you live in a friendly or a hostile universe. And I get it, there's plenty of evidence that we live in a hostile universe. There's plenty of things to point to and look at and say, look, like the world is a scary, bad, horrible place. There's so much evidence of that. And yet, the more we believe that we live in a hostile universe, the more on edge we are, the more hypervigilant we are, the more we cling to external physical means of security. The more we're willing to compromise ourselves and give up pieces of ourselves for the sake of physical security. But when we start to believe that we live in a friendly universe, when we start to look for evidence that the universe is friendly, that doesn't mean bad things can still happen in a friendly universe, but you start to see that you're okay. You start to see that you've been taken care of. Like for me, when I got into my accident, I mean, what easier time to believe that you live in a hostile universe than when you're riding Along one day in a tractor and you get thrown off the tractor and you break a bunch of bones and you're lying in a hospital bed in a foreign country and you have to be in a wheelchair for weeks and months and like that would have been the perfect time for me to believe that I lived in a hostile universe that was just there to hurt me that was dangerous. That would have been so easy to believe and yet I decided that's not how I'm going to tell this story. I'm going to find evidence that the universe is friendly, that this happened, but it doesn't mean that I'm not going to be okay. That just because things didn't go the way that I thought they should go in that I shouldn't break bones and I shouldn't have gotten into an accident. And I should be allowed to walk the whole summer just because things didn't go the way I thought they should go. It doesn't mean I'm not okay. Of course, there's reasons to believe that you live in a hostile universe. But all that does is put you on edge and make you hypervigilant and it prevents you from relaxing and trusting and having faith in yourself and in the universe. And when, when you don't have faith, when you don't trust, you're always going to be looking to control. You're going to end up being controlled. You're going to be playing the game of control. And that game keeps your life small. Honestly, it ensures that you never live up to your full potential. So the more you can build faith in your own resourcefulness, in the benevolence of the universe, the more you have trust. In yourself, in the universe, the more that no one can buy you. So my love, if you've ever felt like you're selling your soul for a paycheck, if you feel like you're doing that right now, this episode is an invitation to pause, to look inwards and to ask some of these questions. About what price you're paying, what you're receiving in exchange for that. And where you're putting your faith. Because the only way I have been able to design a career and a life of freedom and fulfillment is because I have cultivated this deep sense of trust in myself. and a deep sense of trust in the universe. And when that's the case, man, you're unstoppable. No one can buy you. So I'd like to invite you to reflect. To just start to imagine what if. What if you could shift your faith to yourself, to the universe? What if you could get to a place where no one? What if you could make decisions purely from a place of trust within yourself? What could be possible for you? That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hot Take Tuesdays, and I'll see you next time my loves.
