Most people are taught to believe that the ability to hold down a “real job” — meaning a traditional, rigid, 8-hour schedule, five days a week — is a mark of maturity and success. But I’ve lived long enough and walked through enough fire to say the truth out loud:
The real workplace is often a breeding ground for repression, projection, transference, and emotional violence.
In today’s workplaces, the only people who truly thrive are either emotionally free — rare — or those who’ve mastered the art of repression, projection, denial, and transference so well that they've grown into full-blown sociopaths. These are the people who usually rise. Not because they’re the most capable, but because they’ve buried their feelings so deep, they no longer hear the screams of their own wounded child. And because they don’t hear theirs, they can easily step on others without guilt.
I could never have survived in a traditional workplace for very long if I hadn’t already excavated my childhood pain while I was still dancing — a profession that, ironically, allowed me more emotional and physical freedom than any "respectable" job ever would. I was a lot safer working as a dancer in a topless bar than I was in my so-called "real" job of nine and a half years. While I was a dancer, I was never emotionally harassed by a mob of sociopaths like I was in that so-called “real” job!
When I danced, I could come and go as I pleased. If I wasn’t feeling emotionally well, I took the night off. I listened to my body, honored my truth, and I was rewarded for being real. For many years, I was the most popular dancer. I was treated like a star — not because I faked perfection, but because I radiated something raw and alive.
In contrast, in the real job I held for nine and a half years, truth was the enemy. The moment I published my book A Dance to Freedom, exposing childhood repression and the masks adults wear to survive, I became a threat. The mob of sociopaths I worked with couldn’t stand my emotional freedom — it reminded them of their own imprisonment. And so they did what the emotionally blind always do: they attacked what they are not ready to face and feel. They would rather destroy me than open their eyes to see and feel.
But here’s the blessing: I couldn’t adapt. I couldn’t numb myself back into emotional slavery just to survive another day in a guard booth. And that is exactly what saved my soul.
Not surviving in that workplace was the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to stand fully in my truth, to write, to share, and to create a life that honors the child I once was — the one who was shamed for being different, sensitive, and outspoken.
Now I live in a small, peaceful home with my cats, and I write with a free heart. I’m not rich by society’s standards, but I’m richer than most — because I own myself. I don’t report to sociopaths. I don’t trade truth for a paycheck. And I’ve learned that what the world calls “success” often comes at the cost of your soul.
If you have a hard time surviving in the workplace, maybe it’s because you’re still a feeling person — still capable of authentic emotions.
And that is not a weakness. It’s your humanity.
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