EXPRESS YOURSELF
Sounds cliche. And it’s absolutely necessary. Be real with what emotions come up for you and find a way to shake them off.
If you experience a stressful scenario with someone and you ignore, avoid, or deny the uncomfortable feelings, the experience may stay in your body.
During intense situations, the body responds with a flood of hormones and without proper acknowledgement, that one experience may imprint in your subconscious mind as an unsafe scenario.
This is why people have unsuspecting panic attacks later in life.
Unrecognized emotional pain may lead to “unexplainable” bodily pains.
I say this all because I lived it.
Being a woman with previous sexual trauma before stripping, the club was a ripe space for growth or re-traumatizing me.
For years, I dealt with various aches and pains. I pulled shoulder muscles, hamstrings, glutes, wrist, knee and ankle injuries and headaches.
I avoided the physical pain that originated from the emotional pain I couldn’t bare to look at.
To add another layer of avoidance, I numbed myself with substances to fully escape my reality.
What was the KEY to moving beyond this loop of substance abuse, chronic pain, and traumatic emotional reponses?
ART.
Burning man woke me up to the life I was missing by avoiding it all.
I longed to be connected to myself and my highest truth. I began my journey inward with devotion and reverence.
I felt the call to create beyond what I had been doing already.
Creating performance art was always something I focused on to keep one foot on the ground while stripping.
But this call for me to go deeper. It was a demand for me to create art for me.
I began to intentionally create every day. I sang, danced, painted, baked, wrote poetry, let myself cry and yell.
All of this had a significant effect on how I showed up in life.
I stopped dressing for my clients at the club. I dressed to my liking completely. I cut my long hair into a short edgy bob. I wore less makeup. I stopped wearing deodorant. I stopped shaving every single day.
I felt like a rebel tuning into my own desires!! I digress. This is obviously a huge topic that I’ll no doubt share upon again in another way.
If we do not find a creative outlet for emotions, they will express unconsciously and that could be harmful for yourself and others.
So find an outlet that brings you joy. Whether your find an awesome coloring book to dedicate yourself to, of you pick up pottery once a week. Sing-song your annoyances, dance and stomp your anger out and be free of the grip of unexpressed emotions.
Let them flow through you like water in a river. If you notice a stacking of pain and uncomfortable feelings, remember your mission.
EXPRESS YOURSELF. Just like Madonna said. That’s right. Create a song, a dance, an extravagant evening, a celebration, a scribble, a doodle.
Whatever!
It doesn’t matter what you create, as long as you create for yourself.
Ecstatic Soul Stripper 