Episode 121: Intuitive Involution
After the previous episode where I touched on my new found understanding of trauma, I found that there was some healing I needed to do for myself. I am putting this episode out as an example of what it looks like. I wasn’t given examples or details on what it means to “do the work” when it comes to healing.
I wasn’t prepared for what I’m walking into. It’s uncomfortable, it’s frustrating, it’s annoying, and it’s something people can benefit from with awareness. In connecting . . . well, reconnecting to myself, I know I’ll be able to make better use of the tools I have available to assist others in navigating their own healing, even if that tool is just my experience.
Episode 121 Transcript
Intro, The New Studio, and "Doing the Work"
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. This is your first time downloading a podcast episode, then I strongly encourage you to go and check out episode zero so that you get an idea of what you're getting yourself into. If you're someone who found this podcast because you were looking for some positivity and you are in the right place, but you might get a little bit more than what you were bargaining for as some of these stories are the experiences of people who have been diagnosed with an STI and we talk about dating and we talk about sex, we talk about disclosure, we talk about relationships and the most important relationship that I think we've discussed to date is the relationship that we have with ourselves.
Courtney Brame: And Something Positive for Positive People is also a nonprofit organization 501c3 that supports stigmatized communities with experience-based resources. And we also talk to therapists, sex educators, and people who have faced some sort of stigma in hopes of using their stories to support people through their own healing processes. So, the reason that I'm talking a little bit lower is because I'm in a new recording space. And this will be where I record episodes moving forward and I have to just soundproof the room a little bit. So, if I get too excited or loud or if I change directions or if I rock a little bit, then the sound quality goes to s***. So, bear with me for the next hopefully 20 minutes of me just talking. This is another solo episode.
Courtney Brame: I don't know if you caught on yet or not, but I've been doing more of these solo podcast episodes recently on… I forget which one it was, but I recently talked about how I felt like I was addicted to being needed. And as a result, that took me down this whole path of just really diving into working on myself. And I hear people say working on myself a lot and I never really see what that means because people are always talking about the work that's been done or what they're doing and there's not a whole lot of detail in it.
Courtney Brame: So, what I'm hoping to do is take my own experience of going through it and doing the work on myself and being able to just give you all a few insights to what that looks like. I will try not to get too detailed because I think that maybe some pieces of this are more sacred and personal to me than I should be sharing. But if it just comes out, then it comes out. My number one intention here is to connect. and it's important for me to branch out those energetic tentacles of connection for people to latch on to whatever they find useful. So, I'm going to just go into it.
Dreams, Chakras, and Asking for What You Want
Courtney Brame: I think that what started this, if you listen to last week's podcast episode, I talk about being in yoga teacher training and one of the exercises that a guest did, having us talk about where we were from. And in my own personal exploration of where I'm from, I found myself in a space that had a feeling to it. And that feeling was a sense of control and not a lot of emotion. I don't want to say there was no emotion because I interpreted it as fear sort of being the driving emotion for control. So there wasn't necessarily an absence of emotion.
Courtney Brame: But after that exercise and after talking about it and after doing some journaling about the experience, I noticed that I've been having a lot of dreams. Every time I go to sleep, I have some kind of a dream and when I wake up from it, I remember really heavy parts of the dreams and there they haven't really been sex dreams, which I'm surprised, but they've been dreams of things that have different representations.
Courtney Brame: So, I'll wake up and I'll either just sit and meditate on what it was if it's really cold outside the covers and I'll just lay there before my alarm goes off and just try and puzzle piece things together that I can remember and see if there's any sort of a connection to be made. I'll often Google dream interpretations to figure out what different symbols could mean. So, for instance, I had a dream that there was a dog and there was a brown puppy in the dream that I had and Google said that symbolizes patience. And if you've been in contact with me on social media or you follow the @HOnMyChest Instagram page, then you'll know that patience has been one of the things that I've been really struggling with for myself.
00:05:00 Courtney Brame: I have a high tolerance which it's like an external patience where you're patient with others but you're not patient with yourself. And so throughout my own personal growth process, I've come to realize that being patient has not been a thing for me. So it was really good for me to have seen this represented in one of my most recent dreams. There was another dream I had about and I think that this is where this is coming from. I just finished the audio book western mind and this book goes into extreme detail about the seven chakras. It's kind of like a study guide for me whenever we get our yoga teacher training test.
Courtney Brame: But I learned that my chakras and what they symbolize are out of the one that stuck out to me the most there were two- the root chakra which is grounding stability. I'll go into more detail about that because I think that this is probably where the most of my growth came from. But in one of my dreams the one two three four fifth chakra which is… symbolizes “I” speak and it's the communication chakra so it's speaking communicating being understood and the color that it represents is blue.
Courtney Brame: So, in this dream I remember that all of the communications devices were an Aqua Blue. And I don this was just so strange to me to remember this as vividly as I did, but I had an entertainment system. I had Bluetooth speakers, even my Bluetooth headphones, my PlayStation 4 controller. All of these things were blue. And when I woke up, I just wrote out as many details as I could about everything. And I think that what this symbolized for me was an emphasis on speaking my truth. and being able to trust that that's okay and being able to ask for what I want. Just because this has been something that I know I've struggled with throughout time.
Courtney Brame: Being able to clearly communicate what my needs are or even just communicating my intentions really. So this is what doing the work can look like for someone. I don't want to say that this is what it looks like for everyone or say that this is like the end be all to self-help or personal development or growth, but this is just an example of what growth can look like. So, ever since I've set the intention of really exploring where I am from and looking back on my own personal history and what I've felt from my past that could have really influenced where I am now. I think that I've been getting communication from my own subconscious really.
Courtney Brame: So, this tells me that it's safe now for me to ask for what it is that I want. And this has been a huge gift to me because it's liberating to know that it's safe for me to do so because it hasn't always been safe for me to ask for what I want just in fear of asking for too much or I've always had this belief that I was always afraid of asking for what I want because I might get it. How scary would that be, right?
Courtney Brame: But I think it comes from a history of asking for so few things and then realizing that maybe I just can't have whatever that thing is. Or maybe my asks are just too big because I've had everything that I've needed growing up. All of my needs were taken care of. There was never a thing that I didn't need and I barely wanted for anything. I mean, there may have been a few things that I was told no to, but these were just astronomical looking back on them, but my inner child doesn't acknowledge that at all. So, going into the next piece of this, I talked about stability being a thing for me and working on my grounding or my root chakra.
The Ugly Cry and Meeting the Inner Child
00:10:00 Courtney Brame: I talked about that experience that I had where I saw my inner child or that version of myself that was not even tall enough to see over the couch and realizing how that version of me felt in this heavy energy. And so, a few days ago, it's March 4th today. It was March 1st actually that
Courtney Brame: I cried for the first time in years, y'all. And this was a ugly sobby cry, too. This was not a just “I get excited in the movies” in Avengers when Captain America picked up Thor's hammer, I got so excited tears ran down my face. I was like, "Oh my god, yes." This was not that kind… This was an ugly cry. And I went back and I just saw that version of myself, and I realized how much of a role that kid played in my life to get me to where I am right now.
Courtney Brame: And I feel stuck because while me in the present I have an idea of how things look, my perception is one thing, but I've ignored this aspect of myself or just dismissed it and been like, I'm going to take care of myself once I'm in that certain place where people can look like once I have a certain amount of money in the bank or once I have acquired this thing or once I'm in a relationship or once I'm stable and secure or once the stars align whatever that may look like and for me for the first time saw that kid saw that part of myself and
Courtney Brame: I saw it with the intention of seeing what that part of me needed because I'm so new to this whole emotions thing and understanding what they do, how your shadow controls you. And I wanted to visit with my shadow. And when it came up, that's what I saw. I saw this young version of myself. And this young version of myself really didn't have much control and didn't have much freedom. I remember being told I can only play between this many houses on one side of the street, that many houses on the other side of the street. And my family, they had to raise me that way. I get it. I'm a black man.
Courtney Brame: But as I talked through this with someone, I talked to them about how the way that I grew up, I felt like I didn't really have freedom. And they asked me how I felt about it. And I was like, I understand why they did it now that I'm an adult." And she was like, "But you can feel however you're going to feel? What did you feel?" And I thought I was like, "Nothing. Did I not feel anything or did I feel everything? I don't know." So taking it back to what happened on Sunday, I was in a bed and I was just under the covers and I closed my eyes and just envisioned myself there with that feeling that I had from the meditation that the yoga instructor guided us through. Where am I from? Right?
Courtney Brame: And so I tried to just have a conversation with that version of myself. And all of these feelings came over me of what that kid missed out on, didn't get to do. It was just like a rush of repressed emotions came over me and I knew right away, this is what I've been avoiding. These are the feelings that I avoid by being such a quote unquote light to other people. and being so adamant about helping other people and being so available and not wanting to miss out on anyone else.
00:15:00 Courtney Brame: I as that child was raised to believe that the most important So here's the narrative without me getting too specific. I want my mama to call me… you talking about me on your podcast. I can hear that condensing it down to one sentence. The narrative was if I'm not what mommy needs or if I'm like dad, then I won't get my needs met. Period. That's the sentence. If I act like dad, then mommy takes away my needs. Something like that. It was something along those lines.
Courtney Brame: I don't have a notebook here with me. But that was just a aha moment for me because I realize now that she'd tell me cuz my dad was a certain way. We won't go into too many details about that either. but he was a provider. all of the men in my life were providers. And my mom would always say things like, "Don't be like your dad because dot or you acting just like your dad." And these were bad things. These were negative things. So, as I grew up, I learned, okay, don't be like him. He works all the time. His priority is making money. His priority is stability.
Courtney Brame: and his priority is doing things the right way like having a family getting married and all of that. So don't be like him. This was sort of an underlying thing for me. And it was also to provide emotional support for the woman in your life. And so this being my mom and then whenever I got girlfriends, I would treat girlfriends the way that I was taught to treat my mom. And that was really just to be available emotionally for them. I think personally if I were to go to therapy or a therapist, they'd probably give better descriptions with words and have language for it that I don't have. But this was the general consensus to visit with my inner child.
The Addiction to Emotional Intensity
Courtney Brame: And I saw my inner child for the first time. And this really explains why I get so excited when no matter what I get some sort of an intense emotion from a person. It can be the most negative dark emotion or it can be the most bright positive emotion. The intensity is what I've always been drawn to. And here I am now, 31 years old, and I've created a life to where I am always around intense emotion. Even through playing sports, I don't miss playing sports in any way, shape, or I'm over it. There are times where my competitive nature does come out, but overall, I can honestly say I don't miss sports.
Courtney Brame: What I do miss is I miss the intensity of the emotions in the locker room. I miss the struggles that we had off the field together when we were running and dying and we hated each other because somebody would miss their time and we'd have to run extra. These moments of scraping up change to go to the Chinese buffet cuz we were broke and we shared these struggles together. Those were the aspects of sports that I missed, right? And again, it's just that emotional intensity, I never felt like I lost. Whenever we lost, it was just like, " that was a better team." But I had teammates that would be devastated by a loss. And then even when we win, it was like, "We won cuz we were supposed to, and that was it." And then teammates would just be so excited and just ready to celebrate. And those were the atmospheres that I really thrived in. And after sports ended, I was in corporate America.
00:20:00 Courtney Brame: And I think the most exciting thing that would happen was someone making a sale in sales and that was it. So I think I just sort of phased my way out of that space and into u personal training where the energy is necessary to keep up and then people come in with all types of emotions and they're intense and you're responsible for leveling them out or letting bring whatever they're bringing in and having them express that through exercise. whatever the workout may look like.
Courtney Brame: You get to feel that. And then with this podcast, I think this is probably where I get it the most. just given that people contact me and they say, I'm devastated. I was diagnosed with herpes. I don't know what to do." And the list goes on. Or when people say, "Yeah, I just disclosed to someone and it went great. Thank you so much. I listened to your podcast and it helped a lot." And I love that so much that I have to learn to detach from it because maybe it's not healthy how much I love it.
Courtney Brame: And so I decided for the month of March, if you notice by now, you haven't seen anything from me on my chest, Twitter or Instagram or I mean I'm on Facebook and my other Instagram for personal training. But yeah, I felt like I needed to step away from that because that visit with my inner child was a very intense one. I felt like the present me has been repressing or dismissing seeing that inner child. And I get to be seen so much in the light and I get to get my ego stroked and I get all of these praises for doing what it is that I do through the podcast.
Courtney Brame: And my inner child has been screaming to me from the background in a way that I have probably been self-sabotaging myself. I know that I don't deal with rejection. I know I don't know what I feel. I know that it's really challenging for me to trust myself. And after looking at my inner child and legit having a conversation, I looked crazy, I had a full-blown expressive conversation thanking my inner child for being as adaptable as he was, expressing my gratitude for him complying and obeying all the rules and getting us to this point right now to where I can give my inner child what it wants. And my inner child really just wants to play.
Involution: Aloneness vs. Loneliness
Courtney Brame: My inner child wants to connect. And I think that now we're speaking the same language because when I asked that kid what it wanted, the word that came out, and I'm telling you, I probably sound crazy as f***, but the word that came out of my inner child was play. I want to play. And as an adult, I'm not going to just be at a playground or play pin or anything, but as an adult now, it's about connecting. And a lot of the reading that I've been doing and a lot of the podcasts that I listen to, anything self-help related, it always points inward.
Courtney Brame: I've been reading Light on Life by… I'm so bad at names, but the name of the book is Light on Life. It's right here. His name is BKSar and it's called Light on Life. And this is the first time that I've seen the word involution. I N V O L U T I O N. And it's just an internal evolution, right? So, I'm taking the month of March to connect with myself, which is something that I've never done. I've always been around the intensity of other people's emotions and I thrived off of that. I've always been in some kind of a relationship or dated someone or been sexually active with someone.
Courtney Brame: And I think that for the month of March, it's important for me to play with myself. I set myself up for that one. connect with myself, my child self. I've been dating myself in February, but since Sunday, since March 1st, I just had the realization that my inner child just hadn't been played with, hadn't been seen, and, it's said it's done things to get my attention that I've ignored.
00:25:00 Courtney Brame: I've been single now since December 25th. And as far as dating goes, I've noticed that we're getting deep here. I might be giving y'all too much. I noticed that I have rejected myself before even giving an opportunity to give someone the power to reject me. So, I do things.
Courtney Brame: I do a number of things that I'm now aware of and I can't be unaware of now. let's see for instance I'll give you one example and that's it. I am in fact emotionally overwhelming sometimes to people and that is not a very good conversation starter. That's not often a good way to get introduced to someone. I guess even if that vulnerability is really offered to you. Maybe that's a bad example. that's not a good example. So, we went out Saturday night, right? And there were instances my stomach was hurting, so I can't use that as an example. This is a really tough one to navigate cautiously. yeah, I don't know.
Courtney Brame: We'll talk about dating in another episode because there's some funny stories there from me about online dating. But I have to see who I am without Something Positive for Positive People is essentially what my consensus is. And I'm still going to do the podcast. I'm still going to do all of the nonprofit stuff and I'm going to record the episodes of the podcast, but taking a step away from H on my chest because I noticed that rather than reaching into myself or looking to connect with myself, I tend to welcome distractions.
Courtney Brame: I'll get on social media and look at people's Instagram stories and I'll comment just to initiate conversation to get a dopamine hit of connection. rather than finding a way to release my own serotonin. I got me that's been inside of me crying to get out for attention and I've just been neglecting it for whatever reason. So, this just really looks like being more intentional about connecting and taking it back to the beginning of the episode, the most important relationship that you'll ever have is the relationship that you have to yourself, And so I look, excuse me, I had a hiccup burp. That was nasty.
Self-Sabotage and Giving the Inner Child Permission to Play
Courtney Brame: I had to have my shadow scream at me and be upset and sabotage dating opportunities work getting client opportunities just because I see that this part of me has been rejecting me because it's a way of remaining safe because if I become successful or if I make a lot of money or if I am able to provide stability, then that makes me my dad or any of the men in my life that as a child I was told not to be And if I'm like them, then I don't get love. I don't get emotional connection.
Courtney Brame: So my life right now is super welcoming and expressive of emotional connection and my inner child feels like I can't have this stability because it means I'll have to cut off the emotional piece right in order to keep mom happy. That's like if I want to keep mom happy then I have to keep the emotional piece but if I want to be successful then I got to be like dad and if I'm like dad then mom won't love me. I cannot live like that. It's like I'm fine. I have enough. I do what I got to do. and legally I do what I got to do legally. Let me say that and make sure I put the L word in there.
00:30:00 Courtney Brame: But I had to convince my inner child that I'll take care of us. My healing process looks like giving my inner child a job to be adaptable to have that structure and routine so that it knows when he's being a good boy. and then give him permission to play. Today we danced in the living room in this house that we have and I just reassured him "Hey, we have this." no one's going to take this away because you're not being an emotional support as accessible as you have been for people on my chest social
Courtney Brame: So, I have to show my inner child and that it's going to be okay. because I'll take care of We can take care of each other. and that's what my healing is looking like. And It's really uncomfortable. It's hard for me to allow myself to be alone because I haven't been all of my 31 years. I think I lived by myself for a few months when I lived in Houston. But even then, I had friends and once they moved, I was like, "f*** this. I'm moving back home, too. I don't want to be here by myself." And it's been the same thing with relationships.
Courtney Brame: I think that I've set myself up to be in relationships where I've been controlling… that's not the right word- with women who controlling might be the most fitting word in my vocabulary right now. But women who inhibited my freedom or felt threatened by my freedom or me getting emotional needs met elsewhere or me doing what I had to do in order to provide stability. I think that that's been a consistent pattern in my relationships. I've always prioritized their emotional being or their needs over my own and it's shown up
Courtney Brame: a number of ways now that I'm thinking about it. And this is what I got to do. I've got to make space for my inner child to play. I have to connect with myself. I have to know what my inner child wants and be able to give to my inner child. And in turn, like I said, we can take care of each other because that inner child is resilient as f***. I believe that I can't offer anybody* in a relationship. I ain't going to lie. I can't like even in dating. The best thing that I can do at this point is provide emotional support. I'm really good at that thanks to my inner child.
Courtney Brame: it has equipped me with a seemingly infinite supply of being able to hold space for others emotions. I use the analogy of being Melotus from the seven daily spin sins with the full counter. whatever emotions you send to me, I just reflect back to you amplified. I do feel like that really resonates with me because I don't really know what I feel, but I know that it's intense. I do feel, but I'm spending this month to really figure out what my feeling is. my natural state of feeling.
Courtney Brame: I know that I don't like the feeling of being lonely, but it's not loneliness. And I've got 20 pages left in this light on life book. and one of the things that they talk about in here is aloneness versus loneliness. And it is in aloneness that you are able to connect with yourself. you're able to connect with the divine, the infinity part of yourself and that oneness that is present within us all. So my intention It's to connect with that part of myself. I wholeheartedly believe that connecting with myself is going to allow for me to be able to do more in life. If I can stop rejecting myself before I reach out to clients about training, then maybe I'll get more clients in training.
00:35:00 Courtney Brame: if I can stop rejecting myself before I contact people about being interviewed on the podcast or asking sponsors for money or asking women for dates or even asking for casual sex, whatever it is that I want, then I think that it'll make that kind of thing easier because my inner child, whatever name suits it best, isn't sabotaging me in fear of losing
Courtney Brame: losing what it's always known which is that form of stability that comes with just It's just enough. Whenever you are, if I give mommy love, if I give the woman in my life love, the people in my life love, in this case the podcast listeners what they want and I'm getting validation that they're receiving what they want, then I will always have just enough. I'll always be stable and secure, that's not how this is going to work. So, this is my attempt to reconnect with this piece of myself. And someone asked me, Courtney, how do you stay so positive? And I was like, I'm not a negative person.
Letting Go of Expectations and Outro
Courtney Brame: But I know that through my experiences of being excited and disappointed, I know that I've come to a place of just expecting the worst thing that can happen. And then when something remotely similar to what I was hoping for in an outcome occurs, then I'm like, " that's cool. I'm pleasantly surprised." But I think that this bright light y'all I think there's a much darker shadow cuz I ain't no reason I should have been crying like I was for no damn 20 minutes, half hour. I cried this morning. I started listening to Lauryn Hill, Letter to Zion.
Courtney Brame: And I felt like if you just listen to the words, I can't play it cuz at some point maybe this blows up and gets a big and Lauryn Hill finds out that I use her s*** without getting copyrights or whatever. But yeah, it's Lauryn Hill with a Y Letter to Zion. Listen to her* beautiful voice and then just listen to the words of that song. And I just felt like that was me talking to my inner child. She's pregnant in the song. I think she's talking to her unborn child. But this is me talking to my neglected child. And I was just like, "Wow." And started** balling. And that's today. So, we're in the month of March in Courtney's healing process. I don't know what this is going to look like in the end.
Courtney Brame: And I don't know how this is going to unfold. I'm not going to know if you have any direct feedback if you message me on Instagram because I'm going to stay off of it for the month of March. I absolutely have to focus on training now. We lost our sponsor. I wasn't given a reason why. So my attention really needs to be more so focused on the behind the scenes nonprofit functions of Something Positive for Positive People. I do want to continue to be consistent in releasing the podcast episodes as I get people to interview. If it works out, then I'll interview them.
Courtney Brame: and I've been going to different trainings to learn how to put together workshops, I guess, or have trauma informed the sex education conversations, workshops, speeches, teachers, whatever. So, yeah, I'll share some of that, too. Actually, it won't be today because we're all waiting. Wow. I didn't even think I was going to be able to talk for 20 minutes. It's been 39 minutes. This is great. I do hope that my rambling is somewhat useful to someone. My intention here is to connect with myself so that I can better connect with the rest of the world.
00:40:00 Courtney Brame: And now I'm at a place where I'm going to meet expectations. I'm letting go of outcomes. This is by far one of the hardest things for me because I have always been in controlled environments. And one of the symptoms of that is always having a sense of control of just knowing what the outcome should be will be. And I haven't had that feeling for a really really really long time now. And I'm still here. Everything is okay. So, I'm working on this, too. I'm working on focusing on my intention, letting go of the expectation because like I said in the last episode, the narrative before was if I get excited, then I'll be disappointed.
Courtney Brame: And that turned into if I have expectations then I'll get disappointed when people fall short of what those expectations are. So I'm operating from a place of intention now and I look forward to seeing how this is going to translate into the podcast and how it's going to play out for Something Positive for Positive People. I got a great group of advisors around me to help move the nonprofit forward. And now that we don't have our previous sponsor anymore, this opens up the door for more opportunities. And it's ironic cuz now that I'm dating again, I'm not sponsored by a dating site. What an irony. So yeah, I mean if y'all know sponsors, let me know.
Courtney Brame: But now I can honestly say that this is probably the most important time for people to leave those reviews, those ratings, share the podcast. and the podcast, like I said, it's expanded beyond just being about interviewing people with herpes. So you don't have to worry about being outed about your status because now the podcast has really shifted into being a space where we talk to people who've been stigmatized, who are somehow at some level working through their own healing processes just so that it can help support other people who find their way here. And what kind of example would I be if I weren't leading with my own personal experience?
Courtney Brame: This is really difficult. It's really challenging. This is by far the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And it is so uncomfortable, y'all. Really uncomfortable. But I got to do it because I'm the kind of person who when I become aware of something, I can't be unaware of it anymore. Something has to be done. And so I'm taking my buddy's advice. My buddy Tyler told me when I brought a problem up to him, I was like, "Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it to your bachelor party. I kind of** myself in a few ways." And he was just like, "Dude, do you not listen to your own podcast?" And that really put it in perspective for me. I'm telling y' all this stuff to do and giving out all this advice and not taking it my damn self.
Courtney Brame: So, I'm going to make this space for my healing. I hope that you all will be understanding of why I'm not being interactive on the Haw and my chest social media accounts. I'm still available. If you need to email me for anything or if you need to text me and you have my number or you find me on any other social media, I'm still on Facebook and my business Instagram for giving 100 here in St. Louis, Missouri.
Courtney Brame: 5648 Pershing. If you want to train, it's $25 a session. If you're going to come more, hit me up and we can work something out. But yeah, that is where my focus needs to be right now. I have to create space for my inner child to be able to connect and play. Till next time, stay sex positive.
Meeting ended after 00:44:42
