Episode 69: Nice
Answering all the questions we got in for this solo episode and addressing the unhealthy attachment I found myself to have with recent rejection.
Info for Laureen HD's project we all can get involved with:
Laureen HD partnered with Stevi Sesin to create a special edition of her art project ‘The Art of Loving Your Selfie’ called ‘Under My Skin’.
The project will be an art exhibition running in Berlin, Germany featuring art pieces of people with STIs reclaiming their outlook on their body. The aim behind the project is to not only show the world that having an STI doesn’t make someone unattractive, but more importantly to push the conversation around body positivity to include people with STIs.
They’re recruiting any person who has been diagnosed with an incurable STI - can be herpes (genital or oral), HIV, HPV - whose diagnosis has affected their relationship with their body. This person needs to be willing to be public about their diagnosis and be 18+.
For the stories selected, the project will involve two things:
sending a picture showcasing the level of nudity participants are comfortable with, which will then be turned into art in the style of The Art of Loving Your Selfie.Check our Laureen HD’s instagram to see what that looks like.
sending a voice note of you telling your story.
If you are interested, send an email to tellmemorelaureen@gmail.com with a paragraph of 150words max talking about how comfortable/uncomfortable your STI diagnosis made you feel in your own skin. DO NOT SEND A PICTURE OF YOURSELF YET.
Stay Positive!
Episode 69 Transcript
Intro, Podcast Milestones, and the "Under My Skin" Art Project
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: This podcast is a hub of emotional aftercare sexual health resources for anyone newly diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection. I don't know why I felt the need to do that, but I'm excited on Instagram, I posted for people to ask me questions. This is a very exciting episode of Something Positive for Positive People and I wanted to get others involved with it and to answer one of the questions that we got out the gate. What is so special about this episode? And what's special about this one is that this is episode number 69. Nice. So, it's just me being silly. There's really nothing special about it.
Courtney Brame: other than that, and I have a few things to announce and then I want to give you guys the episode, which is just the main point of what this podcast is about. I did get a few other questions that I want to answer as well. So, I'll try and keep this concise. I've done some looking into the podcast, looking at the statistics, which is something that I try to stay away from. Every so often I'll get on there and just see where we are on the downloads and try to just make announcements for how far we're close to 28 and a half,000 downloads on everything. iTunes, Google Play, Pi Beam, Spotify, all of those put together, I think we're at a total of 28.5,000 downloads. And that's thanks to everyone who's subscribed and shared the podcast with someone else.
Courtney Brame: I can't thank you guys enough for helping support this sexual health resource for people who are diagnosed with an STI, sent some medication and a pamphlet and then they're just sent on their way. So before I get into another question, I want to make an announcement for Lauren HD. She's partnered with Stevie Season. I hope I said her name right to create a special edition of her art project, The Art of Living Your Selfie called Under My Skin. And the project is going to be an art exhibition running in Berlin, Germany, featuring art pieces of people who are living with STI reclaiming their outlook on their body.
Courtney Brame: The aim behind the project is not only to show the world that having an SCI doesn't mean that someone is unattractive, but more importantly to push the conversation around body positivity, to include people with STI. And they're recruiting any person who's been diagnosed with an incurable STI. It can be herpes, genital or oral, HIV or HPV. if your diagnosis has affected your relationship with your body. And we need the person to be willing to be public about what their diagnosis is as well as be over the age of 18. So that means 18 and 1 second on. So you can't be 17 and about to turn 18 in a minute or whatever. So just make sure you're at least 18 years old.
Courtney Brame: So for the stories selected, the project will involve two things. One of which is sending a picture showcasing the level of nudity that a participant is comfortable with, which will then be turned into art in the style of the art of living your selfie. And you can check out Laureen HD's Instagram to see what that looks like. And we're also going to have people send in a voice note of you telling your story. So, if you are interested, I'll link this in the show notes, but send an email to tellmemoreatluren… my god, I messed that up. tellmemorelureen@gmail.com with a paragraph of just 150 words max talking about how comfortable or uncomfortable your STI diagnosis made you feel in your own skin. Do not send a picture of yourself at this point.
Courtney Brame: So, I'm excited for Laureen putting this together and I'm going to definitely participate. I'm going to see if Sierra's going to be on board with it and we're going to participate in really contributing to this project. I think that just about anything that people are doing to help destigmatize herpes is a really good thing. and especially with the right intention behind it and I love anything that's going to be pushing sex positivity because I'm all for that. Another thing, I just want to throw this in here, but there's an Instagram page called my boyfriend has herpes, and it's my_boyfriend_ herpes. And I think there's an underscore at the end. I'll link to that in the show notes as well. But it's a really cute comic strip of Felix and Momo. That's their names. But she draws how her boyfriend disclosed his HSV tour and how they went on dates and how the interactions were.
Navigating Sensitivity and Protecting Your Energy
00:05:00 Courtney Brame: And it's an ongoing story and I really like it. A lot of people are sharing it, seeing it, and interacting with it. And I'm really hoping that this is another tool that's going to help destigmatize herpes. So, I'm really pumped to be able to talk about that as well. So, sorry I'm nasally and I'm sniffling a little bit, but I really think I'm going to be sick tomorrow, so I had to do this today. So, on to one of these questions we got. Will your partner ever be a guest on the podcast? I've had Sierra on before to help me with herpes awareness day. I did a lot of rambling and stuttering and she got tired of it. So, she just came in here and took it over. So, if you want to go back and check that out, it was one of the October episodes. It was a bonus and it was short, maybe about 10 minutes. She just came in and helped me rip that thing out, which was awesome. especially getting to hear her talk and how confident she is whenever she's on the mic, even though she says, "No, I'm not confident on the mic."
Courtney Brame: But it was really really awesome that I had her on here and maybe at some point she'll want to, but she's really busy with nursing school. She's also working full-time, usually on weekends. She works 12-hour days and she's just such a hard worker. And then whenever she has time off, I don't want to get her involved with more work, even if it's just mine. So, whenever we get time together, I like to make sure that we're spending that time together, be it eating, going out, or just hanging out together and watching Grey's Anatomy or any of our Hulu shows. to answer your question, maybe after nursing school, she'll be done this year in December of 2019. So, we'll see what happens after that. Thank you for asking. another question we got, this one's from Kelly. It was about sensitivity.
Courtney Brame: What do you think about being sensitive in this world? And I don't know how to really answer that. If I'm going to define sensitive as really feeling if you're someone who absorbs emotion really easily, then I think that you have a huge advantage in the world if you view it that way because it can also be a disadvantage. I spoke to someone I train with and we were talking about the condition that you can be too feeling or something. And the way that she and I talked about it was you are essentially neutral to an environment and then the energy of the environment is really what overwhelms you.
Courtney Brame: And I think that with conscious awareness, you can walk into a room neutral and feel the energy and just use that to uplift yourself or you can use the energy to create your own unique experience. So let's say you go out to a club and you're dancing and it's loud and exciting like that's the environment that you're in. But if you walk into a mood where there's a mixed energy, I think that that's what really can give you a lot of anxiety. There's kind of this pushpull conflict going on within your body. So in that sense if you're always absorbing and taking in then depending on how you use that you can either use that to enjoy the experience but you have to be very very mindful of the environments that you do put yourself in.
Courtney Brame: So, I think being sensitive, if you're going to be okay in this world, you have to be conscious of your sensitivity, and you have to be able to protect your energy, put up boundaries, and avoid environments that you don't want to absorb the energy of. And that includes people. It doesn't just mean certain restaurants, certain establishments, or certain environments. It also includes people. So, if you're always absorbing the emotions of someone who's down in the dumps all the time or someone who's overly anxious all the time, then you have to be mindful and protect yourself. So, even if remaining in a neutral state is where you want to stay, then be mindful of that. Put yourself in more calm environments. I hope that answers the question. But essentially, that's what I think.
Courtney Brame: I think that sensitivity depending on who's saying it has pretty bad rep. It's like you're at a disadvantage because you're sensitive when in reality you get to experience life in a way that is so intense when you're able to just feel everything. I mean, and that's a good thing and it can be a bad thing. You feel the intense joy and pleasure and love and then you also intensely feel the despair, the guilt, the shame. So, it's important to just monitor where you allow yourself to be and the energy that you bring to the room. That's one of the things She always takes accountability for the energy you bring into the room and the energy that you allow into your space. So, hopefully that answers that question. When are you going to tell your story?
Sharing His Own Story and Exploring Non-Monogamy
00:10:00 Courtney Brame: So, this was asked to me directly. There are bits and pieces of my personal experience with herpes throughout the podcast that are sprinkled in. So, you'd have to go through and listen to those. I did a little bit of writing on Waxoh. As you know, I'm a spokesperson for Dating Positives and they have a blog, Waxoh, where you can see a lot of the writing that I've contributed to the blog site and you'll see where I talk about community security. There's a recent one that I put up about your experience challenging the stigma and your assumptions with your personal experience and I share a little bit there as well. But there's not been an episode where I completely just talked about myself.
Courtney Brame: One, I feel uncomfortable just talking about myself that much out of context, which is partly why I feel so insecure a little bit with episodes where it's just me, because whenever there's a guest on, there's someone to have an exchange with. Otherwise, it's me putting out whatever it is that I'm feeling. And right now, I think I'm at a pretty good place where the energy's neutral. I'm very calm. I feel like this is something that I have to get done today. which may be the only stressor to some extent just because I know I'm nasally right now. I don't feel like I'm at the comedown of whatever it is that's about to happen with my body. And then I got to record the Sex with Dr. Jess podcast tomorrow, which I'm already nervous about. So hopefully I can get my stuff together between tonight and tomorrow in the middle of the day.
Courtney Brame: So, I do plan to do something with my story. I've been looking into some sort of a free audio book or something where I'd be able to just talk and share a lot of the takeaways that I've gotten from doing a podcast, Something Positive for Positive People. And maybe the title of the audio book is going to be something positive from positive people. and it'll be something donation based, especially if I'm at a place I've been very blessed to be able to have two jobs where I have a very flexible schedule. So, I'm able to do this for free. I don't have to charge anyone for anything. And I hope that given the quality of work that this is something that everyone finds value in and I put as much time as I can into it. A lot of this is being learned on the go. So, there should be more marketing, I'm sure. There should be more structure.
Courtney Brame: There should be more concise points and more for the guests. The guests have been phenomenal in not requiring so much from me. It's a matter of setting up a phone call. We talked for about 20 minutes. I let you know what's going on and then before you know we're recording. I record through the Facebook Messenger app, I'm sorry, and we see each other through the video function and I use my phone and a mic in order to record. So, the story itself, doing that, I wouldn't mind taking donations, but I feel a little bit weird just saying, "Hey, pay me to talk to you about herpes." it just gives me this weird feeling. And there are plenty of people who do that, and these are people who are way more qualified and committed to this work than I am. This is Something Positive for Positive People is a hobby.
Courtney Brame: It's something that maybe it'll turn into something in the future, but right now I enjoy having the conversations. I enjoy sharing this with others. I enjoy people telling me that they're getting something out of it. And it's really good practice for me as well talking and understanding my own feelings. It's been very useful to me talking about this, talking through this podcast with others and their experiences and it's connected me with so many people. It's been phenomenal and I'm so blessed to have had the energy exchanges that I've been having. So to answer that question, when am I going to share my story? Maybe in that free audio book or something where it'll be downloaded or not downloaded, it'll be donation-based.
Courtney Brame: If you feel like it was worth it, I'm the kind of person like, "Let me try it before I buy it." So, what to expect from the podcast. And if we at some point do decide to move forward with that, then it'll be free. I probably just download or record for maybe four hours of me talking and try and see if I can get it submitted to Audible. and just make it whatever the fees are for them producing and putting up. by looking at all of that and see if maybe someone can pay for that and it'll just be free to you guys. And if you feel like it was valuable, then you can go ahead and donate whatever you want for that. And that'll be how my story is shared. But a lot of it is I don't know what's my story and what's other people's story because it's been a lot of other people's stuff coming into my head.
00:15:00 Courtney Brame: And I've caught myself mixing up events and being like, was that mine or was that somebody else? And I don't know what that is, but it's really cool to have so many experiences and so many perspectives to draw upon whenever I'm making an effort to help someone through their new diagnosis. So, I already answered what's special about The fact that it's episode 69. Nice. I got a question. This was funny. When are you going to let me 69 your partner while you just have to watch? my god. So, that was a very specific question. I'm not going to directly answer that, but I will say I know where this came from. My partner Sierra and I are navigating the lines and boundaries of what a non- monogamous relationship would look like. Now, we haven't done anything. It's something that we've talked about.
Courtney Brame: But we've been doing some reading, listening to podcasts, and we're figuring out what works best for us. I talk to different people who are in these types of relationships and try to get their feedback and make sure that it's something that we're able to do that works for us. I have a lot of reasons that I feel that this is something that will work out for me. And Sierra and I are communicating every aspect along the way, which has been great because this is something that she hasn't been proposed to before about. She hasn't been proposed to. So, for me to present it, it just shook her world up. And I brought it up to her, I want to say maybe four or five months into the relationship.
Courtney Brame: And since then, it's been one of those things that just, we're building on. You don't want to overwhelm someone with that kind of information. So, I've sought out a lot of guidance and I thank everyone who's helped me talk through that and understand how to communicate. There are some great resources out there and I'm so thankful to those people who have given me words and the ability to communicate it. But I think a lot of it started with I've not seen successful monogamous relationships work out. And I think that in my childhood for example my grandparents weren't together, my parents weren't together and friends around me who have been and this I'm not talking about right this second but I've not seen successful relationships around me.
Courtney Brame: And it's always been because someone decided to cheat and for cheating itself to be grounds for breaking up, ending a relationship, no matter what has been built. If you could have 10 years with someone and then someone just have sex with somebody else and then the relationship's over. All of that's thrown away. The children's lives are just everything that you built is just now torn apart. So, this was something that I looked into and after digging deep into it and discovering what was going on specifically in the situations that I was surrounded by, I've come to find that it wasn't the cheating, it was the deception about it. And I think that a lot of the people around me went into relationships without that open, honest, transparent communication and just in denial about the almost inevitability of just being attracted to someone else and understanding how to move forward with that.
Courtney Brame: So, this is something that's contributed heavily to me and after exploring it and trying to learn about it and understand it and see all of the different ways that it looks like. Sierra and I have decided to just figure out how we can navigate this and what it looks like for the both of us. So, that's where this question came from, I'm sure. so that's it for the questions that I got. no, that's not it. There was another question about the men. Why are there not as many men who were talking about herpes as there are women? And I have a lot of different beliefs about this. And one of which I've run into quite frequently is there are three episodes off the top of my head that feature men that we didn't post.
Where Are the Men in STI Advocacy?
Courtney Brame: And part of it was because one guy was distracted so we're recording and he's typing and he's thinking about what he's gonna say and I want to say that one of the reasons is we'll think ourselves out of it. It's not a priority to us. In the grand scheme of things a lot of guys feel like it's not a big deal to them because they have more important things going on. So that's been a very common theme. Another guy didn't like how vulnerable he was, and it's completely understandable. He didn't like that he felt he was sharing so much and I wasn't giving anything back in the interaction, which I completely understand because that's really what a lot of this is. It's me allowing people space to share what their experiences are and holding space for people to do that and let them just really talk for me to just listen.
00:20:00 Courtney Brame: So guys are just uncomfortable with this. As it comes up I'll deal with it. And it's this whole vulnerability thing. It's not masculine to a man to talk about their feelings. One guy was interviewing father issues and he did not like that. He listened to it and he just felt like he got what he needed out of the episode and that's okay. But we've got episode 68 with Aaron Sager who's from Australia who came out one of these guys who's just like man f*** that s f*** this stigma and it just came in full blast and I loved that episode that we recorded.
Courtney Brame: I've also got episode 38, self-acceptance with Sean, another great guy who brought a lot of value to the podcast. And these energy exchanges between the masculine are phenomenal and they're needed. This self-acceptance was one of the most popular episodes to date. And the only thing that's different about that is just that there was a masculine energy exchange. And I think that in talking to a lot of the women I've spoken to, you ladies want more of that masculine exchange. You want to hear more men talk about herpes. And I'm doing everything I can in order to get more guys on here who are willing to have this deep conversation because we got to work on it. We have to be willing to do the work. We got to meet where y'all are. Women are evolving.
Courtney Brame: The feminine energy is evolving and we got to as men recognize the feminine and our masculine and be able to meet where y'all are. Excuse me, I have to sniffle. I'm sorry. but we have to meet you guys where you are. And we're at a place where men are realizing just how powerful that is to understand that there is feminine and the masculine just like the women understand there's masculine and the feminine. And we got to be able to honor that exchange between one another in order to get to where we want to be. In order for us to heal one another, in order for us to heal one another, we first need to heal ourselves. So, a lot of men don't want to take the time to look at those pinned up emotions because it's just harder to unlearn that we're not supposed to, if that makes sense. So, I'm going to do what I can to get more men on here. I am.
Courtney Brame: And it's just… Bear with me. If you know any men who are open to having this kind of a discussion, please send them my way. I have no problem with reaching out. The last thing that I want to leave you guys with, this is more of the content of the episode here is I want to keep these episodes between 25 and 35 minutes. Looking at the statistics, it looks like I lose more people around that 45 minute mark. So, I'm going to keep the episodes no more than 40 minutes. And if it's over, then I have to do something to make it like a two-part episode, especially if it's some really good content. I don't know if it's the commutes back and forth to work that you're listening to or what, but I want to make sure to make this podcast as useful as possible and make it as easy for you guys to listen to all the way through as possible as well.
Courtney Brame: And I've also been asked about advertising. people I don't really know about the commercial thing running commercials and ads on the podcast. There have been opportunities but I'm unable to present the information that people want to have about the audience and a lot of it is just stigma based. A lot of people don't follow me directly on Instagram or any of the social media platforms just in fear of somebody else figuring out, you have herpes or you have an STD because you follow this page. And that's not always the case. A lot of the people who follow me are people who just support what it is that I'm doing. They support the people who are coming on here and sharing their experiences. But the whole thing about the advertising is they want a lot of information that I know people just aren't comfortable giving.
Courtney Brame: So, at some point, maybe that'll be something that I look into and figure out what you guys feel most safe with sharing so that I can get the information over such as I know that the majority of the audience is women. I know that the majority of the audience is in fact a STI positive. and that's pretty much all I have. So, I mean, if anybody wants to or is willing to submit some survey information, if I put together a survey monkey that has maybe five to seven questions that would help bring some advertisers onto the show so that maybe we can produce some better content, maybe I can make the SPFPP studio a little bit better. Maybe I can record more videos. But, it's really a time thing.
Redefining Rejection: They Are Declining the Offer, Not You
00:25:00 Courtney Brame: Like I said, I'm juggling two jobs and balancing this hobby, managing a relationship, and just trying to keep balance in my life. So, as of right now, that's not something that's in alignment with where I am. Therefore, I don't want to incorporate anything else that is just one more thing for me to juggle. So, all right, let's talk about dealing with rejection. I know we're 25 minutes in, but this is the end of the podcast. I wanted to make sure to make those announcements to you all and really just thank you for listening to it. So, I dealt with this very very recently and I sat with it. I felt rejected and I didn't have the language to communicate why I felt rejected. So, whenever I have these very very intense emotions, what I do is I go to my journal. I go to my notepad. I write down okay if I'm going to title this, what's the title going to be?
Courtney Brame: So in this case it was dealing with rejection. So if you look at it, rejection has many forms and we can face rejection for the things we do, things we want. But never take rejection as being something that's against you personally. People don't reject you. Sometimes they reject the thing that you're presenting. They don't want the thing that you're offering, the request that you're making. It's just someone declining your request. It's not a rejection of your personality. But what it is is that we want connection and we want it in its purest form. That's really what it is that we want. So when we're real with ourselves, I believe that that's when we have the most purity to ourselves. I'll always say being real. And what I mean by real is just unguarded.
Courtney Brame: You're expressive and you're expressing yourself honestly, truly, transparently, open, with integrity. And in being real, I believe you can't be rejected because that realness does not come with any expectations. I think that you feel rejected when you have expectations and realness, it comes from standards, which are very structural boundaries and not limitations that protect you from the things that aren't for you while also making the things that are for you available to you. So, when a person rejects a quote unquote you, they're rejecting your offering. They're just declining an offer or request that you made. And when we feel rejected, we feel it's ourselves because we have an unhealthy attachment to whatever that offering is.
Courtney Brame: When somebody's disclosing, they will often just shut off their connectedness to their self and their realness and then they design this false image of who they are, usually in relation to the herpes stigma. So now you think I'm dirty, promiscuous, I'm unsafe with sexual partners, I'm diseased, and then you ask somebody to get to know you underneath that. that. you can't expect not to get rejected by that. If you're attaching yourself to the stigma, you're attaching yourself to all of these things that have this negative perception. Of course, you're going to be rejected. You're going into it like, "Okay, I'm these things that no one wants anything to do with here. I expect you to accept me."
Courtney Brame: And now you're upset that a person isn't willing to move forward in the interaction because this is who you've presented yourself to be. We can't attach our identities to the stigma. And when the stigma itself is rejected, when the disease, the dirty association, promiscuous, the unsafe with sexual partners aspect of what you've attached to is rejected. That's the pain we feel. We cannot attach ourselves to that pain. We cannot allow ourselves to be so attached to the outcome that we want or whatever that request is that's being made. We have to be able to present our truest self that has the energetic attraction repellent mechanism.
Courtney Brame: And I wrote this down and I thought it was a really cool way of wording this, but you have these receptors that go out to those who will appreciate and honor your being, just who you are. And then it repels those who would not. You have to trust your process. Presenting an offering to another person and giving them a choice to accept or reject the risk of the request is only that. acceptance or rejection of it, not acceptance or rejection of you. So, we have to be able to differentiate between attaching ourselves to the request that's being made and connecting to who we really are. So, allow yourself to present that version of yourself.
Building the Rejection Muscle and Outro
00:30:00 Courtney Brame: And if that person makes you feel rejected and you're connected and rooted in who you are, if they say no and they're declining what it is that you're presenting. They're not declining you. Because when you are who you are and you're true in that, you begin to just the people who are for you make themselves seen. You become more seen and visible to those people. And those who have bad intentions towards you or who can't stand the light of who you really are, they make their way into the darkness. They don't want anything to do with you. So I want to encourage people when you go to disclose or in anything, I mean this can even be applied to work. When you are putting yourself in position to be rejected or accepted, ask yourself, am I attaching myself to an outcome that I want?
Courtney Brame: Am I attaching myself to any aspect of this that isn't real? And ask what your ion Is your intention to connect with on a real level? Does the other person make you feel safe in being who you really are? Or is this a desperate move for you to get some sort of validation and acceptance? We don't want to operate out of that place. We don't. And anyone who's in that place, I'm going to sit with this for a while and try and write out something that's going to be practical to help people deal with rejection or respond to rejection in a way that makes you understand that that's not who you are that's being rejected. You are fine. You are perfectly imperfect just the way you are. Know that. Please know that and practice that.
Courtney Brame: one of the things that I can think of off the top of my head is rejected. Do that. make requests, ask people to do things for you. just put yourself in position to practice not being attached to the outcome, not being attached to the request that's being made. And that's going to work that muscle for you. It's going to make you stronger in presenting yourself so that you're able to present more requests and then tolerate the response to it. Either way it goes. And that's just something for me that's been a very powerful tool for me. And like I said, it was something that came up recently for me to where I had to sit with this and understand that it's not you being rejected, it's the request being rejected.
Courtney Brame: So, please sit with that. And I also want to give a shout out to my good friend Tyler. He's in San Diego. He's engaged to Brenn and they're going to be Mr. and Mrs. Wentz coming up soon. So, I'm really excited for those guys and I wanted to make sure to drop that in here before I got off. We're approaching that 35 minute mark and I appreciate you guys so much for taking the time to listen to this. I hope that you were able to take away something from here. And if nothing else, just don't identify or strongly attach yourself to the request being made. That is what people accept or reject, And when you are who you are and you're in alignment with that and you'll find that you're not in the position where you can feel accepted and rejected no more. You just feel expressive. You just feel like being yourself. Okay?
Courtney Brame: This concludes this episode of Something Positive for Positive People. If you like this episode, I'm very uncomfortable with doing these solo episodes, but it's nice to get some feedback about it. And let me know if this is something that you want more of or something that you can tolerate listening to. And let me know if you found it useful. Please leave a review. That is the best thing that you can do for us at this point in time. And then subscribe to the podcast and share it with someone who you believe may find value in it. I think I got a lot better at doing this. so I'm excited. I hope that this was valuable to you guys because I want to do it more and I appreciate you listening. Till next time, stay positive.
Meeting ended after 00:34:58
