SPFPP 242: Home Coming
I visited home for 10 days and got to witness the challenge of being who I am or reverting back to who I think others think I am. I had an interesting handful of experiences. I will say, I cannot wait to get back to Portland though and develop a new routine incorporating journaling into it as well. This trip home empowered me to revisit family, friendship, and my relationship to myself.
Episode 242 Transcript
Reflecting on 2015 Journals and Finding "Who I Am"
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: I am at home in St. Louis, Missouri. It is July 17th, 2022 and um I'm visiting from Portland, Oregon, which is where I've moved and decided to get an Oregon license and everything. So, I'm settled in. Um, and I got to come back home. And this podcast episode is probably not going to have anything at all to do with herpes, but more so about my own personal reflections over the last 10 days, man. I've been home for 10 days. I got here um not the Thursday that just passed, but the uh previous Thursday. And I did some things. I had some things planned, but there were some things that weren't planned. Um, I didn't make it to the gym every day that I wanted to in order to work out. Uh, I was way out of my routine. And I'm now recognizing how important it is to journal. Uh, I went and I picked up my stuff from I had things scattered all over St. Louis.
00:01:34 Courtney Brame: uh from my dad's place to my granddad's place, my mom's place, and my grandmother's place. Uh just because different people were around at different times to pick up different things. So, uh part of me getting my summer clothes meant stumbling across some old notebooks. And in these notebooks, these were my journals, y'all. Like, I got to read my first journal entry from 2015. In 2015, I was living in Houston, Texas. Um, I did have herpes at the time. I had just gotten out of the relationship with the first person who I told that I had herpes and she was fine with it. She hadn't tested positive. Um, and then um a relationship after that that I had gotten that was on and off for years and she was okay with it. She hadn't gotten it either. Um, but yeah, I just look at where I was at that time and how the question came up of who I am.
00:02:37 Courtney Brame: Not just the questioning of who I am, but also who I thought I wanted to be. Here we are more than seven and a half years later and it is amazing to me to see that I've stayed on that upward growth trajectory for myself. And I share this because it's been 7 years and while I may feel every day like I'm nowhere close to where I want to be, I might not be who I'm going to be. Who am I? I'm still asking the question. Like what I learned is that one of my life purposes generally revolves around my internal pull to curiosity. And that curiosity is self-driven. Um a lot of this journaling that I've done like I've processed uh some grief of uh losing some friendships. I processed uh differentiating between who Courtney is versus who is H on my chest, the founder of Something Positive for Positive People. If you don't follow me on Instagram, that's the Instagram handle, H on my chest.
Redefining Friendship and Processing a Breakup
00:03:52 Courtney Brame: Uh I've been able to process like how I do dating and relationships and uh what family means. Well, I've been thinking about that one, but that's coming up um before I leave. But um I got after I do this podcast episode, I'll have about an hour before I need to check out on my Airbnb and uh figure out where I'm going to go for the next like 6 hours, 7 hours. So, uh yeah, I just had a little bit of a window of time and just wanted to process some things. Um, I had a falling out with a friend recently after a breakup. Yes, I was in a relationship. know y'all didn't get to see who it was with because she started tripping before I could post her on social media. Like my intuition was just kind of like he let me hold off a little bit before making a big deal out of this. And sure enough, the relationship ended and ultimately we just weren't as compatible as either of us initially thought that we were.
00:04:52 Courtney Brame: Um, I thought it was a smooth breakup transition out of a relationship, but she went on to sabotage a friendship through a mutual connection that we had. And all that really did for me was bring to light just how valuable that connection was between me and the other person. They were able to just believe what this person said, who's coming from a place of probably not being happy that the relationship ended. and yeah, they said some things that just frankly weren't true or were mis-uh misspoken out of context. So, um I was able to after I made the decision I talked to my therapist about this too to just let it go. But I've kept dreaming about it and this is someone that I've known for years like I went to college with and uh we happen to both live in the same city now. Uh, and I was just looking at what that relationship existed like. And I recognize that, you know, this wasn't a friend.
00:05:55 Courtney Brame: And I'm really re-evaluating what my friendships look like, what it means to be a friend, what it means to be a friend to me, and what it means for me to be a friend to other people. I am investing the same amount of energy that I put into Something Positive for Positive People. I invest in the people that I call friends. I invest into my relationships. And I mentioned that reciprocity is a major inconsistency. These are two things that I really need in any of these relationships in order for them to be ones that can flourish. And I recognize that I wasn't getting that uh as a result of this breakup, this falling out. So, I'm grateful for that. But I was still uh I had a couple of dreams, three dreams about resolving this. And what I'm learning about dreams is that your subconscious is making an attempt to process something. So you might need closure. You might be grieving.
00:06:57 Courtney Brame: And I remember the details of this dream enough to know that when I woke up, I just needed to write out how I was feeling about this. And this was something that turned into a four page letter exercise. I call it the Leah remix. I'm sending you a four page letter. I got to listen to that song. But uh yeah, it was cute in the opening, but ultimately I realized like I can be cordial with uh this person. And uh I had, you know, breakups in the past as well, like a friend breakup that kind of hurt, but then I realized, you know, was this even a friendship? Um, and it's important that we really step back and re-evaluate our friendships. One of my friends asked me, she was like, you know, what are you hoping to get out of our connection to one another? And this is one of my great friends now, especially because we had this challenging conversation where we needed to revisit that.
00:07:50 Courtney Brame: And I told her, I was like, you know, I want this continued mirroring. Um, you challenge me, you keep me accountable, uh, and support me when I need support and these are things that are important to me. And also like celebration, like support, challenge, and celebration are three things that I've recognized that I need from uh my friendships while also receiving transparency, consistency, maturity, and reciprocity. Uh these are all very important things when you're looking at um having a connection in general with anyone. Uh so yeah, I wanted to carry that here cuz this was one of the reflections that I had. And I'm closing out this notebook. I got like four pages left. U I'm going to leave that notebook here at home too because um I want to close that out. This is an exciting a chapter of my life and it's a smooth transition into the next one and I'm really excited about that. Another thing about being home was uh I was challenged with am I going to revert back to the Courtney that I think that everyone thinks they know or am I going to be myself?
Family, Nostalgia, and Breaking Generational Habits
00:09:02 Courtney Brame: I've been in therapy for 2 and 1/2 plus years. I've moved to another city again, but this time on my own for myself. Things are working out and aligning. And I'm living in this place of truth, which also explains why any sort of inconsistency or incongruence is something that really eats in my unconscious mind and it may play itself out in a dream. And so being here, I got to see my grandparents, my parents, my brothers, my sister, my niece, my aunt. I got to see a lot of friends that I haven't seen in years, probably since high school even. Um, uh, my best friend that I've grown up with, you know, we met when we were 6 years old. Uh, my friend Chris, we stayed together. Um, and we met in middle school and we spent a lot of time together. This is another one of my best friends as well. I got to hang out with Carl who owns a gym.
00:09:58 Courtney Brame: And it's amazing to just see how, you know, during our own individual life journeys of maturing and developing and growing up that we all have this same not necessarily struggle. Uh, I don't even want to really call it a challenge, but it's the same like healing like we're aware of our healing process and everyone's going about it, you know, in their own way. One of my buddies Steve got married. This is man, we spent so much time at Steve's parents house. Uh, he's married now to an amazing woman, Ruby. Uh, welcome to the family. I know they don't listen to this podcast. They ain't got no reason to, but this is me just showing love in the way that I can and know how to, which is just expressing it. And this is like my vulnerable space of being able to do so. uh playing with my niece and my friend Chris. He has twin girls. Uh they're all 7 years old.
00:10:59 Courtney Brame: I learned something from them. I learned from the twins like, man, just time it is passing. And um kids, man, they really teach us to just be present and live in the moment. And they don't need alcohol. They don't need any influences to just be who they are. The only thing that's guiding their behavior is parenting styles. And what they're told they can't do. Kids don't know they can't do anything until they either do it themselves and they're like, "Oh, that's just not possible." Or until someone tells them, "You can't do that." and with my niece, we were um she was trying to learn how to ride a bike and I just so happened to be over there and it was so cool cuz my aunt was there. My aunt is uh bipolar and schizophrenic and so she doesn't do well for a lot of time and um I got to spend some one-on-one time with her for the first time in years, especially since I've been working in mental health and I I have more of an understanding of what it is that um she's experienced cuz it it never made sense to me, man.
00:12:10 Courtney Brame: Like growing up, my family would just say, "Oh, they are special." Or, "Oh, they retarded." Or, "Oh, they ain't got something wrong. I may write with them. And so like having this l man, dude, I'm f****** tearing up right now. Um, just having this moment with my aunt from like cuz she's seven years older than me. And I remember I have memories of us, you know, just playing together. And it really hit me when I watched my aunt, who's seven years older than me, playing with my seven-year-old niece. I was just like, damn, look at that. Like this this is it. They were just playing sword fight with bats and I was like, yo, that used to be us. And so I got to spend some time with them and we all ate. We ate breakfast. I used to love going to my dad's over the weekend cuz my stepmom would uh she'd make a big breakfast and it'd be like eggs.
00:13:08 Courtney Brame: She'd make potatoes and eggs. These eggs would be so cheesy, y'all. It'd be good. You don't know if you're eating the eggs or cheese. That's how cheesy they were. I had bacon, sausage, and these pancakes where I to this day have not found anybody who can do this, but make the pancakes to where they're crispy on the edges. Oh my god, it was so good. Um, and yeah, it was uh it was just so nostalgic for me. And I got to like checking my dad, too, cuz that was, that was interesting cuz he was like picking fun at my niece for how her hair looked. I was like, "Uh, all right." So, you see how she's just over there bouncing on that ball for the last like 2 minutes while you've been cracking jokes and laughing and she's just been singing like two words to this song consistently. This is her coping with the fact that you're traumatizing her right now talking about her hair.
00:13:56 Courtney Brame: And he was like, "What?" It was funny cuz my stepmom was like, "Yeah, you tell him." And my aunt was just sitting there uh like with her mouth dropped cuz you know I'm saying these things and I've I know that my aunt has had experience with this or something like this because she's been in an abusive relationship as well. So I was like, "Yeah, you're teaching her that this is the behavior that she has to endure in order to get love." He was like, "Come here, baby. I'm sorry." I was like, "Yep." Now that she done tolerated the BS with her coping mechanism, she knows that she's going to be rewarded with love after. So, I was just really giving him crap about that. Um, and hopefully like, yeah, when I leave, I think it'll stick with him. He ain't going to keep doing that. Um, but anyway, yeah, I took my uh niece outside. It's so weird for me to say that.
Teaching the Next Generation How to Fall Safely
00:14:45 Courtney Brame: Uh, we braided one of her doll's hair. We played Mother Maya. And then she was really scared about riding her bike without trying uh training wheels on it. I asked her, I was like, "Hey, what's wrong? What are you scared of? She said, I'm scared I'm going to fall. I was like, okay, well, here, let's go in the grass. Like, let's practice falling so that you know that when you fall, you'll be okay cuz I mean, you can't avoid falling off your bike, especially when you learn it. So, I took her in the grass and I just held the bike and she sat on it. I was like, "All right, I'm going to pick a side and this is the side that you got to fall on." And so, uh, we just rolled around in the grass and such a valuable lesson was in that. Nobody taught me how to fall. No one taught me how to fail.
00:15:30 Courtney Brame: People would just protect me from it. You know, oh, okay. Well, I'll keep you from falling or we don't have to do it. And I think it is so important that we learn that because it's applicable to everything I've spoken about to this point. Friendships are going to fail. Relationships are going to fail. Business endeavors, careers, um things that we want to go a certain way, we're going to fail. We're going to fall and we may not have a person who's going to teach us how to fall in a way that is going to minimize the damage or mitigate the harm that can be done or set us up in an environment to where we're able to safely fall and condition ourselves to, you know, know what to do afterwards. And it was so cool to see her um begin to like start putting her foot down instead of rolling into the grass. That was something that she just did on her own.
00:16:30 Courtney Brame: So she stopped herself. I was like, "Hey, look. See, you learned that on your own to just stop yourself from falling whenever you start to wobble a little bit." And we kept playing and rolling in the grass. And she said something so simple yet profound. And it was just uh yeah, if I fall, I can just get back up. I was like, "Yeah, that's it. Oh, I needed that. I needed that sermon." I felt like I was in church when she said that. Please excuse these dogs barking in the background. This is Dog Town that I'm living in. Actually, this is funny. How ironic that I'm in Dog Town and dogs are just on balconies barking at each other. They cannot see each other. So, they just keep echoing barks back and forth. So, my apologies for that. But uh this was something that was just like in my heart to come out right now.
A Sober Wedding and Shifting Social Dynamics
00:17:20 Courtney Brame: Um went to the wedding, my friend Steve got married and uh I didn't drink. Um I had a beer and just cuz we all had a beer and uh early that morning we did a little bit of drinking but I ain't go crazy. I had to end up driving um at night time leaving the reception. So I was able to just kick it at this reception. And it was so wild, like being somewhere where I wasn't drinking for like 6 hours that I'm always drinking at where everybody else is drinking at. And you also get peer pressured into drinking. So for me to just be able to say no, I'm driving. I got water. I got my uh the groomsman gift was these uh cool beer mugs with our initials or our names on them. And so uh I just filled that up with water. I had some liquid IV. I was just down on the dance floor.
00:18:12 Courtney Brame: Um, sometimes I like sweating my ass off. Like I don't dance unless I'm drinking and I got to go and experience this and just like dance without drinking and it was okay and people were having a great time. Um, I can't tell the story that happened. It's funny though. Uh, someone I'll leave some details out. uh my friend who got married, the groom's mom, I was talking to her and this young lady, and when I say young lady, I mean young lady, comes up and just starts shaking her ass in my face. I was like, "Yo, uh, what do you do?" She's like, "Come on, let's dance." I was like, and this girl looked young. I didn't know how old she was at the time. She was of age, but she still looked young. I was like, "Ah." And that made me realize, man, I'm at that age where I got to watch out for that cuz when you're in your 20s, and I haven't dated, like gone out and partied since I was in my 20s really, and like tried to talk to girls.
00:19:12 Courtney Brame: I ain't never tried to talk to girls. I was always bad at it. I'd be nervous or something. Um, but I'm at the age now where I have to watch out for that. Like, I got to ask for ID, you know? Just cuz somebody looks of age, you know, or whatever, that doesn't mean they are. But just like me my gut reaction was like her mannerisms are not that of anybody who's at least in their 20s. And I was right. I was right. So um yeah, that was an interesting experience uh as well to have been sober at a wedding reception. Um so that's essentially the recap of my week. I ate a lot of food that didn't have many vegetables with it. So, I'm feeling it and just really ready to get back into my own routine. Now, another thing, and I don't know if people are getting tired of me talking about this, but masculinity continues to resurface, and I am recognizing it as a pathway to self.
Unlabeling Masculinity and Reverting to the "H on My Chest" Persona
00:20:17 Courtney Brame: And masculinity is essentially like a starting point for you to be able to undefine in order to get back to the core, the essence of your identity. If that is how you choose to identify, I'm a man. I have what society has deemed the physical and personality characteristics of what makes up a man. So, I am through my manliness, through masculinity, um, backtracking from what it means to be a man and masculine. And as I do that, I'm finding that it really is the stripping away, the uncoupling, the challenging of words, traits, labels that have been given to me as a man by default that I had no opportunity to challenge these things. And here I am now at a point of my awareness where I've just had life experiences. I've gone and branched out and the second I had my awakening. Yeah, I talk about how late it happened, how late my awareness came to be, but I wouldn't have had as many of those unconscious experiences for me to use my awareness to uncouple away from.
00:21:44 Courtney Brame: So, somebody's 19 years old, hasn't really lived much of life, and then they have an aha moment of growth. When they backtrack, there's not much to backtrack from. So they go into their new experiences still with perhaps patterns that they may not be aware of that they have. So for me now I can do that. For instance, I went on a date uh and I went on a date with someone who uh I hadn't met in real life yet. We had uh we had something on uh online together. So, like we were in class together, but then we matched on uh the dating app field and I didn't know until I left. But when I came back, we got together and I caught myself. I realized that I was a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that this is my first time meeting this person in person. They only know me as who they've seen on social media. So, being H on my chest was like the go-to default.
00:22:43 Courtney Brame: And I just like went into this interview mode. And when I caught it, I just ran with it. I let it happen. I didn't try to put any charm on. I didn't try to take her home cuz what I wanted to do was I wanted to have sex and just keep it transparent. Um but I never made that intention clear. I never made a move, so to speak. Making a move, declaring an intention or saying what I wanted. And like I heard I let myself hear things that were said throughout the day and interpret that in a way. And I'm calling it a date. It was never called a date. I never set these expectations. And that's kind of part of my whole exploring masculinity as well is that, you know, to be masculine is to be assertive. It's to be dominant. It's to be intentional.
00:23:36 Courtney Brame: I didn't do any of that, but H on my chest like came through and I was comfortable with um going into interview mode and just like asking those connecting questions, hard questions, and like I I recognize that the person I was with, like we we are fat life friends, so I know what they're into. And like I know that I have a little more wiggle room to talk about certain things, but I just didn't take it. I just reverted to um H on my chest because that was the easy thing to do. And ah it is, it's really not funny. It's something uh, it was interesting for me to observe that for myself because I just hadn't seen it before. And this was me reverting into that mode when I as Courtney, I know what I wanted. Like me, I wanted to go on a date. I wanted to hang out. I wanted to bring her back home and for us to be able to do things together.
00:24:38 Courtney Brame: And when I say do things, I mean have sex, whatever that experience would have looked like. And Courtney has to realize I created H on my chest. And what I was trying to do at that moment was live up to H on my chest. therefore creating this like inconsistency that probably she picked up on. She probably picked up on it as me being insecure, me not being confident. And uh I got to live with that now. But I caught it when it started. I wrote it out and I was able to just journal about it. And now I know it won't happen again. If it does start to happen again like I can just take a breath, bring it into my awareness and then just make the decision to you know declare my intention and say what it is that I want. So this is a very interesting journey of not unlearning masculinity but unlabeling what makes a person masculine.
00:25:36 Courtney Brame: Because what's happening is I'm getting to the core of my essence. the essence that is connected within us all. A feminine person can step into their masculinity to get a thing done, but why do we have to call it stepping into masculinity? Why can't it just be that person doing what they got to do in order to get done whatever needs to be done in that moment? You know, like as a man, I'm supposed to be the provider and protector. As a woman, uh they're supposed to be the nurturer, the healer according to masculinity, femininity, right? So by that term, like if I'm partnered and my spouse dies after we have a child together, is that child not going to get any nourishment and healing? No. They're going to get everything that I already offer as a man, but they're also going to get their hair braided. I'm going to still, you know, hold them if they're crying. That doesn't make me feminine. That means I'm doing what needs to be done in that moment and I'm being present with that.
Redirecting Energy: The Power of Presence and Journaling
00:26:36 Courtney Brame: So uncoupling these labels and definitions from our identities and being who we are allows for us to just exist in the present moment. The present moment, wherever we find ourselves, is going to require for us to be nothing more than present. When a bear came and attacked me, you know, I'm going to step into whatever aspect of myself I need to be in order to survive. If that means picking up one of these chairs in here and keeping my distance between myself and the bear until I can get out of where I'm at. Uh or if I'm butt naked and it's just me and this bear, I'm running. I ain't no fighter at that moment. Like I like to think that, you know, the violence in me will take care of it, but like I'm getting out of there. Or, you know, I watch that Leo DiCaprio movie where uh uh Revenants, Revenant, whatever, where he got mauled by that bear after playing dead. Yeah.
00:27:37 Courtney Brame: I take my chances. So, this was a very powerful experience for me to just have been home for 10 days and getting to journal, being out of my routine because I'm out of my comfort zone. I developed a comfort zone. Wherever we are, we end up developing a comfort zone. And it's moments where we have the opportunity to step out of it, to step out of our comfort zone that we get to create a new comfort zone. We get to create a new layer, a new level of what it means to be what it means for us to be comfortable. You know what I mean? And man, that is where I'm at. I am learning my new comfort zone and kind of unconsciously creating it as I uncouple masculinity from my identity and connect more with my overall essence and presence which is that God energy that the source energy whatever it is that you want to call it even if you don't believe in everything having been connected it at any point like there was an origin so connecting with whatever that origin is while they're upstairs moving furniture now.
00:28:58 Courtney Brame: Um yeah, that's what I'm doing and I'm finding myself more in tune with myself and that's why I call this process self. it and I had a podcast called self and it was like self-education, self-discovery, self-exploration. And it was just all things that uh played on the word self. And what it is now after shutting that podcast down and uh focusing on Something Positive now and incorporating these lessons, these therapy session processings uh and experiences that I have had into this uh sort of self-help space. It's really the process of uncoupling your identity from the things that no longer serve you, allowing for us to more so connect with our essence and be present with that. Like that's what self is. Uh that process, man. And when you do this, like it's a lifestyle. I'm recognizing uh that for me I haven't masturbated. Wow. Yeah, it's been a month and some change. Woo. I had uh Yeah, not since I uh and I haven't been sexually active.
00:30:21 Courtney Brame: I mean, till I got home. The last time I was sexually active before I got home was a month ago. Yeah, it's been over a month. uh until you know there was that time and during that time I recognized that I was more creative, I was sleeping better and I also haven't been watching p***. I haven't watched p*** in a while unless I'm in it or unless somebody sends it to me and they're in it. But otherwise, like I think there might be something there for my uh addictive tendencies, if you will. like there's a natural uh force that lives inside of us and that force is drawn to certain things and um I know that my force is drawn to sexual related things and those sexual related things being sex, being p*** masturbation and whichever one is most accessible is most convenient. I caught myself at points in time throughout my life where I'd be out like if I masturbate then I'm just kind of like less motivated to pursue a sexual relationship.
00:31:38 Courtney Brame: Um I'd go out so I wouldn't be thirsty. Like I'd masturbate before I left the house so I wouldn't be thirsty and like oh come on girl. Yeah, come back to my place. Whatever. Whatever. Um and then now lately as an adult I'm learning. Okay. Well, I'm not going to do that. And it didn't make me more thirsty. It made me more social, I would say, or it made me more present to what was going on around me. And there's this whole thing about like semen retention and some like spiritual s***, cosmic sex that I see posted about when people share it, but I don't know how true it is, but I can say that in my experience since I'm not just masturbating. Shoot, I would get one off in the morning, two before bed. So, three times a day, maybe even more than that. Um, but all while watching p***, too.
00:32:28 Courtney Brame: And so, since not doing that, I am noticing I'm maybe a little bit more antsy or jittery in a sense of like having withdrawal symptoms or something. I don't know. But I'm applying that uptick in energy that I'm not just freely expending into a sock or some dirty laundry or whatever into my life, into my relationships, into my creative uh endeavors. I am more creative. I am more focused. I am more present with whatever it is that's happening. And not in the sense of being present like I hope I get some, but just being present period. And that's where all these journal entries are coming from. Like what, whatever your personality, you know, ask yourself, are you addicted to something? What are you addicted to? Um if you weren't if you didn't have easy access to that thing, what would you do differently? What would you… where would you apply that? What would you be focused on?
00:33:33 Courtney Brame: And ask yourself these questions and see what comes up. You might get an answer that you know uh that could change the trajectory of your life. But I'm seeing that journaling has been so powerful for me. And that's kind of where my uh addictive tendency has gone towards journaling and just being present. I think I feel comfortable with leaving this here and just leaving y'all with that. You know, ask yourself what does it mean to be a friend? What is a friend? What's it mean for you to have a friend? Like what do you need from friends? What is your capacity for receiving friendship? Um, and ask yourself, you know, do you have a person that you revert back to when you get around certain people? Have you been away from home and then come back and then you recognize that there are things that you don't like? Uh, there are boundaries maybe that you need to put up um or that people need you just need to let some people go, right?
00:34:49 Courtney Brame: So, ask yourself these things. And I hope that something in this podcast episode was useful for those who were thinking about the breakup and want to reach out and say, "Oh, I'm sorry. Please don't." It was very short. Um, and yeah, it was like the whole time I was in it, I was just kind of like, "Uh, are you sure?" cuz there were just Yeah, there were things in that that weren't I viscerally was responding in a way that I knew something was off, but I just wasn't connected to myself enough to know exactly what it was or what needed to be done until a lot of time passed and then I I had like enough of proof of concept. Proof of concept is not what I meant to say. I had enough uh data in order to back the decision that I chose to make and bring up to her. So, uh yeah, I mean, this growth stuff is hard. Healing is hard, but this is what we got to do. And like I said, it took me seven years of journaling to get to the point I'm at now. And I'm still growing through it. Till next time, stay sex positive.
Transcription ended after 00:36:08
