Spfpp 392: Navigating Rejection With Herpes - Attach And Release
When Thanos pushed Gamora off that cliff to get the Soul stone, for the first time, you see the villain shed a tear’s worth of remorse for the chaos he caused. That opening line may have nothing to do with rejection on the surface, but it has everything to do with how attach and release works. We pour time, energy, presence, money, awareness, and resources all into a space and what manifests is a the form of something we can attach an identity for ourselves to. Thanos spared Gamore, nurtured her, taught her to survive, fight, and became the highest honorable identity to her, her father. Gamora, Thanos’ adopted daughter becomes the form, or container in which that identity invests emotionally into. That emotional intensity that was shaped by Gamora’s presence held the charge that, when removed (by death), freed up that investment so that it could take the form of something more aligned with Thanos now that he’s no longer got a daughter and he is not a father. That energy took the form of the soul stone. That was the trade off.
The thing we fear being rejected for carries that same emotional charge, that if freed up would give us what we want when we can release it AND the identity formed that doesn’t align any longer with our new state of being shaped by the attachment we created. This episode highlights a little bit of quantum physics an as I learn to practice this language, I welcome any feedback or creticism about the topic so I can be on point with what I’m trying to bring into light now!
SPFPP 392 Transcript
Courtney Brame: for Positive People is a nonprofit organization supporting people who are navigating herpes stigma. We do this in a variety of ways. We offer one-on-one support calls, not just to people with herpes, but to people who might have recently been disclosed to by a potential partner or loved one and they want to know how to be supportive or how to move forward with them. I'm a yoga therapist in training. I emphasize in training, but we also offer one-on-one yoga therapy to give people an option for how to not just navigate the stigma, but how to incorporate changes that align with wherever they are in life. I use the sciences of yoga applied to the situations and challenges that someone who is dealing with a herpes diagnosis might be facing.
Courtney Brame: For example, a lot of times people that I talk to oneonone, they want to work through stigma and there's not much of anything that talks about how exactly to do that on the internet. And so utilizing yoga therapy, which yoga has been really useful for me because I find that what it has done is give me what my baseline is and then be able to use my external circumstances in order to assess where I'm at internally going down to the nervous system. Right? So, when we're having an outbreak, for instance, there's probably a gentle whisper that comes to us, through the nervous system because herpes is a nerve condition, and that's what a lot of people really don't understand.
Courtney Brame: So when you deal with the nervous system, you're dealing with the nerves which might be like the earliest sign of hey something's happening and then you ignore that or you got a lot of stress happening for you and you're not paying attention to the nervous system. So maybe now you got a little disease or discomfort and you don't really know why. Maybe it manifests as anxiety or maybe it turns into what might feel like a potential outbreak coming on and now you have more of a greater chance to pay attention to it and then boom outbreak. Right? So what I do is I teach people to get to their baseline and be able to pay attention to that before it even gets to the point where a physical physical symptoms present themselves.
Courtney Brame: So, right now I'm working with one, two, Damn, I got six clients. That's all right. But, I think I want to cap it at We going to cap it. I'm working with 12 people at a time. And I let everybody know, listen, if you work with me after 12 weeks, it's cuz you like me and maybe we just need to see each other once a month or every other week or something like that. But yeah, there's an episode where I interview one of my clients actually about what she's getting out of yoga therapy. So, if this is something that you're curious about, you can type yoga therapy in the search box of the podcast tab of spf.org. and then last thing we got the support there's a men's group that meets on Monday.
Courtney Brame: So, the women's group is the first and third Monday, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time. And then the men's group is the second and fourth Monday evening virtually, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time. for the ladies group, the next one that we have is going to be this upcoming Monday, November 3rd. I'm going to have a t. I'm going to have a guest come into the support group who she's going to share some of her personal experience with successfully dating and entering a relationship post herpes diagnosis. I'm sure we'll get some questions about rejection. We'll get questions about how to disclose and how that went for her.
Courtney Brame: but this is really your opportunity for the women's group to be able to talk to a woman who has herpes and just like somebody who has the experience and I guess the outcome that a lot of women maybe to have. A lot of women who are dating with herpes who would like to just see what is possible on the other end of that. So, I reached out to a few other women that I know who are in relationships. And this may not be the only time that this happens, but it's something that I think will be useful. And then for the men's group, so we've had two successful support groups. the month of October, this is when I started this, And the women's groups, both great, consistent. the thing that came up there was just disclosures.
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Courtney Brame: And then for the men's group, I thought we did a really great job of defining what terms community support and stigma We set a very solid foundation. We got a good base week one. And then week two, don't nobody show up and people RSVPd and I sent out a follow-up email. I don't know what it is where the challenge of getting men to be consistent in support groups. most of the women who for the first one showed up to the second one. And for the men, I don't know. maybe I'm not giving what y'all need. But the thing is this is being created from scratch.
Courtney Brame: So, I'm asking y'all the questions and establishing the foundation and the base of what these support groups are going to be like. And the people who are helping me to create what that looks like just didn't show up for the second one. So, it's like what I don't even have the feedback on what went what didn't work, why you ain't coming back. So, I'mma keep showing up. that's what I'mma do. my Mondays 7:30 p.m. Eastern time except for November 10th, we're going to move that support group to Thursday, November 6th at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time. I sent out the newsletter already for the month of November. that is out there. So, if any men want to join for the first support group for them in the month of November, that'll be on November 6.
Courtney Brame: All right, today's podcast episode is being recorded on Halloween, October 31st, and I was reminded of I was what was that four years ago. It's 2025. Yeah, I was reminded where I was 2021 on Halloween. So, last night was October 30th, the Thursday. I got a story. So, I was supposed to be in Houston, Texas this weekend. I was excited for this. I used to live in Houston and I got a couple really good friends out there that I played a game with and that's kind of how we stay in touch. And so, I've been making it a point to try and see them at least twice a year. And so, I was due for my second time a year before one of my buddies goes out of the country for a few weeks. And everything was fine.
Courtney Brame: I had all my stuff. The weather was good. I made my ride to the airport. I was nervous about that, but I on Got there early. In fact, I got to go to the Chase Sapphire Reserve Lounge cuz I got a new credit card for positive people that came with a lot more like stuff that I would use since I travel so much for the business. And so, I was able to go to the lounge. I got in there. I did some work. And y'all know how much I don't like PowerPoint. So, I got my PowerPoint, but just slides. So, I have a solid template to be able to just fill in for the subject matter on which I'm going to be presenting on, which is typically herpes stigma. I went to my gate. there. A group was boarding. I was part of B group. And I got a good seat. There was nobody sitting in the middle.
Courtney Brame: and We back off from the gate on time and then we're sitting in the air traffic. We're just sitting there and we can't take off. So the pilot told us it was going to be about an hour and a half. I was like, "All right, cool." I'm scrolling Instagram. I'm watching anime. And then before you know it's 2 and 1/2 hours. And then they tell us that we're going to refuel at the what's it called? we had to dock. So, and then they told us to deplane. And the last time I was told to deplane, we had a 7-hour flight delay. And so, we hanging out, and people are lined up to figure out what's going on. And I'm listening to the lady not know what's happening. And she's very calm. This is with Southwest. And normally, the last time that this happened, I got text messages and updates about, what was happening with the plane.
Courtney Brame: So, I was like, "All right, I'm going to go chill at the lounge again." So, I go back to the lounge and there was a wait and they gave me a ticket to go to another lounge. So, I'm chilling at the other lounge. I get some food and then I get a text to come to the other lounge. All right, great. I get that text. I go back to the lounge that I wanted to be at and I was just going to hang out until it was time to leave. And then I get there and they check your boarding pass and the boarding pass showed that my flight took off two minutes ago. And I was like, what? Cuz I watched one episode of anime. The walk was not even 5 minutes from the gate from the lounge to the other lounge. So I'll say that maybe 30 to 40 minutes have gone by. And in that amount of time, no notifications.
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Courtney Brame: I've seen people walk away and then they were on the phone talking about their work had booked their flight and they don't have any information. So I'm talking to people and everything and all of a sudden We were supposed to leave at 11:00. The flight's boarded at 3:04. Now the flight didn't leave for another two hours, but I didn't know that that was happening. So I get back to the gate and I'm in line. And I'm like, what's going on?" So, apparently the flight had already boarded and there was no notifications or anything. And so, they call names. They had 20 people missing. And so, they call me and then I go up and everybody's always surprised that I'm Courtney Bra. they're looking for a 5 foot white girl or something. And so, I was like, "Hey, I'm Courtney." And so, she was going to print off my boarding pass. I was like, "Hey, I don't want to go no more.
Courtney Brame: And so she canceled the flight and told me to call customer relations. Now there were a lot of things that were happening that just I didn't feel good I know about the government shutdown. I know a lot of employees are there but they're not getting paid. So there's also that part of it as well. And then there is also as I was looking at why we weren't leaving they mentioned that it was because of the weather I guess maybe the wind had shut down a lot of the runways and so everybody was coming and going from the same runway and we weren't leaving. Now at this point in time the weather was significantly worse than when we were about to leave.
Courtney Brame: And I get it traffic might have just died down. So as you get more into the afternoon, maybe fewer planes are coming and going. But I got a wave of anxiousness, And that wave of anxiousness is the same wave that told me I needed to get the f*** out of my ex-girlfriend's apartment before that storm came. And it's the same one that told me I needed to get the f*** out of move my flight up when I left from St. Louis to go out of town before the tornado had came and hit my place. And there was the similar wave of anxiousness that just came with a big ass warning sign.
Courtney Brame: another time that I was I won't say when this was but I was out with some friends that we're drinking and everything and some people were doing other things and I ended up like having to switch cars and ride with somebody I didn't know and when we were in the car riding clearly he was not driving very safely and we got over one of those high overpasses on a bridge
Courtney Brame: bridge and he was swerving like a m*****. And so the swerving came from him not paying attention to the road. He was talking to the girl in the passenger seat and I hate when I get this, but I was like, "Yo, just pay attention to the road." I don't think I said it like that, but that was what I said. He did. He paid attention to the road, but he was still swerving and for where we were. the last thing I need I got too much going for me right now to go to jail to have any reason to be involved with some f*** s***. And I didn't know this dude. So I was like, "Hey, pull over at this quick trip." So we pulled over in the quick trip. I was like, "All right, y'all I'mma Uber home." So I got a hot dog, Ubered home, and the Uber was inconvenient as f***, but my anxiety that I had went away.
Courtney Brame: and that combination of things where I listen to my nervous system. I don't know what might have been avoided. I don't know if anything was avoided, but I know that the more that we do a thing, the better we get at it. And it was important for me to honor that. It was important for me regardless of, all right, that 20, $30 of a Uber ride. It was more important to me that I did that than anything else. And they beat me home. Everybody gave me s*** for, being paranoid or whatever, but at the end of the day, I respected myself for that decision. And my friends were like, "Hey, yeah, you got to trust your gut." I know what, right?
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Courtney Brame: I felt supported friends tease you get your s*** but also I was supported in the decision that I made. So I can't go against that anymore. And I think that speaking more to the nervous system man it ain't just herpes and the possibility of an outbreak that gives us these kind of signs. there is a whole undercurrent of things that connect us as humans that a lot of us just ain't in tune with.
Courtney Brame: And what I found is that yoga and a lot of what I'm learning as I look at quantum physics and spirituality and make these connections for me personally is that the nervous system is a manifestation of whatever quantum physics stuff we come from and then everything that happens with the nerves is a communication network. And I think that our body sensations, the five senses, our thoughts, our emotions, our breath and how we breathe, our organ function, and what happens within the body, digestion, all of this is just another way for the soul to communicate. And the spiritual significance of herpes is by far the most downloaded podcast episode.
Courtney Brame: And I think that what happens is when we hit that struggle, that suffering, whatever we want to call it, when we get this herpes diagnosis and we see the things that we have to deal with, a lot of times that tragedy, that trauma, it makes us look to spirituality. It makes us look within. Because the thing about herpes, there ain't no answers out there that we want. There is no cure. People look for how do I prevent a partner from getting this? There is no way of preventing your partner from getting this from you. And I use the analogy and I'm beating this thing into the ground, but our bodies host a lot of viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, and it manages it, right?
Courtney Brame: we're collections of things that are coexisting. And when we have excess of any of these, that's where we need to address The inflammations, the infections, the disease, the symptoms, and all of that, right? That's when things have gotten quote out of hand. And we live in a world where we are pulled in so many directions and our stress isn't limited to just our internal world for us to be connected to it and go, This relationship is actually doing me more harm than good. the amount of time that I put into this activity needs to be dialed back a lot."
Courtney Brame: or that thing that I got going on that I used to really find a lot of joy from it. It's not bringing me joy anymore. And so looking at those things regularly requires stillness. Now we work in a world where these people ain't getting paid. These people are working and not being paid. Granted, they're supposed to get their back pay, but imagine having to show up for work and it's work. And the one thing you get out of your job is your money to be able to do the things that you enjoy. You show up to work and then you just don't get paid. And you do that where's the line? At what point are you going to focus on maintaining what you have, right?
Courtney Brame: I talked to someone last night and she's a government employee and I asked her what's happening what are you doing? how do you get by? She was personal loans. She said deferring everything and she ain't say eating up savings, but I'm assuming cuz she ain't getting paid. and that's assuming that she got a savings. A lot of people ain't got that. And the going back to look at me. I was going to just forget about what I was talking about originally, but our body hosts all of these things, And it's not just the physical things that we host, right? We energetically hold a lot. We emotionally hold a lot. We're always, considering and thinking about other people as well and the other places that we got to be, the identities that we have and the masks that we need to wear.
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Courtney Brame: a lot of the times. And so our bodies are these apartment complexes that your tenants need to be taken care of. the superintendent, the landlord. And when you have a tenant that let's say herpes is a tenant, it's in one of the units and the air conditioner goes out and then it's hot outside. First, you get the message, hey, our air conditioners out in unit whatever. And then your responsibility is to fix that. And let's say you're too busy or you getting your rent paid every month from the tenants and you just going out and you chilling, drinking, you partying, you having a good time, but you're not taking care of the responsibility that is the apartment complex that you manage your body.
Courtney Brame: And so herpes, that tenant, is like, "All right, our air conditioner ain't getting fixed. It's hot. We're not being cared for. Let's go to the leasing office." Herpes goes to the leasing office, maybe knocks on the door, ain't nobody there. They leave a letter and then before you know it, too much time passed and rent ain't getting paid because herpes is now looking for a new place to live. And now it goes from the nervous system and through the nerves and then it begins to travel through the body. You may miss the signal of it traveling because you're so disconnected from your body and then before you know that mug is on your skin and it's like all right this is your last chance.
Courtney Brame: you either fix his air conditioner and this is where we get the shedding that typically takes place before an outbreak happens like the noticeable shedding where you feel that sensation coming along and then you ignore it even more and then bam now we got an outbreak and you can't ignore it and this is just herpes looking for a new home. It's fine when you are taking care of yourself. It's not fine when you are not taking care of yourself. And I always think go back and I always go back and forth about, whether or not I was aligned in places that was when I was living in St. Louis, when I was living in New Jersey, when I was living in Portland and I wasn't getting outbreaks and I don't regret any of those moves.
Courtney Brame: I don't regret any of those decisions because it was still aligned for me to go through what it was that I went through in order for me to have the experiences that I needed to have. Perhaps to be able to speak to and perhaps to be able to become more related to people, to have a failed, relocation, a failed relationship, a failed relocation again, a failed having a plan for being home again. And that wasn't supposed to be what my story was. But me going back home and making that effort, that was a part of the story, but it wasn't the story. And I find a lot of peace in that. I find a lot of peace in looking back and being able to say, even from four years ago.
Courtney Brame: Because what's the beautiful thing about this is it was October 30th in 2021 I want to say and I was wearing my Adventure Time costume and last night I wore my Adventure Time costume. I was fan and I had a ugly ugly breakup, ugly relationship and this was with someone who we were non- monogamous and there was a lot of issues that she had with me personally that I knew about and that she told me about.
Courtney Brame: But these were things that because they were mentioned, it was like, " great. It's on the table. we deal with this, right?" And there were issues that I had with her and her relationships. And it was like, "Okay, this is on the table. We both know we're going to deal with it." And all of that ended up I don't really know how to describe how we got there, but what was expressed to me was my happiness being an issue like Courtney, what you found the thing that you love that you do that you're supposed to be doing. I haven't found that. I'm jealous of you.
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Courtney Brame: And here was I'm jealous of you, my boyfriend. we in a relationship working towards whatever longterm, looks And that even just saying that now, man, I'm going tell y'all this. Don't be in a relationship with somebody who's jealous of you because I think that vocabulary, language, and all of that is it's different across the spectrum. It's very subjective, right?
Courtney Brame: Because to me, my experience with jealousy has been, " that person is doing something that I wish I could do. Let me get better so that I can also do that thing." there's a hint of inspiration underneath of jealousy. or there can be a hint of I don't know. I can't really say what it is, but whenever I've been jealous of somebody, I just made changes. I've never just been jealous of somebody and then just been jealous, there was a time where I was** jealous of light-skinned dudes because they got all the girls in school.
Courtney Brame: There was a time that I was jealous of light-skinned dudes. And I've been dark my whole life. I can't remember I can't remember a time where I wasn't dark. And in those instances, all right, s***, what is it about him? I got curious. So, some of my friends were lightkin Deon Deon, one of my best friends. He been light-skinned his whole life. Nick, RIP. these were friends of mine who were light-skinned and we got cool and it was never anything against any of them. I never sought to make them dark skin or make them not what they were. I wanted to understand them. And that's been my relationship with jealousy. But I understand everybody ain't got that path. Everybody ain't got that playing sports, right?
Courtney Brame: different people in different positions is man I'm jealous of how good you are let me get better I'm jealous of you for starting letting me get better so I can start jealousy for me has always been a notification bell ding all right this person's good at something what can I learn from them and it sparked my curiosity but in relationships and I guess I just thought that and this is my own naive. I run a nonprofit called Something Positive for Positive People and this is the most negative circumstance at least that I know of that exists. want herpes. Don't nobody want to be here.
Courtney Brame: But as I said before, right, we transmute trauma and herpes and stigma into healing. We transmute all that s* into healing. Anything that comes your way negative ain't bad. I don't know where that s* started from. Positive means present. There's a presence. And when we get to the point of good and evil, no, it's useful and then it's maybe useful. It's just by default not useful because it has an absent charge.
Courtney Brame: But what happens when you give presence and attention to that which is use I don't want to call it useless but Negativity is infinite potential. you can flip a negative into any** thing you want. I managed to flip someone literally telling me Courtney I'm jealous of Somebody told me that and then told me why. And I was able to be great. So, you're inspired and you're going to do better. You're going to find what it is that you want to be doing for yourself." Nope. So, I was reminded of that a friend of mine, she sent me a selfie from that that time and I remember going, I remember this day."
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Courtney Brame: because we had a publicly massive falling out. that s*** was wild. And yeah, I'm glad that I can laugh about it now cuz at the time I was furious, I was sad. I still got the voice recording. I left myself to make sure I ain't go back to that relationship. I had the voice record and I recorded. I was like, "All right, here's what just happened. I will never forget this. and she did my ass dirty. And then the next day I moved to Portland, Oregon. And my life just changed. And I noticed patterns there.
Courtney Brame: There's been patterns for me in those relationships that, I wanted to make this podcast episode, a focus of dealing with rejection. And I think that that particular story of jealousy specifically is important because that is to me at least a form of rejection in my experience. And I got to stop looking at s*** from such a naive perspective. I will take whatever is given to me and make it useful and take the positive and put the presence into the negativity or the infinite potential to make it something positive. You can do that idealistically. You can do that with energy. energy can't be created nor destroyed.
Courtney Brame: But what happens is I believe that the quality and the intensity of emotion that we give to a thing, our passion, right? What we pour into a thing makes it manifest and take That form that it takes then becomes a shell. It becomes a solidified, a person in our life. It may become an activity. It might become a** business. It might become something positive for positive people. what this had to become? This ain't just the energetic intensity and emotion from Courtney that made a whole** nonprofit organization and platform, the podcast. Yes. I love getting to interview people.
Courtney Brame: I love getting to talk to people of all different kinds of walks of life to learn from them "All right, how have you navigated this?" Because that gives me more perspective to draw from and more of the infinite potential for me to be able to put myself in in the shoes of another person and empathize and be able to pour myself into that. Okay, what's the good out of this? And asking the questions. with listening. It helps me with being a great person for that I wouldn't have needed when I was diagnosed with herpes. That's helpful. And I ain't going to say my superpower necessarily, but it listening is a superpower.
Courtney Brame: is damn sure a gift especially in a time where people's attention again it's just so scattered and all over the place and people are disconnected from their nervous system. So when I think about being in a relationship with somebody who says I'm jealous of you like she said it but I look back how many relationships have I been in where that may have been the case and they just didn't say it that wasn't the language that was used. Courtney, I'm jealous of you. And it's not exclusively rejection or a fear of rejection or an avoidance of rejection. It can be an obliviousness to rejection. It can be a self-rejection.
Courtney Brame: You can be so adamant about making a relationship work. You can be so adamant about making a job work. You can be so adamant about your place in a friend group or a community and making that work and just dismiss the rejections that are there because it'll happen again and again and again. And one of the things that I wrote down in my notes to talk about is what you do being more important than who you are in some cases. how identity politics play a role. I'll give this example. At the end of the day, I'm a black man and there's a word for what black men are. And I've I've been in a lot of women dominated spaces.
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Courtney Brame: And over the years, I've always been reminded in some form or fashion that I'm a man. how people talk about me in these spaces, whether that be how I remember I just remembered a thing. I was invited to something. I hate that I'm about to say It was a handful of lesbian women or queer women and then it was me and I had a friend there. I was like, "Hey, I don't know if I should go to this." She's like, "No, what do you mean? it would really mean a lot to me if you would go." I was like, "All right, that's my friend talking bad. I go to this."
Courtney Brame: And there were a series of events that happened while I was there that felt like rejections, but because I went and I knew this is another one of those signs where my nervous system was like, "Hey, you probably shouldn't do this." And I didn't listen. I should have trusted it and dealt with the consequences of not going there because now I don't have that friend anymore. But going to this thing, there was, the one thing that I'll say that happened was, I'm giving to the group as best I can, playing the games. I'm, buying the foods on my card and trusting that people going to give me the money back, making things easy. And I remember, one of the nights there, I was like, "Hey, anybody want to go to the hot tub?" I go to the hot tub. I'm in a hot tub for a solid 45 minutes to an hour. I get out.
Courtney Brame: I hop in I'm done showering. I'm drying off and I hear a lot of giggling and stuff from the hot tub. I look outside and everybody's in the hot tub. And I was just like, " wow, that's interesting." And so I just was like, "You know what? f*** this. I'm going to go to sleep." Was like, maybe it's just a coincidence, right? You try and take the positive out of things, but what positive is it in that? here's what happened. I invited everybody. Hey, I go to the hot tub. I'm in there for 45 minutes to an hour. I start showering. As I'm drying off, everybody's in the hot tub. And that sums up like how the weekend went and I shouldn't have been there. And I think, the body keeps the score, right? And ain't just the it's the nervous system.
Courtney Brame: the body will, get to a point where sometimes the body be too late. The body might be too late. And the nervous system can only, communicate so much. It's a whisper. If you ain't in tune with it, if you ain't connected to it, you going to miss s***. And my ex telling me, "Hey, Courtney, I'm jealous of you.
Courtney Brame: That ain't the only form of rejection that came. I'm sure looking back there were many a points where it was almost like I can't be as good as you so I need to make you worse than me. And I ain't never looked at jealousy like that. And I know we got different words, jealousy and envy, right? But
Courtney Brame: the words I'm just describing the actions and everything that's behind it and these were the words that were given to me and then even in my most recent relationship right like this person told me I struggle with jealousy and while it was never overtly said I was in hindsight now right again I've been in therapy sometimes twice a
Courtney Brame: week talking about these things and the only people who will ever know everything that happened in their relationship were my therapist and then one of my good friends who he was happening to go through something similar just because I don't want to talk bad about nobody even if that means that whatever's been said about me has had the impacts that it's had cuz like I said before people have noticeably treated me differently and all I can do is I look at the
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Courtney Brame: information that I got. I can't sit here and be naive to the fact that, just because I respect or have respect and reverence for, people and what they got going on, that don't mean the same thing for me. And people that, I thought were friends, they might not. everybody ain't my friend. And I had to learn that in listening to the nervous system. And I had to learn that every time I don't listen to my nervous system, I'm rejecting myself. And I'm happy. I'm feeling good. regardless of how I sound, like it's about to be 6:00 m. or a little bit after 6:00 a.m. right now.
Courtney Brame: And I got my little sleepy voice on or whatnot, but I'm actually happy. And it feels so** uncomfortable for me to be happy because it feels so lonely and isolating because everybody ain't happy. And we live in a time where it's so easy s* to be pissed off about. It's so easy to give your joy away and subscribe to things that don't bring you joy. I went to Brandon Kyle Goodman's whole church, spelled h e a u x with a friend of mine and s*** I guess at the time two friends of mine.
Courtney Brame: And it was at this whole church where I got to say something out loud for the first time in a room full of people that I ain't never said before. So Brandon Kyle Goodman is I guess sex educator and they're non-binary and black and look like a black man. And the exercise that they did was they had everybody or they offered the opportunity for people to raise their hand and just say out loud something that they've experienced shame with. And the reoccurring thing for me is experiencing shame around how happy I am.
Courtney Brame: my happiness, my joy in life because And I'm around a lot of negative people, but isn't Negative just means infinite potential. And you can't pull potential out of people. It's just something that you got to be yourself and inspire from people. And then that inspiration, while my intention might be inspiration, what somebody else can be receiving might be jealousy, it can trigger them. My happiness shouldn't trigger anybody. And I think it did several times. And when that happens, what do I do? Dim the light? Try and make the other person happy?
Courtney Brame: therefore making myself miserable and therefore showing them how unhappy they are and making them more miserable and then in this misery cycle. But I will say man being in yoga therapy training being involved in some type of a consistent yoga practice and Shout out to all my teachers that I've had. Shout out to inner peace yoga therapy because I think that these things kept reminding me stop be still. Check in with your nervous system. Move your body. Observe your thoughts. Meditate. And it was all of these that allowed for me to catch the baseline of where my stress is. And I'm a happy person.
Courtney Brame: I am a present person. I got to practice this s* every day of my life. Cuz that's a choice. I choose to be present. I choose to stay positive. I choose to take the negative and not disregard it or be like, " ain't no place for this." I choose to give presence to it and interrogate it with curiosity and kindness. even at the expense of rejecting myself. But when I recognize that that's what's happening, I can't get so sucked into it. I got to remember my happiness.
00:45:00
Courtney Brame: the same thing that brings people in and makes people want to be here and it makes people, want to be in the space should never be the same thing that makes people, jealous or envious hateful in a way that it's like I need to make you worse cuz that's what jealousy does. But also what jealousy was for me was inspiring. I ain't never tore nobody down. And you got to ask yourself because our inner world is the projector for what's happening around us. So I look at, applying for grant applications, how often I get rejected. I ain't got a grant yet.
Courtney Brame: the first thing I moved out to Portland, Oregon for I thought was a grant. That was a sponsorship. They liked what I was doing and they were able to just give me $10,000. the big donations that I got, I thought those were grants. Those just came from people organizations that got money. These was just fat ass donations. That's crazy to think about. it's crazy to say out loud, but in 8 years of running something positive for positive people somehow, I don't know how, but it's just I guess this trust. Maybe or maybe it's my consistently with consistency with turning negatives into positives. But along the way, somehow we've been able to keep doing this s***.
Courtney Brame: somehow, when I need podcast guests, they come out the blue. When I need something to talk about, I turn this m******* mic on and I just start saying s***. And I think the average is like 110 people on Spotify per episode, however many y'all listening, if y'all come check in once and never hear back from y'all again, that means you For those who stick around, that mean you getting what you need. I'm done rejecting myself. I'm done trying to control s***. And I'm also done welcoming in, for too long. Anybody can come in. Anybody can come in. I'll talk to anybody, but everybody can't stay.
Courtney Brame: and that everybody can't stay. That's not me being mean. But this is something I learned from my last relationship. after the breakup, something I learned is I am open about my life. I am vulnerable to somebody presenting themselves as perfectly aligned with me and then not being that. And I'm not an a*** for stepping away. I can't stay in relationships because, if I need space and somebody has abandonment issues or anxious and it's like I need closeness when I need space. we got to prioritize what it is that we need, however we need to get that. And that same thing goes for not just your romantic platonic relationships, but it also goes with things.
Courtney Brame: I maybe sometimes I don't need no space away from my job. I need that money. But I had to take space away from grant applications and decided that's not what I'm doing. Even Instagram, social media, like trying to make content that people will see related to herpes education. That s*** was draining. I never knew how draining that was for me until I started to invest the money, energy, attention, and time that I would normally put into Instagram and I put that into the website. I invested in something that I believed in. And going back to the thing about energy, right?
Courtney Brame: what they say in Full Metal Alchemist? they speak about the law of equivalent exchange. For anything to be obtained, something of equal greater value has to be exchanged. You got to give up something. And life, man, this is just a whole thing of catch Attach and release. Because what we energetically pour into takes form and we form an attachment to it and we got to release that**. the day that something positive for positive people is no longer needed for what I've invested into this**** over the last eight years, whatever the energy buildup that releases from me releasing my attachment and the form that this is in, whatever that ends up looking like.
00:50:00
Courtney Brame: Let's say they cure herpes tomorrow. I can't wait to see what I make out of this because I got so much faith and the intensity of emotion that is invested into The same thing with my last relationship. I poured everything I had into that relationship and it took form, in somebody that was gonna give me everything that I wanted and then that relationship ended and the form wasn't there anymore. her spirit, like that's removed from my orbit. But she ain't take that with her.
Courtney Brame: that's mine, and I don't even like to call it mine, but it's been stored the investment there when it freed up, I got 18 grand from losing my apartment in the tornado. And I think that, it might have been about that for my whole moving away from New Jersey, moving while I when that form released, what came from the form was still there and it needed to go somewhere else. So, there was the money, the move across the country. It was like, "All right, Courtney, now you can move to New York. You can move to Brooklyn now.
Courtney Brame: And now you can have your identity as A little too polyamorous black man. I don't know that this would have been available to me sooner. Now you can do the work that you're supposed to do. you can focus on your yoga therapy training. Now you got the attention. you can focus on your own emotions and how you feel and get to your baseline because you tried for so long to do that for somebody else. And the shell that I was able to fill that energy with because we're just moving it. It can't be created nor destroyed.
Courtney Brame: But the value that we give to someone something is a direct response to our emotions. Whether those emotions are positive or negative, it's our How much presence do we give to a thing? Avoidance is also presence. Because think about it how often we avoid death, we avoid people, we avoid un discomfort, but yet we still see that s***. But what happens when we release?
Courtney Brame: When we remove the shell of that which we've poured the emotion of fear into what they say in outwitting the devil he said if people only knew which they feared if converted to s*** what did he say what we were afraid of if we began to like here's my analogy I don't know exactly what he said but when you get excited about something
Courtney Brame: that feeling in your gut or when you're scared s*** or something that feeling in your gut it's the same feeling we assign a narrative to it we give it a story and when we are afraid of something that's just that excitement bubbling up what if we were like instead of being afraid of this how here's a story I'mma tell now it's s* to be afraid of don't get me wrong you won't see me f****** around with
Courtney Brame: poisonous snakes and holding them and playing with them and s***. You will not see me do that. That is a healthy fear. But the fear of being alone, I've embraced that. I'm happy. And if I'm going be alone because I'm happy because other people don't like my happiness or are triggered by it, then I'll be alone. that don't scare me anymore. And ever since releasing that, it's like The cap just removed itself because I wasn't subscribing to that belief. I don't have an identity around a fearful person of being alone. Now that energy's freed up to make sure I'm not alone in any way.
00:55:00
Courtney Brame: But that s*** can't be there if I keep rejecting myself. It can't be there if I reject who I really am. And that's where, identity comes in. I mentioned earlier, at what point does identity politics play a role in things? At the end of the day, like I am I'm a black man. I'm not queer. And I've been in a lot of spaces where it ain't men or a lot of men. And the men that are there might be trans men or they're queer men or gay men. And it just ain't been no place for me there. And the more that I shown up into those spaces, the more I've been rejecting my identity myself, right? there's something to learn from it.
Courtney Brame: But I've gone into these spaces and I tried to perform my way into acceptance and who I am a don't take precedence. My intentions, my values, my consistency, those intangible things don't mean s*** in identity politics. And so like me doing I got to release that form. I got to release that. I've invested a lot into these spaces and now I got to free that up for whatever the next thing is. Same way I had to release that friendship. I poured a lot into that friendship that I had until that weekend at the cabin or whatever the f*** it was. The cabin.
Courtney Brame: And since releasing that, I mean, the attachment to Portland was gone. And to leave. I was able to pour into, what I thought was going to be the rest of my life. And when you pour into something, you create an identity that you really think, it's going to be the rest of my life. That was a big ass energy charge that the process of letting go has been a b****. It hurt, but I did it. And self-rejection that comes from attachment, nobody make me feel the way that I made myself feel ever. I don't give a f*** who you are.
Courtney Brame: Your rejection of me it ain't got s*** on what I've experienced for myself. Rejecting myself, staying in and attaching two things that needed to have been long before released. And maybe they hit their peak and stagnance is something that I recognize. It's feels like death to me. What feels like death to you? I don't believe that we just die and that's it.
Courtney Brame: these bodies are the manifestation of an attachment to practice attachment and Attach, release. That's the rhythm of life. we breathe Attach, release. And I believe that that's how we deal with rejection. damn, I'm getting to know this person. I'mma pour some money, energy, attention, and time into them, and we going to pour into that. We going to have attention, the attraction, right? We going to play with it. We got it. And this is probably why the attractive people are so attractive to us because this is what they do. Whether they know it or not, whether they name it or they listen to their nervous system. It's an Attach release.
Courtney Brame: I'm* proud of myself. I'm happy. This sound more like a self podcast in anything cuz it's so personal, but I'm learning, the more I just talk to y'all and not try and do this whole let me maintain a level of professionalism. The more I do this, the more people open up to me faster. the more I'm able to get to the root of what their concerns are, the more that, yoga therapy is able to be a thing where I pull from the person that I'm working with what I need in order to make them a better client, in order to make me a better yoga therapist. And I love this s***.
01:00:00
Courtney Brame: And there's an ongoing grieving process of all of the things and the people that I've been attached to that I haven't released fully. And it's a process. you keep doing that and you connect to your nervous system and there's always going to be more to let go of. David R. Hawkins, he said, damn, what did he say? The whole book, letting go. There's always more to be let go of. And when things are good, that's when you want to keep surrendering. That's when you want to keep releasing that which you're attached to. And the release is releasing your energetic monetary chronological I don't know the word for time. I know time got a lot of different words. Kronos, but your money, energy, attention, and time. Shout out to Coach Greg Adams.
Courtney Brame: when you allow for the attachments to remove themselves because that's what they want to do. Everything's attaching and releasing. You look at atoms and how electrons their roll in the atom, right? They pick up a charge, they hit the orbit as it aligns and then they send a message "Hey, here's what's happening over here. There's something that is more aligned for what this atom is becoming than what I am." and it sends out the information for another electron to pick up and be like, " bet. I want to be here." And I see that. I couldn't see that before. And that's cuz I was holding on. I was attached, not just to that relationship, but to my identity, as who I was going to become as a father.
Courtney Brame: the father that I would have been, the husband that I would have been, the nonprofit founder that I would have been, the New Jersey resident that I would have been. And I apply that to everything else now. Me making a decision to get out of that car when dude was swerving. Me making a decision to leave the relationship. leave the house cuz she broke up with me for me to leave the house. I left her place when I did. Me moving my flight up and getting out of St. Louis when I did. Me not getting on that plane yesterday. if I don't listen to myself again. I'll be damned if I reject myself again. Exiting spaces it's been nine months.
Courtney Brame: It's been 9 months since I've had involvement with, these spaces where we ain't got to go into all of that too much, but I noticed that I've been treated differently. I've been reminded I'm not a woman because in spaces where my ex and I share I've clearly been kind of just elbowed out despite what I've done in the spaces or what I've contributed because it's who I am. The identity things and that as it did with the hot tub. It felt the same way as when I worked for white people in corporate America.
Courtney Brame: At the end of the day, you're still a black man. And I will never stop believing that the nature of a thing is more important than the form of a thing. And that's where this attach release concept really thrives because the nature is what we pour into it. We nurture our nature. And the universe does that. The universe nurtures our nature. And we should always be becoming whatever it is that we're becoming. And we will be given or that in which we pour into the world energetically, emotionally. What we give attention and presence and awareness to will always take form and it will always align to where we are in that moment.
Courtney Brame: And all we got to do is release. Even in a relationship with one person, you're not the same person the entirety of the relationship. Y'all are molding one another. you're nurturing each other's nature. Something positive for positive people. It's nurturing my nature as somebody who's curious, creative, who values connection, community, choice. It's a six C. I forgot what it was. Consistency. This is a space where those intangible aspects of my identity are validated and being shaped and molded into whatever the f*** that is going to come from this. I'm being shown that. I'm seeing it.
01:05:00
Courtney Brame: I love that I get to do this. I'm happy as f***. And it was in that room with Brandon Cal Goodman where I was able to say, I got shame around that. And so now there's another release of energy that I was attached to my identity as somebody being overly humble, being somebody who's sad, who's not living life, feels bad because you know what? There are some people who can't. We need I need your happiness. I need your pleasure. I need for you to shine that light. Don't f when you shine, other people might get jealous, but they might get jealous the way I get jealous. And what I mean by that is inspired. I mean that s***.
Courtney Brame: Don't let rejection make you shrivel up and shrink into a fetal position and hide that big beautiful light of yours. Be inspired. Let m**** be jealous of you. That's theirs to deal with. You ain't got to be any type of way. You ain't got to make nobody worse than you in order for you to feel better about yourself. And don't be in relationships like that. I've done it plenty of times. I just only been in therapy really talking about it because I know that if I was in therapy while I was in any of these relationships, it wouldn't have worked out. He been like, "You get your ass out of that relationship." He wouldn't have said that. But he'd have made me sad. This went over.
Courtney Brame: I ain't know what I was going to be getting into, but I wanted to just speak to rejection. And I think that self-rejection was probably the biggest piece of this because that's really what it is. in your rhyth when you're not practicing attach, release, you holding on. You're developing an identity. And that identity that you develop that aligns with or that is holding on to something that needs to be released is keeping you from yourself. You're outside yourself like you that that's one of the masks that you put on and you maybe just keep that mask on a little bit too long. Go watch the movie the mask and you'll see that identity he becomes when he put that mask on and become a different person. Like he likes that. But when you take the mask off that's still who you are.
Courtney Brame: But recognize that the mask is there for you to be able to put on, but also for you to be able to take off these identities that take form because of our energetic investment. Even my identity as a now polyamorous person, I know that there's an attachment there and I know that that's something that, is constantly having to be let go of and released. I don't have to prove to nobody or perform my polyamory. there might be times where I'm not seeing all of my partners. even just like this past weekend, I was supposed to see some partners. even when I was traveling and now I'm not.
Courtney Brame: And if I were attached to my identity as a polyamorous person, I might have went against my nervous system and tried to force some s*** and created pressure that would have, felt like rejecting to myself or that would have felt rejecting to myself or even now getting off that plane and not traveling, being able to go, I really polyamorous? I'm not seeing all of my partners right now, and I'm not making enough money to be able to just hop on the next flight for however much money more to be able to see them. No, that ain't how it work. I think I gave a lot of f*** gems win this episode. And also, I feel like more comfortable talking about my personal experiences again.
01:10:00
Courtney Brame: So, I look forward to, being able to do more of that and being able to speak as freely as I once did before because now I do have a lot more clarity after my time in therapy and then being in yoga therapy and also realizing who I am and releasing that shame last weekend about just being happy because that's what's been holding me back. That's why I ain't been, as active personally on social media. You've seen that if you followed me on social media, Courtney Brain on Instagram, you'll see that a lot of the posts have been shares of other people's stuff. It ain't been me talking about my life and how happy I am and what I'm doing. I think the last big thing I did was share that I be consuming black bean smoothies, but I don't move to New York. I don't lost 20 25 pounds.
Courtney Brame: I am dating the way that I want to be dating. I'm having the best sex of my life. I have some very beautiful partners inside and out and they're inspiring. Ain't nobody jealous Ain't nobody showing it. Everybody is just** supportive. And I feel like that support behind me allows for me to really be able to dive into and double down on what I'm doing. Something positive for positive people. If you've seen the newsletter for this past month, that***** got a 400% increase in donations and 300 something% increase in visibility because I have my nature nurtured. And that's just like the one tangible thing I'm working I always say if I work two days a month in my other job, I can pay my rent. And that's really like the baseline of what I've been trying to do.
Courtney Brame: I'm working a f*** ton. I'm doing I'm doing okay. And I used to always say that whenever somebody asked me for money I wanted to make the time to get them food. I've done that once somebody stopped me on my way from the gym to go to Taco Bell and I've been able to give money to people that are homeless. I've been able to do charitable things. And something that I learned is you don't get the money to do it and then do it. You start doing the s*** and then this is who you are, so we going to keep this going for you. to be able to do that is a* blessing. It's a privilege, but also it's a choice. So, I'm man, I'm f****** happy.
Courtney Brame: and I ain't showing it. And I'm scared to show it. I'm overly humbling myself to not create a circumstance of jealousy like I have in my relationships. Not so as not to attract somebody that's like, "Look at all that joy. Let me make him less than so I can feel better about myself. And I'm also not dimming my light because that is what that form of rejection is. This felt like what I get out of recording self podcast episodes. I might have to do a little recap for myself on there. but I really hope that y'all find this useful.
Courtney Brame: I'm about to be a 37 year old black man living with herpes. I started this nonprofit podcast when I was 29 years old, and here we are. we going into nine years of doing this, All right, I got to go cuz it's been longer than an hour. I appreciate Thank you for making the space and the time to listen to this. Till next time, y'all. Stay present.
Meeting ended after 01:14:44
