SPFPP Episode 123: Doing "The Work"
Closing out the inside look of my process of doing "the work" on myself, I give you what I learned over my week off my HOnMyChest social media, an inside look at what my dating life has been and then the conclusion to it all, followed up by a discovery I made as a result of talking through everything you hear here. To top it all off, I share the best piece of advice I ever received which is to just know when to shut the f*** up.
If nothing else is taken from this episode, I say keep in mind to hold intention over expectation at heart. My healing process is ongoing, as yours should be. Replace any of my experiences with what you are facing and maybe it'll be a template for you to fill in blanks.
Episode 123 Transcript
Reflecting on Suicide Survivors and Taking a Break
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Hey y'all. Welcome back to the podcast. So, the previous episode ended up being about survivors of suicide and the stigma that they face. And this episode was important because of the timing of it. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, that it began as a suicide prevention resource. So, there was a 19-year-old young woman who died by suicide the week immediately after my one week off of Instagram.
Courtney Brame: And while I was going to come on and just talk through the last stages of my isolating healing process, I felt called to bring someone on to talk about what the survivors of the person who died by suicide would be experiencing because this person was younger and high school students knew her and the community itself has been affected by it. And so it's one thing to deal with a death in the school system because the teachers are there, but what about at home? Especially when we're talking about high-risk communities and lately I've been learning about trauma and I'm seeing things that I consider to be normal as what they are now, which are various traumas. And so it really called to me to do something for this young lady.
Courtney Brame: So, the only way that I know her is through some of the people that we train at the gym. And there were three different clients that were connected to this young lady. And so, I just thought it would be a good idea to create something that would give the kids what they needed. which is hopefully something that the teachers are able to send to the parents. So that bridge of communication is connected rather than the children being and I say children but I should say the students when they go home being treated like this is just a normal thing or not being allowed to grieve. So that's what that was about and I felt like that was way more important than me talking about myself in all honesty.
Courtney Brame: So, yeah, if you haven't already listened, that is a really great episode to support ourselves in understanding grief and understanding what it means to survive a suicide. If you're someone who knows someone who died by suicide or if you know someone who knows someone who's died by suicide or you think that someone may be grieving and you may need to grieve like that is an amazing episode that gives you insight to what grief is now coming into this podcast episode.
Courtney Brame: So, we missed a week and during that week, I decided to just do that instead of talking about my experience. And I'm glad I did because I've had some more realizations along the way throughout my process of growing as a person. And, I mentioned that I took a week off of being on my chest social media accounts. And during that week, I worked more as a personal trainer. I did more nailing. I did more of my yoga teacher training. And in that time of just spending more time with myself and figuring out what my natural state of emotion is, I learned that I am not a needy person.
Courtney Brame: For a while, I thought that I was addicted to being needed. And I mean, I still sort of struggle with that. But when I put it into perspective with different conversations that I've had lately, it seems to transform and evolve that sentence itself to being that as a human being I have needs, and so my needs have subconsciously been driven by my inner child. So what I felt I didn't have as a child is what I pursue as an adult.
Needs vs. Neediness: The Power of Intentionality
00:05:00 Courtney Brame: And for example, I've spoken about the feeling of being in an emotionally intense situation or any type of emotionally intense interaction, relationship, situationship, whatever it is that you want to call it. And so that's something that came from not having the freedom to express my own emotion.
Courtney Brame: So in repressing or having to repress my own emotion, I didn't know what I felt. There was no real language for it. And oftentimes I think that what I felt was maybe fear or disappointment. And so what's happening is I'm seeing disappointment all around me. And I talked about how it isn't me getting excited that it's me having expectations that leads to disappointment. So, I've done a much better job over the last few weeks in being intentional rather than expecting. So, to me, when I'm aware of what my intention is, I'm focused on how I can show up, what I need to do on my end in order to meet the need myself.
Courtney Brame: And sometimes that just looks like asking for what you want from another person or with another person. And there's this fine line between getting your needs met and then being So to me, what being needy looks like is when you're operating from an unconscious space where you're not very intentional in your communication or your interactions. you already have this need. No matter what you are going to try to get that need met.
Courtney Brame: So for me that looks like finding myself in a situation where I hear from people regularly who may be newly diagnosed or in panic mode and the intensity of that emotion while it may be negative is still an intense emotion right and on the other end of the spectrum if we want to go into the positivity it's like hearing thank you my god your podcast saved my life so operating from that place. And then when it's not there for a while, when I'm not getting any kind of those messages, I notice that when I go to my phone a little bit more, maybe that's when I start to respond to Instagram stories with an emoji or initiating conversation. How are you? What's going on? And that has come off as being needy to me, right?
Courtney Brame: whereas getting my needs met. So I know that I have this internal need to connect with people and to just experience emotions. Now going back to what my natural emotional state is. It's very reflective. I don't have the word yet, but I know where I am. I know how to identify what I'm feeling in the moment, understanding what I feel and then knowing what my need is, to see I'm able to call forth my intention, So, I have a need for connection, right? So, my need for physical touch does not have to be sexual. Maybe it doesn't.
Courtney Brame: But if I know that okay I'm feeling disconnected and I need to feel a sense of connection then from a place of intention to be asked to touch right and here's how it can show up. So, if I'm intentional about it, it can look like being healthy. It can look like being consensual. It can look like a hug, for instance, maybe a hug or maybe asking for platonic cuddling or asking if you can give someone a massage. These kinds of things. So, it's coming from a place of intention. It's not creepy. It's not needy.
Courtney Brame: Whereas, if I were to repress this or not even think about it, it could look like inappropriate touching. It could look like lingering, creepy physical contact, touching. It could look like being in someone's personal space. That's how I look at it now, where it's intentional versus being unconscious. So now we have getting a need met with intention consciously and then we have being needy and you're constantly looking for that thing unconsciously and it's just coming out in an unhealthy way for you, right? And that's a real example for me.
00:10:00 Courtney Brame: So, I'm a personal trainer and at any point if I'm operating unintentionally, I could inappropriately touch clients or I could make clients uncomfortable because we train a lot of women, So, it's important to be intentional about that and understand- okay, I have this need for physical touch. So I know that I need to be able to express these needs with intention so that it doesn't spill over into that and therefore affect my work. Right? So I challenge you to look at where you could be. How can you be intentional about getting your needs met without feeling like you're being needy? Because that's something that I've struggled with.
Courtney Brame: Asking for something that I want Is it needy to ask for cuddles? Is it needy to ask for something? Especially if it's something that someone wants to accept from you. Maybe they don't. And that's okay. But there's all kinds of people in the world and there's so many ways for us to get our needs met, right? So, maybe the person you ask doesn't want to give you or allow for you to or receive what it is that you're offering. And that's okay. We talk about rejection on several episodes of the podcast. And people aren't rejecting you as a person, as your being, as your identity. People are declining an offer that's made and that's it.
Self-Rejection and Playing the Game
Courtney Brame: So, this is something that I just have to constantly remind myself of because, having recently gone back out into the dating world, I find myself self-rejecting a lot. I won't give myself an opportunity to have my offer rejected. And this is really tricky because we're now getting into so many different elements of what I discovered during my time of just being more by myself, which is good because there's talks about quarantines because of the corona virus. So good thing I had that week or two where I was journaling and being really introspective because now I know I can be by myself.
Courtney Brame: So one of the things that I found about myself is that I just haven't had to be in positions to face rejection really or I've just been really lucky whenever I put my offer out there. I would always wait until the hints were there. The hints had to be 100% spot on. I had to know that I was going to win the game. Can you imagine what it's like to play a game that you're going to win? That's not nearly as fun as being able to take the risks of getting beat up, losing sometimes, getting better, progressing, and then it makes the reward of victory or the desired outcome, it makes you appreciate it a little bit more.
Courtney Brame: And so I look back on a lot of the situations that I found myself in and they've been situations where I'm unconsciously choosing right so child version of Courtney who had to be the way that he was as a child is unintentionally operating in a way to where he's attracting the same kind of love or relationships that he received. that he received as a kid because that's what he knows, right? So coming from a place of intention, I know that this needs to be different, but it's something that came to me and that inner conflict of intention versus subconscious operating.
Courtney Brame: It's challenging because it's familiar, known, safe versus the unfamiliar yet desired and unknown. And that's where you get into that space of potential rejection. And rejection hurts even if you are someone who puts it in the perspective of I'm not being rejected, but my offer is being declined or accepted, And so I asked myself this question that put everything into perspective for me. So I don't know what everyone's own individual beliefs are around the afterlife or God or energy or source the universe whatever it is that you want to call it. But if I ask myself all right, why did God make life?
00:15:00 Courtney Brame: The reason to me is that, if God is everything and nothing and all there is and all there isn't, then that's a very lonely place to be. You're not playing this game. You're alone. It's just everything. So, the only thing that you can really do is infinitely separate yourself. And, there's a little bit of you in everyone. and you're on a path of rediscovery. You're playing the ultimate game of hide and go seek if you're God, So you hide yourself in these infinite spaces. and you look at what life there's the cosmos and nature and they have these links together. There's all of the life forms from viruses to animals to humans to aliens, whatever the hell it is that you believe. Right? So this is a game.
Courtney Brame: Life isn't supposed to be boring, per se. We're all on a journey of reconnecting with that piece of us that is God. Tapping into our superpowers, our purpose, and then living that s*** out, right? So, with this understanding of having, of what God is to me, God wants to play. God wants to have fun. So, this is how that happens, right? And so I then ask myself all right what's God's role in this individual form right to have fun to play. So what is it that why am I going through what I'm going through for the sake of giving it. Yes it's going to be a struggle. I'm going to deal with rejection. I'm going to deal with acceptance.
Courtney Brame: But it's about playing the game. If I know I'm going to win, I'm not going to play, And not to say that, I don't want to make this into an immaturity thing or anything where it's like I'm playing with people's hearts. I mean, this is what I feel like. We're all here to experience pleasure. Let me say that because I shouldn't say it's a game. But the ultimate goal is to experience the unknown, experience everything with that sense of newness that we are blessed with everything that is in the unknown being the unknown because if you undo everything that I just said, you get to the place of you are alone.
Courtney Brame: everything there is to know, and there's no one else to experience so God is essentially experiencing itself. And when I look at it as simply as that, it helps me understand, all right, the whole thing about rejection and why we're here and what we're doing and it makes all of these problems that I see on such a big scale so simple, Not to say that these struggles aren' Not to say that this is an illusion because I mean we feel the effects of it. It's real at the moment. It's real to us. These are our real responses to things, And so to me like that feeling of rejection of being rejected or having my offer declined that hurts like a m***********, right?
Courtney Brame: Can think back to if're someone who's listening if you've listened to this podcast over time and you've heard the stories of people talking about their experiences with rejection it's been a very long time since I've had to feel it and I can honestly say that I still haven't necessarily felt it. I've put my offers on the table with different women in a way that they can't quite say yes because not it's very unclear and it's vague as f*** and I'm being very terrible about communicating it because of that fear of rejection and there's no direction that things can go.
Courtney Brame: So everything's just kind of in this space of limbo with me being hopeful that at some point someone's going to move the needle a little bit and I'll know that it's safe to be more direct. So in my experience now I know that I got to quit doing that s***. so I don't know who else is experiencing this or who else may be going through this but it's definitely a thing for me and I've come up with my own way and like I said this is us doing work. This is me putting the work in action. So, if I were to narrow down my biggest problem in terms of dating, because I've been single for February, March, it'll be three months now.
Emotional Intensity and Knowing When to "Shut Up"
00:20:00 Courtney Brame: And I can't say that I've necessarily dated, but I've been looking to explore non- monogamy. And I think that I might be doing too much in terms of that by looking to be in multiple relationships before I even get into one relationship. And I'm looking to be in that kind of intentional conscious relationship before I've even been dating. So I don't know, maybe it's good for me to just date and then begin to explore relationships. and then there's the part of me that feels like that's not fair.
Courtney Brame: It's not fair to the other person to get to know me. It's the same thing with herpes. I don't want to at this point make people get to know me, fall in love with me, and then I have to tell them I have herpes because then it's like, "Oh s***, I already love you, so I guess." Whereas if I told them that out the gate, they would have just been like, "No, f*** this." Then that would have been better. To me at least that's better than me having to psych someone into liking me despite this thing that I'm overcompensating for, hoping that they don't see or they just go, " in the way of things, herpes is insignificant to how great this person is." That's very coercive. That doesn't feel like it's manipulative. Yeah. And coercion.
Courtney Brame: Coercion is a word. I don't know if coercive is, but I rambled and I keep doing that. But my greatest thing right now is just self-rejection. And I've tried to initiate dating a few times. And something that's come up for me a lot is too overwhelming. And one of my best friends, he gave me the best piece of advice throughout our friendship and it was sometimes you just got to know when to shut the f**. I realized that in meeting people, it's not in the best interest of the interaction to go as deep as I do. When I'm interviewing podcast guests, I am on all the time and
Courtney Brame: That in itself can be overwhelming because when you're on all the time or when you set the expectation of this is the level of vulnerability and emotional intensity that I'm bringing to the table. I think that pressures people subconsciously and they put this expectation on themselves that they have to match you with that they have to match that intensity. They have to match your personal growth and development and be self-aware and have all of their insecurities brought to the table and either have worked through them or be working through them.
Courtney Brame: So, I've experienced that a handful of times in just interactions that I would like to have gone forward into some level of intimacy or some kind of relationship or even just talking about creating the relationships. I realize that now. And it took that time off. It took for me to get my feet wet back out into the dating world for me to realize, okay, this is what I'm doing. I am not shutting the f****** I'm supposed to, and not to say that that means just completely turn myself off or be somebody I'm not, but I think it means I get to be myself. cuz I got to maintain a certain level of professionalism. Of course, whenever I'm doing a podcast, I have to maintain my ethics and values.
Courtney Brame: And when I turn it off but when I get to step out of this particular mode and have fun like this person that you're hearing right now is going through their self-reflection. This is super in tune with spirit Courtney whereas there's Courtney that may not be as on as he is right now and then more of a relaxed state where people just feel like they can be themselves around me. So right now it's matching my intensity here whereas a little bit of a quieter Courtney I know people
00:25:00 Courtney Brame: always said to me, I just feel like I can be myself around you. I feel safe around you." And I'm like, "Damn, why didn't I think of that s*** earlier?" So, that's something that I know that I need to work on for myself. And this is again part of doing the work. It's intentionally communicating. All right, I am going to be intentional about getting this need met. And the example that we used was physical touch. So, I can give a massage. I really left out a very important part and I'll tie this all together. I shouldn't say I promise especially given my track record of rambling.
Healing Through "Little Asks" and Prioritizing the Spirit
Courtney Brame: I was talking to my friend today and one of the things that when I talk to people it's important to have conversations first off to be able to have safe spaces where you can be vulnerable and your friend can be vulnerable and you can just sort of reciprocate that energy with one another. And something that came up for me is how I can begin to heal my self-rejection. And one of the ways I can do so rather than expecting out the gate to just be in a non- monogamous relationship and then scale back from there is to deal with my self-rejection by asking to make a lot of little asks and get used to hearing yes and get used to hearing no.
Courtney Brame: So having my offer accepted and rejected to something as small as a hug. Hey, can I have a hug? Which is probably the worst time to be trying to experience rejection or acceptance now because Corona virus and not isolation, self-discipline. No, social distance. That's the social distancing. So, that's going to be a little more tricky, but even with my needs of exploring voyeurism, there are ways to get that met and just being able to ask that.
Courtney Brame: To me, sex is a much larger ask now because I have herpes first off. And then being able to have that conversation and going through consent, the disclosure, the dating, the setup, and all of that. But sex shouldn't be as big of an ask anymore. I'm not a f**** kid anymore that's got to deal with virginities and making sure parents aren't at home. It was so much easier for me to ask for sex when it was harder to get than it is now when it's much more accessible to me than it was when I was 17 years old, right? What sense does this make? Why am I rejecting myself?
Courtney Brame: At what point in my life did I just stop being okay asking for things? I know. When it got to a point where I didn't have to, I've considered myself to be somewhat attractive at least. And so, whenever there are, I'm also very oblivious when I'm being flirted with and that's something that I don't talk about ever. but I've been very oblivious in the past and that's been pointed out to me recently, too.
Courtney Brame: But I know that in the world that we live in right now, I follow lots of sex educators and women empowerment people on social media and I see a lot of graphics and conversations around men being creepy or women being like just because I have a book or I'm out in public in the perfect scenario for you to come strike up a conversation, that doesn't mean come strike back up a conversation or if I'm out dancing with my friends, don't try to dance with me. Don't approach me. I've seen a lot of that kind of stuff lately and I think I've absorbed so much of it that it makes me believe that that is universally true, if that makes sense.
00:30:00 Courtney Brame: So, just saying things that sort of discourage me from feeling safe in approaching someone and initiating a conversation because the universal narrative that I'm getting is it's not okay to approach women. If we want it, from what I'm reading, it looks like if women want your attention or if women to pursue you or interested in you, then they'll let And I know for a fact cuz I talked to other women and I've spoke I'm friends with women who are like no I'm not going to do that. You come talk to me. And so there's that conflicting factor also. And it's like f*** dude what does this mean?
Courtney Brame: if I really want this high value woman who's, all of these different things that I want or some of these things or if I'm going to communicate my intentions and hopes of being able to create what it looks like for us to get our needs met with one another, where do I go? And there's no right or wrong answer there. You just have to take your risk. The women who say this isn't okay. I mean, it's a matter of being respectful, So, if a woman is reading a book, you probably shouldn't talk to her. and you probably shouldn't sit there and stare at her and wait on some kind of a cue either, but here we go. We're in that gray area, So, if she looks up from her book and smiles at you, then maybe that's an invitation to come say hello. But if she says she's not interested, right?
Courtney Brame: And maybe she looks up and she's like, "Why is this** creep staring at me?" And then at that point, I don't know what to do because as far as it gets. this is nice to be able to talk through myself and hold myself accountable for posting this because this is literally stuff that some of it's come up before but some of it has not come up before and even I feel myself not being needy in terms of this conversation because my intention has just been to communicate
Courtney Brame: What the work quote unquote looks like when you're in it rather than when it's a finished product. This is what it's like. It can look like rambling all over the place. It can look like thinking you've identified the problem and then along the way of writing it or talking it out, realizing that you got five other problems that you need to work on for yourself. And that's okay. It's okay. I know that I am actively working on making my little asks. I set up a fat life profile. I'm not sure if I'm going to get back on, Tinder and Bumble and, the positive dating sites or whatever. But, I know that the options are there, so that's cool. But for where I'm at right now, I think that I can just make my little asks.
Courtney Brame: if I just want platonic touch, I can ask, "Hey, can I give you a massage?" Or, "May I have a hug?" if I want my sexual needs met, then maybe I can go on the Fet Life and find the specific types of sexual acts that I'm looking for and possibly connect with someone and then be able to chat and get to know each other and then meet after quarantine is over. What else? I'm saying those are my only needs. Or if I just want to share space with someone and exchange energy, maybe I want to just talk or reflect and stuff. If I want to add these big conversations, I think that I have spaces for that as well. I just need to ask. So, these little asks are going to make what I perceive to be the big asks so much more simple to go through with.
Courtney Brame: So, I don't know if anybody has been struggling with this for themselves or if anyone out there may be newly dating again and just really unsure where to start. But, I encourage you to take a little bit of time and just sort of self-reflect. I will say for myself, I knew that I was ready to date again once I could articulate what ended my previous relationship and being able to talk through my own personal involvement with the ending of the relationship and then say that I've gone through the reflecting and the healing and I can say to myself, okay, here's what I learned.
00:35:00 Courtney Brame: So, I've learned from my previous relationship the importance of being able to prioritize myself. I have not been the kind of person who prioritizes myself. And since doing so, I've learned that in prioritizing the needs of the spirit like everything else sort of falls into place. So when I say spirit, we can talk about that interchangeably as emotions or our energy. I think that energy might be the most universal term right now. So in just prioritizing your energetic needs, the physical needs are met. And that can't be more real in any way, shape, or form than that statement. Cuz I'm at a place now where I'm living, I'm experiencing it. I'm seeing it.
Courtney Brame: I'm feeling excited. I'm so scared to say that word because I have been met with so much disappointment because of my expectations. But it's not the excitement that is the disappointment. It's the expectation in my experience that brings about the disappointment. And now that I'm being intentional in the things that I can do that I can control, I think that it's helping me to minimize my expectations of other people. Wow, that was a big sentence and a big breakthrough for me to have realized.
Doing the Work in Real-Time
Courtney Brame: Closing I figured it out. The work is going to be ongoing. I'm going to continue to have things that I need to bring up and address and sort through for myself. But I realize I'm good by myself and I'm actually sort of looking forward to this quarantine. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen in terms of afterwards cuz financially, we lost our sponsor and I no longer have my advertising jobs either. So, I'm just doing personal training and if we can't leave our houses for 14 days, I'm going to have to get innovative with the personal training.
Courtney Brame: So, hey, if y'all need at home workouts, hit me up because I got to do something and I know money's tight for people as well, it'll be for me. So, we'll figure out a way to make that work for everybody. But yeah, I'm excited to just continue to reconnect with myself. This has been such a lovely process and I thank you for listening to the podcast and sharing this journey with me and holding me accountable just by continuing to support it to finish the job because for a minute I was just wondering am I learning anything? I sat here and I tried to record a podcast before episode 122.
Courtney Brame: This should have been 122, but I wasn't feeling it. And I'm glad because there were so many other breakthroughs that came through for me after that time that I was going to try to record. So, we got this. This has been beautiful. It's lovely. I feel so empowered. I'm interested and curious about things and just implementing the things that I just talked about here, being intentional. knowing when to shut the f** and not necessarily dialing down my intensity, but knowing myself outside of just something positive for positive people and giving 100 because this is where I meet everybody. So outside of this, I can be Courtney.
Courtney Brame: I could be Courtney outside of these two spaces. And even if that Courtney's into some freak s*** and into some kinky things or just maybe super sexual and I feel like I need to dumb that down even there it is. I found myself. So I dumb down the sexual aspect of myself in doing the podcast in personal training. And these are the two environments that I'm in damn near 24/7. And then when I'm by myself, I guess I get to sleep like I fall asleep or I'm exploring my own sexuality and the ways that can look for a 31-year-old single man who just started living by himself and has been out of a relationship for 3 months. Yeah. All right, that's it. So, this concludes this episode of Something Positive for Positive People.
00:40:00 Courtney Brame: I have no feedback from people in regards to these solo episodes. I think someone told me that they liked one of them and I have no idea what I talked about. So maybe this will be that same kind of situation where people are like, "Yeah, I can relate. That was good." Or people that be like, "Yeah, I don't know what the f*** you just said to me." But to me, this was a demonstration of what it looks like to do the work while you're in the work. It's very jumbled. There's a lot of gray area. There's a lot of questions. There's a lot of challenging yourself, but I strongly encourage you to do so. And if you got something out of this or if you need help with doing it, I don't have any sort of rates for conversations or anything, but if you want to talk, we can. I just ask people to share the podcast or maybe to share their story on the podcast or make a donation to the nonprofit or become a Patreon subscriber.
Courtney Brame: I don't believe in doing many minute coaching calls. If I'm available to talk, I'll talk to you. I just ask that you show your support for what something positive for positive people is and what it's doing. And we just keep it going and what it's going into. We're teaching people and giving them the tools to navigate stigma all across the board. to just make it irrelevant to the various communities that are experiencing some sort of stigma just for existing and having whatever happened that made them become stigmatized. All y'all till next time stay positive.
Meeting ended after 00:41:58
