SPFPP Episode 154: being WITH vs BEING with
If you've ever just BEEN with someone (emphasis on BEEN) then you understand that you experience this sense of peace and freedom that comes with not having to modify your behavior around them. Whereas when you're being WITH someone (emphasis on WITH) where you may resist your natural state of existence somehow. I talk through the experience of being WITH and BEING with myself and how that's come into my awareness after having tested positive for COVID.
I was scared. I wasn't scared I was going to die or anything, just scared at how it impacted my finances having not been able to work for three weeks. I was afraid of losing my friends. I was afraid of having to adapt yet again to an uncomfortable situation. I was afraid of having to face a stigma that parallels that of being diagnosed with genital HSV.
Through it all, I was able to BE with myself those three weeks in isolation. I would've never been able to because I'm always being WITH others in my day to day life whether online or in person. I'm always WITH my thoughts if I'm alone and this keeps my identification and sense of self focused on what's not me.
This podcast episode highlights and uses examples of how I've personally grown through my experiences with therapy, not because of my herpes diagnosis but because of what my herpes diagnosis represents for me in terms of my patterns of behavior. I'm proud of myself for this episode because I was able to so well articulate my struggles and successes through a very challenging period in my life.
Episode 154 Transcript
Battling COVID-19 and the Illusion of "Being With" Yourself
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: This is one of those podcast episodes where I actually had to take notes so that I can stay on track. And if you are new to Something Positive for Positive People, I strongly encourage you to go and check out some of the other episodes first. Just scroll through some of those titles because this is kind of like an extension of Courtney at this moment and I recognize that Courtney is Something Positive for Positive People at this moment, but I actively make it a point to put my own healing on display for people to have as kind of like a guide or a template or just some sort of a blueprint for them to navigate their own experiences, not just in relation to herpes, but also in relation to the things that perhaps herpes has brought to the surface. So that's kind of what this episode is and. This is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that raises money to provide mental health services for people who've experienced sexual trauma, specifically getting therapy or counseling services for people who have been diagnosed with an STI.
Courtney Brame: The last five-ish podcast episodes, these were all recorded while I was positive for on September 13th, that evening, right before I went to bed, I noticed that I was real cold. I was like, “I'm cold. Let me put another layer on." Got up under the covers, went to sleep. I woke up and it just felt like earthquakes through my body, not necessarily the muscles which is what I thought at first. I thought that this was an intense muscle soreness throughout my arms throughout my hips and my legs but I also had what might have been a fever. I didn't have a thermometer at my house and I didn't want to walk down to the gym and be around people in the event that perhaps this was co. So I let Carl, the owner of the gym that I work at, know that I wouldn't be in. I told the people who I was supposed to have trained that I wasn't feeling well so we'll have to just push back the times or not come in yet.
Courtney Brame: So, after that, just started looking. I looked up some of the symptoms of COVID, and I had no reason to think that it was COVID because I wasn't having any breathing troubles at all. It was just the body aches and I was cold. So, I continued to do my virtual yoga classes. I continued to do the podcast work that I do and showing things on social media. I kept my face off of it cuz I was looking a mess. I just hadn't gone to the barber shop or really bothered to even shave or line myself up, none of that- right. So, the point of me prefacing this podcast episode with that is just to share some of the realizations that I had.
Courtney Brame: Now, these 3 weeks, that's the longest that I've been by myself in a really long time, And I shouldn't say by myself, but with myself, And I think often times that we for myself, let me speak from my own experience and then as a listener, you can take away from this whatever it is that you need to. So for me, I find that there's a difference between being all caps, lowercase width versus lowercase being and then all caps And I think that generally I would lowercase being all caps with an emphasis with myself as identification in that kind of way. Not just with myself but with other people. And this can extend into relationships. it can extend into just creating treating yourself as separate from who you are. And that's really the point that I want to kind of bring home. So this is me just prefacing what I'm about to go through here in my notes.
00:05:00 Courtney Brame: So that experience with COVID, I had six days of bodyaches. the body quakes I want to call them. And I honestly thought that I was about to have a seriously bad outbreak. I didn't take any antivirals because I also wasn't just experiencing anything exclusively generally. It didn't feel like I was having one, but I hadn't had one in so long. So I didn't know if that s*** evolved and got stronger and came back with a vengeance or what. So, I just let it run its course. I had a routine for myself. I'd try to do some yoga. It wasn't happening. A forward fold hurt like hell. I tried to stretch my muscles and bending hurt a m*****. And then I've come to realize there's definitely a difference between muscle pain and soreness and then this was definitely nerve pain.
Courtney Brame: So, when I woke up Monday with symptoms, it took me until Tuesday to just order an online, at home COVID test kit, I ordered it from Let's Get Checked, and it got there the following week. I didn't do the express shipping. It was 3 to 5 days, but it got there the following Tuesday evening. So, I got the test, I followed the directions, I did the nose swab, sent it back in, and then the next day, I tested positive for COVID. That maybe it's different where you are, but where I am, you're supposed to form the signs of the first symptom, quarantine for two weeks. And so that meant Courtney wasn't going to be working for two weeks, and I talked to Carl, the gym owner, and everyone has to do their own things as far as safety precautions. And, he has a new baby and is also working here at the gym around people. And, while we're being as safe as we can be, to be safe, I wasn't going to be able to come back until I received a negative COVID test.
Courtney Brame: And from speaking with the nurses that I talked to and other people and what I've read online, it showed that you could test positive for up to 3 months. So, it's like damn, if I don't have a negative test, then I'm kind of f*****. So, I've always had multiple sources of income or jobs. And 2020, the only thing that I've been making money from has been personal training. So, that aside, because when March happened, we had to go on lockdown and at that point, I was getting unemployment. So, I went back to work, unemployment stopped, and here we are. Now, I'm just here with this.
The Stigma Parallels Between COVID and STI
Courtney Brame: So, as far as my concerns with that went, it was like, if I miss one week of work, it's a setback. Two weeks of work, three weeks of work, I need to find another job. And that's where my head was at, throughout the majority of me being sick from the time I found out I had CO. And I'm so grateful that I didn't know that this was COVID until after the symptoms had gone away. So it took me 8 days from my first symptom when I found out to find out that it was COVID. And the reason that I say that is because maybe 6 to 8 weeks prior to this, I had gone to my grandfather's brother. I don't know if that's great. Yeah, it was my great uncle's funeral, the ruling of his death was COVID and he had a lot of other things that were going on.
Courtney Brame: But I remembered that and I was just like, since that funeral, I knew that I had been extra cautious in regards to taking care of myself and the other people around me and taking all the precautions necessary in order to keep myself and others around me from getting this virus. And it was just really also triggering for me because it does really parallel the herpes virus and my experience there. So when we talk about testing positive right now it's like f*** I have to disclose to all the people that I've been around. I have to tell people that I have this virus. Not only it and the thing is while it's not a sexually transmitted virus, this is a virus that right now in the media it's deadly. We are actively in a pandemic and I have the pandemic virus right at this point in time. That's where my head was at.
00:10:00 Courtney Brame: And now might have been around. I have to disclose to the people who are asking me, "Hey, Courtney, where you been at? I haven't seen you in a while." And it was in fact a little bit triggering. And if you look at the parallels of COVID and HSV or an STI period, right, you are told to wear a condom and you won't wear a mask and you won't get COVID. If you test positive, you don't really have much to go off of and you feel like you can't have sex with other people in regards to an SCI. If you test positive for COVID, you absolutely have to isolate and be away from people for whatever the determined amount of time is based on your circumstances in your state. And it's like the masks are parallels to condoms and the lack of absence of information that's out there about COVID herpes. they parallel as well.
Courtney Brame: And then the conversation around disclosure that also parallels and then the period of isolation because there's a period where after you test positive you probably don't want to be around people and you're scared of infecting someone else. You're scared of infecting yourself in a different location. You don't know how this works. And with COVID, I was like, damn, I should probably only designate myself to these areas while I'm positive or while I'm having symptoms so that when it comes down to time to clean, these are the areas that I know need hyperfocus and attention of disinfectants and all that kind of stuff. So, these were just a lot of the stigmatizing thoughts that I was having during my time with COVID. And even though the symptoms were gone, I still was just kind of like, damn, what's it going to be like when I return to work and when I get back around people who know that I've had this virus and we don't know, they say, "Yeah, you can go back to work and everything, but touch How long until I'll be able to, laugh with someone or share space with them?
Courtney Brame: And if I got this by taking my precautions and being extra cautious, then who's to say that returning back to my social settings and work wouldn't keep people from coming back or wanting to be around me, And that was just kind of where my head was. I mean, I wasn't in any kind of a dark place at all. I was very objective about it. Considering that these are all thoughts that I've already had in regards to my HSV status. So that was one virus. Here's another one. Right? So I challenged my reality and challenged my thoughts and beliefs. I want to shout out Carl, Bo, Kristen, Steve, Mike, AJ, like these people who were closest to me. And then the people who hadn't seen anything from me or heard from me in a while on Instagram or in regards to the podcast for just checking up on me. Some people brought me food, of course, they dropped it off and at the door knocked and ran. They were like, "Hey, man, you good?" with their mask on from however far away. and it was really sweet. And then u Danny for help hooking me up with the thermometer and some stuff that just kind of helped me feel better. Heating pad.
Courtney Brame: This was really great to have received that support because in my own head I did in fact make this out to be significantly worse than it actually was in regards to the studied stigma of having COVID, right. So experiencing the support and the love from the people closest to me, close to me or even the people who just cared that gave me a little bit of something to help me navigate this aspect of dealing with COVID, which is this stigma, So taking it back to the whole work piece, let me make sure I'm not jumping around on my notes. yeah, there was some challenging clarity that came from this experience. So I was really afraid more than anything of what missing those three weeks of work was going to look like for me. Now granted, I've managed my money pretty well, especially through 2020.
The Fear of Missing Work and Leaving the Podcast Behind
00:15:00 Courtney Brame: I am good for a certain amount of time, but even then, that being good was set under the expectation that I was going to continue to be working and making money. So, it was like, all right, as long as I'm going to work, I'm good. And then I missed three weeks of work, which f* me, right? So, I did end up having to update my resume. I checked in with a friend of mine about any of his job opportunities because I have a very specific set of experience in relation to media having worked in podcast advertising. So there's only four agencies right now that I've worked at, don't plan on going back to that one. And then the other ones are in New York and California.
Courtney Brame: So, it was like, damn, if I'm going to end up needing a job, I'm gonna have to move. And that means no more personal training. l. That means no more, perhaps not even yoga. But definitely, it would have meant that if I had to go back to work full-time, that I wouldn't be able to be as involved as I am with this podcast. And I'm sure that at some point, I would need to prioritize having an income over being able to continue to serve the herbased community or the community of people living with HSV working on my people's first language. And so that was really hard for me to process. And I'm very fortunate because my friend said that his agency wasn't hiring.
Courtney Brame: even if that would have been remote work or if it would have meant me having to move, I was very afraid of having to let go of things because to me, when you work with your friend first off, you develop a bond and I think that between me and Carl, I know that where we are in our lives, if I'm thinking something, he's thinking and it's funny because when I came back to work, he was like, "Yeah, I thought you weren't coming back." I was like, "Bro, I thought I wasn't coming back when you was like, I gotta bring back a negative test in order to come back to work." I was just like, I mean, I wouldn't do you like that either. I wouldn't just not show up or just, up and quit because Carl has in fact done a lot for me. Even considering the starting of this podcast, I had no intention of being open about it.
Courtney Brame: I was just going to put it up. Because my main concern was what happens when this personal trainer at someone else's gym is discovered to have herpes? People are going to say things are going to be like, I'm not working out at that gym. They have herpes there." Even though I'm the only person who has it, despite what I'm saying and doing on a podcast, I didn't want to bring him and his business into that. and he gave me the assurance essentially that in only the way that a friend can and just saying nobody give a f*** and if people are like that we probably don't want them here in the first place so that was very powerful for me and I think that that was one of the things that got us closer was just his acceptance in that point of me doing this thing that I felt called to and compelled to the way that I was doing it, it needed to level up. And him being so supportive at that point in time allowed for me to level it up and put my face out there.
Courtney Brame: as you listen through the first few podcast episodes, and you go to the social media that went along with that, you'll see that there's not really my face. H on my chest didn't, nothing really linked back to me in those days. But as I got into it and just started to develop that confidence it came to a point where it was like all right bam now I have to be out and open about this and that's what it was. So I mean just imagine having to say goodbye and step away from someone like that in your life right who has been supportive and has had such an influence on you. So I was really nervous about that, but at the same time, I have to be able to provide for myself, So I was really concerned about that and having to let go of all of these things.
Dropping the Ego and Accepting the Call
Courtney Brame: And as I sat in my isolation period over those 3 weeks, there was this voice that I've been ignoring and pushing off for years at this point cuz we're at three and a half to four years now of me having been at least doing the beginning work of something positive for positive people, which was just me recording conversations with people before it was a podcast.
00:20:00 Courtney Brame: And it's come up several times that I should be getting compensated for what it is that I do. I have actively dismissed that voice because it's like no, I have my personal training job. I have my media job. I have my podcast sponsorship and the agency work that I do. So, I've always had these sources of income that were enough for me to do what I needed to do as well as be able to provide for myself, pay my bills and have groceries and things like that. So, while entertainment was for sure limited, thank God for PlayStation 4 and Call of Duty War Zone, so, I was just staying my Black ass in the house and not really doing much. And that's what happened over these last few weeks, too. I was just in the house not doing anything.
Courtney Brame: And when you don't have those distractions, and here's where it comes back to the width versus B lowercase, but then all caps Before I was being with emphasis with myself in a way that this voice didn't really have volume or I was very disconnected and dismissive from it. But when I had to be by myself and I was in that isolation, I had to emphasize being with myself and with that voice. That voice wasn't outside of me anymore to where I could just blow it off. That voice had a resonance that activated throughout my nervous system. No words needed to be. It felt that all this time, Courtney, that you've been doing this, you've been really adamant about resisting making money off of what you do for Something Positive for Positive People. And I'm still doing the thing where I'm dismissing I'm like bringing myself outside of this realization.
Courtney Brame: Courtney Brain me felt that for so long I've never wanted to take advantage of anyone who stumbled across these resources especially if they were in such a vulnerable place. People come to me talking about how they tried to kill themselves, they think about killing themselves, they cut themselves, they've harmed, they've harmed others, they've not disclosed, and some people come in and they just say thank you. Some people have told me how I've inspired them and all of these things. And I've carried a very high and mighty attitude about being able to do this and provide this service and this brave space for people without receiving compensation. And that egoic and boastful part of me is what I've identified with for the last 3.5 to four years in doing this. I'm really proud myself. I've really been priding myself in being able to do this despite whatever other sacrifices have had to be made without having received any income.
Courtney Brame: Now, the donations that come into the nonprofit at this point have to be used specifically on things that progress the efforts of Something Positive for Positive People as a foundation. So, that money goes to any travel expenses that I may have if I'm doing an in-person podcast recording or speaking to people about when I went to Engage for instance, that was funded through the donation. So, while I haven't really lost much, I've self-funded a lot of the things to date, but it's really interesting to have had these three weeks for me to be with myself and experience these thoughts because I have been resistant perhaps because it's what I know
00:25:00 Courtney Brame: was programmed in me. And I'll use my dad as an example. My dad, great floor layer. He's been putting floors in s*** as long as I can remember. And he's getting older now. And I remember, I went over there over the summer to cut his grass one day. And I've never seen my dad like this before. He had on a knee brace and he wasn't able to go out in the backyard and cut his grass, whack his weeds. He had the energy, but his body was just not there. And over the last several years, I've heard my dad talk about wanting to start his own business and making it a family thing and LLC himself and be able to work himself rather than working for the union. And he just hasn't. And, he's capable of doing it. He has the connections and the network to get consistent work, but he just hasn't.
Courtney Brame: And I saw a parallel there with me and my dad because for all this time I can serve more people. I can expand on Something Positive for Positive People and make it into an organization that's not just Courtney, but also has the perhaps roles of the six hats that I wear, and put someone there and do what it takes in order to get the resources that we need in order to really expand and grow into that space of really being able to provide by the service that stigma has created. There's this entire blank space gap between sexual health and mental health and Something Positive for Positive People fits right there perfectly as an organization. And perhaps that the creation of this organization will continue to encourage the creation of more organizations like this. And that stigma is not necessarily something that's filled with misconceptions about mental and sexual health and just flat out lies. But perhaps it's a gap of the absence of truth and the realities of mental health from the people who are experiencing them directly.
Courtney Brame: So if Something Positive for Positive People is going to fill that void, then Something Positive for Positive People has to continue to exist and it has to have the funding and resources in order to exist and expand and inspire the next waves of people who are going to do something better than I'm doing. And as a soul person that is in fact doing this, I got to step out of my own way. I talked before about the lowercase self and the caps lock self. And I know that at this point, my lowercase self has been in the way and holding on to this idea that I am so much better than my colleagues or my competitors. If you want to call them that then other people in this space because me as a Black man already, two minorities in this space, compounded minority amid this service for free to people and I'm able to still take care of myself. I can brag about that. That's where my pride comes in.
Courtney Brame: And I got to let that s* go because my reasoning is literally keeping me in the way of being able to support people. Right now, I can do this much. And by this much, I'm creating an O with my index finger and my thumb. That's how much I can do with getting out of my own way and allowing my caps lock self to step in here and be like, "Hey, these are the things that we need and these are the things that I need in order to continue to provide this service." that connection between the index finger and thumb breaks and now there's infinite possibilities. I can help infinite people. I can connect and support and let me serve. I don't want to say help. I want to serve infinite people through this and me as an individual I am just not capable of doing. So if I am going to be able to do this I have to create more than I've ever been able to create before. I have to create a foundation.
00:30:00 Courtney Brame: I have to create roles so that people are able to fill these roles and fulfill the needs of the organization rather than everything coming through me and me having to just prioritize and juggle all of these different things. And what better time than when the message has come through clearly from God. And when I say God to me it is an acronym of “gift of divine”. And if my gift of divine is connecting and being able to serve in this way then by denying that by being in my own way and saying I love not being able to charge people that's me being in the way. I'm denying and resisting God by that nature. I am denying my gift of the divine because I will not allow myself to use it in the way that it is meant to be used.
Courtney Brame: and this even makes me think about what Carl always told me from the time that I moved back home in February 2017, he was like, "You need to get a relationship with God." And hearing that, you kind of may cringe if you don't have a relationship or if you've had a negative relationship with God. Whatever your views are, whatever higher power you do or don't describe to or subscribe to, and whatever your beliefs were as a kid or how you grew up and what your family taught you or whatever you thought, throw that s*** out the window because essentially you create the relationship that you have with God in accordance with what resonates with you. So don't let nobody else tell you you need to be a Christian, you need to be a Muslim, you need to be Hindu, you need to be Buddhist, you need to be, the list goes on. You choose what your relationship is and then whatever it is that aligns with that in accordance, you can just take a little bit of that along the way and create your own unique relationship.
Courtney Brame: So for me, the more that I exercise my gift of the divine, the more connected I am to that higher power. And so in that realization when I was able to just be with myself rather than be with myself, I had that come through me. So what I ended up doing was I connected with my board of directors of Something Positive for Positive People. Shout out to Melissa of Sex Positive Families, Emily of Sex Education, Elise, Horton, Brenda, and Aaron for just keeping me in line and keeping me accountable throughout this process of making this into a credible 501c3 nonprofit organization. They've even been saying to me, "Hey, you probably should be considering paying yourself and getting paid." I've just been like, "No, no, I'm working."
Courtney Brame: But I met with them and I just let them know, hey, I feel like now it I don't feel like it's time. I've always been the kind of person who won't do a big thing until I absolutely have to do it. And this was something I absolutely had to do. Like I said, missing three weeks of work. That was all right, got to get another job. And if this being Something Positive for Positive People is as important to me as I make it out to be or as I act like it is in accordance with my behavior and the things that I'm doing throughout the process, the sacrifices that are being made and have been made, then I got to be willing to take that step. And this is a step that has been hard to take perhaps because of generational trauma. My dad hasn't taken that step. And here I am now in a place as the kind of person who does things when I absolutely have to do them. I now have to.
Courtney Brame: So, if I didn't have to, I probably would be in the same space my dad is, wearing myself out and perhaps building and creating resentment towards not only myself, but also the audience and the people that I'm serving and then I'll burn out perhaps. So, letting go of that and just bringing this up to the board was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I don't like being in this position of vulnerability. And I was met with, of course, making the job description and we'll take it from there. So, I wrote out this job description of everything that I do. And I am Something Positive for Positive People. And it was a hard realization for me because if I were to die right now, there'd be one who could just continue this. Ain't nobody got the password, say anything.
The Bank Teller Story: A Sign from the Universe
00:35:00 Courtney Brame: Don't nobody know what my motivations are? As far as y'all know, I'm getting therapy for people with herpes. And at this point, even from the marketing and advertising I've done, even that's not even being communicated correctly because people think it's herpes therapy. I don't need that." And then we got the stigma and there's just more layers to it than that. But without going into all of those details, one of the following things I had to do after creating my job description was go to the bank. And I'm sharing this because this was when my was The guilt of receiving money for providing the services that I'm providing. I go to the bank and I bring all of my documentation, of course, wearing a mask and there's all this glass and stuff separating myself from the person that's serving me. So, we're going through everything. Everything's looking good.
Courtney Brame: And she asked me, she was like, " what's your nonprofit?" I explained to her, I was like, " just providing mental health services for people who've experienced sexual trauma." And she paused, she looked at me and she was like, "Okay, awesome. That's nice. That's really needed. How'd you get into that?" And I always f*** hate when people ask me this because now I got to tell you I have herpes. Perhaps I don't have to tell you, but if I don't tell you, then it looks like I'm hiding something and then I feel bad because later I have to go home and be like, damn, why didn't I say that I have herpes? So I just told her eight years ago I was diagnosed with genital herpes and once I began to find other people who had it I saw that there were a lot of people who wanted to kill themselves who were experiencing depression or had suicide ideation and even attempted suicide and you could just see in her eyes that there was something there.
Courtney Brame: You know how you disclose to somebody and you know that they're going to tell me too or I've had a similar experience. That's the feeling that I had. So she starts telling me, she remembers, she's like, "Yeah, that's so necessary." And she later shares a story with me of when she was young. She remembered that she had an older cousin who had gotten an STD and it was herpes. And she spiraled into this dark depression and eventually took her own life. And you should have seen my face. You couldn't see my mouth because I had on a mask, but the hairs on my beard hair sank a little bit lower cuz my jaw dropped and I was like, if that ain't a f** sign, I don't know what is. And she just went, if people had this kind of resource, who knows, perhaps she'd still be here.
Courtney Brame: I was just overwhelmed with this lightness, this feeling of, I got a universal nudge that was like, I told you your ass should have been listening to me all this time. Think about how many people, between this point in time now and that first time that I resisted being compensated for what I do with Something Positive for Positive People. Think about all of the people that could have been saved or the people who could have experienced “non-harm” or less harm, And it didn't really really hit me until we got done with the process and I've been tracking how I spend the money and everything. It's just really if an accountant looked at it, he'd be like, "What the f*** is this?" But it makes sense to me if that makes sense.
Courtney Brame: So, I brought my checkbook and I started writing the check out and I looked up and I asked, "Hey, so do I make the check out to Chase Bank?" And I started writing and she was like, "Courtney, you make the check out to Something Positive for Positive People." I was like, " my god, this s*** is real." So, I made that deposit, put the money in there, left, and realized I didn't have anything with the account number written on it. but I was able to get in there and handle all of that. And my buddy Mike had taken me to the bank cuz I don't have a car anymore. I was going to just Uber. and I was riding back with him. I was like, man, it's actually real. So leaving that gave me this. I was absolved of this pride that I had.
Courtney Brame: the guilt that I have and perhaps there's even a little bit of shame around receiving or accepting money and that's why I consider myself to be a giver for sure. But at the same time, givers have trouble receiving. And in my yoga teacher training, I'm learning that everything in life is really about moderation in accordance with the yamas and nyamas. I forget which one it is specifically, but moderation, non- greed. I don't have to be greedy, but I also can't deprive myself of what it is that I need in order to continue to live. And it's through my very existence that Something Positive for Positive People is what it is.
Caps Lock Courtney Takes the Wheel
00:40:00 Courtney Brame: It's through my existence that the hope, the healing that occurs through being H on my chest is able to occur. So that's been what co having co actually has really shown me throughout this process. and it took for me to just be by myself in order to be with myself, I'm sorry, not by myself, in order for me to receive that message. And it was through all this uncertainty as well about what was to come. So, I mean, I'm back at work, of course, and one's treating me differently. I don't think anyone just stopped coming because Courtney had COVID at one point in time, right? I gave in to my higher self. And I let go of that piece of me that was holding on to who I am, my identity as the person who doesn't accept money off of stigma, transforming the way that we think about things and the way that what our beliefs are and our thoughts are. We have to challenge that with reality. The reality is if I am this organization I can run without funds and that's a point blank period. So where those funds come from that's going to depend on a lot of s***.
Courtney Brame: But right now, for where I'm at, having just now stepped into this and whatnot, the funds are going to have to come from donations at this point, I did have a meeting with a couple of sexual wellness related organizations. I'm not going to say any names, but I'm really excited about how both of those meetings went actually. and they're two different meetings. One of them wants to put me on their grant for funding. We can partner for a project given that Something Positive for Positive People is actually more of a connecting media outlet type thing. and then with the other one, it's really going to depend on how things go right after the election. So I'll have to follow up with them then. But at the very least, there'll be some local funding from an organization here in my hometown, St. Louis, Missouri or national level which means taking this s* to different states because right now I can only provide therapy for people in Missouri and that process is coming together so that I can replicate it across the country.
Courtney Brame: So I mean at this point it's a matter of getting the more money we have the better we are and Something Positive for Positive People. podcast is now going to have to operate as the fundraising tool for the organization at least during COVID until I can get out and network. And I guess I need to start playing golf and s*** so I can meet people who just have a lot of money that they need to spend at the end of the year so they don't waste paying taxes. So if y'all know anybody like that, please send them my or*, send me their way, whatever it is that needs to happen. But with these organizations, they've also given me what I need in order to establish myself so that I can start reaching out to other organizations as well. All right, closing that out. I did want to just shout out my* therapist, I said if there was time that I would go ahead and touch on this. This whole theme of this podcast episode has been with an emphasis on rather than being emphasized. And I want to bring that home here because in my most recent therapy session, I basically told my therapist everything that I just said here. I explained to him what happened.
Courtney Brame: And I gave him a lot more details about how those meetings went, of course. And at the end of it, he just said, "It sounds like you found your purpose." And I paused just like that. And even now my throat's kind of getting to that point where you feel like a tear is going to come out or something. And my eyes are a little bit watery as I say this. but yeah, he said that to me and I was just quiet. He goes, " you got a little quiet on me there. What are you thinking?" I paused just like this. I go, " for once. I'm not thinking. I don't have thoughts right now.
00:45:00 Courtney Brame: I'm not wondering what the future is going to look like despite this state of uncertainty across the United States. At the very least, I'm not thinking this must be what it's like to know. This must be what it's like to just be with an emphasis on being with myself. The thoughts might be there, but they're not relevant to what my priorities are. I'm able to just be here at this moment. I think that after hearing that from someone else, the right person at the right time that I found my purpose that was a clarity like nothing else mattered like being here and being with that and sitting with that and just hearing it from him it was powerful for me. I just told him I'm not thinking I feel more certainty despite this in this climate of uncertainty right now than I probably ever have in my entire life. I'm doing the things that I know to do. What's going to happen in January if I don't have a job? There were no whatifs. There were no “if’s” then.
Courtney Brame: It was just this stillness there. And I was able to just be with that. And I let him know that I do feel this way. And he goes, " no matter what, it'll be all right." something about it'll be all right. it's just so*** comforting. I don't know what it is. Maybe I've heard that so few times in my life that it's new to me and it's exciting and it's just comforting. Or perhaps I heard it once from the right person at the right time and it just calmed me. But in that moment, I just felt like an overwhelm, just a shock through my body, like this tingling sensation that I recognized as a sign to move forward or continue whatever progress is being made because there was just so much clarity in that moment without me talking myself out of it. and he told me he's sounds like he calls it big C but I like caps lock Courtney no matter forget about all the added syllables but caps lock Courtney has emerged was like and lowercase Courtney is probably going to pop up in efforts to self-sabotage and I cut him off at that point and I was just like what I'm envisioning like my caps lock self having been in the backseat
Courtney Brame: this car and my lowercase self being in the driver's seat, barely driving, barely seeing over the steering wheel because it's a kid. It's immature. And the reason that it self-sabotages is because it's in such a rush to grow up, but all it needs to do is have fun. That's all he needs. And it's gotten to a point where we've run out of gas and he doesn't know what to do. " my god, the gas light came on." And the next exit is this far away. And Caps Courtney just kind of touches lowercase Courtney on the shoulder from the back seat, goes, "Hey, I can drive us." And lowercase Courtney's just strapped in the back seat, kicking his legs, lifting the lollipop, looking out the window at the scenery, and finally just enjoying the ride without being fixated on the destination in a way that that's all you can see. When you have that tunnel vision, this is all you're focused on and you miss the opportunities that perhaps are destinations along the route to get to the destination. So that's who's driving right now. Caps Courtney is officially in control and driving.
00:50:00 Courtney Brame: I say in control, but what I mean by that is there's no more self-sabotage or me being in my own way about it. And I'm driving lowercase Courtney to Disney World essentially, and we're going to make all the stops along the way that we need to make. And I recognize my lowercase self is just being the part of me that just wants to have fun, the part of me that wants to enjoy life, Because for so long, lowercase Courtney created from the time of those early childhood traumas had to be there control and subscribe to this illusion of control of survival and safety. And these were all false, these were all f just illusions. These were illusions of that. Whereas, the part of me that was being protected is the part of me that it is I created this persona at that point in time that was there for a reason. It just never really got to grow up. And now I feel like I owe that part of myself. I owe it to lowercase Courtney to give him a good time, to give him the fun that he deserves because he took care of us for so long. And as I talk I talk through this we're separate, but obviously it's an integration process throughout me being able to be in my purpose and be in this space of not having to think and just allowing myself to be I get to be with myself.
Courtney Brame: So lowercase Courtney, capital Courtney are in a process of integration to where I can just be and there is no more with because … and when you make that integration, you kind of realize that everything's connected. We all are. And it's when I'm most connected to the world, to my environment, connected to the space connected to the life around me, the lives. I think there's seven spiders in the bathroom right now that I'm doing my best not to kill, but when they get too close to the toilet or the sink and it's like, "Hey, I feel like you're going to eat me, bro." But that's beside the point. There was no reason for me to say that, but I said it anyway. But that's how I feel like that feeling of silence and stillness was the space of just connectedness with everything where you realize we all are one being expressing itself and experiencing itself and having experiences in infinite ways. Man is for gender purposes. Humanity is God divided by infinity or the universe divided by infinity. That's what we are. And our recognition of that brings us on a path to wholeness. My choice of recognizing that is through our gifts of divine we are one with the infiniteness of the universe.
Courtney Brame: And I choose to exercise my infiniteness through Something Positive for Positive People. That's what this is about. And as I continue to serve and be of service, I'm going to have fun with it. I'm going to make it fun. It's fun now. It's always been fun. But one of my fears has always just been not wanting this to become work and not f****** this up by doing something like**** my podcast guest, which I have. And nothing bad has happened. I've had some experiences where I was "f***." there was this one time where I told y'all a chlamydia story. I was like, "Damn, bro. That was weak on my part." Or having a relationship with the wrong person. And there's something there that I'm going to explore with my therapist as well. He says I have a sex demon. So we'll see what that means in an upcoming session. But yeah, it does seem like therapy for me is coming to a close because the way that we talked through our last session, it was like, "All right, you're there. This is where you are and now you have the tools." He was like, "And if you're going to need to reach out to me, you can." I was like, "Damn, bro. We're done already. come on. give me I need more of this. I like this. just the things that I've feared f****** up I don't want to f*** this up. That has been my number one fear. Don't f****** this organization by having any sort of interactions or sex with the wrong person or people or saying the wrong thing, being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
00:55:00 Courtney Brame: I think in doing so I am in fact in thinking like that I'm missing out on a lot in my life and I'm allowing for that child in me to be loud like taking the wheel and taking us off road and s* run burning out the gas before we get to any of our destinations. So throughout this integration process of becoming myself, integrating and there's going to be some f******, but like my therapist said, I will be all right. And I believe that. And I still feel it throughout my nerves whenever I say it. So just knowing having this stillness and this quiet in my head, it's been so peaceful. I'm not thinking so much. So I guess this is what it's like to have your purpose. It's like finding your purpose. The path to that is allowing yourself to just be capital rather than be with wit. As I close out this podcast episode, I wanted to talk more about the whole being with an emphasis on being versus an emphasis on with.
Courtney Brame: I'll have to do that in another episode because I want to apply it externally in relationships. We all want to be with somebody and we say be as be and then an emphasis on with w rather than be with an emphasis on be. So yeah. Who was that? What's up Malcolm? yeah, I'm finishing up a recording right now. I'll be out there in a second. I got two minutes. That was one of our trainers we walked in. So I'm recording in the Something Positive for Positive People podcast studio, which is in the back of the Giving 100 gym that I work at. damn. I think I was closing this out with yeah. The versus being with. because I think that there's something there in regards to our relationship with the world around us, in relationship to ourselves even. Because when we should all strive to not be with someone as in have ourselves, have our self-expression, being who we are without having to change and adapt to the other person. And there's a freedom that comes with that I would like to hopefully have some more experiences throughout my life and then be able to touch on to hopefully help somebody, hopefully serve somebody as they navigate that for themselves. All right. Now, please don't forget we got Something Positive for Positive People podcast community on Facebook.
Courtney Brame: If you want to be a part of that, feel free to add me on Facebook and send me a message, please, letting me know that you want to be in the group. We had someone I try to message everyone who finds a group. And I just asked her cuz she said something that was a little bit off. I was like, "Hey, how'd you find the group?" She's like, "It's just so nice to see Something Positive on the internet because there hasn't been anything positive lately." And I was like, "Hey, have you read the description?" And she took a while to message me back. She was like, " I don't bless you all. I don't have any of those issues or those issues." I was like, "Yeah, it's for the podcast listeners." So, if you check it out and feel like it's your cup of tea, I'm happy to have you. So, it's important that y'all message me and let me know that you found it through listening to the podcast. This is the only way I'm promoting it. As it grows, I'll become more active there and get people involved and connected despite their diagnosis and have the commonality of just having listened to the Something Positive for Positive People podcast. Please visit www.spfpp.org and on the homepage you'll see options to donate if you feel compelled to. Please rate, review, subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps us out tremendously, especially now that I'm going to be raising money. Till next time, stay sex positive.
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