← Something Positive for Positive People
Something Positive for Positive People
Spfpp 392: Navigating Rejection With Herpes - Attach And Release
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Hello and welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brain. Something Positive 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 the 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. For example, a lot of times people that I talk to, one on one, 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 stress, my external search 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. 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. 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 dis. Ease 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 physical. Physical symptoms present themselves. So right now I'm working with one, two. Damn. I got five clients. Six. I got six clients. That's crazy. Wow. All right. But I think I want to cap it at like 12. Well, we gonna 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, I'm. 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 spfpp.org and then lastly we got, we got the support groups. There's a women's group, there's a men's group that meets on Monday. So the women's group is the first and third Monday, 7:30pm Eastern time. And then the men's group is the second and fourth Monday evening, virtually 7:30pm 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 guest, 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. 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 want 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 first time or the only time that this happens, but it's something that I think will be useful. And then for the men's group, y'. All. So we've had two successful, two successful support groups the month of October. This is when I started this right. And the women's groups both great, consistent. The thing that came up there was just disclosures. And then for the men's group, I thought we did a really great job of defining what terms like community support and stigma were. We set a very solid foundation. We got a good base week one and then week two, don't nobody show up and people RSVP'd. 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 like most of the women who showed up for the first one showed up to the second one. And for the men, I don't know. Like, maybe I'm not giving y' all what y' all need, but the thing is, this is being created, like, from scratch. 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 co create what that looks like just didn't show up for the second one. So it's like, well, I don't even have the feedback on what went well, what didn't work, like, why you ain't coming back? So I'm gonna keep showing up. Like, that's. That's all. That's what I'm gonna do. My Monday, 7:30pm Eastern time. Except for November 10th. November 10th, we're gonna move that support group to Thursday, November 6th at 7:30pm eastern time. I sent out the newsletter already for the month of November, so 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 6th. All right, today's podcast episode is being recorded on Halloween, October 31st. And I was reminded of where I was. What was that, four years ago? It was 2025. Yeah, I was reminded where I was 2021 on Halloween. So last night was October 30th, the Thursday I just went out to. Oh, actually, 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 to. And so we. 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 of year before one of my buddies goes out of the country for a few weeks. And everything was fine. I packed. I had all my stuff. The weather was good. I made my ride to the airport. I was nervous about that, but I made it. Got there on time, got there early. In fact, I got to go to the Chase Sapphire Reserve Lounge because I got a new credit car for something positive 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 done. Not 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, I got there, the A group was boarding. I was part of B group and I got in, I got a good seat. There wasn't nobody sitting in the middle. And we back off from the gate, we back off from the gate on time. And then we're sitting in the air traffic, which is 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 chilling, I'm scrolling Instagram, I'm watching anime. And then before you know it, it's two and a half 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 seven hour flight delay. And so we deplane, we hanging out and people are like 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 cool, very calm. This is with Southwest, and normally the last time that this happened, I got text messages and updates about, you know, what was happening with the plane. So, like, all right, well, I'm gonna 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 gonna hang out until it was time to leave. And then I get there and they check your boarding pass and the boarding pass show that my flight took off two minutes ago. And I was like, what? Because I, I watched one episode of anime. The walk was not even five minutes from the gate to the lounge or from the lounge to the other lounge. So I'll say that 30 minutes, 30 to 40 minutes have gone by, and in that amount of time, no notifications or anything. I've seen people walk away and been. They were on the phone talking about their work, had booked their flight, and they don't have any information. So, like, I'm talking to people and everything and all of a sudden like the flights just boarded the flights boarded, we were supposed to leave at 11, the flights 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. I'm like, yo, what's going on? So apparently the flight had already boarded and there was no notifications or anything. And so they called names, they had like 20 people missing and so they called me. And then I go up and everybody's always surprised that I'm Courtney Brayam. They're looking for like a five foot white girl or something. And so I was like, hey, I'm Courtney. And so she was going to print out my boarding pass she handed to us. Hey, I don't want to go no more. 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 about. I know about the government shutdown. I know a lot of employees are there, but they're not getting paid. So there's also, you know, that, that part of it as well. And then there is also, as I was, you know, 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, and we weren't leaving. Now at this point in time, the weather was significantly worse than when we were about to leave. And I get it, like traffic might have just like died down. So as you get more into the afternoon, maybe fewer planes are coming and going, but I got a wave of anxiousness, man. And that's. That wave of anxiousness is the same wave that told me I needed to get the fuck out of the, my ex girlfriend's apartment before that storm came. And it's the same one that told me I needed to get the fuck out of, or move my flight up from my. When I left from St. Louis to go out of town before the tornado had came and hit my place. And it was the same wave or similar wave of anxiousness that just came with like a big ass warning sign. Another time that I was, I won't say when this was, but I was out with some friends that, you know, and we're drinking and everything and you know, some people were doing other things and I ended up like having to switch cars and ride with somebody I, I didn't know. And when we were in the car riding, like, clearly he was not driving very safely. And we got over one of those, like, high overpasses on a bridge, and he was swerving like a. And so, like, the swerving came from him not paying attention to the road. He was, like, talking to the girl in the passenger seat. And I was like, I snap. I hate when I get like this, but I snapped. 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 fuck shit. And I didn't know this dude. So I was like, hey, pull over at this quick trip. So we pulled over at the quick trip. I was like, all right, y' all good? I'm gonna Uber home. So I went in, got a hot dog, Ubered home, and the U was, like, inconvenient as fuck. But my anxiety that I had went away. And that combination of things where I listened 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 to. Regardless of. All right, that 20, $30 of an Uber R. It was more important to me that I did that than anything else. And everybody, like, they beat me home. Everybody, like, you know, gave me shit for, you know, being paranoid or whatever. But at the end of the day, like, I respected myself for that decision. And my friends were like, hey, yeah, you gotta trust your gut. You know, I know what, right? Like, I felt supported. Like, you know, friends tease, you get your shit. But also, like, I was supported in the decision that I made. So I can't. I can't go against that anymore. And I think that speaking more to the nervous system, man, like, it ain't just herpes and the possibility of an outbreak that gives us these kind of signs. Like, there is a fucking whole undercurrent of things that connect us as humans that a lot of us just ain't in tune with. 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, you know, the. 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. And I think that what happens is when we hit that. That struggle, that suffering, whatever we want to call it, when we get this herpes diagnosis and we. We. 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 is ain't no answers out there that we want. People look for a cure. 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, you know, I'm beating this thing into the ground. But our bodies host a lot of viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, and it manages it, right? Like, we're collections of. Collections of things that are coexisting. And when we have excess of any of these, that's where we need to address it. The inflammations, the. 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, oh, okay, this relationship is actually doing me more harm than, oh, the amount of time that I put into this activity needs to be dialed back a lot. Or that thing that I got going on that I used to really find a lot of joy from, it's not bringing me joy anymore. And so looking at those things regularly requires stillness. Now, when we work in a world where a lot of people, you know, these people ain't getting paid, these people are working and not being paid. Granted, they're supposed to get their back pay, but, like, 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. You do that. Like, where. Where's the line? At what point are you going to focus on maintaining what you have, right? Like, I talked to someone last night, and she's a government employee, and I asked her, what's happening? Like, what are you doing how do you. How do you get by? She was like, personal loans, she said, deferring everything and, like, eating up savings. Well, she didn't say eating up savings, but I'm assuming, because she ain't getting paid, like, that's. That's. 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, right? 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, you know, considering and thinking about other people as well and the other places that we got to be, the identities that we have and the mask that we need to wear a lot of the times. And so our bodies are these apartment complexes that your tenants need to be taken care of. You the superintendent, you 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're. You're just not. You. You. You getting your rent paid every month from the tenants, and you just going out and you chilling, you drinking, you partying, you having a good time, but you're not taking care of the responsibility that is the apartment complex that you. You manage your body. And so herpes, that tenant is like, all right, you know, 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 pass, and rent ain't getting paid because herpes is now looking for a new place to live. And now it goes from the nerves through the nervous system, or, I'm sorry, from the nervous system and through the nerves. And then it begins to trap, 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 it, that mug is on your skin, and it's like, all right, this is your last chance. You either fix this air conditioner, and this is where we get the. 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 you know, I always think, I always go back and forth about, you know, where. Whether or not I was aligned in places that I was when I was living in, 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. 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. People to have a failed, you know, relocation, a failed relationship, a failed relocation again, a failed like having a plan for being home again. And that wasn't supposed to be what my story was for 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, I find a lot of peace in that. I find a lot of peace in like looking back and being able to say, you know, even from four years ago. 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 an ugly breakup, an ugly relationship. And this was with someone who we were non monogamous. And there was a lot of like issues that she had with me personally that I knew about and that she told me about. But these were things that, because they were mentioned, it was like, okay, great on the table. We, we deal with this, right? And there were issues that I had with her and like her relationships and it was like, okay, this is on the table. We both know we're, we're going to deal with it. And all of that ended up. I don't really know how to describe how he got there, but what was expressed to me was, is like my happiness being an issue. Like Courtney, you do what you, 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. And here was my like big, hey, I'm jealous of you. My partner, my boyfriend. Like, we supposed to be, you know, we in a relationship working towards whatever long term, you know, looks like and that even just saying that now, man, like I'm gonna 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 so is. It's different across the spectrum. It's very subjective, right? Because to me, my experience with jealousy has been, oh, that person is doing something that I wish I could do, Let me get better, so that I can also do that thing. It's. There's a hint of inspiration underneath of jealousy. Or there can be a hint of, I don't know, I, 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, right? Like if there was a time where I was jealous of like light skinned dudes because they, they seem, they got all the girls in, in school, there was a time that I was jealous of light skinned dudes. And I've been dark my whole life. I can't remember when I wasn't. I can't remember a time where I wasn't dark. And in those instances, right, like, all right, well, shit, what is it about him? I got curious. So, like, some of my friends were light skinned. Devin, Devin, one of my best friends, he been light skinned his whole life. Nick, you know, Rip, you know, these were friends of mine who were light skinned and like, we got cool. And it was never anything against any of them. Like, I never sought to make them dark skinned 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? Like different people in different positions, just, man, I'm jealous of how good you are. Let me get better. I'm jealous of you for starting. Let me get better so I can start. Jealousy for me has always been a notification bell ding. All right, you know, this person's good at something. What can I learn from them? And it sparked my curiosity. But in relationships, like, I guess I just thought that like, and this is some my own, like, naivete, I run a non profit called Something Positive for Positive People. And this is the most negative circumstance, at least that I know of, that exists. Don't nobody want herpes. Don't nobody want to be here but as I said before, right, like, we transmute trauma and herpes and stigma into healing. We transmute all that shit into healing anything that comes your way negatively, right? Like negative. Negative ain't bad. I don't know where that shit started from. Negative is means absent. Positive means present. There's a presence. And when we get to the point of, like, 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. But what happens when you give presence to that which is. Excuse me. What happens when you give presence and attention to that which is used? I don't want to call it useless, but, like, it's infinite potential. Negativity is infinite potential. You can. You can flip a negative into any fucking thing you want. I managed to flip someone literally telling me, courtney, you are. I'm jealous of you. Somebody told me that and then told me why. And I was able to be like, oh, great, so you're inspired and you're gonna do. You're gonna do better. You're gonn find what it is that you want to be doing for yourself. Nope. So I was reminded of that some. A friend of mine, she sent me a selfie from that. That time. And I remember going, oh, I remember this day because we had a massive fall, like, publicly massive falling out. Man, that was wild. And, yeah, I. I just. I'm glad that I can laugh about it now because at the time, I was furious, man. I was sad, I cried. I still got the voice recording. I left myself to make sure I didn't go back to that relationship. I had the voice record now. 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. And the next day, I moved to Portland, Oregon, and my life just changed. And I just noticed, like, patterns. There's been patterns for me in those relationships that, you know. Well, I wanted to. I wanted to make this podcast episode, you know, 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 gotta stop looking at shit from such a naive perspective. I will take whatever is given to me and make it useful and take the positive and, you know, 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. Like, energy can't be created nor destroyed. But what happens is I believe that the quality of presence, 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 form. That form that it takes then becomes a shell. It becomes a solidified, you know, a person in our life. It may become an activity, it might become a business, it might become a something positive for positive people. You know what this had to become. This ain't just me, y'. All. This ain't just me. This ain't just the energetic intensity and emotion from Courtney that made a whole non profit organization and platform, the podcast. Yes, I love getting to interview people. I love getting to talk to people of all different kinds of walks of life to learn from them. Like, 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 the shoes of another person and empathize and be able to pour myself into that. Okay, what's the good out of this? And this helps me with asking the questions. It helps me with listening. It helps me with being a great person that I would have needed when I was diagnosed with herpes. That's helpful. And that's my thing. That's my. Ain't gonna say my superpower necessarily, but it. Listening is a superpower. It's 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 like 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. 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. 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, like, what you do being more important than who you are in some cases, like how identity politics play a role. Like, I'll give this example at the end of the day. I'm a black man, and there's. There's a word for what black men are. And I've been in a lot of queer spaces. I've been in a lot of women dominated spaces. And over the years, like, I've always been reminded in some form or fashion that I'm a man. You know, whether that be how people talk about men in these spaces, whether that be how I remember. I just remembered a thing. I was invited to something. It was. It was a handful of. I hate that I'm about to say this. 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 was like, no, what do you mean? Like, it would really mean a lot to me if you would go. I was like, all right, that's my friend talking back. I go to this. And there were a series of events that happened while I was there that felt like rejections, but because I went and I knew I shouldn't have. This is another one of those signs where, like, 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 in, because now, like, I don't have that friend anymore. But going to this thing there was, you know, the one thing that I'll say that happened was, you know, I'm giving to the group as best I can. Playing the games, you know, buying the foods on my card and, like, trusting that people gonna give me the money back. Making things easy. And I remember, you know, one of the nights there, I went out, I was like, hey, anybody going to hot tub? I'm about to go to 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, I hop in the shower. 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, huh, wow, that's interesting. And so I just was like, you know what? Fuck this, I'm gonna go to sleep. Was like, maybe it's just a coincidence, right? You try and take the positive out of things. But what, what. What positive is it in that? Like, here's what happened. Listen, I invited everybody. Hey, I'm going to the hot tub. I go to the hot tub. I'm in there for 45 minutes to an hour. I leave, I start showering. As I'm drying off, everybody's in the hot tub. And that sums up how the weekend went. And I shouldn't have been there. And I think the body keeps the score, right? It ain't just the body. It's nervous system. You know, the body will, you know, get to a point where sometimes the body be too late, the body might be too late, and the nervous system can only, you know, communicate so much. It's a whisper. If you ain't in tune with it, if you ain't connected to it, you gonna miss shit. And, you know, my. My ex telling me, hey, Courtney, I'm jealous of you. You. That ain't the only form of rejection that came, I'm sure. Like, looking back, there were many 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 never looked at jealousy like that. And I know we got different words, jealousy and envy, right? But the words. The words are the words I'm just describing, like, 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, like, I was in hindsight now, right? Like, I've. Again, I've been in therapy sometimes twice a week, talking about these things. And the only people who will ever know everything that happened in their relationship are 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. I don't want to talk bad about nobody. Even if that means that, like, whatever's been said about me has had the impacts that it's had. Because like I said before, people have noticeably treated me differently. And all I can do is just look at. I look at the information that I got. I can't sit here and be naive to the fact that, you know, just because I respect or have respect and reverence for, you know, people and what they got going on, that don't mean the same thing for me and people that, you know, 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 6am or a little bit after 6am right now 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, because it feels so lonely and isolating because everybody ain't happy. And we live in a time where it's so easy to find shit 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 ho church ho spelled H E A U X with a friend of mine. And well, shit, I guess at the time, two friends of mine. 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 me, look like a black man. And the exercise that they did was they had everybody, you know, they offered the opportunity for people to raise their hand and just say out loud something that they're, they've experienced shame with. And a reoccurring thing for me is experiencing shame around how happy I am, my happiness, my joy in life. Because everybody ain't. And I'm around a lot of negative people. But negative isn't bad. Negative just means infinite potential. And you can't, you can't pull potential out of people. It's just something that you gotta be yourself and inspire from people. And in 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, therefore making myself miserable and therefore showing them how unhappy they are and making them more miserable. And then we in this like misery cycle. But I will say, man, being in yoga therapy, training, being involved in some type of a consistent yoga practice and learning, shout out to yoga buzz, shout out to all my teachers that I've had, shout out to inner peace yoga therapy. Because I think that these things kept me, kept reminding me, kept reminding me, stop, be still, breathe, check in with your nervous system, move your body, observe your thoughts, meditate. And it was all of these that allow for me to catch the baseline of where my stress is. And I'm a happy person, I am a positive person, I am a present person. I gotta practice this shit every day of my life because that's a choice I choose to. I choose to be present. I choose to stay positive. I choose to take the negative and not disregard it or be like, oh, no, I know 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 rejection. But when I recognize that that's what's happening, I can't get so sucked into it. I gotta remember my happiness. The same thing that brings people in, it makes people wanna be here, and it makes people, you know, wanna be in the space. Should never be the same thing that makes people, you know, jealous or envious or hateful in a way that it's like, I need to make you feel worse, because that's what jealousy does. But also what jealousy was for me was inspiring. I ain't never tore nobody down. And, you know, you gotta ask yourself, because our inner world is the projection, the projector for what's happening around us. So I look at, you know, applying for grant applications and how often I get rejected. I ain't got a grant yet. The, the first thing that 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 biggest 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 is crazy to think about. It's crazy to say out loud, but in eight years of running something positive for positive people, somehow, I don't know how, but it's just, I guess this distrust. Maybe it's my naivete or maybe it's my consistently with consistency with turning negatives into positives. But along the way, like, somehow we've been able to keep doing this somehow, you know, when I need podcast guests, they come out the blue. When I need something to talk about, I'm able to just. I turn this mic on and I just start saying, and however many y', all, 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 heard back from y' all again, that means you're getting what you need. For those who stick around, that mean you're getting what you need. I'm done. I'm done rejecting myself. I'm done trying to control. And I'm also done, like welcoming in, you know, for too long. Like, everybody can come here. Anybody can come in. Anybody can come in. I'll talk to anybody. But everybody can't stay. And that everybody can't stay. That's not me being mean, but, like, this is something I learned from my last relationship. Well, after the breakup, something I learned is, like, 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 asshole for stepping away. I can't stay in relationships because, you know, if I need space and somebody has abandonment issues or anxious, and it's like I need. I need closeness when I need space, or like, 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, you know, I maybe sometimes need space away from. Well, 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, like, that's not what I'm doing doing. Even Instagram, social media, like, trying to make content that people will see related to herpes education, that 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. Like, I. I invested. I invested in something that I believed in. And going back to the thing about energy, right? What. What they saying? Full Metal Alchemist, they speak about the law of equivalent exchange. For anything to be obtained, something of equal or. Or greater value has to be exchanged. You got to give up something, it. And life, man, this is just a whole thing of catch and. Or attach and release, attach and release. Because what we energetically pour into takes form and we form an attachment to it, and we got to release that. Like I. 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, 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 in it. I got so much faith and the intensity of emotion that is invested into this. The same thing with my last relationship. I pour everything I had into that relationship, and it took form. It took form, you know, in somebody that was gonna give me everything that I wanted. And then that relationship ended and the form wasn't there anymore. Like her body, her mind, her energy, her spirit. Like, that's that's removed from my orbit. But that energy isn't. Yeah, she ain't take that with her. That's mine, you know, and I. I don't even like to call it mine, but it's been stored, the investment there when it freed up, right? Like, I got. I got like 18 grand from losing my apartment in the tornado. And I think that, you know, it might have been about that for my whole. Moving to New Jersey, moving away from New Jersey, moving while I was in New Jersey, you know, when that. When that form released, what came from the form was still there, and it needed to go somewhere else. So there was the money, you know, the move across the country, it was like, all right, Courtney, now you can move to New York. You can move to Brooklyn now. And now you can have your identity as a polyamorous black man. A little too polyamorous black men. 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. Now you can focus on your yoga therapy training. Now you got the attention. Now 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. But what we give value to, like 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 presence. How much presence do we give to a thing? Avoidance is also presence because think about it like how often we avoid death and we avoid people, we avoid discomfort, but yet we still see that. But what happens when we release, 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. Knew that that which they feared if converted to. What did he say if. If what we were afraid of, if we began to. Like, here's my analogy. I don't know exactly what he said, but you know, when you get excited about something, that feeling in your gut, or, you know, when you're scared shitless 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, huh, you know, instead of being afraid of this, here's how. Here's the story. I'm Gonna tell? No, it's shit to be afraid of. Don't get me wrong. You won't see me fucking around with no, no poisonous snakes and holding them and playing with them and shit. You will not see me do that. That is a healthy fear. But the fear of being alone, like, I've embraced that. Like, I'm happy. And if I'm being alone because I'm happy, because other people don't like my happiness or are triggered by it, then I'll be alone. Like, that don't scare me anymore. Anymore. And ever since releasing that, like, it's like I removed the cap. 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 is freed up to make sure I'm not alone in any way. But that shit 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, you know, identity comes in. I mentioned earlier, you know, 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. Like, there's something to learn from it. But, like, I've gone into these spaces and I've tried to do. I tried to do. I try to perform my way into acceptance and who I am, that don't take precedence. My intentions, my values, my consistency, those intangible things don't mean shit in identity politics. And so, like me doing, I gotta release that form. I gotta release that I've invested to me. I've invested a lot into these spaces, and now I gotta 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 fuck it was. The cabin? Yeah. And since releasing that, I mean, the attachment to Portland was gone and I was able to leave. I was able to pour into, you know, what I thought was gonna be the rest of my life. And when you pour into something, you create an identity that you really think, man, like it's gonna be the rest of my life. That was a big ass energy charge. That the process of letting go has been a bitch. It hurt, but I did it. And the rejection that comes from the self rejection that comes from attachment. It can't nobody make me feel the way that I made myself feel ever. I don't give a fuck who you are. Your rejection of me ain't got it, ain't got shit on what I've been experience for myself, rejecting myself, staying in and attaching to things that need to have been long before released and maybe they hit their peak and stagnant is something that I recognize is like, feels like death to me. What feels like death to you? Like, well, I don't believe that we actually, like, we just die and we, you know, that that's it. Like, these bodies are the manifestation of an attachment to practice. Attachment and release or detachment, right? Attach, release, attach release, attach release. That's the rhythm of life. We breathe in, we breathe out. Attach, release, attach release, attach release. And I believe that that's how we deal with rejection. Hey, damn, I'm getting to know this person. I'm gonna pour some money, energy, attention, and time into them, you know, and we gonna pour into that. We're gonna have attention. The attraction, right? We gonna 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 don't. They listen to their nervous system. It's an attached release, attach, release. I'm proud of myself. I'm happy. This sound more like a self podcast than anything because it's so personal, but I, I'm learning, man. Like, the more I just talk to y' all and not try and do this whole like, oh, 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, and you know, I love this shit. 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 you connect to your nervous system and there's always going to be more to let Go of David R. Hawkins. He said. He said. Damn. What did he say? Oh, the Letting Go book. 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. Your energetic monetary chronological. I don't. I don't know, like the word for time. I know time got a lot of. Of different words. Kronos, but your money, energy, attention, and time shout out to coach Greg Adams. You know, when you allow for the attachments to. To remove themselves because that's what they want to do. Everything's attaching and releasing. You look at atoms and how electrons their. Their role in the atom, right? They pick up a charge, they hit the orbit as it aligns, and then they. They go. They send a message like, 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, oh, bet I want to be here. And I see that I couldn't see that before, and that's because 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, 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 the decision to get out of that car when dude was swerving. Me making a decision to leave the relationship. Well, leave the house. Because she broke up with me for me to leave the house. Her place. 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. I'll be damned if I don't listen to myself again. I'd be damned if I reject myself again. Exiting spaces that, you know, it's been. It's been nine months. It's been nine months since, like, I've had involvement with, you know, these spaces where we ain't got to go into all of that too much. But I noticed that I've been treated differently. Like, there's. I've been reminded I'm not a woman because in. In spaces where my ex and I share it, like, 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 felt the same way as it did with the hot tub. It felt the same way as when I worked for white people in corporate America. At the end of the day, you still a. 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, like, really thrives. Because the nature is what we pour into it. We nurture our nature. 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. Moment. And all we got to do is attach release. Attach release, attach release. Even in a relationship with one person, like, you're not the same person the entirety of the relationship. Y' all are molding one another. You're nurturing each other's. 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 sixth C. I forgot what it was. Consistency. This is a space where those intangible aspects of my being, my identity are validated and being shaped and molded into whatever the fuck it is that is going to come from this. I'm being shown that I'm seeing it. I love this. I love that I get to do this. I'm happy as fuck. And it was in that room, Brandon Kyle Goodman, where I was able to say, you know, I got shame around that. And so now there's another release of energy that I was attached to. I was attached to my identity as somebody being overly humble, being somebody who's sad, who's not living life feels bad because, oh, you know, there are some people who can't. We need this. I need your joy. I need your happiness. I need your pleasure. I need for you to shine that light. Don't fucking dim it. Because 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 shit. It. Don't let rejection make you shrivel up and shrink into a fetal position and hide that big, beautiful light of yours. Be inspiring. Be inspired. Let be jealous of you. That's theirs to deal with you ain't got to be. No, 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. You know, I just only been in therapy really talking about it because I know that if I was talking. If I was in therapy while I was in any of these relationships, it wouldn't have worked out. He'd have been like, you get your ass out of that relationship. He wouldn't have said that, but he'd have made me say it. Now this one over. I ain't know what I was gonna. I ain't know what I was gonna be getting into, but I wanted to just, like, speak to rejection. And I think that self rejection was probably the biggest piece of this because that's really what it is when you're not in your rhythm, when you're not practicing. Attach, release, attach release. You holding on, you're developing an identity, and that identity that you develop that aligns with or that you know 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 that identity he becomes when he put that mask on and become a different person. Like, he likes that, but. But, you know, when you take the mask off, that's still who you are, 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 form, 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, you know, is constantly having to be let go of and released. Like, I don't have to prove to nobody or perform my. My polyamory. You know, there might be times where I'm not seeing all of my partners. You know, even just like this past weekend, I was supposed to see some partners even when I was traveling. And now, like, I'm not. 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 shit and created pressure that would have, you know, felt like rejecting to myself or even my. Yeah, that would have felt rejected to myself or even now like getting off that plane and not traveling, being able to go, huh, I. Am I really polyamorous? Well, I'm not. I'm not seeing all of my partners right now, and I should have. 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 worked. Yeah, I think I gave a lot of gems win this episode. And also I feel like more comfortable talking about my personal experiences again. So I look forward to, you know, being able to do more of that and being able to, like, 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 like, also realizing, like, 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, you know, as active personally on social media. You've seen that. I probably. If you followed me on social media, Courtney Brain on Instagram, you'll see that, like, a lot of the posts have been like reshares 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 done moved to New York. I done lost 20, 25 pounds. 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 of me. Ain't nobody saying it. Ain't nobody showing it. Everybody is just fucking 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 like 300 something percent increase in visibility because I have my nature nurtured. And that's just like the. The one tangible thing I'm working. I always say, like, if I work two, if I work two days a month in my other job job, I can pay my rent. And that's really like the baseline of what I've been trying to do. I'm working. I'm working a ton. Like, I'm. I'm doing okay, I'm doing okay and I'm able to do. I used to always say that I wanted to be able to. Whenever somebody asked me for money, like, I wanted to make the time to get them food. I've done that once. Like, somebody stopped me on my way from the gym, took her to Taco Bell and, you know, like, I've been able to give money to people that are homeless. I've been able to do, like, charitable things. And something that I learned is you don't get the money to do it and then do it. You start doing this and then like, oh, okay, like, this is who you are, so we gonna keep this going for you. Like, 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 fucking happy. 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 to. So I so so as not to attract somebody that's like, ooh, look at all that joy. Let me make him less than. So I can feel better about myself. And I'm also not dim in my light because that is what that form of rejection. It felt good. This felt good job. This felt good. This felt like what I get out of recording self podcast episodes. I might have to do like a little recap for myself on there and. But I. I really hope that y' all find this useful. About to be 37. I'm about to be a 37 year old black man living with herpes. I started this nonprofit podcast when I was 28, 29 years old. And here we are, like, we going into nine years of doing this, man. All right, I got to go because it's been longer than an hour. I appreciate you all. Thank you for making the space and the time to listen to this. Till next time, you all stay present.