Hello, welcome to something positive for positive People.
I'm Courtney Brain. Something positive for positive
people is A5O1C3 nonprofit organization supporting people
navigating herpes statement. This is about to be a very long
podcast episode. I'm thinking more than an hour
for sure. I have notes.
I know that you may notice that there have been a lot fewer
podcast episodes than weekly, so I want to revisit and set the
new expectations for there to be 1 podcast episode per month for
now at least. Like in the event that that
change is cool, but for where things are right now, I think
that that's the expectation that I can consistently set.
Which is funny because when I started the podcast in 2017, my
plan was to make it 1 episode a month and unexpectedly I was
having 345 recordings over the course of a week.
But that's not where we are anymore.
Social media landscape has changed and I guess maybe
because of the services now that something positive for positive
people offers the thing that people have gotten from being a
podcast guest, I think they're just getting from the 30 minute
support calls they're getting from the support groups and
sharing their stories that way. So I have a lot less guests now
and I mentioned in previous episodes that I feel like I'm
getting repetitive or just talking about me exclusively.
So rather than talking about me and my experiences, you know, 4
* 5 * a month, why don't I just condense it into one?
And Speaking of the word condense, that's kind of what
the topic of today's podcast episode is.
So the theme is brahmacharya, which is if the 10 commandments
of yoga are the Yamas and the Yamas, and I think that the
Yamas are how you engage with the world and then the niyamas
are how you engage with in like internally.
I try to remember that by the Yamas being eternal and then the
Yamas being internal. So hopefully I got that right.
So with brahmacharya, this word generally means, Oh, yeah, it is
one of the Yamas, Yamaha, Miyama, external, internal.
OK, yeah. How you engage with the rest of
the world. I got to make my notes big.
There we go. It typically translates as.
Let me lift this up a little bit.
There we go. It translates as celibacy.
But really what it is, is the right use of energy.
So it the way that I envision it is we're constantly storing and
releasing energy. We can either release it
consciously or store consciously or what's happening is that it's
just happening. There's a cycling of energy
within us, right? And we bring it in and we leak.
So like the environments that we're in that change our mood,
that's drawing in energy whenever we feel drained, right?
If we're in an environment, that environment can make us feel
like we're losing energy. And the things that we do can
feel like we're leaking energy unconsciously and we're just
like, I don't know why I'm tired.
Well, one thing can be like doom scrolling as a perfect example.
You get a meme that's sent to you or real from a friend.
You open that real, you end up in the next one and then the
next one. The next thing you know, it's
been 30 minutes, right? So losing energy in that sense
is what brahmacharya can bring up.
And it's, it's one of the essentially 10 commandments of
yoga, which is just like, and I, I probably shouldn't say that
because, you know, looking at how people's relationships with
religion might be this is something that I truly believe
helps with herpes though. And I'm currently putting
together a presentation on it. As you might know, I'm in yoga
therapy training and in that I've been learning a lot and
living a lot of this. So I'm going to do my best to
just like share my own experience and apply it to
y'all, to the best of my ability.
All right, So as I'm leaning into this, I'm watching it work
in real time for me. And if you've followed me on
social media, you probably see that there's been significantly
less posts because I recognized how much my energy was leaking
there. Just for perspective, I, I
started posting again, I've taken social media off of my
phone. So now it's just on my laptop.
So if ever you catch me on there and I'm responding to messages
or posting anything, that's what I'm doing.
I get in, I get out. My friends, they've been sending
me reels and memes, not even open them.
And that's just what I got to do to conserve the leaks of my
energy. And I want to share in this
episode like in turn, what's happened in regards to that.
And yeah, give some updates. But first I want to go into the
details of, you know, what's going on.
That's something positive for positive people right now too,
because I mentioned one podcast a month, right?
And that that's not all that's happening.
So I'm applying Brahmacharia not just to my personal life, but
also to my work life. All right.
So before we get into all of that, I want to give some
housekeeping announcements. So we we probably going to be
here for about 10 minutes. If you're listening on Spotify,
you should be able to skip through looking at the
transcript. But if you're somebody that's on
the newsletter, then you know all this.
All right. But as I want to let y'all know,
the first thing that I'm doing personally for me it's I'm
protecting, protecting my energy.
I'm protecting what I'm doing structurally with my finances.
I'm protecting my attention and most importantly, my time, and
what this looks like is bringing a much more strict focus to
something positive for positive people.
I mentioned earlier, right? I was forcing these podcast
episodes for the sake of consistency.
And it used to be more important to me that a thing be done than
it be done right or that it be done well.
I'm not a perfectionist by any means.
I'm a consistencyist. That ain't no word.
I value consistency more so than I value perfection.
And I, oh man, I, I, I'm condensing things to just these
three things that I do all things something positive for
positive people. Completing my yoga therapy
training and then whenever I get a chance to work my part time
job as a male urological teaching associate, teaching
medical students to give genital exams, I do those three things.
I almost got away from that and gave myself something that would
have taken me away from just doing those those three things.
But in the Yoga Sushis of Patanjali, which is like a Bible
of yoga, it teaches the 8 limbs of yoga, which I will be
teaching on June 18th virtually at noon Eastern Time.
It'll be a 90 minute workshop. I'm just going to go through
applying that to navigating herpes statement.
But All in all, what the yoga, the 8 limbs of Yoga are, are
essentially the pathway to removing internal frictions so
that you can be people, say your best self, no, your most aligned
self, so that you are able to align your output with your
outcomes as close as possible. And it's much more conscious of
a thing to do. I'm recognizing the kind of
outcomes that I desire. And so I have to align myself
and shift what my outputs are and be mindful of the inputs as
well so that I'm not causing myself to misalign and get
things that are not for me, right?
One of those things that came in is like a shiny object, the yoga
sushis. I want to say it's 356 or 330.
It's a lot of them. But this, this hit me in my
chest hard when I was listening to it and it talked about how
when you're in an aligned path, whether that be you're aligned
with the universe or you're surrendered to God, however
language you would like to use, what happens is along the way
you're on that walk with God and it's almost like you're with the
king and the kings walking you through the castle to get to the
grand hall where a festival is happening.
But along the way, you are met with shiny objects.
There's a gesture over here, there's some entertainment over
there, there's something else grabbing your attention along
the walk. And what's important is that you
stay on the path and not let any of those shiny things deviate
you from it. Because at the end of the path,
you'll have encountered all of those things.
And then you get to enjoy them from the sea with the the king,
the divine, and from that place of wherever you end up later
along that journey that you're on.
So when I I heard that in the way that it was said, because
you know, I butcher analogy sometimes I heard that and it
immediately made me think because I applied for this yoga
teacher job, substitute yoga teacher job at a prestigious gym
and this gym got a hot tub sauna, like I, I was hyped.
I was hyped. And they pay well, a lot better
than I thought a gym would pay for substitute yoga teacher.
And so when I heard that, I got a feeling in my chest and I'm,
I'm learning to listen to that. I'm learning to listen to my own
nervous system. I'm learning to listen to my
body when it tells me, Hey, this ain't right or hey, this is
right. Because a lot of times I've just
made decisions that I think I've ignored that feeling because I
just hadn't been connected to it.
And through Ayurveda, through the ad limbs of yoga and making
a consistent regular practice for myself.
You don't notice it day one. But after doing this for, oh,
it's almost been like 2 months now consistently because I
started when Ramadan started because I was disappointed I
couldn't do, I wanted to participate in the fasting with
a friend and I couldn't because of health to things, which I'll
talk about later. But yeah, the, the focus for me
is not bringing in new things. I don't want to expand
horizontally. I want to extend my depth
vertically. And so I'm extending my depth
vertically by leaning most heavily into something positive
for positive people. Today's May 1st, I'm in a
program about like a coaching program for people who want to
like make behavioral changes, identity changes.
And there's just like a little accountability group behind it.
And I'm excited. I'm excited to be able to
participate in that and have a sense of community with other
people that are also on that same track because it's going to
help me with this now. So I mentioned already the
podcast and content pivot. Yeah, expect one podcast a
month. So I'm going to make it where we
do this on the 1st of each month as close to it as possible.
Yeah. The I, I, I was forcing it and
that was leaking energy. I recognize that I was kind of
dreading like leading up to the recordings, whereas with this
one, I was excited. I was, I was hyped to the
finally record. It's almost like the energetic
build up was taking place. And then I was able to sort out
everything that I wanted to cover from the past month and
what I need to announce for what's going to be happening
over the course of this next month.
And put it into the podcast, put it into the newsletter, which if
you're not on the newsletter, please be on it there.
There's so many reasons for it because you will miss the
opportunities to be in in person stuff.
And if we do support groups that are in person or if I'm
traveling and I want to connect with and get with the people
that are in the area and bring people together, I can't do that
if I'm unable to keep up with you, if you can't get the
notifications for it. So there's a couple of days that
are in this upcoming newsletter, which is actually going to go
out today and then you'll get the next one for June.
But yeah, by that time, if anything was happening in May,
you'll have missed that. And I usually don't go to the
same place twice within a year. And this is a good opportunity
for you to meet other people who are living with herpes in your
area that maybe you can form connections in community with.
But yeah, I'm, I'm deepening the quality of the content.
And I'm doing this at a vertical depth for vertical expansion and
not like horizontally. I don't want to do more quantity
of things. I want to deliver greater
quality of things. I'm going to be posting more on
the blog, doing more of the videos of how to go about
disclosing or talking about sexual health and relationships
with partners, the in person events.
I want to make the website work, the marketing, because the
social media is they've shown my post to 39 people after almost
24 hours. I'm, I've put the time and
energy into making a new post and anything educational or
informative on my stories, you get like 30-40 views now.
It's not worth it. It's not.
And I'm, I'm preaching to the choir because the people who
follow me are the people who follow me.
They know about it. I was on a podcast recently, the
Beyond Monogamy podcast, and one of the clips that they created
was it, it's doing really well because of the language and it's
I found out about herpes the hard way is the caption.
I'm a black dude that's saying I have herpes and it was hard.
And the way that you have to position content in order for it
to get visibility doesn't align with me.
I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to make the post like that.
I'm glad that they did it because great.
Now new audience, more attention in that sense, but I ain't got
it in me. That doesn't align for me more
in person events. I think I mentioned and I'm I'm
very much more intentional about the social media post, which is
really directing people to the website and the newsletter.
So if you're not on the newsletter, please be, I'm going
to link that in the in the description so that you you're
able to just catch it, click and then be subscribed to the
newsletter if any of these things interest you.
Yeah. And as far as the in person
stuff, I've done an Expo, I'm gonna be more than 10 minutes.
So if you did skip the 10 minutes ahead, I've noticed that
it's already been 10 minutes and I'm not done with the
announcements. So yeah, keep going, keep bear
with me. For in person, there's there's a
disconnect and it's because people just aren't on the
newsletter. So many people want in person
support. They want the community and
they're unwilling to receive 1 to 1 1/2 emails on average per
month. But I get it.
You know, you don't want that connection.
You don't want that association. You can make a burner e-mail
account if that's what you need to do that, you know, you maybe
check once a month if you don't want your main e-mail to have
like herpes related information on it.
But also, if that's what you got to do to get my information, and
I don't want, I don't want you to, you're not ready.
This isn't for you. If you're somebody who just
listens to the podcast and you're comfortable with just the
virtual podcast episodes and whatever else it is that you
happen to find online, cool, this ain't for you.
You, you shouldn't be on the newsletter yet.
It might be helpful, but if you're not ready to receive the
information, you just ain't ready to receive the
information. So I don't want you to waste
your own energy and trying to be something that you're not ready
to become yet, which is accepting enough of your
diagnosis to be able to accept and receive community.
And what's crazy is like roughly 10,000 people visit the
something positive webs, the something positive for positive
people website per month. That's 10,000 new people per
month, whereas I got 10,000 total followers over the last
almost 10 years on Instagram and yet 30-40 people see the
Instagram story is is crazy. But I'm not complaining by any
means. I just recognize where the
investment of energy and time really needs to go.
And that's the website to making those people who are curious
about the content and seeking it out, making them more of a focus
for the community to be able to build that.
All right, so this is my encouragement for y'all to
subscribe to the newsletter if you feel like you're ready or
maybe you just forgot about it. We had a support call maybe and
you hit the fall. The doesn't accept marketing,
but understand that the value of that is A, you know, connecting
with community and B, being able to see what the events are that
would be coming up in your area. OK.
For the support groups, women, the women's group, phenomenal.
We consistently have anywhere between like 17 and 20 women
that come to the support group the 1st and 3rd Monday of each
month, 7:30 PM Eastern Time. If you want to join, we have to
have a herpes support call first.
Donation based herpes support call.
I say donation based because people fill out the forms and
they don't donate. That is what this literally is.
I do not reply to emails that have no donations associated
with them. I get a lot of spam, A lot of
spam or people who aren't serious.
And when I say spam, I don't mean robots.
I mean like people who are trolling.
They're like, oh, I have herpes and I passed it on to somebody
and it's like their confession or something, but they'll put
like no money in the in the box and I'll check, I check, I see
all the emails. But what I've noticed over the
years is the people who don't donate don't show up to the
support cause. And now you know, I've blocked
off this time. I've rearranged my my day and my
schedule because I make myself fully available to prioritize
these and it's just me. Right.
So with it being just me, this is one of the ways that I'm
protecting my energy. This is one of my, I don't want
to say boundaries like these rigid things, but my it's like a
membrane, A membrane around me energetically that slows things
down to a stop. And one of those things that I'm
slowing down to a stop is not, I, I'm not needing reciprocity.
Like I've created this, I've put it out there.
It's here for people to be able to access, even people who've
been like, I don't have any money.
Like, please, I, I, I just want to do a support call.
And I've been like, OK, here's the time.
Here's the link. Let's do it.
And then they don't show up to the support call.
So in order to join the support group, you absolutely have to
join and have a support call. And in order to do that, you got
to make a donation. Everything that we do is
donation based. You know, I, I even tell people,
I don't care how much you donate.
Have somebody donate a dollar. So what?
I don't care, you donate it. You've given me some type of
energy investment to show me that you're more likely to show
up to the support call and how much you value this because a
dollar to somebody the, the, the value of that dollar to them
might be what the value is of $1000 a $1,000,000 to somebody
else. So like, I don't shit on people
for what they give. I shit on people for not giving.
That's that's my thing. All right?
Because, yeah, you have to be intentional about those steps
and you got to show how serious you are.
So the ladies have been very serious.
And what I find is the word support group doesn't really fit
what it is that we have there. It's more of a community.
I'm learning that the women are willing to navigate stigma and
all of the emotions. So we we go very.
We go very there's a lot of depth to the support group.
We're covering the the roots of stigma, we're talking about
intimacy, we're talking about boundaries, we're discussing
vulnerability, we're talking about relationships, we're
talking about identity and how we see ourselves in self-image.
Like all of these things are conversations in the women's
support group. And I think that we keep coming
back there because that support is it, it it the quality of it
is greater in community. So there's rapport built.
There's, you know, check insurance.
Oh, yeah. Hey, girl, how's that situation?
Right. And it's nice.
It's nice to have that kind of community as a form of support.
What I've noticed with the men's group is they're very focused on
problem solving. So between one and three men
will show up for the support group consistently.
And I, I started in October and I wanted to go six months
straight without making any changes.
And there have been times where nobody would come.
So I'm sitting here, I've reorganized my schedule to be
ready 2 weeks a month, the 2nd and 4th Monday and, and
sometimes nobody would come. And so now what I'm doing is
I've just moved it to the fourth Monday of each month.
So there's one men's group. And the things that happened in
the men's group are, hey, I had this situation happen.
How do I recover from it? Or I foresee this situation
happening? How do I go into it?
So it was very much I got, I got a rejection help, help.
Or if I have an upcoming disclosure, how do I tell this
person I have herpes? And then they take the advice
right away and then that's it. Like they don't need it anymore.
And if they don't take the advice, I don't know because
they don't come back really. But it's been nice because the
guys, one of the guys, I won't say his name, but he comes and
he's like, yeah, you know, I had this mindset shift and I've been
applying it and things been working out.
I just, I'm here to just share this with the guys.
And then it'd be just me, him and, you know, maybe one other
person. But that, that reciprocity, that
ongoing support is something that in the men's group just
doesn't happen because I think that's the way that we approach
it. And the reason I'm sharing this
is because I've been asked like what's happening in the men's
group, why aren't the men showing up?
I mean, I guess the reality is they the ones that do show up,
they implement what it is that we talked about and then they go
on about their business. And then if there's a fifth
Monday that group's Coed, I generally bring in the topic and
try and let us all talk. But ain't no men been coming to
the Coed groups. We have one guy show up to the
first time we did a Coed group, but that was it.
So now men's group once a month and that's going to be on 1/4
Monday of each month. If you haven't already had a
support call with me again, donation based support call,
fill that form out, we'll schedule it.
And once we get your donation, that's when you'll hear from me.
I even put a frequently asked questions on the herpes support
call page to explain the process even further because so many
people follow the process to AT, and then so many people just
don't like, they'll be like, yeah, I'm, I plan to donate $20
and then like, I'll reply to the e-mail and be like, OK, once we
get your donation, we'll schedule a call and then they'll
be like, how do I donate? It's like you're, you're
redirected to the, the page to, to do that.
The instructions are there. The instructions are as clear as
possible. And I can't waste energy on
people who don't even read the instructions.
I, I and it, it feels icky for me to say that, but I'd
recognize that that ickiness is just the discomfort of having
boundaries. This is something, it, it's
gotten me in trouble. Like it's been more than a year
now that I've been out of my last relationship and not having
boundaries with something that I, I understand so much better
now because I'm, I'm seeing where all of these leaks are,
right? I'm recognizing and seeing
myself as the kind of person that I can and should be just
from maintaining a regular routine for myself and plugging
the leaks that came from not having that routine.
So I'm, I'm, I'm living this. And if you can make it past the
announcements, y'all, because, oh, the last, here's the last
bit. OK, so it's been 20 minutes of
announcements and updates, right?
I haven't even gotten into the podcast.
So yeah, bear with me. I got right.
OK, I'm going to try and speed through this one, but these are
the upcoming dates for meet ups and when I'm going to be
traveling and where I'm going to be so that we can maybe get some
things together in person. So May 15th is virtual sex
positive Portland. I'm going to be hosting an event
navigating the herpes stigma and alternative lifestyles.
So non monogamous lifestyles, if you're in Portland and you want
to be a part of sex positive Portland and this is Oregon,
then reach out. It's just if you Google sex
positive Portland you'll find it.
But this is an intro class that is generally open to the public.
They have tickets for sale for it.
But I did this probably about a year ago.
It was about a year ago that I did this exact same workshop.
But now it's more structured around navigating these
conversations and non monogamous spaces and play spaces and not
just how to discuss herpes with someone, but for the people who
are there to understand how to receive a diagnosis from
somebody. So someone discloses, hey, I
have herpes, how do you handle that?
So I'll be talking about that on May 15th, virtually July 23rd
through 26th. I intend to be in Houston, TX.
I might get out there a little bit sooner.
I'm available to host a meet up if there is interest.
I know there are two people there.
No 3, there's three people there that I do maintain some type of
a connection with. And if we're all able to make it
work, we can do like a happy hour.
We can do dinner, lunch, something over the course of
that time. But there's also a Zook
conference, for those who don't know.
I've been practicing Brazilian Zook since August last year, and
I'm feeling a lot a little more confident.
I got a little shoulder mobility.
I'm moving my body in ways that I hadn't moved it in the past.
So I'm, I'm going to go out there for that and then July
26th until I don't know how long, but I'm going to go to St.
Louis, MO. So I'll be in Houston, TX until
Sunday, July 26th and then on July 26th I go to Saint Louis
and I'll be there for a couple of days if we can make something
work. There is a huge herpes support
group that is there and I I can make that introduction if that's
something that you're interested in if you are in St.
Louis, MO. But I'll be there from the 26th,
just maybe for a few days. I don't like to stay in Saint
Louis too long. And August 29th is the New York
City Herpes Stigma Expo, so this will be in the Lower East Side,
Manhattan and Chinatown, the same thing that we did in March,
which was just like a full day of herpes support.
We're going to do the same but different.
I want to do some demonstrations of people to see not just how to
talk about herpes with partners, but how to talk about sex, how
to talk about the relationship and make it a bigger thing than
being about herpes. Like how do you get to know
someone in that context that you know, you want to move forward
with? Right.
So I want to be able to do some role plays and demonstrations
using Doctor Evelyn, Doctor Starsop, which covers what we
need for safety in relationships or turn ONS or voids.
Because we don't really get to talk about pleasure.
Like we're we're so one sided focused on the herpes disclosure
that we forget about those things and then talking about
the intention for the relationship.
And then we get to the sexual health portion.
So we're going to do some simulations and role plays and
kind of a workshop on navigating that.
And I'm going to incorporate yoga and we're going to have one
of my board members, Jordan, come in and do like a pleasure
practice for us. It'll be a real fun and good
time, but we get to socialize, connect, and experience
community as well. And then the next day, August
30th, I'll be presenting at the STI Prevention Conference in
Atlanta and I'll be there from August 30th until like September
2nd or 3rd. I'm looking to host a meet up
and I know that there are some people that are in Atlanta who
live there that might be willing and able to come out and see us.
So let's, let's see what we can do.
Let's see what we can get on the books.
All right. And then I live in Brooklyn, NY,
so that'll be ongoing. I have spaces where I can host
things like game night support groups, but I need the interest.
I, I, I need people to show up to the things and let me know
what it is that y'all want. OK, so that concludes the
announcements. What, 26 minutes later?
Damn, my bad job. I'm sorry to make you wait to
this point, but we are done with the announcements and now I'm
going to transition to the actual podcast episode.
So this one's, this portion is about like transmuting sexual
energy. So typically a person who's
newly diagnosed with herpes might decide I'm not going to
have sex, I can't have sex. They may not even decide that,
they may allow herpes to decide that for them.
And now not being a sexual person means that that energy is
just there. And while energy can't be
created or destroyed, it's also not the sign that sit still, be
stagnant, and then create shit within the body.
We got to move that shit, right? So when we look at Brahmacharia,
again, it's not celibacy, it's right use of energy.
So even if you do want to have sex, having sex in a way that
aligns for you and who you are with people who also align.
Because wherever there are inconsistencies and
misalignments externally, it kind of creates that internally.
So we want to have our beliefs and our behaviors aligned with
one another because now we're affirming our values, right?
And now we're giving that energy its right use based on what we
believe and based on how we're behaving.
And that friction begins to dwindle away as we continue to
maintain that state of being. So for me personally, I, I ain't
been, I've not been sexually active as sexually active as I
would like to be by any means. And what I think I've realized
was around Valentine's Day that since my last relationship, I've
not dated, but I've ended up in relationships.
And in these relationships that I ended up in, I was doing a
polyamory thing. And I recognize that I'm not
polyamorous. And so there was a constant
leaking of my energy. I had people like my ex told me,
my therapist told me they were like, yeah, you're polyamorous.
And there were people around me who were like, well, Brittany,
like, what are you aligned with? And he's the only people that
ever asked me that. It's like that never feels right
like that. That hasn't felt right.
So between like a right around Valentine's Day and just through
March, like I hadn't been seeing a lot of people.
And I was just like, hey, and these were many long distance
relationships and then one locally.
And I was just like, hey, I'm not polyamorous.
And I didn't really know what that meant for me at the time.
But that ended up ending several of those connections and
relationships. But I, yeah, I put myself at
what, what do you call it? I have no roster.
So between like mid March and now, I had like a couple of
sexual experiences, but not nothing that is like ongoing.
So I caught myself. I'm a different person when I
know that it's on the table or I know like I got something locked
in the calendar versus when I don't.
And I think that the combination of my health and being having
prioritized that, which I'll, I'll tell you about that in a
minute. I'm excited about that.
But between that and then not knowing where the next, you
know, sexual experience, date, relationship, companionship,
intimacy is going to come from I'm, I'm horny and it, it's
crazy because I had someone who reached out to me and she was
like, I don't know what to do. But like, I'm finally feeling
like sexual and I don't have any word for it.
And when she was telling me that I was like, damn, I feel you.
Like I'm, I'm right there with you.
Like I didn't tell her that, but I was like, dude, the, the, the
world, the universe by reality is just putting shit in my face
that I have to deal with. So rather than allowing that
sexual energy to leak and for me to just like go find somebody to
hook up with or for me to just hold on to it and let that
stagnate, what I decided to do was I got to do something with
it. So sexual energy is creative
energy. It's life force energy when it's
our vitality, right? Like we when we look at it that
way, it ain't no when we look at it that way, that's what it is.
So I have successfully, I'll go laugh when you hear this.
I have successfully written the first draft of the Something
Positive for Positive People book.
I've been writing for the book or writing the book, but nothing
has ever felt as complete as this particular draft.
So I did that. I wrote the first draft of an
actual book with that concentration of my sexual
energy. And now, like, I might be horny
as hell, but rather than me having a sexual experience and
getting that released, I want a fucking book.
Like what? I'll do that.
What? And so I see what can come
around. I see what can come out of it
and now like I recognize the quality of it.
So I can be out here just fucking, which I have been in
the past, or I can write a book and it's like, damn, you know
what, what else can I create? So I'm I'm, I bought some, so
I'm a nerd. And if you watch the Seven
Deadly sins, which is an anime, it starts out cute and then it
gets real. I made, I bought the materials
and tools for me to make one of the weapons from the characters
that I'm going to dress up As for the June 6 Brooklyn Comic
Con, which I'm hyped for. And that's another place that
I'm putting my energy into, just like creating shit.
And I think that that too is why that job that I had applied for
was unattractive and unappealing so that I can put my creative
energy into something that it can actually be received by 9
years. Now it's been almost 10 years or
something positive for positive people has been something that
can handle my intensity, that can handle my emotions.
That has been like a reciprocal exchange for me.
So I'm, I'm pouring into this more deeply.
And now like I got this fine little hobby that I was unable
to explore over the years and now I can really immerse myself
in it. So I'm excited to create this
damn Escanora's axe. And I got everything else I need
for the costume. I even got like a little
alliance in tattoo. So I'm hype.
I'm hype, but I say that to say like I'm I'm I'm very protective
of this now, whereas I hadn't been in the past.
And I think that a lot of it had to do with environment too.
Like I was very much active in the sex education space and on
the Internet and all this advocacy and and sex Ed and it
was accessible to me. It was a lot more accessible.
It was a lot like it was much easier to be able to connect
with people who are already like sexual in a sexual environment.
So it was just like a perfect storm of being able to have a
variety of sexual experiences, whether they aligned or not.
So now the the right use of said energy for me doesn't look like
just I'm horny. I need to get this nut off.
It looks like, OK, what what do I really want?
Because sometimes like I'll be like horny because I'm lonely or
I want companionship or I want intimacy or I want like
something good to eat, right. And all of these things can come
from the same place of just feeling not connected to.
So you can feel not connected to or you just feel like there's a
need to create. And that was one of those things
for me of being able to give that sexual energy some kind of
an outlet. Again, energy is not supposed to
sit stagnant. It's supposed to move.
It's supposed to flow. If you are into any like Tachi
or if you're into yoga or quantum physics at all, you you
learn a lot about us as human beings that when we are like.
Stagnant, dead inside or feeling out of alignment.
That's where a lot of the mental health and physical health stuff
comes up if there's no direction for the energy that we have.
So yeah, I'm, I'm, I am like a little hesitant and scared.
Like I'm allowing myself now to date for the first time in a
year, like actually date and like go out and meet people and,
and really shoot my shot. I've been trying to shoot my
shot. I ain't been doing, I've not
been doing well. You know, it's just being out of
practice. And I, I know what it is now.
I've been stuck. And I think I got it in my notes
to talk about more of that later.
But what I don't want is to bring somebody in that's going
to fuck up where I'm at in life right now.
My health is good, my finances are great.
I'm feeling successful. I'm on the trajectory that I
foresee being able to like have a sustained, A sustained
lifestyle in the direction that I'm going.
And the last thing I need is for the wrong use of energy to
connect with somebody that's going to fuck that up for me.
And I don't want to do that again.
I can't. I can't do that to myself again.
So I'm I'm I'm excited to be able to implement the Courtney
cut off protocol, which is if, if stuff ain't working out like
I, I got to, I got to let it go. So concluding that portion about
the transmution of sexual energy, looking at the
application of Brahmacharia, which is right use of energy,
This ain't like an urge, right? Like when you, you get hard or
you get wet, right? It's not just, oh, I need to go
masturbate, I need to go and have sex, right?
This is creative holding life for us that you take them
juices, you take that blood flow and you apply it to a thing and
see what happens. But this was probably in the
first half of the year, my biggest accomplishment in the
first half of the year. And for me just having like not
had as much sex as I was having pre February.
Yeah, I I've been able to like really do shit.
And you know, going back to the previous podcast episode, you're
entitled to compensation, right? Like there the in in anime, the
law of equivalent exchange for full metal Alchemist, right.
Like you give up a thing or you give things away to the universe
or it takes from you and then you have that void of potential
for something else. Like I gave that up essentially,
or it was taken from me, however we want to put it.
And with that freed up energy, I wrote a fucking book.
It's like what? So I got to do some of my own
edits and then get that off to my publisher.
Yes, I have a publisher. And then we'll we'll see what
what happens. All right, the next portion is
speaking about my health journey.
So I mentioned starting these lifestyle changes when Ramadan
had begun. And there was a friend of mine
who is she's Muslim, I want to say, and she was practicing the
fasting and the celibacy. I was like, you know what, I do
it with you and I did it for like the day before just to test
it out. And I was like, let me see if
this is healthy for me. So I was, I've had high blood
pressure since I was like 20 years old, probably earlier than
that. That's when I was diagnosed.
And then I was always hovering at the line for being pre
diabetic. And most recently I went to the
doctor and they told me you are pre diabetic.
I was like OK, I know what I need to do just leave me alone.
And I got it all right. I don't want to take medication.
So I went to Ayurveda and I started to apply the things that
I was learning, yoga therapy training and also using AI to
help me, like condense that for what I know to be true about
Ayurveda and apply it to myself. So I was also hovering around
235 lbs. It was very hard for me to get
out of the two 30s consistently, right?
Like I'd see 229 and then I'd see 235 after a weekend of
travelling or just like socializing, right?
So that's where I was. I was consistently around 2:35.
And this was in, yeah, this was in February, like mid February
when I was like, fuck, I don't want to do this anymore.
And so I made that shift. I started to apply not just
Brahmacharia, but like this was one of the things that began to
amplify in my life, which was that right use of energy to
address these things because it was an energy leak whenever I
just eat whatever I want or I was cooking like what was cheap.
Like I was eating a lot of chicken thighs, brown rice and
like broccoli, which the broccoli is not bad.
The brown rice isn't bad, but I was eating them in very high
qualities and quantities. I'm sorry, high quantities.
And one of the things that I had to do is make a shift in how I
was eating. So I eat the same shit at home.
Now I eat spinach, quinoa and salmon for either lunch or
dinner and then for breakfast I'm eating two large eggs mixed
with some egg whites, spinach and sourdough bread.
Now the big thing for me is the spices like I'm using.
I'm cooking with turmeric, ginger powder, cumin powder,
black pepper, onion and garlic powder.
So these are spices that like heat up your digestive fire that
allow and in the combination of the food allows for more of the
nutrients to be absorbed into the body so that now I'm not
like just shitting out what I eat.
Now this is how I eat at home. So 80% of the time, this is what
I'm eating and how I'm eating and the other 20 I'm eating
whatever the fuck I want because can't nobody tell me shit,
right? That's been working for me.
And since getting into that and recognizing like the importance
of like at home, I don't drink cold water or cold fluids
really. If I'm out and about and I have
to, I'll do it. But what that does is what the
cold fluids and cold foods have done for me, especially for my
Ayurveda composition. I'm very kapha and I hold on to
things, so I shouldn't be eating things that are like heavy and
and easy to hold on to, like heavy pasta, white sauce and I
was making my black bean smoothies, but it was there was
Greek yogurt, it was cold, the fruit was cold, everything was
cold. So on one hand I'm getting all
this protein and all this fiber and these nutrients, but it's
like it's cold. So it's just kind of sitting
there. And so I'm just like holding on
to that on top of whatever I put in there as well.
So I've been doing pea protein shakes instead.
Like if I'm, if it's like in between when I should be eating
or whatever, I have that to because I don't want to become
like a little ass *** Like I want to be somebody that's still
got my muscle tone. And I, I like how I'm looking.
I'm loving it. You know, when I talk to people
and they see me, they're like, Oh my God, like you look so like
you're losing weight. I'm like, fuck yeah, I am.
I'm putting the work in. So I am consistently hovering
around 215 lbs. So on a full stomach yesterday I
was 215 and this morning I woke up I was like 216 probably just
drinking water or whatever, but I don't necessarily have a goal
weight. I'm like, what does this look
like? What does that look like?
So we'll if I get to 200 lbs and we, we, we going to probably cut
it there. I don't want to become too
little, but I think that's somewhere between this.
This right now seems sustainable.
But I just got here. I just got the 2:15.
So we'll see what kind of progressions continue.
I'm still working out and lifting heavy at the gym.
I'm practicing my yoga. I'm incorporated doing some
running. So it is, it's popping.
We getting it popping. But I've also been dancing too.
So I think that that has a lot to do with it as well.
So yeah, I found myself probably like significantly more horny
too because of the way that I'm eating apparently cholesterol.
I guess the right cholesterol fat combinations of food will
raise your testosterone because I've been y'all is is been is
been bad. And I don't want to do no dumb
shit. I don't want to fuck around with
the wrong person. So I am I, I have very what's
the word I'm looking for? I got real ethical guidelines in
place for me to not fuck this up.
So I'm either going to be creating shit or the I'm going
to eventually probably, I don't know, like we'll, we'll see.
I don't want to say like be in a relationship just because I'm
like extra horny or anything like that.
But yeah, I, I like what I'm doing with this.
But also like, I recognize that I need the I, I, I, I got needs.
I got needs. All right.
So I am a lot more focused. I am a lot more peaceful, except
for when, you know, I had those moments where things get a
little bit out of hand for me. I'm like, so that's why we go to
the gym everyday. Oh, Speaking of, I've been
taking rest days. I used to not do that, but now
I'm I'm moderating myself and taking one or two rest days a
week. Two rest days a week.
Excuse me, how much more we got here?
OK, not much more. All right, so that was the
health stuff. And now I mentioned earlier not
wanting to expand horizontally, but to more so go deeper into
things, right into something positive, my yoga therapy
training and then my genital exams job.
So these are very important to me.
So when I mentioned dancing, so I feel like a real dancer now
because I bought some Fuegos, I bought some actual dance shoes.
So I'm, I'm committed to this shit.
Dancing has been so good for me. I've never moved my body in
these ways. And I recognize like stuff that
is coming up for me and dancing because in I, I fully understand
somatic movement in the sense that like in yoga, typically
you'll do yoga and just start crying.
You won't know why, but a lot of trauma can be stored in the body
that's stuck in stagnant energy that hasn't had an opportunity
to move or had any awareness brought to it or to be expressed
or communicated. That's the emotional release
that dancing has been giving me. And one of the big releases that
I had for myself was I used to care about how silly I look.
And a lot of the music that I listen to, you don't dance to
that. Like you hold up gun gestures
and you like mix up drugs. Like that's the shit that I was
listening to and I'm hearing things that are just like
melodic. Like there's a melody and
there's the lyricism to it and it's just music that you you
dance to. You just move to like you ain't
motivated to go sell drugs and, and buy guns and hustle and all
that shit. Like that's what I used to
listen to or like love making music for R&B and now I'm
hearing shit that's not any of that.
And for the first time, like I'm receiving it, I'm hearing it.
And now like I want to move my body and it just fucking feels
weird. Like I'm facing my own internal
judgment of moving my shoulders like this or doing a body roll.
You see that I got it right. That's not how I've move my
body. My body has been a a weapon on a
team, right? Like I've used it for football.
I've used it to put through pain of developing muscle and
exercising at the gym I've run and that and and being sexual,
right. So those emotions I have like I
don't have to think about. And now with dancing, it's been
seven months now and you know, I, I know I look a little stiff,
I know I look silly, but I'm getting better.
I, I love anime references, solo levelling.
Sung Jin Wu, the main character of the story, he is the worst
hunter, he is the worst character.
He knows this, people know this, they call him this.
And there comes a time where he, he just keeps showing up.
He almost dies, but he keeps showing up.
And he was given the opportunity to, you know, save people to be
the best hunter. And he was the best from a
values perspective. And he was given a second
chance. He was given the ability to
level himself up. And all he had to do was honor
his discipline. And as he honored that
discipline, he leveled up. He got taller, he became more
handsome, he got faster, he got stronger, right?
And he was able to tap into these abilities.
So that is like where I'm feeling like I'm at now because
I'm showing up. I might be the worst dancer in
the room, clearly worst dancer in the room.
Y'all, when I tell y'all like I, I know, I know I am, but that
ain't, that ain't the case. That ain't always going to be
the case. And I, I know that and I'm, I'm
sticking to that shit and I know I'm sticking to it because I
bought these $150.00 ass pair of shoes.
So I'm there and what was triggered by that?
I remember that was a comment that my X-Men and I'm it's been
more than a year, so I feel like I can talk about it now.
I remember like being made fun of.
We were in the car one day and I was like, I was dancing.
I was like, I felt safe and comfortable because it's the
person that I'm with like I don't fucking dance.
And she made fun of me for dancing to the words.
She was like, just like you, you danced to the words.
And I always thought that was bad, like from that moment.
So I was like, oh, I guess I'm not supposed to do that.
Come and find out in dance class, you know, I'm I'm doing
the mechanics of it. I know the steps, I know the
basic, I know the simple turn. I know the very Genia.
I know later all that shit and I'm hit with, yeah, Just Dance
to the musicality. Yeah, You Can Dance to the
lyrics. Like have fun with it.
Play, be silly. And I'm watching people do it.
That shit looks smooth. And I was like, wait, you can do
that. I was like, you can do that.
I was like, what? Like my my fucking mind was
bald. But I also had that that memory
unlocked that was just there that I otherwise wouldn't have
had access to if I wasn't dancing, if I wasn't moving my
body, if I wasn't, you know, in that place.
Because so much of things that we want to do, there's a mental
block or an emotional block that's connected to something
that happened that maybe it was just easier to forget about.
And I recognize too, like after all this time and all this
moving around and, and living and shedding shit, that another
thing that I need to let go of is my own accountability and
responsibility for, you know, the, my relationship that I
thought was going to be it ending because one of the
stories that I had told myself is it's my fault.
I'm the reason I did. It's all on me.
It's what I did. She was no Angel.
And the more like time that passes and the more that I've
been like dancing and moving my body differently, I feel myself
letting go of how harsh I was to myself, how hard I was on myself
for the relationship not working out.
And in that I'm letting shit go. I didn't realize like it was so
hard for me to even date or meet people because of this block
that I had. Like I had so much shame and
guilt around me being as sexual as I want to be and how as I
have been in the past for the way that I think, the way that I
am, the way that I behave, ain't nothing wrong with me.
And in dancing, I've learned that there is nothing wrong with
me. There's nothing wrong with the
way I move. Do it on beat so that, you know,
I can be followed, which is a whole nother thing because like,
I think that I've learned to not trust myself.
I've learned to distrust myself. So one of the challenges that I
faced not just in dance, but in dating in general and with
everything outside of something positive for positive people is
being decisive. I am so decisive when it comes
to this shit, but I'm not decisive on the dance floor.
So my, my follower doesn't know where I'm going because I don't
know where I'm going to go. So I how can I know where to
take them? And then in dating, I'm shooting
my shot and I'm fucking up because I'm not being decisive
in, you know, being like, Hey, I find you attractive, wanting to
come say hi. I'm Courtney.
What's your name? Can I take you out right.
It's so easy. It is so easy.
And the mental blocks of and, and insecurities that I think
have been instilled in me from past relationship, past times of
things, it's fucked me up. I've been fucked up for the past
year plus you're plus I've been getting fucked up for probably 2
years. But for the last year, I think
that I've now for the first time, especially through dance,
like recognize these frictions that I've been creating for
myself and that have been instilled in me.
And so much of what I've done and not really having to be
decisive or struggling with that decisiveness has been putting
that onto external factors, putting that onto my
relationships or partners or people like playing Call of Duty
is a great example. I think I mentioned this before.
If it's, you know, I'm the last person left and there's a buy
station, I can bring back my teammates or I can trust myself
to win the game. I'm going to make the play to
bring back my teammates regardless of them coming in
disadvantaged. If I got all my shit that I'm
set up to win the game. Like the the parallel there of
not trusting myself and not being decisive, like I'll be
decisive. It's like, Nope, I'm buying
that. But now I got to be decisive in
that. I trust myself.
I trust my past experience. I've been playing Call of Duty
for years. I can beat these *** Like it's,
it's all right, cool, three teams left, let them fight it
out and it's going to be me versus whoever and I can win.
But that that confidence and that trust, right?
Like there's a friction, even if I have past experiences where
I've done this shit before. Like, I was thinking about it
and I was like, you know what? Like it.
It's it's very difficult for me to talk to new women that don't
know me from the Internet. Right.
And I had to remember I did that.
I was just walking down the street, headphones off, and
somebody was next to me who was running.
And I looked over and I was like, oh, you work out at the
gym, don't you? You're like, oh, yeah, I'm
Courtney. What's your name?
Oh, yeah, this is my name. I was like, oh, well, it was
good seeing you. We chatted a little bit and then
just went on about our way. And it was so easy.
Like I I forget that these no steaks interactions where I'm
not dependent on any kind of an outcome, that that's what this
shit is supposed to start out of it.
I'm supposed to do that first. Like just can you have a
conversation? I don't need to go into every
interaction knowing what I want. And this is another thing that
got me in trouble, like being intentional.
Like what are your intentions? What are your intentions?
What are your boundaries? What are your like knowing that
stuff? You don't have to know that
because it changes with people. I don't know what I want from
somebody that I just see who I'm attracted to.
I don't, I don't, I don't know that.
I don't know what I want with you.
I don't know if I want a relationship.
I don't know if I want a friendship.
I don't know if I want to create something with you.
I don't. And I have put myself in this
like paralysis state. And how you do one thing is
oftentimes how you do everything.
That overthinking shit has been huge for me.
I've been overthinking because being authentic was bad in my
last relationship. Me being who I was was a problem
and that created a friction because it's like OK I I can't
be who I am. So rather than me changing who I
am, let me just change the things I do, which will then
hide who I really AM and make for there to be less friction in
this environment. And that's that.
That's the friction. That's where you 'cause that
friction. Like if we're energetic systems,
if we look how electrical circuits operate, if there's any
heat or friction, something's going to short circuit, whether
it be the fuse box or the device that is plugged into it.
And that, that ain't me. What I've been learning through
brahmacharya, right use of energy, is to align, like
authentically be myself. Removing that friction is as
simple as being yourself. People say that shit and it
sounds so simple and it is so simple, but we make it
complicated. Being yourself, remove that
friction. The in between of what you think
and how you behave, That's heat, that's friction.
All that time in between taking the action, that's generating
friction. And if you got to make changes
that don't align with what your beliefs are, that's friction.
So letting these two things align, your behaviors and your
beliefs align. Now, this is not the same as
you're trying a new thing. If you're the kind of person who
you know tries a new thing, you believe that you can learn a
thing. You see yourself like wanting to
incorporate this part, this, this thing into your identity,
your being. You can do that.
And it's not a matter of casting away or getting rid of anything
or adding to, but it's more so about removing the resistances
to allow for that to be a thing because obviously you're drawn
to it for a reason. So, yeah, the, the, the energy
that I have placed in the past externally, like leaking and
just trying to, you know, find relationships, dating partners,
like or what, who I would end up with.
Those were energetic leaks. And I don't think that there was
ever really any like, no, I, I, I'm, I'm not gonna, I'm not
gonna finish that sentence that because that's not true.
What I'm the point that I'm trying to make is the importance
of authenticity, that alignment between your beliefs and your
behaviors, right. I didn't.
It didn't feel safe for my beliefs to be what they were.
So I behaved in a way that I thought I was supposed to behave
and therefore creating friction internally because of what my
behaviors are externally and pursuing things that don't align
with what my beliefs were. Pursuing those kinds of
relationships and doing the things and saying things.
And that's the point that I was trying to make.
So now my beliefs and behaviors are more so aligning.
Yeah, the more the dreams and the meaning dreams.
Why did I put that? Oh, OK.
Again, going back to the movements, dancing is sparking a
lot of dreams. And I'm remembering shit that
I've never said out loud. I still won't say out loud.
And these things in the dream, I finally see what they represent.
It's not about who's in them, but people are like, oh, in your
dreams, you're everybody. Whoever is in it, it's you.
Yeah, I don't know that I believe that, but I do.
There, there's been reoccurring dreams that I've had and there
have been dreams like about my past relationship as well.
And I think that most recently, which is like 2 days ago, I came
to the understanding and realization of what dreaming
about a particular person in this context means.
And it's what that represented. Like this was supposed to be it
for me. This was beating the game like
we doing life together. Let's go on side quests together
and keep like doing our our thing.
And that wasn't the truth. But I recognize that that's
still what I want. Like I want that relationship
where we're we're working to beat the game together and going
on side quests together is the best way that I can like and and
analogically, analogically that sound like anal sex.
That's how I can. That's the best analogy for it.
There we go. And yeah, like I yeah, I thought
that was it. I thought that was it.
And as I move my body and my subconscious, like, all right,
Courtney, like now that you're moving that energy, like, here's
what else needs to be cleared up.
Here's I, I take the things from my dreams and I bring them into
reality through journaling. I, I'll meditate on them.
I'll ask myself questions about it, like, what did I dream?
What, what could that have meant?
And I'll feel in my body what does and doesn't align.
And again, like I was not able to do this when energy was being
leaked all over the place. Like I feel like such a more
suitable and fitting storehouse of and for the energy that is
just moving and is where it is, 'cause I don't think you run out
of energy. Like you can deplete yourself,
exhaust yourself, but you're constantly being fueled.
So if you're exhausting yourself faster than you're able to
replenish yourself, which is something that was happening to
me as well in my previous relationship, then that's where
we burn out. But the reason that that
exhaustion was happening so fast is because there was a
misalignment between my beliefs and my behavior.
So I created that friction. I allowed for further friction
to continue to build so my replenishment wasn't happening
as fast as it does with something positive for positive
people. This feels so aligned for me
that it feels like I'm not pouring my own energy into
anything except for when I got to do these fucking taxes or
when I got to do like administrative work.
When I need to make presentations, if I have to make
a social media post, like that's when I'm using Courtney Energy,
but recording these podcasts, infinite energy, hosting these
support groups, doing the support calls, teaching the yoga
when I do these presentations, Infinite energy.
And one of the things that I know has gotten me in trouble in
relationships is like this version of me is attractive.
It's magnetic. It it, there's a a gravity that
draws people to me in this state, this way that I am now
all retrospective and shit. But the reality is I'm fucking
human. I fuck up, I have bodily urges,
I take shits. I don't do everything right.
I don't do it perfectly. I'm a nerd and and this isn't
going to translate into the next section here, but again, I'm
human and I got to do a better job of setting the expectations
of being human. Like this, this, this version of
me, like this is who I am. But I find that like people want
this Courtney 100% of the time and this Courtney needs rest.
This version of me, like I can't be in this state all the time
now, while this is like something positive for positive
people, the podcast, the support groups and calls, these are
amplifications of who I really am outside of this.
I ain't going to say I'm boring, but like I'm very simple.
I live a very simple. Like I said, I already told you
what I eat. I eat salmon, spinach and quinoa
and then for breakfast it's eggs, egg whites, mixed spinach
and then sourdough toes. That's my that's my everyday at
home. But outside of that shit, catch
me catch me getting dumplings or Thai food or what I had last
night Mediterranean that that's a new word for me.
Like I think I just discovered Mediterranean.
But anyway, that's not the point.
Yeah. I, I think that having these
dreams and dancing has helped me realize like what I actually
true desire and what my dreams and reoccurring dreams and like
what really happened in my last relationship, which I'm not, I'm
not going to talk about. I have closure with that because
sometimes no closure is closure. But I didn't recognize the leaks
that were happening within me by not accepting the reality, which
is it Satya Satya's truthfulness, I was lying to
myself about what really happened in the relationship,
like by taking full blame and responsibility and beating
myself up about it. So Satya, that'll, that'll be
something we probably have a theme for later as well.
But it's important that we be honest with ourselves.
And I wasn't honest with myself. And that was causing an
energetic leap. So Brahmacharia as the right use
of energy, being something that applied to an attitude with the
semantics of dancing has helped me with breaking up my friction,
breaking up that cooling my system, my nervous system.
Like this shit ain't supposed to be hot and frictionless, right?
Herpes is already in my nervous system, but it's a tool for
recalibration, for being able to cool the system.
If that shit gets hot and friction builds, that's when
herpes has a response. It's like a sit your ass down,
like it's a emergency valve, so to speak.
And the way that I look at this shit now is incredible because
I'd have never thought about herpes in this way 13 years ago.
But it is a very powerful and helpful tool for keeping, for
cooling the nervous system. We're going to naturally
generate heat sometimes, but when we are in alignment, that's
where herpes is just chilling. It's just dormant and it's got
his feet up. It's just watching the system.
Like, let me make sure this motherfucker don't overheat.
So closing out this section horizontal, here we go.
I think that yeah, the horizontal expansion versus
vertical depth. I believe that having the
opportunity to explore polyamory specifically and I'm again, I, I
want a fluid relationship, fluid relationship dynamic where we
can talk about the things that we want to do.
I don't care about the like, I don't, I don't want to have
multiple relationships. I want the fluidity and the
values of non monogamy more so align with me than the values of
monogamy. And that's like what I think
I've been afraid to say. I think I've been scared to say
that shit, but it gave me the ability to latitudinally expand.
So having multiple partners, multiple relationships,
everybody knows about each other.
I'm able to live my truth and be honest and everything.
And that was fun. That was healthy.
That was something that I was able to grow from, but it wasn't
sustainable for me because what energy I had to give to being
polyamorous was energy that goes into this.
This is what was leaking out when I had all that free time
where two weeks from the day where the tornado hit and then
took my home and after that happened, I was lost.
I didn't have any like groundedness.
There was no place for me to store my energy.
I was just like giving that shit away and it took me several
months and I, I shout out the people that really held me down
and I, I let them know I was like, Hey, the quantity of what
I have to give is significantly less.
But the quality of what I have is fucking incredible.
And unfortunately that hasn't, that wasn't enough for some of
those people. And then, you know, the the
greater the power source, like the shorter the range, I want to
say So, yeah, it is hard to deliver this quality of energy
and presence that I now have at long range, long distance,
right. So, you know, the people who are
close to me, they they get that from me.
And that's why we're still so close.
That's why I can talk, go and see one of my friends out in San
Jose once a year. And it's like we brothers,
that's why I can have like a deep conversation with one or
two, 3-4 my friends, you know, a couple of times a year.
And it's like we don't skip a beat because that short range of
the presence, like we, we know the value of it.
So I guess like relationship wise, like there, there's
alignments. If people just don't align with
it, then it's not going to align.
It's not going to work out. So yeah, I, I, I do want to go
deeper vertically. I do want that quality of
intimacy with, you know, a person, but also I want to have,
I want to be able to go on side quest.
That's, that's, that's what my at this point relationship
dynamic look like. God, and I was scared to say
that shit because I feel like it's very easy for, you know,
when you put something out there, somebody to hear it and
be like, oh, that's what he wants.
Bet let me be that. And then I was scared.
I was scared for the last year I've been scared to put myself
out there and say, hey, this is actually what I want.
This is what I want. Because yeah, it feels like
that's what happened to me before.
It's like, you know, somebody can just see, oh, this is who he
is, this is what he wants. If I want what I want from him,
then all I have to do is act like this for a little while and
then I'll get it and I'm good. So I trust myself now, and
here's where we transition it to the next part.
I love these notes. Notes work for when it's just
me. They don't work when I have a
podcast guest. But I feel like I've been very
much on track and we're getting to the end.
I think maybe 15 more minutes and then we'll be closing this
out. But I mentioned being able to
experience and really feel a yes and a no in my body.
But now it's a matter of implementing that, no, I feel
ready to date. I suspended that shit.
But that was a conscious choice. That was a choice for me to not
date because I recognize that I wasn't, I wasn't over my ex
because I was still dreaming about it.
And now that I recognize what the dreams are, it's like, oh,
it's not her. It's what she represented.
And I've not been able to or willing to vocalize what it is
that I want, which is what I thought I had and what I thought
was like it. And I've been grieving that for
the past year and not consciously grieving it, but
leaking energy in the form of damn, like I fucked that up, I
fucked that up, I fucked that up.
And the reality is that I didn't fuck that up.
It's that, hey, here's, you know what this represented.
So now you know, and this is the thing that you can pursue.
So I do feel ready to step back into it because now I have that
deep understanding of what it is I'm looking for.
And not just the understanding because again, the dream was
fucking 2 days ago, but it that gave me language to the feeling
that I was having. And the feeling was like, damn,
I'll never be able to have that what that which was promised to
me because it wasn't ever real. Like that wasn't really what it
was. And now what seemed or seems
like it was impossible to to have is because now I trust my
no for what's not that it won't take me a year and a half to be
like, actually, this ain't working.
So now I know what it is and I'm looking for and through
polyamory that was such a reaction to what other people
said. I was being in the sex education
space, right? Like it's you can just be
fucking or you can be non monogamous, polyamorous,
asexual, bisexual, trisexual, as in I'll try anything sexual.
I don't. There's a lot of things that you
can be and being in those spaces too, like there's been a lot of
pressure to perform. And attach yourself and assign
yourself to some kind of an identification.
And in that space, like I'm, as far as I knew, like the only
straight black dude that has been in those spaces.
So that alone was like isolating.
And that space felt like a community outcast.
But the reality is it was a lot of women, queer people that had
community. And I felt like this illusion of
community because these are just weird people, like my people are
weird people and don't really fit into the mainstream society.
And I think that I felt most of a sense of community and a sense
of like at homeless last weekend, I went to this black
cosplay event. That shit was tight.
That ain't got nothing to do
with any of this stuff. So let me not let me not get off
to the side. But people were telling me what
I was and I was just like, all right, I guess this is it.
This is what I am it and it goes back to even playing football,
right? Like I started out, you know,
playing offense, catching the ball, tight end.
And then when I learned that I like to tackle people, when I
learned that I I enjoyed that shit, that's when I got moved to
where I belong. And had I listened to people who
were just like, oh, Courtney, you can catch well, you can
block. Well, you should be a tight end,
you know, and I've been used to that.
I've been used to being put into a place, but put into a place
for the greater good of the team, the greater mission and
not speaking up, not bitching about it, not complaining and
just being compliant. And that should didn't work.
Like I think back to times where I fell into place and it was at
the detriment of everybody involved rather than me speaking
up and being like, no, no, put me in, no, this is where I'm
best I can do more here. This is what it is.
And I've not used my voice in that sense.
Like I've not said no. And it ain't been like out of an
avoidance of conflict because like I, I'm fairly physically
intimidating to some people, I'm sure.
And I think that I've had like this over awareness of that and
I've tried to dumb myself down or overly human over humble,
humble, overly humble myself. And that shit ain't that.
That's not something that people should do.
That's not authentic. That's lying to myself and lying
to the world by not being who I am and trusting that to be my no
right. So when somebody presents me
with Courtney, like, I don't like this about you, All right,
that's fine. I'm not about to stop being it.
Like, if you don't like it, you Orient yourself accordingly.
And that's where I've been fucking up.
And the, the when people told me, Oh yeah, you're a
polyamorous, I was like, oh, OK, I guess this is what I do.
I, I tell people that. And you know, if my behaviors
don't align with that, I, I thought that maybe they did, but
I think that when it became to a point where it felt like my
internal emotional state was consistently hot and in friction
and in conflict, that's when I recognized something needed to
change. So I mentioned being scared to
name what I wanted because putting it out allows for that
possibility of manipulation people to be a chameleon and
pretend to be that thing that I say that I want come into my
life. I find out that they're not
that. And because I'm someone who
struggles to like, let go, I'm like, OK, well, we can make this
work, right? Oh, because I don't want to say
no. Or because of the manipulation
of people being like, I got abandonment issues.
So don't leave me. If you leave me, you're a shitty
person. And if I don't identify as a
shitty person, I identify as a good person.
And I don't even want I don't want to do that anymore.
I don't want to identify as a good person.
I want to identify as a man of integrity.
So what my values are? I'm I'm consistently mentioned
the the scenes, right? Consistency, curiosity,
community, connection, choice, challenge, completion, I think
there's all of them. But those are the things that I
value and upholding my integrity in that space.
In that sense, that is my boundary.
So for somebody to be like, oh, I got abandonment issues.
Like when you do this, it triggers that I, I got to say
no, I got to go that no, because what I need is for space to be
taken so that then we can resolve the issue.
I will. I do very fucking well at
communicating and I, I let myself be convinced that I was
bad for having the things, for having needs, having the needs
that I had. And like I was good for not
naming them and prioritizing the needs of the other person.
But no, no mas, no mas. Yeah, ain't no more of that.
And I hope that what I'm sharing here is something that connects
with and resonates with people who are listening.
And again, this is all just leaning into one aspect of Yoga
of the Yamas or the kernel, the way that we engage with the
world. And so now, like the way that
I'm engaging with the world is much more like from a place of
not necessarily being selective, but having conserved my energy
enough to know and identify where something might be a leak
or something's going to be more reciprocal or it aligns right.
So I, I, I can't, I'm not susceptible to that manipulation
anymore. I cut a motherfucker off quick
now and you know, this is new. I ain't had to do it yet, So I
got to practice makes perfect. I haven't cut people off
necessarily. I had someone that I was seeing
in person, you know, bless her, but she said some things to me
that were also said to me in my last relationship.
And I had a moment where I was like, damn, have I really not
grown over the last almost year plus?
Or is it that I find myself like, and I'm headed on the
trajectory of the same relationship?
And I don't, I haven't talked to her since we ended things.
But you know, I don't know if she listening to this, but I, I
remember, you know, just hearing those things and how I felt in
my body, cuz there were four specific things that were said
that were the same thing that my ex said to me.
And I think that that was really what kicked off me recognizing,
Oh, I'm not over that relationship.
And if I'm going to be in a new one, one, I need to figure out
what the fucking problem is. I'm either attracting and
pursuing relationships with people that have that same
energy archetype or I haven't changed.
And the reality that I've come to two terms with is that it's
not about me changing. It's me needing to be more of
myself and also recognizing when things aren't working out, not
just for myself, but for the other person too.
Like I don't like to make the decision for other people, but I
felt like I had to make the decision for us because of the
reasons that she gave me. She's very much just like, I
feel like you are this, this is what you do.
This is who you are. And like, these were things that
she didn't say, she wasn't OK with, but she wasn't OK with.
And I, I feel bad for making that decision for her in ending
things, but I made the decision for me to end things because
that's not the kind of person I want to be.
That's not the kind of relationship I want to be in and
I couldn't name that because I didn't have the fucking language
until 2 days ago. So you know, hey, if you
listening, which I doubt, she probably didn't fuck me at all
no more. But if I were to say something
to her, it would be a thank you, which I think I said.
And she she wasn't fucking with it like at the time.
Ain't nobody fucking with like abandonment essentially.
But I think that maybe I just need to be clear in the
beginning, like, hey, I don't abandoned.
That's not something I do, but I will walk away because like it's
very manipulative that that's like a defense mechanism from
partners. Like, hey, I have abandonment
issues. You can't do this to me.
You can't take the space that you need to be able to come back
and communicate with me the way that you need to communicate
because it'll make me feel like you're leaving me.
And now like it's not. It's no longer about us, the
situation or you know what I need, what you need.
It's all about you, what your needs are.
And there's no room for me to have my feelings and emotions or
for me to be able to process things, to be able to come back
to you with complete statements, with complete resolution for
what it is that we are dealing with.
And now it's been made about something else.
And now it's about me abandoning you and not the fact that you
did this fucked up thing that we need to talk about.
So I'm, I'm, I'm not doing that anymore.
I'm, I'm saying no and I'm walking away if I need to walk
away like we can have a conversation, but I'm, I'm not,
I'm not doing that to myself anymore.
So I healthily take up space and I can't let nobody dumb that
shit down for me anymore. Even in other relationships,
right. I've had partners tell me I'm
jealous of you. And while you know this wasn't
stated in my last few relationships by any means, it
may not have been stated. But maybe there were aspects of
things that were happening that were shown in a sense.
And like that hurts because, you know, I, I, these are people
that if we're so intimately connected, I would believe, I
would like to believe that like my success is your success,
right? Me doing what's best for me, us
is going to benefit you and everybody around you too.
So why not support that? Why not be, why not celebrate
that challenge me, right? Like these are things that I
recognize that I need and I, I, I don't want to be made small to
be able to fit into somebody's pocket so they can just be like,
oh, look what I got. I got a Courtney.
Look, look, check this out, y'all, Look what I require.
Oh, that ain't what this shit's supposed to be.
So right. Use of energy, brahmacharya and
like move y'all's bodies. If you sad about having herpes
and you ain't leaving the house, you ain't talking to your
friends. You don't want nobody to know,
go, go dance. You ain't got to tell nobody
shit. You just show up and move your
body. You might, you might cry, you
might laugh, you might need somebody.
You might have outcomes that you never imagined.
I never fucking saw myself doing partner dance.
What the extent of my dancing was standing up against a wall
and getting danced on prior to age 37 and here we are now.
Like fucking dancing. I'm fucking going to Comic Con
now. I'm able to live out what I
believe my truth is. And if it changes, it changes.
I know what it is that I want. Like I was, I was even going
through this period where I was like, well, damn, should I want
a relationship? Is that is that something that I
even want? Like, do I want it just because
people are telling me that I should want it?
Because that's like the societal pressure.
And it's like, yeah, I do do want that.
And I know more so of how it can look.
And I also understand that people are people.
You can't just fucking come with a copy paste template of all
right, this is what I need in a relationship.
You got to do these things. These are the things you got to
want. This is how you this is a life
you got to have. No, you figured that out.
And along the way you decide like, all right, yeah, we're
going to keep doing this or hey, here are some things that don't
work. Let's talk about it and then you
go from there. That's it.
Now we're at the conclusion. So an hour and a half later, my
final thoughts here, right? Like date, dance, take care of
your health, go to work. And when you do these things,
recognize where there might be energy leaks.
How can you plug these leaks? How can you allow yourself to
rest and recover and restore your own energy and find
yourself in places and atmospheres where you feel like
your energy isn't being used, but the energy of the divine, of
God, of the universe is able to flow through you?
Because I said life isn't about what happens to you, it's about
what happens through you. So alignment is finding the
opportunities to find what is your something positive for
positive people, what is your ideal environment, community
relationship. Because when you're serving a
community and you feel like there is a mission that aligns,
that expresses your identity and who you are, that validates that
you get supercharged Because it's almost like your energy is
at more of a restful state. And it's the energy of the
universe is operating through you.
And when we're not in these spaces, when we're not in
alignment, that's where the energy begins to deplete itself
faster. So looking at patients as an
example, right, someone may wear out your patients, but they may
wear it out because they're not in alignment.
They pull you out of alignment or you pull yourself out of
alignment for them to serve them.
And you might be depleting yourself a lot faster than you
normally would if it was somebody or something that does
align for you. And then you have energy for
yourself too. Instead of chasing out there,
chase internally and be able to take care of your health.
Cook for yourself, go grocery shopping, do things for
yourself, have fun, play, make time for play.
Nurture your nature. When I say guard your energy,
all I'm saying is be the observer.
Step into that space or watch like OK, where is this going?
Like OK, I'm tired after this day.
This is the thing that drained me.
OK, I need to create myself like, again, like a membrane,
not not necessarily boundaries, but a membrane around this plug
that I have to engage with so that I allow for the thing to be
able to slow down and get to a point where it just stops
moving. But it's not going to touch me.
It can get close. I can recognize it, like, oh,
OK, here's how I need to engage with that thing.
Let that be it. Trust the internal gravity that
you created by affirming and validating your identity, those
intangible parts of yourself, your values, your aligned
beliefs and behaviors, because that creates the gravity that
brings people into your life the same way the solar system does.
BU sun turns hydrogen to helium. The planets like, oh, I like the
gravity of what's happening over here.
Oh, I can benefit from this light.
Oh, I can benefit from this heat.
And everything is orienting around that.
Everything and everyone orients around your authenticity.
And there might be things that you do and don't like, But the
easiest way to start to recognize how to get more of
what it is that you like to gravitate towards you and less
of what you don't want or like is to monitor those leaks.
Allow for yourself to use your energy in the right way.
Alright, so get on that e-mail list SP fpp.org/herpes Dash
newsletter so that you can be up to date on the in person
advance. Go to the blog SP fpp.org/herpes
Dash blog and be on the lookout. Y'all support these upcoming
resources, videos and everything that we got going on.
Yeah, I'll be done with yoga therapy training very soon.
I am still working with people. I just work with people on the
donation basis of what you can afford.
So if yoga therapy is of interest to you, if what you
heard today resonates, reach out to me, Courtney, at spfpp.org.
I'm not. I'm social media is on my phone
or it's not on my phone. It's on my laptop, so I'm not
very active on there at all. So if you want to connect with
me, you got to do it through the website, be on the newsletter,
get the newsletter. You can reply to the emails.
If you need to have a support call, hit me up and we can we
can sort it out. All right, till next time, stay
present and protect your energy.