Making it out alive. Together.

Ep. 010 - White Men are an Empty Black Hole [VIDEO]

This is the first episode of Brave New You with video and my ASMR mic. You’re going to want to listen to this with headphones 🎧 If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, the video may not available. Go to bravenewyou.substack.com to watch as well as listen. The extra visual intrigue is worth it :) I spent the first 30 years of my life burdened with the self-perception of a White Man. I will forever remember the depth of that Ache: the deep realization, clear to me from a very early age, that being White and being Male meant that I was going to be missing out on a lot of wealth and magic. The irony of it is absurd. I don’t share this to ask for pity. Neither for myself, nor on behalf of any other White Men, especially not those wreaking havoc on our planet and bodies. I share this to point out a deeply ironic paradox: White Men, out of an existential poverty and powerlessness, have cast all their Others as physically and materially poor and disempowered. Or as I put it in a post a few days ago: In some ways, I’ve taken the “easy” way out (lol, more irony) by transitioning. There’s nothing easy about it, of course. But I sometimes wonder if it may actually be easier, or at least just as hard, as unburying oneself from beneath the suffocating rubble of White Maleness. In this episode of Brave New You, I will take you on an ASMR-like journey into the paradox of gender and race binaries. I am convinced that we need to speak honestly about the existential poverty of Whiteness and Manhood if we are ever going to find a way out of this clusterfuck that Patriarchy has gotten us all wrapped up in. We need to see Patriarchy for what it is: not some all-mighty force of Evil, but an immature spoiled little brat of a child who needs some boundaries and a hug. I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Check out the wild and sumptuous musings of my dear friend and mentor Adriana Rizzolo: This thought-weave feels like an unraveling and is definitely not complete. I welcome all authentic and honest contributions and perspectives.How does this land in your body and heart? What feelings does it evoke? Where does it ring true? Share a thoughtful comment below 👇 BRAVE NEW YOU is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to BRAVE NEW YOU at bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe [https://bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Making it out alive. Together.

This weekend, I sat at a cozy East-London café over brunch with a group of friends from what feels like my deep past. Over bloody marys and pornstar martinis, we shared our coming-out stories after all growing up in the same repressive Christian environment. 16 years ago, we were all sitting in the same church pews -- and here we are at our gay friend's wedding discussing BBLs and swapping raunchy sex stories. Enjoy xx Get full access to BRAVE NEW YOU at bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe [https://bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ep. 008 - Expose the Rotting Mess (15mins)

Come sit with me in the storm and listen — listen to the poetry emerging from cracked hearts and flooding tear ducts. Sit with me and remember that ALL IS NOT LOST and that only by getting intimate with our fear and darkness will we ever remember that which is indestructible in us. With everything that is coming to light right now and all the dark cruelty that is surfacing, we choose to gather and together create a space of resource, nourishment, community and skillful training for the labor of birthing a new collective reality. Happy Endings is a 7-week online container for finding, releasing and channeling your deepest grief & pleasure. There is still space to join us [https://www.karmakink.club/happy-endings], we start in two weeks (February 19th), every Thursday at 17-18:30 Portugal time. with so much love and fierce courage ❤️ Avril Aysha Get full access to BRAVE NEW YOU at bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe [https://bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ep. 007 - The most life-giving way to die (16mins)

Death is uncomfortable and ugly. But we cannot birth our new selves without talking about what needs to die and getting really creative and skillful about how we channel our grief into a life-giving kind of dying. This week we explore the surprising ways in which pleasure, grief, death and hope are intimately intertwined. Join me and an intimate group of brave humans in learning how to use pleasure to expand our capacity to hold grief in my upcoming course Happy Endings. This is a 7-week somatic training experience that will give you new tools to encounter the pain, anger and overwhelm in your personal and collective life. Come learn new survival skills for a world that feels like it’s so often coming….to its end. When: Thursday at 17:00-19:00GMT, starting February 19, 2026 Where: Zoom + online community environment + private Telegram group Read more and apply to join here. [https://www.karmakink.club/happy-endings] You can also reach out to me on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/karmakkkink/] to learn more, I’m always happy to have a chat! with radical tenderness, Avril Aysha Get full access to BRAVE NEW YOU at bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe [https://bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ep. 006 - Only Real Pu$$ies Need Each Other (37mins)

If there is one thing that I’ve learned from my journey of transformation it’s that we desperately need each other in order to transform. The people around us reflect our identities back to us all the time. Parents, children, siblings, colleagues — we are all constantly caught up in a game of enacting roles that are defined by how others expect us to behave towards them. And the quickest, most sustainable way to make drastic change happen for yourself is to ask your closest circle to start to treat you as if you have already changed. When the people around us start to expect us to behave and relate as our « insert your goal here: more confident, wealthy, feminine, masculine, balanced, boundaried, succesfull … » selves then we don’t have to hold the weight of that new standard alone. Our community can hold it with us and we can blossom into our expanded self while being witnessed (and celebrated! throw parties!) by our closest ones. I have become a woman, a delicious she-being, partly out of my own choice, autonomy and determination. But a large part of me becoming a woman has also happened because I expressed my desire to become a woman to my closest friends and asked them to start calling me by a different name and pronouns. These dear ones hold my woman-aspiration with me and reflect it back to me every time they speak my new name. Your deepest dreams of who you desire to become might feel unreachable. And they might well be unreachable if you try to reach them alone. Go out of your comfort-zone and share your dream with a few trusted friends…and I guarantee you that you will surprise yourself and the people around you with how quickly you will transform. We are the self-fulfilling prophecy we’ve been waiting for. I love you, Avril Aysha Link to Mikey’s truly magical one-man show: https://www.instagram.com/a.la.mike/ Get full access to BRAVE NEW YOU at bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe [https://bravenewyou.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]