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All right, let me make sure this thing is, in fact, recording, and it looks like we are. Hello. Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Graham, and I'm in this weird light. Right. Let me see what I can do. Nope, can't do anything about it. I'm at the airport right now in the lounge, and I got a little quiet space, so I wanted to go ahead and create a podcast episode, just not giving updates. But I want to give you all some important dates to lock in your calendar. So we had our Something Positive for Positive People Herpes Stigma Expo on March 24 this past two weekends ago, and it was a success. I want to do something similar again. This one will be themed around integrating herpes. I'm sorry, Integrating therapy. Yoga therapy. Yoga therapy. And with some of the day. So last time it was really long. It was eight hours. So what we're gonna do is condense it, and we're gonna make it five to six hours, and we're gonna start right on time. I'm gonna see if we can get the place from noon to 5, meaning hopefully we can open up the doors at 11, but we gotta start right on time at 12. This place will be in Manhattan, close to Chinatown. I think it's the. The Lower east side. And we're looking at the tentative date of August 29th. So there's plenty of time if people want to come out for the event. August 29th. It's a Saturday, and it'll be about five hours. What you can expect is some yoga integration. We'll be talking about managing and handling rejection, and we'll do some more role plays of communication around herpes and sexual health. And depending how many people we get to come, we may also end up doing food. So mark that date. Put it in your calendar. Another one is for mental health professionals. If you are somebody who has access to mental health professionals or if you are one yourself, and you would be interested in attending a virtual seminar workshop on how therapists and mental health professionals can better support people who are living with herpes. Please reach out. I believe that this will be something very useful. I got somebody to help me with this. I'll lock all the details in and put that into the next newsletter for us. But that'll be June. I gotta check my calendar real quick because I think we said the 17th. June. Nope. I gotta check. It's either gonna be the 15th or the 16th. Oh, wait. Oh, June. That's why I was confused. All right. Boom. Wednesday, June 17th. Let me go ahead and Put that in here now. SPFPP Mental Health Workshop. All right. And I don't have the time yet, but I'm putting that in the calendar and that'll be in the newsletter. So if you are not subscribed to the newsletter, this is where I keep up with people and share. Hey, here's where we're going to be. Here's what we're going to do. We will also be in Atlanta August 30th through September 1st for the STI Prevention Conference. So I'm looking to see if we can get people together for a thing, whether that be just having food, some type of an in person support group meeting, something. I. I don't, I don't know. But please don't be shy about joining newsletter. I send out on average 1.5 newsletters per month. Unless you subscribe to something, then you'll get other correspondence from me. If you buy a ticket to an event or if you set up a call or you want to join support group right now. I had notes for this podcast episode, but I want to, I want to speak a little bit about a recent experience that I had because I think that this will be more helpful. Now, I had a partner reach out to me and mention that they recently tested positive for Europlasma. And I don't know, I didn't know about that one. I know mycoplasma microplasma. And I didn't know about this one. So I replied and was like, hey, you know, I see this. And I wanted to make sure to respond from a place of being present because I was doing things at the time. But it was interesting because getting the text, I was like, okay, like, what? What's coming up for me right now? I think that the initial emotions were like, I gotta tell other people about this, right? And the first thing I wanted to do was make sure she was all right. Like I asked, you know, how are you? Is there anything I can do? And I love the way that she cracked with the text. I ain't gonna, you know, go into too much detail, but it. Oh, the overview of it was, hey, here's the information that I have. I'm giving you this information so that you can do what you would like to do with it, right? And it wasn't suggestive. It wasn't like you gave me or like blaming language, which I really, really appreciated. I really love that. I really appreciated that. And in getting that, I was like, okay, like, what do I do? Because timing wise, I had just, just left the Doctor's office. I didn't just leave. Let me not say that I went to the doctor that morning. I got the text at like, 5pm but that morning I went and I got tested for, quote, everything. And I know that that wasn't included. And I've a couple of times this year, and I know that that's something that wasn't on the STI panel. And so I was. I was thinking about how it felt to be out of the Courtney the communication about sexual health guy and to be Courtney the person, because it's so easy to tell people, hey, if this happens, here's how to handle it versus actually being in the situation and being able to manage it, the feelings and to be able communicate with people about what could be happening, about the possibilities. And you start to think, like, okay, damn, well, if this happened or if we only did these things, is it possible? And you start playing with all these scenarios in your head. You start to replay, well, the last time we were together, we didn't really. And. And you. You. You. You think about those kinds of things. And with Mike. Urea, plasma. Actually, here I got my computer up. Let me go ahead and look it up, because I spelled it and it autocorrected to Europeans, so, you know, I wasn't spelling it right. All right, boom. So here we got ureaplasma and. Hold on one second. Ureaplasma, urea, plasma. U, R, E, A, P, L, A, S, M, A. I can't spell. All right, here we go. All right, I'm gonna do the. Where the results at? Because that was what I had at first. All right, boom. So it's a bacteria that can present without symptoms, but high levels can cause genital burning, unusual discharge, pelvic pain, and infertility. Infertility in women and prostatitis in men. It can also cause complications in the kidney, like kidney stones, pregnancy issues, including preterm labor, and. Oh, here we go. The symptoms. Painful urination, discharge, pelvic pain, genital irritation, prostatitis, and then reproductive issues. This, I ain't gonna say I became, like, an expert at it, but in just reading about it, it felt very similar to learning about herpes, right? Like, you don't really learn about a thing or know about a thing until you have a reason to. And in my case, like, being told, hey, there might have been an exposure here. It made me start looking at this, and I was like, I didn't even know that this was a thing. So it says here a person can acquire urea plasma through sexual contact. It can also pass your newborns during pregnancy. However, the prevalence of uriapasma varies widely depending on geographical location and socioeconomic background. The transmissions through intimate sexual contact, including vaginal, oral, and anal sex, and is often considered a sexually transmitted infection, though it can also exist as normal flora. It is spread via body fluids like sperm and vaginal secretions. Additionally, it can be passed from mother to child during pregnancy, so it's asymptomatic. Many people carry it without symptoms, allowing it to be passed unknowingly. It's treated with antibiotics, and just using condoms can help reduce the risk. I see that language that they put there now, and it ain't prevent. But, yeah, that. That's. That's new. This is new for me. This is new to me. Let me say that. So the. The. The feelings of having to tell people, right? Because it's been a minute since I had to, like, say to somebody, hey, you know, someone told me that they tested positive. I'm getting tested now, and I'm just keeping you in the loop about it. Do what you want with the information. I think that that was really a good way of going about it. And for me, there were two other people that I needed to tell, so I told them that one had a very, like, engaged, neutral response and was just like, oh, like, thanks for telling me. I looked it up. Here's what I read. Here's what it looks like. Like, these things happen. And another one was just. It was neutral. She was just like, all right, I'll get tested today. And I was like, know. I don't know what it was, but I think that maybe I was expecting, like, the same kind of feeling that you would have. Like, if you're thinking about an HSV herpes disclosure or having to tell somebody about that, like, hey, this might happen. And I guess maybe it's the fact that it's curable, maybe it's the fact that it's not always seen as an sti. I don't know that there was any stigma. I don't know if it's me. Maybe it's just me. But, yeah, yeah, The. The process of telling somebody about something that's. That's different, that's outside the. The norm of what we know or what we've already had. And it is. It's. It's different. It's very different. And I think it seems very similar, too, to, like, with COVID right? Because a lot of times you're wondering, damn, okay, did I give this to this person. Did they give it to me? Who else did we give it to? Am I going to have to not work for 14 days? And I think the biggest thing is that I leave today. So it takes a week to get the results back. So I don't, I don't know. I just, I don't know. I had no symptoms and. Mike, what is it? No UR plasma. Okay, here it is. It's showing both next to each other. Urea, plasma and mycoplasma test, mystery vaginal symptoms. And somebody asked her like, can you even get tested in men? And I was like, well, I hope so, because I went to urgent care this morning and when I went in, this was interesting. The doctor didn't want to say the word penis, which was interesting. So the doctor was like, he hasn't brought me in. I told him, he gave me the cup and like a little swab. You say swab. The swab. The. Like, he didn't want to say the word. I was like, oh, come on, bro. I got the wrong doctor for this. But I went and I did, like, because he got. They were like a clean swab. So I had to wipe the head of my penis with the wipe that he gave me and then pee in the cup. And then he came back in and he. I guess I don't know if he looked up the symptoms and everything on AI while I was peeing in a cup, but he came back out. He seemed very knowledgeable. I asked questions. I was like, can it be passed through kissing and oral sex? Is that a risk? And he very confidently said, no. But like, looked on the Internet and you don't know. I talked to some other medical professionals. As you know, Evelyn, I have medical professionals on my board of directors. So I had questions for them and we ended up talking about. We, we got some contradicting information, but we'll, we'll just see. Because he said he gave me the option of I can get on the medication now. But he recommended just waiting until the test came back to see like, what happened. And I was just curious. It's like, okay, well, do condoms prevent transmission? Like, is it passed on from genital fluid exchange? Is it like. It's not a skin to skin contact. It's a bacterial thing. You may not. You have it. He said that people have it in them and it's other things that might trigger the overgrowth, I think he said. But leaving from the doctor's appointment, I did feel better than when he came in and didn't want to say the word penis. As I left that appointment, I felt a lot better than how I felt, you know, when. When we started the appointment, for sure. So with that being said, it's a waiting game. So I got tested this morning, so we'll know in a week what the results are. And I'm very curious, because if, like, I've not had sex without condoms in a minute, but also, like, could I have had it for longer than that? Could I have just had it and it not been present that I give this to a person? Right? Like, you start thinking about all of these things, and you begin to. You. You can, you know, speak for y', all, but, like, I can blame myself. And I think that I went back to that place that I was at when I got my herpes diagnosis of, damn, who else did I give this to that I gave this to somebody else, right? And the people that I talked to about it were very. Just good and, like, not what I would have expected to experience 13 years ago when I had gotten herpes or when I got chlamydia in 2021. Right. Yeah. I think that we. We should let people surprise us. And I was telling somebody that asked me, they were like, well, do you feel like the human part of you took over or, like, the real you? And I was like, yo, I'm. I am human. I thought to myself, I was like, well, maybe if I just get test, find out. And I was like, courtney, no, that's not. That's not an alignment. That's not who you are. That's not what you do. Right. I got the information. Take the information and take it through the avenues in which to express and communicate the information. So partners who might have been at risk, future partners that might, you know, be at risk, we can look the information up together and decide, like, how we want to move forward or what the risks are and everything like that. But, yeah, this was a. This was a good exercise for me because it's just not something I had to do since 2021. 2021? No. Yeah. I think it might have been 2122, because I remember that a partner of mine had said that she tested positive for trichomonia. Trichomoniasis. Trick. And when she tested positive for trick, I went and got tested. I was living in Portland at the time, and the. The doctor was like, don't. No. She gave me the antibiotics. She gave me the medication for it, and they told me that the test had came back negative. And I was like, dude, I took this medicine for nothing. So I'm down to just play the weight game and sit my ass down for a minute and just did it be what it be. So that's the route that I'm going, but that's another just scenario that I'm thinking about putting in place. Oh, we got a couple of more scenarios. I'm waiting on the final edits to be able to put up on the website of how to talk about your sexual health. I do a role play of another disclosure on the first date at the bar. Things are going well and. And we about to hook up. So that'll be up on the website as soon as we get the edits from it. And yeah, I think we'll be doing this one too. This will be a good like scene and for educational purposes. Right? Like being able to say, hey, I tested positive for this. I'm letting you know, you do what you want with the information. Let me know what questions you have. Right. And it was so smooth. It wasn't like over the top scripted. It wasn't extra. It was just like very matter of fact. So I'm like real like happy with how this turned out. I'm happy that that was the route of information. So yeah, with that I went to the doctor, got tested. We'll see what happens over the course of the next week. Let me see what time I got. How much time? Got about an hour, 20 minutes before I need to board my plane. So what is going on? So it's funny because I was about to say. Yeah, so I haven't been dating. And it's. It's very interesting because I'm not seeing anyone. Right. I think that, yeah, the last. Yeah, I'm not. Ain't seeing anybody. And these were just like. I don't even know what to call them. Like, it ain't like casual flings. These might have just been one time. Things I. I don't know. I don't know because there's no. Like, I. I realize, like I'm not polyamorous. And there have been people that will tell me, you are. And it's like, no, I'm not. Don't tell me what I am. A lot of people try to tell me what I am. That's what got me in trouble. The last. And that's not, that's not the case. Like, I think I'm learning the language of what it is I'm looking for. As I live in a way where I'm not with someone who I let their perception of me dictate who I am. Like there, there is no person. There is no mirror that I'm intimately connected to where somebody can have a kind of influence over me anymore. And in doing so, I'm able to just experience myself and perceive myself as well. And I like this. Like, I. I was talking to a friend of mine and I was like, yo, I'm kind of scared at how okay this single is and the quantity I need to make this. Just like the quantity of sex that I've been having is significantly lower than it's ever been as an adult, whereas the quality way fewer times has significantly increased. Right? So not. I'm. I'm not actively dating and I'm. I'm not like, looking to get my wants met. I'm saying once versus needs because I think I finally got the language for this. I've spent a lot of time, time and energy trying to get my wants met rather than my needs met and thinking that, oh, because you meet my wants, you can meet my knees. If that ain't the case, like, I've been doing this backwards, right? Needs first, right? So in looking at what it is, I need. Like, I need. I need presence. I need somebody that can sit they ass down for a minute, right? I can't. I can't be the source of one's entertainment 100 of the time because it is important to in me that I'm able to do what it is that I do. And I'm learning the importance of that. Like, my life goal has been dedicated to neutralizing herpes and whatever actions, decisions that I make from there. Like, it's important that that be supported and not be taken away from. And as I'm going through my yoga therapy, certification and training and living in a way where it's just me very much condensing my energy to be able to lock into that intention. A lot of opportunities have been presenting themselves, A lot of challenges have been presenting themselves. But that, that true north and trajectory of this is what I'm doing. Like, I'm neutralizing herpes. I'm given the opportunity to do so. And life is meeting me with the Whetstone. Whetstone is a real good analogy for it to mold me and shape me into the person that I say I want to be. And I even look at this situation where the partner that I had reached out and told me about the, The. You're. You're. That's right. Urea plasma. Right. And how I handle that. Right. Because it's real easy to revert to old or to. To default programming of all right. Damn, this is a shameful thing. This is a stigmatizing thing. I gotta tell somebody, I gotta high or I might have this or my gay in one. Right. And to be able to take that and turn it into something that hopefully becomes useful to other people and a lesson as well for myself to be to that I'm. It's validating to me that I'm picking like good people. Like I'm picking good people because she have to tell me that. And to me that communication is sexy. Even if you tell them like it don't matter. Like most people probably be like, oh, but she told you she got an std. And like, like it's possible that I gave it to her. It's possible that it is. It's a lot of possibilities, right? And so to be able to normalize this kind of a conversation is another piece of the puzzle of me working towards that trajectory. Now what I about to say. I need to eat. How much time I got? I still got time. I got a call schedule in like 12 minutes though. But yeah, your boy has been work. Speaking of videographer. Hold. All right. He just like my message. Oh, wait, wait, what else? He said, send me the logos. I can't wait to post these videos. So what else was I saying? I don't even remember. Oh yeah, like just. I'm recognizing the importance of what I need. I need presence. I need, I need. Like I wrote this down. It was like I need whoever it is and I'm with. I carry a big ass load. I don't like asking for help. I don't. But I have the women who are on my board. They do a damn good job of keeping me in line, but not necessarily like sharing a load. They got their own going on. Right. And I don't want to give them my personal stuff as well. So it. It. But they're still like friends too. Like they're friends and board members. So they get all of that. But I recognize how in even in relationships the importance of what people want from me is to be able to share that load to an extent. My problem is I get to like, oh, bet you want to help. Here you go. And there's no like rationing it out. It's more like, all right, bet I'll take this off for a little bit and then I stretch my legs and then before I know it, they crushed by the low. And I think that that's probably what that might be. Why intimacy in that sense is. Is a challenge for me. So. And yeah, I'm also Learning myself, not in connection to other people. It's the first time that I've been single. Like, not even with people who think we're in a relationship or working towards a relationship or going on dates. Like, it's, it's just Courtney. And I am learning, especially just through, like, I'm still taking Brazilian zoo classes. I went to Dominican Independence Day and did MADA class, which was fun. I'm. I'm doing the things that I want to do. And I think the most important thing here is that I'm saying no to stuff. I'm saying no to what doesn't align. Like, I had an interview with Chelsea Pierce for teaching yoga, and I'm like, I'm a little bit on the fence because on one hand, yeah, I get teach yoga and I get like, to teach yoga to this demographic of people that I otherwise would never have access to. But then on the other hand, it's like, how is this pulling me away from neutralizing herpes stigma? The more I'm doing stuff for other organizations and people, the less that I'm convincing into something positive for positive people. So that's the thing that I'm working through, working on and trying to sort out and situate for myself as well, because I don't know. I don't know. But. Let me fix that. I do know. I do know. And I, I gotta stop doing this thing where I act like I don't and also be the example, right? I, I, it's important that I be the example that I want to set for this community for the people who come here. Still at 403 podcast episodes now shout out to y', all, but I appreciate y' all for making this space safe for me to be able to share my experience. Like, I recognize that this is another need of mine. I need to be able to not know. I need to be able to say I don't know. That's a very vulnerable thing. I need to be able to not have it all figured out. I need to be able to not be super Courtney, and I need to be able to just be human. These are needs, the wants of sex. Somebody that looks good, somebody that makes me physically feel good like that, cool. But that, that's everywhere. Hell, you pay for that. I want that. You can't pay for. Like, I want what can only be co created with presence. And it says it's self certainty. So for me to be able to, like, have and welcome that in, I gotta invite that my damn self. And I think that that's what's happening, the more that I'm detaching myself from a lot of things that are pulling Courtney and my awareness and attention and all these different directions I'm condensing down. Like all this traveling and that I've been doing. After my granddad's birthday is in July, I think I'm gonna go home for his 80th, his 80 something birthday. I'll go home for that. And then I'm sitting my ass down until the conference in Atlanta. But I. It's gonna take a lot to move me, and I need a lot more to. To move me now than what it was before. And I'm becoming more of a dense person in the sense of condensing my energy and plugging up these leaks. I don't wanna. Yeah, I don't want to. What's the phrase I want to use here? Yeah, I don't want to overextend myself. I recognize my capacity and I'll never. I never need to be at that capacity again. And that looks like a lot more firm boundaries. And I understand boundaries now. Boundaries like plugs of leaking energy. The. That exhausts me and keeps me. That deviates me from like the trajectory of transformation and being able to neutralize herpes stigma. And the core intention that I have for myself, my son Copa, is to nurture my nature. And that's what I've been doing. I've been able to do that by myself. And anything, anyone that doesn't nurture my nature, I just politely remove myself and I'm not as close, I'm not as engaged and step away. And that's something that in order for me to teach it, I got to embody it. So I look forward to being able to continue to do that. I hope that my experience recently is something that will be helpful to whoever it is that's listening to this in the process of. Of working on. Man, do I want to say my book or books? There's definitely one book that I'm working on and it's applying yoga to herpes and herpes stigma and what it is that we can learn from that in order to get to a place where we can live a life in a way that we're supposed to. One of my biggest. One of my most aligned learning tools is anime. I'll be watching anime and anime teaches us exactly how to live. Like, I've been using my AI to have the conversation that draws the parallels between anime and quantum physics as well as the eight limbs of yoga. And I think I'll come up with something that's really good. And I want to put that in the workshop that's going to be on August 29, assuming that we can lock it in the day in New York City and let this be a teaching tool. I'll be able to also present this at the Black Yoga Teachers alliance if I ever get the email to solidify the date and when I'm presenting and everything. So that's. That's it. That's where we at. That's where we at. I thank y' all for listening to this point. Yeah, thanks for listening to something positive for positive people. Please, like rate, review, subscribe to the podcast. Take our survey. The survey is still up and it does not have a lot of responses. I. I recognize that Instagram really don't like me no more. It was a great run to get the 10, 000 followers on Instagram, but I got to use the podcast a lot more strategically, especially for the promotion of events and trying to get people on this newsletter so we can build community. Most of the people who I hear from for the support group calls and the one on ones are in New York people. If y' all stay subscribed to the newsletter and give me a reason to like be able to collect information or collect yalls, like locations and know this is where we need to go to do a support group. This is where we need to bring an expo to because that's something that we can do instead of people having to always come out to New York to find community. All right. I can't think of anything else, but yeah, if you have any questions about anything or if you're curious about the experience of like having to tell a partner about the new SEI or a partner telling you, like, let me know, reach out. That's what we. This is what we do. That's what I'm here for. Right? Till next time, stay present. And back then, sorry, we also weren't.