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Foreign. Let's make sure we are in fact recording because I would be really upset if we weren't. Okay. Hello, welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brain. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization supporting people navigating herpes stigma. And this is so real because this right here is my. I was, I was drinking something like a beetroot juice powder thing, and I was getting to the end of it and I tilted the glass all the way and I guess I have my mouth wide open enough because it's just shot down here. So you. You see, there's a little stain I got on my shirt. But hey, you know what? That's kind of what is very representative of who I am and what something positive is. Right? Like it's not really. It's not perfect. It's unscripted and in real time. This is just how we do things. I got a little coffee right here because after I finish this recording, I'm gonna go and do my workout, do my yoga. And yeah, it's. I'm off to a late start. I'm working on not doing things work wise over the weekend. So if you submit things over the weekend Starting Friday after 1pm, I have a really, really hard boundary for myself that I'm struggling to enforce by not doing something positive for positive people. At least communication and work over the weekend. For now, as I get more into it and more used to it, I can let my weekends be for rest and for play. So I'm gonna take a little sip of my coffee real quick. And we getting into this podcast episode now, I'm feeling a lot more prepared too, because I got a little notepad here for what I wanted to talk about today. And the title of this one is going to be, you are entitled to compensation. All right? If you received a positive herpes diagnosis, you are entitled to compensation. And if you remember back, I think episode 399, I got it pulled up right here. Nope, it might have been 400. Oh, I. I can only see what herpes taught me about that. That. So I think it was 390, 900 or 401 where I talked about what herpes taught me about God. And a lot of what that really has come down to is understanding and learning the physical laws of the universe as a whole. So understanding the physics of how atoms engage with one another, how we interact. Right. And one of the things that's been mentioned here is that law of compensation. And the law of compensation is it's funny because animate does a really, really good job of explaining physics to me. It speaks my language. So in Full Metal Alchemist, I believe I mentioned this on there. It was. They really talk about the law of equivalent exchange and that in order to obtain something as a human, first something of equal or greater value must be exchanged. Now, many of us, when we get our herpes diagnosis, we begin thinking about how something was taken away from us. And we go down this rabbit hole of living as if something was stripped of us. Like we were stripped of our ability to get into a relationship. We were stripped of our sexuality, our connectedness to our sexual selves, when the reality is, okay, well, if something was taken from you, right, you're entitled to something of equivalent or greater value based on what you've given up. And for myself, I'll use myself as an example, and I don't like this because I'm such an extreme example. My sex life has changed. It hasn't been taken from me. What was taken from you were actually things that at the time seemed like everything. But in hindsight, it. What was taken was actually good for me because the kinds of people that I was having sex with or the ways that I would go about having sex, having sex, and the ways that I would go about connecting with women and partners, these weren't the healthiest of ways for me. And the more anime I watch, the more analogies I get. So I. I'm gonna try and keep this centered and grounded in reality and based on my experience without going into the shows that articulate this so well. And I'm trying to use my own words and my own language. So bear with me. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you probably speak Courtney extent, but if you haven't, you probably don't think I'm a crazy person. So my ability to have sneaky, like, under the radar going about it in a way that is like, not direct. That's the word. Me getting sex in an indirect, roundabout way. That's done, right? There's no more, like, not directly communicating my desires and what it is that I want from someone, right? Like, you'll hang out with somebody, you'll be around them a lot. You hope they get the hint, you hope they make a first move. Ain't no more of that. Because now, since my diagnosis, I had to initiate conversations about sexual health before we got into a place where we were going to have our clothes off or what we're going to be making out or we're Going to have our hands all over each other, and if we're going to go out and be drinking or if there were going to be any type of substances involved, you want to have that conversation sooner. Whereas prior to my diagnosis, a lot of those conversations weren't had. The extent of it was, do you want to wear a condom? And so this led to a lot of sexual experiences with people that were not in alignment with who I am, that weren't in alignment with the kind of relationship structures that I wanted or the kinds of sex that I even wanted to have. I didn't even know what kind of sex I wanted to have. So the universe took that away from me. My ability to get the kind of connection and sex and relationships that I wanted at that time. Now, this was a little bit over 13 years ago when I got my diagnosis, right. I started having sex at age 16. And so between the ages of 16 and 23, 3, 24 years old, that's about eight years of sexual activity of me going about it in this particular way. So I heavily invested my consciousness, my effort, my attention, my awareness into getting sex and having sexual partners. And now that's where my attention and awareness was. I think a lot of what I did, as most teenage boys do, was motivated by that. Like, I started driving before I got cell phone because I wanted to be able to go see my girlfriend who lived a little bit of ways away, and we would be able to have sex. So, like, sex is such a driving force that in order to get this, I learned how to drive. I bought a car and I'm 16 years old. How do you do that? Right. How do you get the money? How do you get the money? How do you convince somebody to teach you how to drive their car as a 15 year old learning how to drive? And how do you have a car before you have a cell phone? Right. So the extent of which my sexual energy, my drive led me to do all of this for the outcome of sex. I think about the output of what I had to do in order to have my first sexual experience and in order to keep having that. So the equivalent of what I invested into learning to drive, earning the money to save up for a car, getting the money for gas, getting the money for insurance, making the repairs to the car, getting to the place that I needed to go. We had cell phones that had like Google Maps on there. We had MapQuest. I had to go somewhere, type in my address, her address, print that off, keep it, not get lost. Had no kind of communication between leaving My house and arriving to the destination. And if I needed to call, I would have pull over and find a pay phone. That's crazy to think about in hindsight, but that is how much of myself that I put into the pursuit of sex, right? So think about it like there's this bank of your attention and your awareness, right? I didn't care about. I was going to graduate high school. That was easy. I played football. That was easy. I was going to college. That was easy. But getting sex, oh my goodness. There was so much of my attention, awareness, presence, consciousness that was invested into the outcome of a sexual experience. And the, the, the essence. Excuse me, I want you to think about grains of sand, right? So at this point, I've put the grains of sand of my awareness to create the form of what became my girlfriend, right? And pouring into that relationship like, or pouring into my sexual relationship, like, I'm putting my attention, awareness, life force energy into that. And you heard me say what all went into that. I had to get the money, get the car. I had the. There were so many things that went into that, right? And that was eight years of my life. Like, that was the extent of which I would be willing to go in order to get sex. Okay? So imagine, you know, if you can, every sexual partner that you've had and think about your life force energy being the equivalent of grains of sand that makes their form, right? That creates what that person looks like in the experiences that you have, right? You're. You're pouring your sand into them. All, right? So that was happening for eight years. Seven, eight years until I got my herpes diagnosis. So I get my herpes diagnosis and then it's almost like everything that I poured into them just went away. Like there was going to be no more of my ability to create the form of the sexual experiences that was gone. The universe took those forms away from me now because the universe snatched the forms from me and created, you know, this for me. I created the idea that I would not have access to that again. I would not be able to get the outcomes that I want. But we forget about the output. The output being those individual grains of sand that came from us into the form and the shape that has been taken in our romantic partners or the experiences that we think that we no longer have access to, right? Because, yeah, I'm talking about the outcome being sex, but what about the ability to bring myself to engage with those people that I had sex with and everything that led up to that, right? So we are capable, right? I didn't lose anything. When my herpes diagnosis came, the form and how I perceived what that would look like for myself, all of that went away. But what happens to the sand, right? Like, this is a sandbox. Like our reality is essentially a sandbox that we. What we give our attention to is what takes form based on the sand that is available. One of the laws of it. There's three laws of thermodynamics. I'm learning this. I'm in. I'm in a group about quantum physics, which is exciting. We're at the early stages, but I've already been, like, pondering on the Internet about how things work. And there's three laws of thermodynamics when it comes to energy. The first. First law, I believe, is the love that whatever it is, it says that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but it can be, like, transferred. And so when I talk about the sand and like the forms of our energy, if we can picture it as grains of sand, like, we are so much of that and have the ability to bring it into existence or bring it into reality of what we give our attention to. Law number two is that the universe naturally gears toward chaos and disorder. So motion and movement and things that are not stillness is naturally going to occur. So kind of if we want to be still, we have to force ourselves to sit still, right? But naturally that's just going to be what it is. And then the third law is absolute zero, which essentially is neutrality. And that's the thing that through something positive for positive people, yoga therapy that I try and teach people to do. I talk about stigma, minimization over prevention. Because that's like the language that people understand. But when I talk about absolute zero, the idea is to be neutral and remain neutral so that you are operating from a grounded place. To be able to not expend your own sand, grains of energy, but to recognize that you are, in fact, a part of the infiniteness of the universe and allow for its energy to run through you. Because when we're not at absolute zero or parasympathetic, I think it's the parasympathetic nervous system being at rest, then what happens is we generate heat and friction to where we're not at absolute zero. I don't mean like zero degrees temperature. I mean absolute zero. Like, there's no presence of external heat, right? So then the. It's like the sand can just flow through us, and we just decide what it is that we want to take form, and we allow for it to take form. So those three laws of thermodynamics govern the way that I'm speaking to the sandcastle thing, right? So forcefully, because my body, my nervous system, my mind, my emotions, these things were never in alignment for those eight years, right? Like, how much effort I'm putting into doing all these things, which it's great because I gained so many skills. I learned how to drive, which I've been able to drive, and do other things, right? I learned how to get from point A to point B, learn communication. I learned to set expectations. I learned to be on time. All of these wonderful byproducts of my pursuits of sex. And then I get my herpes diagnosis, and it's like I forget about all of those other things, all of those other aspects of myself and the kind of person that I had to grow into and become and all of the things that I needed to achieve and that I did achieve, all because I get herpes diagnosis. Does that sound familiar to you? If you're somebody who received a herpes diagnosis and you think to yourself, I'll never have sex again, right? We're focused on that outcome of, I'm not gonna get that. But we don't think about the output of what went into it. Like, just because we have herpes doesn't mean we are now no longer going to be attractive, be attracted to someone, initiate a conversation, have some banter, laugh together, get to know each other, maybe ask them out or be asked out, go on the date, have the one on one time, learn about each other, get to know each other. I'm running out of fingers here, right? All of these things that we actually have more control over, which is our output leading to the ideal outcome, right? We let herpes take away all of those things prior to getting to a place of even needing to talk about having sex. And that was my experience, right? So I let myself believe that herpes took away all of those other things leading up to the sexual experience, before the sexual experience had even been talked about it on the table, which, prior to my diagnosis, again, I went about sex in a very, like, backdoor way. It wasn't something that was direct. I was very indirect about it, right? Partially because I wasn't taught how to talk about it or, like, how to get it. But it was also just like. That was. That was what worked for me. So I continued to just do what worked and allow what was happening to happen. And now, with this understanding of the way that reality works, the laws of physics work, I recognize what's happened for me as it relates to this law of compensation. So there is an entitlement that we have, a lot of us may not even be aware of. So if herpes did in fact take all of those things away from me, then I'm old something incredible. The value that I placed on my sexuality was very significant. I, I can't put it into metrics for everybody, but for myself, like that was who I was, that was my identity. Very heavily identified as a partner, a sexual partner, somebody who was good at sex. Like I used to say, this thing is like, I'm gonna be in your top five. That was, that was the attitude that I brought into sex. And after my diagnosis, like, I lost that. The universe took away my confidence, it took away my outlet for pleasure, took away my ability to connect. It took away my future that I saw of being somebody who was going to have five kids, get married, have a house in St. Louis. Crazy, right? Thinking about having five kids. Like, I, I'm again, I'm. You might heard this before, but I'm 37 right now. When my dad was 37, he had me, which I was an 18, 19 year old and my two brothers who were 12 and 13, he had a wife in the house. And I, I saw the struggles. I can't imagine the life that I live right now, having three kids or one kid or a house even, or a wife either. Right. And you know, there was a point where I did see this for myself. And there were points in life where, you know, you situationally, you're with the person, with people, you get together and then like, you envision, you know, different outcomes for yourself. But a lot of times we don't focus on the output and going back to that absolute zero thing. That's really what I've learned for myself in order to receive what I'm owed from the universe, like you are entitled. Something was taken from you that you had so much value in, that you poured so much of those grains of sand of your energy into and it took the form of the outcomes that you wanted. And when you receive your herpes diagnosis, it's almost like they just collapse. But when it collapses, because of the first law of thermodynamics, dynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It's just moved. It's. Your core energy was put into those forms and now it's collapsed. It's not gone, it's just collapsed. And it's like, well, now what are you going to pour your intention or your attention and your awareness and your presence into? Because the universe Owes you new forms of that based on the laws of thermodynamics, laws of physics. Please, like, challenge me. Look this up. If you think I'm lying or if I'm bullshitting you, tell me. Tell me I'm wrong. Don't nobody tell me I'm wrong. People just believe me. Somebody told me a long time ago, she was like, what do you make a great cult leader? And I didn't know if that was a compliment or that was, like, a. A jab, but I was like. Because I thought about the. The TV show, the following with Kevin Bacon and the dude who, like, legit had a cult, and that. I. I don't. I don't want to be seen like that. Like, if I'm inspirational or influential, cool. But I don't want to be seen as, like, somebody manipulative, taking advantage of people. Right? Like, I think that that's. That's not cool. But anyway, the point of absolute zero. I think that when people say to work on yourself, that's what it means. And I'll talk about this. The eight limbs of yoga, which are. Okay, I'm gonna try and remember these off the top of my head, y'. All. Essentially, what this is, is it's a framework for how to get your state of being, body, mind, emotion, spirit, into that absolute zero state so that you can, in fact, like, not waste your energy, but to allow yourself to remain in neutral state for the body to naturally do what it does, for the universe to naturally do what it does, and for your ability to create and have the experiences and autonomy and choice to almost be able to flow through you as you access, or essentially how the universe accesses itself through you or God or whatever higher power or force that you believe in, that we are all connected to you. Okay? So the creation of, like, the essences, the essence of your grains of sand that are your awareness that you put into the form of the outcomes that you want. Collapsing after the herpes diagnosis. If we align ourselves according to the eight limbs of yoga, which are the yamas and niyamas, which are how you engage with the world and how you engage internally. Pranayama, which is control of the breath. Asana, which is alignment of the body. Like, to be able to be comfortable, to meditate. I know there's Diana, Dharma. I don't want to mess them up. And the meditation part, the sense, sensory withdrawal, being able to pull your awareness away. So just like, how herpes came in. And it's took away our idea of the outcomes that we want Right. Being able to take consciously the awareness that we give to things and be able to retreat into that sandbox, so to speak. So our awareness is not on our job, on our kids, on our partners, our friends, our family, our hobbies or interests. It's just being pulled away from those things. It's like we are consciously bringing our awareness, those grains of sand, into the sandbox, and then deep focus, to where we're almost constructing. Like I think about a sandcastle, the deep focus, I forget the word for it, but to be able to focus on that one thing at a time that you're doing, right? Like this is one of the eight limbs. Because now what we're able to do with that focus is we're building whatever it is that we want, the outcome that we are working toward. We are consciously putting the energy into creating that thing, right? And this, again, this is like how we're aligning ourselves. And then after that, man, what is, what comes after? The focus I want to say is samadhi, but I gotta look it up real quick. Hold on, hold on. Eight lambs of yoga. Almost had it. I almost had it. Okay, so wait, it was the yama, which is how you behave with the world, how you behaving yourself, the physical postures, breath control, taking away the senses, which is pratyahara. And then dharna is concentration, Diana is meditation. So I had it a little bit out of order. And then samadhi is the final stage where we have that again, we're aligned, right? So once we're in that neutral state of absolute zero, this is, this is how we achieve that state. It's not an outcome, it's a state that we have to fluctuate back and forth from and we have to align ourselves with. All right, so all of that said as we practice those things. And again, this is what I'm working on this in yoga therapy. This is why I've been inconsistent with the podcast episodes. I've been learning for the past year about this application of yoga therapy to. To the nervous system, to our emotions, especially to support people navigating stigma. Because having herpes and navigating stigma myself, yoga was the by far the most useful thing to me. And if somebody would have came to me and been like, well, have you tried yoga for that? I'd have been ready to slap the out of them. And mind you, I'm talking about 23, 23, 24 year old. All right, not me now. Now I'm more curious about it. But at the time, that would have been my response. I would have been like, you fucking kidding me? What do you mean? So I. I don't push this onto people. We have a conversation, and if people want to get to this place, let's talk about it. And I tried my best to put my own experiences out here in order to be able to get people to see its application in someone's real experience. I haven't been having. I haven't had any podcast guests in a minute, and I was struggling for a while to get them. But I think that maybe this is just my little nudge of. I've been working to stay in alignment, and so much of it is in the llamas and the yamas. One of the things that comes up is discipline and energy management. These are the two things that I've been focused on. I have been withdrawing my senses from a lot of external things, polyamory being one of them. I'm not a polyamorous person, am I non monogamous? Yeah, I am. And that's like where I'm at and what I'm. I would say more so aligns with me where I am right now. But who knows what can happen over time, how that changes based on, you know, what aligns and what's supposed to work or happen or be for me and work through me. And another one of those is like in reading them, right? Non violence, truthfulness, non stealing, energy management, and then non attachment. Right. So these are the ways that we engage with the world. Right. And the applications. I'll do separate episodes in more detail. If this is something that naturally comes up, but without overwhelming people, I want to make sure that I conclude the. You're entitled to compensation. If you received the herpes diagnosis and you're still alive, you're entitled to compensation by the universe. I'm not going to say financial compensation. I know people who have gone through the legal process of suing, trying to sue. And, you know, it's worked out for some people actually, and for others it's just not. It's not worth it. And it goes back to the amount of energy and awareness and attention and presence that we give to the form of the thing. Rather than being able to fall back a little bit and just be like, you know what? I'm gonna not. I'm gonna detach from those things. I'm gonna remove my awareness, my energy, my presence, my attention from these things, let it fall into the sandbox. And the sandbox is essentially like the quantum field of infinite energy and intelligence. Right. And what we when we're, like, viewing ourselves as broken, we can't let that energy run through us. It gets stuck, it gets caught, right? And the way that we can view a herpes diagnosis is as sort of a redirection of where that energy needs to go. It's really just saying, hey, your energy and attention is here in this place, which is scattering into all these other directions, like, let's plug this leak here. And then it goes and chills. It sends the message. And then it just chills. And it's like, all right, as long as you get the message. I'm a chill here, but I'm always going to be here as a reminder. And that's kind of been what it is for me. It was a huge redirect for me. And I didn't realize this when I was practicing yoga, but I just felt better. And I didn't have a lot of outbreaks. I had my first one. I had one after having a ton of sugar in a short period of time. And I had one after getting fired from a job. I had no business at that job. And now, because I worked on alignment, even if it was unconscious, like practicing yoga and getting all of these things, I remember one day I just took a class. I was mad. I had a terrible day at work. And I went, I went to the class. Everything in me was like, I don't need to be in this class. But I went. And I just felt better. And looking at the eight limbs of yoga, like, that's what made me feel better. That's why I felt better. I was out of alignment. And then I got into alignment. And it's very like short term, temporary. You get glimpses of peace and what it looks like to have things just fall into place for you when you're in that state. But if you're still doing the thing that got you, that gets you out of that state. Like, for me, it was the job, the field and the jobs that I had. I'm not a person that can go into a place every day, Monday through Friday from 8 o' clock to 5 o'. Clock. I'm not. And it took for my herpes diagnosis. And like I said, I got fired from a job and that triggered an outbreak as I was looking to get back into the same career field. I went to college for advertising and public relations. I minored in creative writing and communication studies. Double major, double minor. I'm kind of using those things, but I ain't using that podcast, which is technically media, but my. It's been the Yoga, the yoga. Learning to teach yoga, learning to. It's not even been learning to teach, but learning to learning. Learning yoga from myself has made me the kind of person who can now offer the kind of support that I offer. And stumbling into this, like, this is what the universe owed me. And I. I can say this from a place of. My mom used to always call me arrogant, and I've been fighting that for years. Of, like, no, no, I'm not arrogant. And in that, like, I've been overly humble, which is something I know that I've talked about on past episodes. Like, when you podcast for eight, nine years, you repeat some things. So if you've been here this whole time, like, you gonna hear some stuff again. But if you're new here, hi, I'm Courtney. Don't listen to the old podcast. And I think that that arrogance is actually important here because I am, in fact, living proof of that. I'm living proof of the law of compensation in action. I told you what was taken away from me, and I told you my perception of what was taken from me. And a very important analogy here is giving, right? If you have a dollar, that dollar might be your last dollar. The value of that dollar to you can be significantly different than the value of that dollar to someone else. So your $1 can be a thousand dollars to somebody else. Oh, here. Here's a thousand dollars. I ain't worried about it. Whereas it's like, man, this is my last dollar. This is all I have here. The value is significantly different. So the value that I placed on my sexuality or my ability to get sex was significantly different than my value of being able to work and make money, right? I place way more value on getting sex versus getting a job. There's always going to be jobs out there you can do. Another example of this is I was giving up something for my Sankopo, which is like my lifelong intention, basically. And when I was thinking about the thing to give up, it was like, oh, certain foods. Foods, drinking. I'm already not doing that. Watching porn. I can't tell you the last time I watched porn, these were the things I was thinking about giving up. And I thought sex. And I didn't really have a reaction because it would have just been like, I'm not giving up sex forever. I know that. But giving it up for a certain amount of time or setting conditions around it, right, none of that moved me. But the minute I thought to myself, instagram, my heart dropped. It didn't now, but the first time I thought giving Up Instagram. My heart dropped, and I was like, oh, that's the thing. That's the thing that I need to give up for my son, Culpa. And the way that I decided to do it was I just removed Instagram and all social media from my phone. I have the messaging app just to have for Facebook and WhatsApp, but everything else is gone off my phone. So I'm posting significantly less on Instagram. It makes me way more intentional because I have to come to my computer now to do it. And I. I like that. I like that adjustment that I made. So I didn't realize how much of my awareness and attention that I was giving to social media until I took it away. And, like, my phone usage has significantly dropped even. But I say that to say, like, the value of Instagram and social media, and I. I'll be fully transparent, y'. All. Like, but outside of, you know, the something positive, the herpes stuff, like, Instagram was a dating app for me, so I guess it was in fact connected to my ability to get into relationships or have sex. Like, it was, in fact, a dating app for me in the time that I was on it as well. Like, I meet people who were like, hey, I like what. What your work is. I like what you do. I like what you're about. I like you. Right? And that's gotten me into some very healthy and loving relationships, and it got me into what I thought would be my last relationship. So, like, I'm not against that. Like, of course, you know, there's the ethics and the boundaries that you need to have around that, especially, like, between the. Here, I'm supporting people in these vulnerable populations and identities versus personal use. So I decided to just give up the personal use of it and just make it about herpes and herpes stigma. So in me, I'm not letting the universe take that from me. I'm giving that. And because I had that intense emotional reaction when I thought about removing social media from my phone, I know that that carries significant weight to me, whereas it might not for somebody else. It would be like, if I were giving up $1,000, because that's the value that I place on this versus if I were to just be like, what if I, like, give up? Give up? What else? Like, something I don't really care about. Like, dating apps. Like, oh, I just won't get on dating apps. That's like a dollar worth of attention and awareness versus it being a thousand dollars of social media, Instagram. So now the universe, because I voluntarily Offered up a thousand dollars quality of my awareness. Attention. The grains of sand, right? I removed it from the form of my dating experiences. Now the universe owes me something of equal or greater value. So maybe it'll be something aligned where it's somebody who does watch anime and enjoys the kind of things that I like to do that is more of a fit, that is more compatible than what I've received in the past, right? So I'm voluntarily offering that up. Whereas my sexuality was taken from me, or I perceive it to have been taken from me along with all of those other things that the grains of sand of my awareness gave form to. Now it's all back into the sandbox in the sand castle. So the involuntary entitlement, like what I'm old, has been given, and now it's just a matter of sustaining it. And sustaining it really just looks like practicing the eight lens of yoga and living that, right? Like the yamas and the yamas. I. It's 10 of those. So the llamas are five and the niyamas are five. And these are like your own internal observances and your external ways of engaging with the world. And I'm, you know, in hindsight, like, I'm so grateful for, like, my most recent relationship. It ended over a year ago at this point. And without using this language, I think that this is why the relationship ended. Because I didn't have this. I didn't have this grounded state. I didn't have this code that I lived by. And I was living in a way that was very, like, externally driven, unintentional, no boundaries. So I can say that now, like, I'm very grateful for what I learned after that relationship ended because it did teach me this, because this was some of the shit she was saying. She was like, what's your intention? What are your boundaries? Right? And that question didn't make sense to me in that way. But after a year of shit, and I'll probably speak about this a little bit more, but after a year of just, like, being able to process that internal heat, that internal friction, and recognize, like, oh, now that I'm in a much more grounded state and aligned based on the eight limbs of yoga, I've been able to have that clarity that she wanted for me that I didn't have for myself. So, yeah, I'm very grateful for that because it's those obstacles that become opportunities for us to get to this place. Like, it was an adjustment. Just like my herpes diagnosis was. Like, that breakup was like a readjustment. For me. And so that's, that's, that's a very critical piece of how we got here and how we got to this place so voluntarily. Now, my Sankalpa is to nurture my nature. And part of that was recognizing that I am a being, that at baseline I am nurtured. Right? I see myself beyond my physical form, my body, what it does, and more so about those invisible parts of myself, nurturing those, being able to be creative, curious, someone who values choice. I challenge myself about your completion. Someone who's consistent. I enjoy connection. I think that's seven A. Seven Cs. I forgot what the eight or the eighth one is. Community leader. I think. No, it might be something else. But anyways, that's very important to me. And being able to live that in a way where I'm learning out loud and in me learning out loud. I believe that this is one of the more honest and accurate ways of being able to educate or to teach. So as a yoga instructor and yoga therapist in training, once I get the yoga therapy stuff done, like that's going to be the title that we run with this, this is where things align. I'm not. I'm teaching herpes stigma minimization. Like that's the work. But the purpose is getting people to a neutral state, that absolute zero state, being able to neutralize our own internalized herpes stigma so we can go out into the world and do that. And when we do, that's where we begin to see the world through this, the other side. But you gotta know. You gotta know and trust and believe that you are entitled. I'm so surprised this ain't dried up yet. Must be the beat in it. Like the beat. Yep, the beetroot juice. Man, this ain't going nowhere. You have to watch this. Yeah, get. We're entitled. Act like it. What do you want now? And this is one of the questions I ask people on our support calls and the support groups. Well, what do you want now? You are entitled. You're entitled to compensation because of what was taken from you and the laws that govern the reality that we live in. You owed something. Now, what do you want to be owed? What was the value of your sexuality previously? Right? And since that's been, quote, taken from you, you get, you got options. You get to choose infinitely, something of equal or greater value. And you tell God, you tell the universe, you tell the divine, you tell Source, whatever language you use, you tell, hey, I want this now, but know that it has to be of equal or greater value. All right, I got something positive for positive people. This thing validates all of those intangible aspects of myself. I get connection out of this. I get to be curious. I get to be creative. I get to choose to show up and do this every day. And it's challenging. I very much value challenge. I have a sense of community. I'm seen as a community leader. I'm demonstrating consistency. I complete things on a regular basis. These taxes, y', all, bookkeeping for a non profit, this is hard, but it. It very much is fulfilling. And I would much rather have this trade off of not being able to just have roundabout indirect relationships and casual sex. If that's. If that's what I had to give up to get to this place, I'm fine with it. But we got to get to a place where we can see. See it for what it is, see what was actually taken from us and receive it as a gift. Because now, like, there's a box with a bow on it of something that you want that you feel like. Oh, because it's not in the form of what it looked like before. It's not mine, it's not for me, I don't deserve it, or whatever. Whatever the we think. Try not to curse. That's going to be in the transcript now. Dang. But the thing that we get in return, if that's. If we. We gotta choose though, we gotta commit to it. We gotta be honest. We got to be real with ourselves that this is what I. This is what I'm choosing. Because we weren't choosing before, we didn't choose consciously to trade this, to have this taken from us. Right? It's a trade. So now, you know what? However we viewed ourselves, the identity that we carried about ourselves, pre diagnosis, now we're entitled to something that is going to make us. That's. That's more aligned. Let's call it that. That's more aligned. But we're entitled to that. Act like it. And for so long over the years, like, I've never seen it that way. I've never. Like, I, Courtney couldn't do this. This. Courtney out of alignment, couldn't do this. There have been so many times I've been ready to give this up, and somehow, some way there was something that would happen to just realign my ass back into that zero, the absolute zero neutral state. This ain't me. This is what people mean when they say, like, God speaks through them or talks through them or operates through them. It's those podcasts that episodes where I'm like, I don't know if anybody gonna really with this. And then bam. Because it's coming from this neutral and grounded state that is the quantum realm energy of infinity working through me. And it's going to connect with the people that are aligned to it. And so this is in real time. Like me living in this way in real time, like showing you that, hey, you can do this too. I ain't special. I got herpes just like you. And in aligning my way of being, this is what came out of it. And there's a constant readjustment, realignment. I. I need these reminders. I have my morning routine. I get my, my hot water drink. I do my workout, do my yoga. I try and make the first and last 20 minutes of the day my time. I journal. And I, not as much as I should do my breath control. I constantly try and take away my senses, away from distractions while still remaining present. Try and do one thing at a time. And that's really all we can do. We try until we get to a place where trying becomes effortless. And you're entitled to that. So if this is something that interests you and you want support in that, like, that's what this community is about, that's what this space is about. And actually, yeah, June. Oh, I want to say June 17, 1819 or 16. 1718. Damn. Where is it at? Hold on, I got it pulled up here. Okay. June 18th, around lunchtime, I am going to do a presentation on this very thing. The eight limbs of yoga applied to herpes stigma. If that interests you, then go to the website. You'll be able to register for it. Excuse me. And I'll be talking about that in a lot more specific details. But yeah, for those of you that you know this resonates with, tell me, like, let me know that this resonates because I, at this point, it's like yoga therapy for herpes is like the thing that we're working towards. And I'm working towards being able to support people through the stigma and getting to that ground state of absolute 00. So that you can receive your compensation. Right? Like prep yourself, get yourself ready for what, what's coming to you. But you gotta choose that. And I challenge you to do so. I challenge you to decide for yourself. Hey, okay, this is the value that I place on what was taken from me. And now that I don't have it anymore, that space needs to be filled, will be filled with something of my choosing rather than that space being filled for you the same way that herpes, how we perceive our herpes diagnosis having taken things from us in the past. Right? So that's all I got for y' all for this podcast episode. I think I, I stayed on topic for the most part. If y' all wondering about that, the, the, the STI situation. It ain't been a week yet, so once my doctor gets back to me, I'll be able to know and I'll tell you how things went from there. But I'm in communication with everybody and I let them know and yeah, we'll. We'll see what ends up happening. I'm at a friend's house and dog is just barking. Y' all probably can't hear that because I got my microphone. But yeah, that really does conclude this episode of Something Positive for positive people. Please, like rate, Review Share subscribe to the podcast Couple announcements I know it's the end of the podcast, but if you don't subscribe to the newsletter, like, please do. I send 1.5 newsletters average per month and they really have everything that you need to know. Like, I talk about what happened last month. What's happening? There you go. Reducing noise because the dog barking. There it is. It talks about what we've done, it's talked about what we're doing, and it's talking about what's coming up next. So you'll be able to see the events and people have requested in person stuff. But it's like I'll get 100 requests to do a thing in a city over the course of five years and like six of the people are still on the newsletter or subscribe to where I would be able to do the thing in that place if we were all still in contact. So I don't have any other way to stand in contact with y'. All. So please subscribe to the newsletter. And as travels are coming up and as interest develops for things, I'll be able to go to the people who are in this particular city and say, hey, we're going to do a thing. Let's organize it. Let's make it happen to where we can have some aspect of community in person with one another. I'm big on that and I very much enjoy being able to connect with people in person and have that, like, feeling of community. We did it in Brooklyn for the Herpes Stigma Expo a couple of weeks ago and we had about 30 people show up. It was. Was awesome. We had a support group, we did some meditation, we had a dating and disclosure practice workshop, and then we also showed the no shame in this game documentary. And we had Lauren Key come do her one woman show on the death of her the one night stand because of her herpes diagnosis, which was really funny. So I want to be able to do more of that, but I need people to show up and I need to know where people are. And yeah, time wise, another thing that I've been working on is boundaries around time. Things that have times are going to be those times. So if you schedule a 30 minute support call, people been getting two hours, 90 minutes, an hour. I can't keep doing that. And part of that is my alignment from my own alums of yoga, like the time thing and energy management. We got to be intentional with the time that we have together. And 30 minutes is plenty of time for people to come and get what it is that they need before being directed to a thing that might be more specific, whether that be the support group or yoga therapy. All right? And I'm not responding to emails well, I respond to everybody, but I've been getting like 80 ish, 70, 80 support call requests per month. Not everybody shows up. So I would say maybe between 65 and 75% of those are real and I do those. But I get a lot of people that this has been happening lately where somebody I'll email and they're like, I didn't fill this out, lose my email. I have a stalker that put my email in here. And I'm like, listen, I asked for all of that. I'm just replying to the email that I got. But these are typically people who don't make a donation. So I'm not responding to emails where people don't make a donation. All right, that, that's really what you know, this comes down to is like this discerns who's serious and going back to the whole exchange thing, right. I think that one of the reasons that something positive for positive people has been stuck is that there were no mutual investments. Right? Like I let myself be exposed to a lot of taking and now that ain't the case. So no donation, no email. All right. I don't, and I tell you, I don't care how much you donate, but to take the intentional steps of making a donation ensures that you are more likely to show up. There are people who made a donation and then not come to the cause. I mean I show up, I, I give the information and that's really all I can do. Right? But I'm just sharing this and saying this because I have to honor boundaries. So I want to hear from. Y' all know five months after you filled out a support call form and you're like, why you ain't email me back? No, you fill out the support call form, make the donation and you will hear from me. Unless your information is wrong and I have no way of getting in contact with you, which if that does happen, you email me. But I already updated the website to reflect that. All right, so for my medical professionals, mental health professionals, June 16th and 17th, we have something for y' all during the lunch hour that you need to register for. And then August 29th is when we're looking to have the next Something Positive for Positive People Herpes Stigma Expo. And this one will be in Manhattan in Lower Manhattan Chinatown area. But look out for more details on that. Subscribe to the newsletter if you are not until next time. Stay present, y'. All. Stay present.