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Something Positive for Positive People
SPFPP Episode 369 Season 1 Finale: Letting Go of the Herpes and Other Things
00:47:25
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Courtney Brand
Recording and hello, welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brand. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization supporting people navigating stigma. You've been listening for a while. There was a word that I left out of there. Can you guess what that word is? Feel like Mr. Rogers. But no, the words herpes. And today, my intention with this recording is to celebrate the conclusion of this podcast exclusively being about herpes. It's been a while. Several months, to be honest, but more so over the last eight years of running Something Positive for Positive People. It's been a journey. And we're looking at just about 400 podcast episodes. Well, there's probably 400, but I've had to go back and delete some, which I'm not upset about. Some of the guests that we've had on and reached out to me over time and just asked that I take it down. And the podcast is always anonymous. So, yeah, I think there might have been like a fear of someone making a connection or something. But I say that to say if you are somebody who I've recorded a podcast with, which typically podcasts guests don't go on to listen to the podcast. I think that there's a certain caliber of healing that occurs and then people are able to go on and move on to the next thing for themselves and just really forget about this. So hopefully that's the case. It makes me, you know, a little bit sad to delete some of these podcast episodes, but it does in fact show me that on one hand people have moved on, but then on the other hand, stigma is very prevalent just in fear that someone close to you is going to recognize your voice and then somehow use that against you. I'm. I mean, I understand. So, yeah, I want to conclude this and also, you know, not to make an excuse, but in light of the political climate where funding for federal grants and public health, that would normally be opportunities for something positive for positive people to train medical staff, those are being frozen or there's a lot of uncertainty around that. And so the nature of sex education and sexual health in general is going to have to evolve. And I've been wanting to make something positive for positive people, more mental health focused as well. Not exclusively herpes, but also like HIV prevention and all the other STIs. Like, there's so many resources out there, and to have one more focus on those things is not really necessary in my personal opinion. So what I do want to focus on is stigma overall. And looking at the Name something positive for positive people. What we see is that the power of positivity has been something that has helped people with healing. Oftentimes when people do receive their herpes diagnosis, what do we do? We go to the Internet, we look for forums and blog posts and we see some of the most horrendous stories we hear from people who are at the lowest of low. And my intention has always been to support people who have been navigating the extreme of a suicide ideation related to their diagnosis. Consistently, we see 36% of people who have herpes having suicide ideation as a result of their diagnosis. In our most recent survey that is up right now. If you go to the herpes survey tab on the website, you can contribute, please do that. Survey is open indefinitely. I would like to get 1000 responses so that I can pull that data and then be able to start getting it published in different places so it can be a reputable resource. So if you haven't already, please take the survey as well as share it. But we're seeing roughly 70% of people who say that they've had suicide ideation because of their herpes diagnosis or connected to it. This is in fact a prevalent thing. I am presenting on this at a few upcoming conferences which I'm excited about. STI Engage, which will be in Phoenix, Arizona June 2nd through 5th. I will also be a guest panelist for Dr. Ina park who is a former board member of the Something Positive for Positive People Board of Directors will be in Montreal, Canada July 27th through 30th. I believe we are having our panel on July 29th. And this will be in Montreal. Yeah, and it's at the STI World Congress. There's a couple of other things. There is something I. I don't want to butcher the names, but I do have a couple of other things and I'll try and get those uploaded to the website so that maybe if you are interested in attending. But these conference tickets, y'all are expensive and I don't want to put y'all in that kind of situation if you don't want to be. But if there is something that you want to support or you want to experience community, join me on May 23rd, which is the six year anniversary of Something Positive for Positive People being a non profit. At 7pm east or Central. At 7pm Central time we'll be having a virtual Herpes Dating and disclosure webinar. And I think that this would be cool. So I'll just. It'll just be me. I'LL be presenting, talking a little bit about the organization, sharing some of what yoga therapy has taught me about going through the process of dating, especially through herpes stigma specifically. And in addition to that, just opening up for discussions about our own personal experiences and trying to use people's experiences to customize how we can navigate these situations. This event is primarily for people who are navigating herpes stigma. You're more than welcome to come if you're the partner of someone who has herpes, or if you do date people with herpes, or if you're just curious. I want this to be a very intentional and educational space. People who generally find me and join our events, even if they don't have herpes, a very good ally. So I want to be mindful of protecting this space. This is a free event. You are welcome to donate. There are options for if you do want to donate or if you want to come to the event and then maybe donate after. That's an option for you. But I'm not able to conduct the Herpes Sigma conference, which last year brought in a good chunk of the revenue for something positive for positive people. And unfortunately, I've been going. I was going through it for a while, just navigating my breakup, having moved and then moved again, and then moved again. And now I'm back home in St. Louis, Missouri. I'm much more settled in. I've been here for going on seven weeks now. Yeah, it's been about two months. And wow. You know, I've actually been single for damn near three months now. I didn't realize it, but for a lot of that, I've been working on my relationship. And it's unfortunate that, you know, it didn't work out, but also fortunate that I think that she and I were able to really learn a lot about ourselves through one another. And that's what relationships are. And these are things that I value. I very much value relationships. I value connections. And I'm very much looking forward to integrating what I've learned from not just the relationship, but also the breakup and the attempts to get back to it about myself and being able to implement that moving forward in future relationships. Now leaning into my identity as a polyamorous person. So that was something that I think really liberated me. And I guess I can talk about that to the identity component, because even with that, I found myself in telling my ex, I was like, I'm polyamorous. And she said, I know, and thank you for telling me. And this was like, this was very similar to How I tell people who don't have herpes to meet someone with their herpes diagnosis. If they disclose their status to you, just let them know. Thank you. Gratitude. And then curiosity, like, what does this mean for you? I let her know. It's like, hey, I really don't. I don't know how to answer any questions. Like, this is something that I do need to experience, explore, and figure out. It's unprocessed. But I believe that this most. Most aligns with what I have been doing. And what I most value about it is I don't. I don't want my relationships to end. Like, if they're healthy connections where everybody cares about each other and we already know how hard it is to meet people, let alone meet good people. And when you meet them, you really want to keep them in your lives and allow for the relationships to naturally evolve or transition into whatever the evolution and transition needs to be. And I've had people in my life that if I were in a monogamous relationship, the connections we need to look significantly different. And I don't know that I would have been able to learn as much about myself as I have. So the polyamorous component is an exclusive to sexual relationships. But also, I mean, there is a lot of the emotional connection, which I think is a weird thing to have to say, because aren't all of our connections emotional? I mean, I think that I really don't care to just talk about the weather with people. I don't really value superficial connections and relationships. In fact, I don't have any of those, not even in my work. And maybe there need to be some boundaries around that, but that's not something that I believe. And for a lot of time that I've been in my relationship, I've been really struggling with conflicting beliefs of, you know, what's mine, what's. What needs to grow and change within me, and what am I changing for? What I believe, my interpretation is of where the relationship is going. And a lot of that has really come through just me rejecting my own identity as a polyamorous person. Like I've been saying, oh, non monogamous, non monogamous. But to just have an open relationship where you just have sex with people or you have the emotional connection, but you don't have sex with people. These things, as limiting, you know, as they are, it's not the limitations of them that never sat right. I think it was the invalidation of identity for me because I didn't know where I fell on this spectrum of Relationship styles. And not to say that that is my exclusive identity. There's a lot more about me externally, you see this, but also on the inside. You know, one of the things that I've been saying lately is, like, not necessarily attaching to labels. Labels are very useful. They're great for communicating expectations and find people. But I more so identify with that space between the labels that connects everything, you know, and there's a lot more fluidity, and there's a lot more fluidity and liberation in that. When I said out loud, like, I am polyamorous or, it felt very much like a weight that I was carrying lifted that I just didn't know about. I didn't know that I was carrying that. And then when she said, I know, I was like, ah, well, damn, why you ain't tell me? But I think she has, and I've been so resistant to it because I know that that's not where she oriented. And that meant that we couldn't be in a relationship. So I think that that's why my relationship ended. She felt that I ignored that, and here we are. So, yeah, that's, I guess, why lately, I think I've been much more high energy. It's like I solved the problem and now it's on to the new one of finding out what does this look like for me, especially moving forward. So, yeah, I find that there's a stigma even with that. Right. I imagine that I'm not someone who identifies as an LGBT identifying person, but I imagine that that's what it feels like when you come out to someone that you know love and trust. You fear the judgment. You fear that they're gonna reject you. And I was rejected in a way. Like, you know, on the surface, I was accepted and met with gratitude. But I think that underneath it all, I think that I expected that the relationship wouldn't be able to work out. And that's where all of our problems in the relationship really stemmed from. And, yeah, I've been very much reflecting a lot. I've been in therapy sometimes twice a week, but definitely weekly. And one of the things that I've learned is that I value freedom in order to feel safe. And I've been looking for that freedom externally. I moved to Portland, Oregon. I moved to New Jersey. Right. And what I've been looking for is something that I've not wanted or chosen to cultivate within myself. And so therefore, in seeking, you know, freedom, I was never really able to feel safe, because as I'm looking for the freedom that I Need in order to lean into safety. There's a disconnect because I'm prioritizing something way on the external and putting that pressure onto people without even letting them know that that's what it is that I need from them. And also there's also the element. Also, there's also the element. Wow. There is also the element of needing something and not knowing what it is that you need and then expecting someone to meet said need. And in that, what's so difficult is nobody knows what your needs are. And I think that I've expected for any relationship that I'm in to be like a previous relationship where my partners have to some extent, like, anticipated what my needs are, just being around and observing my mannerisms day to day and everything. And I guess because I feel like I'm so good at it, I make the assumption that other people are as well and I'm good at what I'm good at. I think the man is probably the best way to put it. The external world. I see a problem, solve a problem. I see some things difficult, make it easier, and not everybody needs that. The more I look at where things went wrong in my relationship with my ex, the more I see I. I just. I did a lot of things wrong. And it's crazy because the red pill stuff says what I did wrong. And it very much lines up with the things that she was asking for, don't do things for me. And the way that they say it is don't do anything for women. And she's like, I didn't ask you to do that. I'm like, what was the line? Right, so. And then there's a lot more. There's a lot more to it. I won't, you know, get into it, but I think it's fair to share that here with you all because I've been very inconsistent. And this is just going to be a block of time in the archive, the dates of something, Something Positive for Positive People's podcast recordings where I wasn't consistent. And this is something that, you know, I'll look back on and recall for the rest of my life, especially as I move forward with this transition, which I'm going to go ahead and just, like, archive. But it'll still be available Season one of the Something Positive for Positive People podcast as the Herpes Podcast. So when you go to the website, you'll see that this is something positive for Positive people. Season one Herpes Podcast. So that's going to have its own tab, its own place, and for future Podcast episodes. They'll be labeled Season 2. Something positive for positive people. And the emphasis is really just going to be on something, but something positive. Right? I am a very positive person. I've not been for a while, and I'm back. Like, it's not getting back into it. Like, I am. I am here. Some yoga, meditations, journaling, self reflections, therapy, being around friends, isolation time, disconnecting from all of these other external places where I identify gave me my presence back. I've not been present. I allowed for my presence to really consume or be consumed by my relationship, which, you know, at one point was my ideal relationship structure. I got to work with her, we got to travel together really well and do the boring stuff together and had a shared vision of, you know, what family looked like and to not have that anymore. Of course, like, there's the grieving process. But, you know, I said this before. You know, it was grounded in somebody that I wasn't. You know, I started out as this person becoming who I am now. And then I deviated. I very much deviated. And to becoming someone that was responsive, reactive to what I. My interpretations were of what the relationship needed to look like based on what she was giving me. And yeah, I mean, that's it. So I'll be speaking about some of those things because there's also this stigma of men talking about breakups, and I guess that falls under the mental health umbrella. But I do believe that men not speaking about breakups is probably something that contributed to the. Not the length of my grief period, but maybe the process of it, because they say too, like, just get somebody younger and hotter, go make more money, get abs, work out, make her jealous. I don't. I don't have a desire to do all of that. You know, I'm very much just. I don't like to say, focus on me because I. I genuinely believe everybody is connected and how we treat other people is inherently how we are treated. And that's. That's just me. And I don't think that, like, I don't think it's about being selfish and, quote, putting myself first. Because I also find that where I've healed the most has been in supporting the healing of other people. Not necessarily fixing or solving their problems, but even right here talking about this out loud for myself and how challenging it was to first off, be broken up with and then have to, like, leave and then come back to the person that I was broken up, that broke up with me. And, you know, navigating that conversation, even if it was like mutually agreed upon. Like, I never wanted that and I never want breakups, period. And the natural progression of relationships is the natural progressions I think about, you know, even being polyamorous and having a family, right? Like, I don't know that my person who we're building a family with would want me. I wouldn't want to be pregnant and like, my man out here, you know, want to see other people leaving me pregnant. And then can you imagine if the man misses the birth of the baby because he's out on a date with his phone on do not disturb, or you like, clapping some new cheeks or something and you come back to your phone and you say, I need to go to the hospital right now, like two hours ago. And then you find out on social media what your baby look like. Oh, my God. I just. My chest hurt. So, yeah, I think that the natural progression of things, you know, comes in and out of that. So I'm looking for that. I don't want to. I don't want to get good at being single. And so I think that when I'm ready, stepping into dating with more intentionality of finding, you know, a continuation of the progress that I've made, the more we practice a thing, the better we get at it. And while there might have been errors in the relationship, I think that there were a lot of successes. A lot of successes and foundational building blocks on whatever my next relationship ends up looking like, or relationships however they look. And so I'm very excited about being able to step into that space, especially knowing who I am a little bit more now and coming out of that. That stuckness. That stuckness was very debilitating because it wasn't just a stuckness in my relationship. And like, not being able to move forward, not knowing what's going to happen next, not knowing what I'm working towards relationship wise, but also business wise, and how something positive for positive people looks. It ain't working. It ain't working. You know, I. I'm still seeing people fill out intake forms and I'm still having support calls and everything. But the attempts to. Even with the simulations, I think that locking them into herpes focus is not enough. Expanding them into more of the sexuality spectrum is going to be great, but if that can't be the main focus, then what? Right? So it's going to be tricky to navigate moving forward, but I'm going to do it. I'm going to navigate it. I'm applying for grants and there's $180,000 grant for the next two years that I've put out. And if that goes through, I will be able to do that simulation once a month. I'll be able to hire and bring in sex educators across the country, as well as just youth to come in for these simulations. And yeah, I think that that's really what my career is going to be on. The advocacy front is more so advocating for stigma free care. Stigma free care outside of the box of just herpes. But also, holy fucking shit, this is happening real time. A stigma conference that embodies sexual health. It embodies herpes stigma, sti stigma. It embodies stigma against sex workers. It embodies stigma in mental health, the stigma of abuse. It embodies the stigma of, like, men being sexually abused or physically abused even. So we, we got something here. We got some. Thank y'all for listening. They I I with y'all. Thank you. Wow. I'm gonna write that down real quick before I lose it. Stigma Cat. So this is really going to require a full rebrand. My boy gonna hate me because I've been talking about this for years. Like, I think we need to do something different. I think I was just early. It was very premature, and I needed the energy that came out of, like, the, the stuckness, the breakup. It felt like, ah, so much tension. And now there's like this release. And that release is like I'm vibrating. Like, I, I can't really speak to it. Like, my nervous system, the electricity is cackling and it's, it's doing. It feels like the fourth of July throughout my nerves. And there's all this creative energy. I'm, like, super horny. I'm like, I need to put this into something. And especially while the vibe is there, I think it's important for me to go ahead and begin this. Like, that's where the energy came from. Like, last night, I went to sleep at, like, 11, woke up at 3. Something like this. What are we doing today? What are we doing today? And that's a part of me that I haven't had access to for a really long time. So I woke up, I journaled, I had my tea, I made. I made a little reel you can check out on Instagram. Courtney brain made, like, what my morning looked like. I recorded my yoga, I recorded my workout. And yeah, I'm just really feeling high energy today. Next, I'm gonna go to Whole Foods and get groceries so I can do some meal prepping for the week. And I'm. I'm wanting to Fix my diet. I threw away my little. My little comrades. I deleted my Twitter, which was where I got to watch a lot of my porn. And I'm. I'm feeling like I want to put this into something. I want to put this into relationships. I want to put this into something positive for positive people. I want to put this into my friendships. I ain't trying. I'm not. Not saying have sex with my friends, but, yeah, I had my spirit complimented yesterday. I went to this. There was a health fair. I forget I'm so bad about this, but, like, I've been on. I've been on operate from the bare minimum for so long. Like, names of things, dates. I have the stuff in my calendar, so I know when it is it. I just show up to it. So I had somebody compliment my spirit. She's like, you just really have a good spirit. She didn't say. I said. And I was like. And it was the organizer of the event. She's going into whatever that medical thing is. Young black lady Kim, shout out to you. I. I doubt you listen to the podcast, but shout out to you for putting that together, for reaching out to me and letting me be a vendor. I got to make some wonderful connections. I got to see Rafaela from the Healing Exchange. That was nice. And it's just been. It was a beautiful experience, and it's been really good for the last couple of days. I had one of my guys, I met him in la, follows me on Instagram, said, hey, you blowing man? I was like, oh, me. So we back into it. I'm feeling inspired also to create another safe sex Expo here in St. Louis, Missouri. I doubt if this is anything you'll want to travel for, but I do still have funding from the last one. Well, from pursuing ones in New York. And I think I can make that happen. I can make that happen here. I just got to get a bigger venue. I would love to do it at the gym, but I don't think this is, like, a real good setup for something like that. And I want to get vendor sponsors. I met some vendors at this event, so all of the things are falling into place for me to really be successful at home. I hate that, you know, I had to move and cut off my jobs and not cut them off, but, like, end my jobs or quit my jobs. But I think I was also doing a lot. I was definitely doing too much. And the too much was between, like, moving across the country from Portland, Oregon, moving into a new place and not ever really settling into that place. And then moving in, I moved in with my ex. And like shortly after moving in, that was when things got a little. That's when things started to really get rough. And then moving out and moving to the middle of the country and then like finding a place and settling into my place and all of these things happened very quickly. And there was a lot for me to process in a very short period of time. And my grieving period was the feeling of all of that. The day that I the most. I just, I set a timer and I just let that shit. I didn't set a timer. I had an alarm because I had to meet with the yoga therapy client and that alarm went off and I was like, okay, I'm good. And the tears came from me choosing to just let go of every little thing that I possibly could from. I booked my flights for these conferences and I expected her to be coming with me and I had to just let go of that. I had to let go of like that being the first person that I talked to in the morning and the last person I talked to at night. Right. So it was a lot of little itty bitty teeny tiny things that make letting go of the bigger things a lot easier. And that's one of the things that I've talked about in the Letting Go series of the yoga classes that are on the Something Positive for Positive People website as well. So that, ah, man, what a fucking process. And you know, I know she's hurting too. Like she and I absolutely grieve differently. I think even though I was blocked online, am blocked online, I think it's shown on social media like her grieving process, whereas mine was just a lot more like behind the scenes anger. I got to yell and be angry with my friends going into the gym, just throwing weight around and yelling. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm looking good as a result, but I got to do something with that anger. And I haven't really had that outlet for anger because I haven't really been focusing on this. Like this is where I've put and channel my anger because of my relationship to suicide, suicide ideation and that being something so interconnected with herpes stigma as you've known over the years. Again, people with herpes having suicide ideation and suicide has been something, something that has really angered me for a variety of reasons. We ain't got to go into that. If somebody wants to ask a question, I'm happy to answer, but I recognize that I am, you know, speaking to the people directly like, don't kill yourself, please. Please don't. Like, just. Just stay a little bit longer and just work toward it, getting better. Listen to these podcast episodes, hear these stories, Listen to the. That catalog of episodes, and then come forward with us when you're ready. When you're ready. Come over to season two. Please come over to season two. This will be a lot more. Speaking about positivity in general, I hope to be able to interview interesting people. Like, something positive for positive people is so good of a name that, you know, I had, oh, I remember now, this lady at the event yesterday. It's a black lady, young lady. She came over, she was like, very soft spoken. She's like, something positive. I can use that. I don't know what she was going through. She didn't really seem super, like, into the chattiness. Like, I tried to be like, oh, like, what's up? Like, how are you? This is what it is. And I don't think that she was speaking to the herpes point, which is like, divine timing because I've been trying to, like, get out, not get out of the herpes stuff. But I want to expand and be able to reach people that can benefit from what I've learned through talking about herpes with people. And the positive stuff, like the positive components, the positivity. Right. Like, I've read Napoleon Hills Outwitting the Devil, and this is the most simple, like, explanation of whatever you are. The universal existence. The atom is made of a positron and an electron. The positive, negative. Oh, neutron, I think, is neutral. Electron, I believe, is negative. Proton is positive for sure. So one of them, the atom is made up of the proton and the electron, I'm gonna say, and the electron is the negative force and the proton is the positive force. And we call the positive force God and the negative force, the devil. Right? So good, evil, Right. Left, masculine, feminine. Well, masculine feminine is not like positive, negative. But all things kind of are rooted from that of a duality. And everything's about balance. And when that atom is in a perfect balance, we have existence. And so I. I talk to a lot of negative people on a regular basis. And in this book, what Napoleon Hill does is he interviews the devil. Whether this be a figment of his imagination or the actual, actual force of negativity. And one of the things he Sundays, I control 98 out of every hundred people. So yay. Hopefully, like, I. I drifted. I did this thing called drifting where he talks about, like, this is one of his ways of converting people onto his Team, so to speak. And so, you know, the. The evenness, the two out of every hundred people having to be positive. I'll take that burden. I take that like my role models is Goku. I don't even know my man last name. My role model is Goku. My role models is Childish Gambino, Tyler, the creator. Absol. Right. And I think that these are people who, aside from Goku, Goku's an anime character. These people who, like, inspire me, motivate me, and they're creators and they are consistent with their craft and other anime characters, of course, as well. But to me, I think what they all embody is the positivity, right? So I hope to embody that two out of every hundred energy and inspire people to come on over to the other side. And what he speaks to is how as humans, we are essentially. He didn't say this. This is my interpretation. So read the book yourself. But he said, like, as humans, we are essentially above God because we have the power to step into either realm of positivity, negativity. So both powers are available, and I guess they are necessary. And being in the positive is a choice. So the thing is that we as human beings have choice and we operate from that place, right? So if the choice has the intention of positivity, or if the choice has the intention, attention of negativity, we can get what it is that we want. We can get what it is that we choose. We will. We will have what we choose. That's the overall message that I got out of it. And there's, of course, the principles to live by. And one of the things that I've lacked in the past is exercise and caution. I've always been the kind of person to like, do the thing, work backwards from there, to figure it out and make it work. And in doing so, like, I think that's the fastest way I've been able to learn, but also the most harmful to other people as well. And I've been very mindful and careful of that. But it's come from a place of insecurity, ego, and not wanting to do anything wrong or be perceived as a bad person. And so I am very much leaning into just the positive intention. And whatever outcome we get is the outcome we get, but with much more caution, because that's one of the principles that he speaks to is the ability to exercise caution and harmony with your environment and your relationships. And I've just been doing a lot of things that were on the negative side. Like, there's been drifting there's been not controlling my creative and sexual energy. There's been being a victim of my environment and not, like, having a harmonious relationship with my most intimate relationship, which is with a partner or partners. However people identify. I say it like I'm not people. And then what was it? The. The drifting. Oh, hypnotic rhythm. Like, the more you do a thing, the better you get at it. So the being able to step back and disengage from, you know, me falling into that negative place, I've been able to just naturally fall into the positive place. I don't know if it was just, like, I woke up a couple days ago and it just clicked or what, but when I made that realization, I think that was when that was the thing that the negativity, the negative energy, like, didn't want me to see. And there was so much resistance to just allowing for myself to feel this. And, you know, I struggle with. I don't know if I can have the success that I want for myself, the family that I want for myself. I can't have both. I really felt. I really believe that I can't have both because of. Especially how this last relationship went, how all my relationships have gone, where I've been in, like, a serious, labeled, you know, committed relationship where we're working towards building and creating and being a family with one another. And it's been a variety of things, like partners being ashamed of what I do or being jealous of what I do and that I found, like, what I'm supposed to do while here or what drives me, what excites me, my passion, my purpose. And on the other hand of that as well, it's like just me not, you know, looking at a lot of the things that maybe they've needed me to look at. There's a lot of patterns between past relationships and then the one with my most recent ex. And I've journaled about them. I actually recorded a podcast. Y'all will never hear this podcast. Because I talk through each of those relationships. Relationships. And when, as I said that out loud, I was like, oh, this is actually a pattern. And so one of them being as soon as I start putting people on social media, that's when they start tripping. That was. That is so funny to me. But also, for me, being so certain and wanting to be at the destination that I missed the road. Right. Like on Super Mario, there was a cheat code where you go down one of the pipes and you can just skip to the end. Now, along the way, you practice and you get better. At the things that you need to be better at before you face King Kubo or Bowser, whichever name he goes by. Mario. And if you just go through the level one pipe, you go backwards, and you just appear at the end one, you got to wait on whoever's supposed to get there with you to get there with you, you. And they also didn't level up throughout the game. They didn't get practice. You just expect them to show up at the end and trust you to beat the final boss. That ain't how that works. It's not. So that is what I've done in all of my relationships. Get to the end and moving forward, I, I, I recognize that I need to take things slow. I need to date people. I need to give them the opportunities to fuck up in front of me and fix their own problems and not try and bail everybody out. But again, like, I, I do believe that the way we treat people is how we treat ourselves. And I guess, like, in all honesty, I wouldn't want anybody. I wouldn't be able to accept the help for somebody to come save me or bail me out. Like, if a sugar mama hit me up right now, it's like, courtney, I give you. I give you a salary at 350 a year if you just stop doing what you're doing. And I don't know if, if you, if she were to, like, give me clients, I guess all you got to do is show up. If she were to tell me all you got to do is show up and I'm giving you this money, that wouldn't sit right with me. I wouldn't be able to do it. I would. Oh, I don't know. If I turn it down, I'll probably try it out. But I, I feel in my body that that doesn't align for me. I would rather continue to make my little punk ass $40,000 a year between all my jobs and do this, because it does. This shit makes me happy. This. This does. I'm getting a little emotional thinking about it. Like, the idea of, you know, me not not being able to do this, but me being able to do something that I care about and that I'm passionate about and that feels like giving myself what I need and other people being able to benefit from it. I actually journaled about that. I was like, what do I need, need? And I wrote down what I needed from something positive for positive people. I looked at what I've gotten from it, and it's been a lot of healing and what I need from it. Now is more expansion. I need more, I need more. I need to learn. Like I'm stuck. There's nothing else for me to learn about herpes. There's so much for me to learn about how stigma's impacting other communities of people. There's much for me to learn about people's unique experiences and there's a lot of opportunity there as well. And now like what I've learned and done through herpes can be what supports the growth and the expansion and what comes next. So I'm very, I'm excited, I'm excited about my life personally. I'm excited about, you know, what comes next. Professionally, I am still working my part time jobs. I am teaching yoga, I'm still a yoga therapist and I'm, I'm, I ain't gonna say losing clients, but one of my clients graduated, she said that she's in a relationship that she wants to be in. This was something that I didn't expect to be an outcome of yoga therapy. I also know that I don't expect people to work with me for the rest of their lives. But if you are somebody who's struggling with stigma, however, that looks like I'm figuring this out. I think I got the herpes part down pack. But what comes after we get through the herpes? That's where my next growth point is. So I'm going to continue. There's a book called Stigma. It's gray, it's in red letters or black. And I'm reading that now so that I can have a much better understanding of it and be able to finish this book that I'm writing to help people with herpes stigma and also for me to. Yeah, I gotta get back to that. Man, I ain't touched that book. Yeah, I, I got stuff to do and I also gotta get on top of my yoga therapy stuff. I've been behind on my, I've been behind, I just haven't been up to speed on it. And also I'm in training for my job now. Coming back to Washington University as a standardized patient. Lots of stuff. I'm, I'm, I'm working again. I'm back at it. I'm not stuck. I'm not stuck. Not anymore at least. What else is there? So, yeah. May 23rd, 7:00pm Central Time. Please join us for the Herpes Dating and Disclosure webinar. We'll have the opportunity for support to take place. If you're hearing this and you have like a favorite herpes influencer, please share that with them. I have A flyer on my page that's just not being shown to people because of whatever reason. But again, it's a free event. I'm inviting people to donate if they are able to. And then what else is there? I taking yoga therapy clients. My ideal client load is 15 people. Like 15 people that I see 15 sessions a week. Let me say that there's some people that I might see twice a week. But I, I think that 15 sessions per week is what I want to do do. There's pricing on the website. If you go to spfpp.org yoga-therapy you'll see the pricing. But also if that doesn't work for you, please reach out to me and we'll figure out what we can do to make it more affordable to you. I am also looking to teach virtual yoga classes. Maybe on a weekly basis. It can be more yin style at the end of the day during the week. Maybe just something to like get us through the end of the week. I know Wednesdays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays are typically good days for something in the evening. So if that works for you all, I'll look to consistently put together something that'll be on Tuesdays or Wednesdays for a yoga class. We'll just make it virtual, open it up to everybody. And yeah, it'll just be bare minimum dollar amount like donation based yoga classes. If anybody wants to like, like sponsor that or put it together, I'm all ears. I'm open to that. But yeah, let me make sure I got everything written down here. Newsletter Newsletter Please subscribe to the newsletter. That'll be where you get all of the updates on the information from something positive for positive people. Instagram's not been really nice to me lately, nor is Facebook. In fact I deleted Facebook off my phone because I could I catch myself like, like opening it. I get a notification of something that somebody I ain't talked to in years like made a post and I'm like why am I getting notifications about this? So you know how the rabbit hole is. You open up your phone and then you're scrolling before you know it and 10 minutes done went by and you missed the rest of your workout or whatever. So that's it. That I believe that that's it. If anyone needs anything, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'll point you in a direction of where to go for the peer support calls. I will say that this y'all, if you are not donating anything, all you get is a question. You and you email me your question. I will answer your question as thoughtfully as I can via email. And anything else after that. I. I have to. We. We gotta. We gotta donate for the support cause because I am making a priority to have that 30 minutes for people to not just, like, ask their question, but for me to get better understanding of your circumstances, answer the question, and also maybe address some other concerns that you may have while we're on the call. And while we can both be present with one another without interruption, without the distractions of being on your phone and texting back and forth and the delays in between, that 30 minutes is a very present 30 minutes. So, yeah, I can't keep doing the $0 donation, 30 minute calls. So I believe I made that clear now on the website. I updated it. And moving forward, yeah, that's what we're doing. And for ongoing support, that's going to be in the form of yoga therapy. Yeah. If you again have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. Let me know. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. I appreciate all of your love and support for season one of the Something Positive for Positive People podcast, where we've talked about navigating herpes stigma and. Wow. I. Yeah. Thank y'all. What? All right. Bye. Bye. Until next time, y'all stay positive.