This is my fourth time trying to record this podcast episode, so
this one's it. This is going to be it.
Welcome to Something positive for Positive people.
I'm Courtney Brain. Something positive for positive
people is A5O1C3 nonprofit organization supporting people
navigating herpes stigma. Excuse me, today's my 13 year
herpes anniversary. It's March 23rd.
I went through Facebook and scrolled all the way back to
when I sent a message to the person that one of the people
that I most recently had had sex with and I noticed that we're
not friends anymore. So I don't know if a long time
ago ex-girlfriend logged into my Facebook and removed women,
which is the thing that's happened in the past, or she
removed me from her friends list.
So that, that's interesting. I, I hadn't really suspected
this person of giving me herpes before until like now.
And I'm like, wait a minute, That's weird.
But it could have been a number of things like it.
Some people just unfriend people because they don't remember,
want to remember certain parts of their lives or whatever.
But it is what it is. I ain't hardening on it.
This past weekend we had the Herpes Stigma Expo in Brooklyn,
NY. We had a turn out of about 30
people, which yay, I'm so hyped for.
I brought in Lauren Key who does the one woman show Deal Breaker,
which is a really great show and creative way of talking about
her experience with herpes and dating.
If you get the opportunity to check it out, please do.
I do intend on doing more of these herpes stigma Expos not
just in New York but around the country, but I need for people
to if you want to have in person communities like what this was
was essentially a day long retreat in the form of a support
group. I opened with like an hour and a
half, two hour long support group, letting people just
share, ask questions, get feedback from one another, vent
whatever it was that they needed.
And then we went into this documentary screening from
Jolene Hernandez and No Shame in his game film.
And then they had a panel discussion afterwards.
We had a break, we had lunch and we did a couple of recordings of
simulations of talking about sex and sexual health and
relationships. So I look forward to those
videos being dropped. Shout out to Jay the
videographer, for coming through and capturing some of the event
as well as supporting me and doing those simulations.
And then after that, we just, we talked and socialized and then
we had the crafter disclosure that was supposed to be what it
was. But I had gotten to talk to
everybody individually to see how they were, where they were.
And most people were feeling like overwhelmed people were
feeling, you know, a little bit heavy, like they were processing
a lot. So the combination of the
various emotions that people were experiencing, these were
all things that I wanted to acknowledge and make space for
as well. So in making the space for sad
things, what ended up happening was that I had to stiff gears a
little bit to not make it exclusively about, hey, here's
grading and disclosure stuff. But I wanted to make sure that
it had some alignment for where people were feeling or how
people were feeling about where they were in those moments.
So we did like a brief meditation grounding exercise to
just feel where we were and come out of that state with more of
AI don't wanna say positive, but more of like a neutral and
grounded sense before we went into the discussion about dating
with herpes and disclosing discussing our status.
So it was it was nice. It was a very lovely experience.
I got a lot of positive feedback.
People do want to do it again. The event venue that it was
expensive for how few people we had because they had 30 was
cool, but I, I got the space where we could have usually had
7080 people in there. So I, I would like to, I don't
want to start capping the events at a certain number of people,
but I do want to find like size appropriate venue.
So that might mean, all right, listen, we're capping this at 20
and that's that. But yeah, if you are listening
to this and you decide that you want to be part of any kind of
in person support support groups, you got to subscribe to
the newsletter. I send an average of 1.5
newsletters per month. You will get more if you are
signed up for an upcoming event because I need to tell you where
it is and all the details and give you updates.
But outside of that, the newsletter shows the podcast
episodes that were dropped from the month, any articles that
happened, any upcoming travels or speaking opportunities.
Like this is how we engage with the community and keep people up
to date on where we are and what we're doing.
So if that is something of interest to you and you are
looking for more of the in person experiences, then it's
very important that you subscribe to the newsletter
that's www.spfp.org/herpes Dash newsletter.
And this kind of also helps me with knowing like where there's
interest for particular events if I am to put together another
one that is something positive for positive people expose where
we can have that full day of support.
If there's going to be any kind of like retreat style thing,
like I want to connect with y'all and I want for us to be
able to put it in places that make sense right now.
New York and then Cali, then Texas, then Florida, then
Georgia are the top five states where there's a lot of searches
for herpes and something positive for positive people.
And when people sell out the one-on-one support calls, they
don't generally accept the marketing.
But I see that this is where a lot of the people are.
So I might hear from a person one time and then that's it.
But in order for us to get the ongoing support that we need,
like I, I need y'all to stay on the newsletter, 'cause I'm not,
I'm not on social media, on my phone.
I might check it, you know, every few days or if I know that
there's a thing that I'm expecting like this past
weekend, I know that I was tagged and some stuff.
So I would go to my laptop and be able to approve the
collaboration or reshare the post or whatever.
So that's really the only reason I'm on social media and I'm so
grounded and present now that I haven't been on there.
And it's really been something that has helped me in general
over these last three weeks because I feel like the quality
of who I am has significantly increased versus the quantity of
like what I have to give, right? Like I use this analogy.
I'm in this program for like people interested in quantum
physics, right? It's a coaching program, let me
say that. And one of the things that I
recognize for myself is that I can be engaged but not be
present. So like, I can be right here and
recording this podcast episode, but be texting on my phone.
I can be like twiddling my thumbs and my feet.
I can be like, oh, you know, right after this, I got to run
into this thing. I can be sitting here eating,
right? So I could be engaged and have
my presence directed in all these different directions, but
I can't be present and not engaged.
I can be engaged, not present, but I can't be present and not
engaged. So I've been prioritizing that
for myself and being able to deliver a greater quality of
support on the calls and in the support groups, the quality of
which, the quality of the events, the quality of the
marketing. Like I, I've gotten all these
creative ideas, my memory done, got better y'all, since getting
off social media. And I, I'm, I'm grateful.
I'm very grateful for this state that I've entered and being able
to get off of there 'cause that was hard.
I remember when I was thinking about what I wanted to give up
for my son, Copa, which is again, lifelong intention.
I wanted to nurture my nature. And one of the ways that I was
not nurturing my nature has been in being so involved with social
media that it's made me less involved in what's happening
immediately within me and around me.
So I've been able to get a lot more in tune with what's
happening in my body, my nervous system, and I'm like much more
in tune with the environment, dancing.
I've been doing Brazilian Zoot. That's gotten better for me.
I've I'm, I'm single single now. I haven't been single single for
a long time. Even after like my last
relationship, I think I took three months to just not see
anybody. And then immediately after
started to like see people and kind of just pick up where I
left off from the relationship and treat people like we were in
a relationship, which that that led to some things.
But that's, that's not a conversation for today.
So that that's trying to avoid the diary thing.
I'm, I'm realizing that I've been struggling to create
podcast episodes because on one hand I like to say it's not
about me, and then on the other hand, that feels very
dismissive. I had this dream last night.
I wrote it out. I wrote out like a lot of the
notes from it. And in this dream, I talked to
this lady who was I guess like a psychic or something, 'cause one
of the things that she said to me that stood out is that I
don't see myself how other people see me.
Like I do the work that I do, something positive work.
And I'm all these things to people.
I am a coach, I am a yoga teacher person.
I am an inspiration. I am somebody that people feel
empowered by. But I think I over calibrate for
humility. So it's not to come off as
arrogant or any kind of like narcissist or anything that can
be negatively tied to that. And so having had that, having
had that dream, having had that experience, like I, I see how
much that does weigh on me and I try and like hold it to myself
for a variety of reasons. And I, I try not to talk about
my experiences too much, but I end up talking about them
anyway. It would be so easy for me to
just be like, hey, y'all, like I need guests.
Come on, let's talk about your experience, 'cause that's the
easy thing to do. But I realized that it's not the
medical professionals, the doctors, the public health
professionals and mental health professionals and therapists.
That's not who's listening to this podcast.
And I know I've said this before, but I, I need the
reminder for myself that this podcast is for people who are
actively going through it. This podcast is for people who
are living with herpes. This podcast is for people who
are looking for the experiences of people who have herpes.
And I'm a fucking person who has experiences with herpes.
And I, I, I forget that sometimes.
And you know, it's not always hard because like I'll share my
status with somebody and it's, it's never an issue because of
where I'm at when I'm talking about it, like the way that I go
about talking, telling somebody, it's like, hey, I see things
going this direction. Sexual health is important to
me. Like you're in a place to talk
about it. Cool.
Alright, I was last tested for these things this long ago.
Here's what came back negative. Here's what came back positive.
What about you? And it's as simple as that.
We make it a conversation from there.
But often times like I don't know that I really have had the
experiences of getting to do that lately because I've not
been dating. And when I was like dating, I
think I, I ended up in relationships like I ended up
past the dating point and into what felt like relationships
already like skipping the being friends, skipping the dating,
skipping the like curiosity in one another 'cause it felt like
it, it was with people that I kind of already knew to some
extent and then being able to go from there.
And so I haven't really had to have like that accurate of a
conversation in actually a a minute.
And whenever I do go out, it's like, or I'm, I'm in a position
where maybe that could be a thing.
I shit, I just don't, I fuck it up some kind of way.
I got to go here in a minute because I do have a support
call. But I'm, I say all of that to
say, like in reflecting on my last 13 years of living with
herpes, I do want to share more of my personal experiences.
I do want to be more supportive to people through this podcast
like this is that's what this is for.
It's for people with herpes to come hear from people with
herpes. And regardless of whether or not
I'm getting guests, I, I don't want to guess who don't want to
be on camera. That's I think that that's
right. That's one of the biggest things
for me right now is I don't want to perpetuate stigma any more
than it already is by bringing anonymous faces voices here.
No, I want, if you want to talk about your experience like
we're, we're going to do it. Or if you're going to do it,
let's do it. So if it's just me and this shit
sound like a diary or journal entry, then that's just what it
is. Because again, like this is what
people come here for. And also this is what I want to
do. Like I can't be so focused on
the outcome of, OK, well, you know, people are going to come
here and they're going to get these things like they're going
to be able to. No, I can only focus on the
output. So it's output over outcome.
And I think that after 13 years living with herpes, that's what
it's about. Not necessarily attaching to
anything, but being non attached to the outcome to the point
where you can just focus on the output.
So when I go to, you know, they produce these podcasts episodes,
all I can do is just what I do. I can only do what I do and what
I know to do and focus on that and not be focused on making
sure that you get something out of it and that you get the the
right thing out of it. No, I feel called to continue to
do the podcast is I connect with y'all, engage with y'all and
share the information cause Instagram is not rocking with me
right now. Social media in general, but the
website and the podcast has been getting people in.
We're still at like 70 ish support call signups per month.
Not everybody shows, which is perfectly fine.
People will come when they're ready.
But yeah, I, I want to just give you all that expectation of
like, yeah, you're just going to hear more of my own personal
experiences unless we have guests that are comfortable with
being on and I'll produce these podcast episodes as it feels,
you know, relevant. I don't want to just be saying
shit. Just be saying shit.
So that's what you have to look forward to.
Please subscribe to the newsletter because I, I need to
know where people are so that I can bring things and events to
these places 'cause people be like, well, why don't you do
something here or why didn't I know about this?
I, I'm showing up. So that's really all I can do.
But yeah, if y'all get nothing out of this, like I, I hope that
the recap of the Herpes Stigma Expo was good and that you just
have an idea of what to expect moving forward.
Whenever I don't have guests, like this is probably going to
be just what the podcast looks like.
I may come on and share a story and like this is my life living
with herpes here after this today, my 13 year herpes
anniversary. So when I come back to this,
I'll tell y'all what I did, how it was.
And yeah, we, we can share a little bit more.
But I think that this is a good place to leave it, you know,
till next time. I wanted to just let y'all know.
Stay present. Stay present.