Welcome to Something positive for Positive People.
I'm Courtney brain. Something positive for Positive
people is a nonprofit organization supporting people
navigating herpes stigma. I'm your host, Courtney brain.
I think I just said that I am in a state of grief probably have
been for a while. That's why you haven't heard
many podcast episodes. And I've been doing that thing
that you shouldn't do, but you know, unfortunately you have to
do, which is just like powering through and doing the things
that need to be done because I mean, stuff's got to get done.
And so I don't necessarily want to speak into specifics about
what the grief is. If you follow me closely or if
you communicate with me, you know what that is.
But I, I just had to do some very vulnerable things.
I had a podcast guest that I was supposed to have on.
I'm in the same room that the Zoom room that we were going to
be recording on. And I, I, I acknowledged that
I'm not able to be as present as I normally am.
But this conversation is important.
And yeah, she did her job. She did her job.
She's AI. Don't I don't damn.
I can't even, you know, recall what her title is, but she talks
about abuse, domestic violence, and I was going to interview her
for the podcast because she was at Baylor College of Medicine
HIV training. It was a training virtual that I
got brought in to be a part of alongside one of my board
members in order to speak on SEI communication, sexual health,
and talking among patients or talking from patients to
provider or providers to patients.
See, see, I'm scatterbrained and I'm very grateful to my yoga
therapy program because I have resources that help me
understand that. Whereas if I didn't understand
what it is and I'm experiencing and going through, who knows how
that would show up. I'll probably be posting crazy
stuff on social media and all types of unnecessary things that
are less than healthy coping mechanism, so I am going to be
taking whatever time it is that I need away from the things that
aren't a priority right now. Priority number one is healing.
The thing that I think is the source of the grief priority #2
is going to be recalibrating my focus and aligning, realigning
and defining what is happening with Something Positive for
Positive People. Like not that too much is going
to change, but to give you perspective, this upcoming
Saturday, March 8th, I was supposed to have a Expo, another
Something Positive for Positive People Expo in Newark, NJ.
I got a venue, a space, I had a guest presenter who is local to
New Jersey as well and we were planning on this for.
It's been a little bit over a month and I've posted about it.
I've told people and they have Flyers at the organization and
we have one person signed up for a free ticket.
So I went on ahead and just cancelled the event.
And yeah, now I really don't need to be back here in New York
for a bit. So I'm going to take some time.
I'm going to go and just reset myself at home.
I'm going to be in Saint Louis. I don't have like an end date.
I didn't have much on the schedule for my part time job
teaching medical students to give genital exams.
So I'm going to just take some time and go home.
I'm going to see family and friends again.
I was really recharging for me and now I really need to more so
spend some alone time and there's going to be a lot of
that. I've already worked out what
that's going to look like and being able to do what I need to
do in order to shift what my priority is.
I think that for a while now I've taken my focus,
attentiveness, prioritization away from what my priority
should have been, and it shows. And energetically, I'm a real
big energy person. And for somebody who runs an
organization called something positive or positive people like
my positivity has been like it's, it's been minimized speak
a stigma minimization. And I've been running on
reserves for a while, probably a few months and doing just
enough. I've been doing just enough to
get by and do the bare minimum. I've been showing up for my yoga
therapy clients. I've been missing class
sessions. I've been late to calls and
missing calls, and that is not like me at all.
So yeah, I'm dealing with the thing that I need to deal with
in the way that I it's a new way, I think that this is a very
new way for me to deal with grief Now, having had access to
Antonio, I didn't. I cannot say his last name.
Sauces, souses. But he does yoga for grief
relief. And I've been considering
looking at one of his retreats. I got invited like for a
scholarship too, but I just couldn't make it because I had
my Expo, I think, or the IT was the Black Men's Emotional
Wellness Symposium, one of those.
And maybe if I had gone like I would have recognized I've been
grieving for a long time and what Kendrick Lamar say, I
grieve different. So I'm going to listen to my
little sad playlist. I'm going to feel my feelings
and push through for tomorrow. I don't like that phrase, push
through. I am going to be as present as I
can be for the social. That's tomorrow on Thursday in
Brooklyn at the house, me and Trisha, AKA Safe Slut are going
to host a social event for people with herpes.
And we're just going to get together, mingle, talk and just
maybe have some music, dancing. If anybody wants to drink, they
can. This is not a good time for me
to drink. I ain't doing that till I get
around safer people and I know where I'm at.
So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to wait till I get
home. I have me a day of of my little
my vices, and then I got to get to it, if that.
Like I'm recognizing that there is various kinds of coping
mechanisms for healing and getting through hard things.
And I'm human, just like I think a lot of people are.
You know, you may not recognize the thing in the moment, but
hindsight 2020 is miraculous. It's very if we had that
foresight paired with our hindsight, I think we get
insight. Oh, that's profound.
That's some shit people be like for.
But no, all seriousness. Yeah, I've, I've not been doing
what I need to be doing. I've shifted what I've given to
something positive for positive people over the last eight
years. It's been 8 years now.
I was porn at somewhere else and that's not what I should have
been doing. I recognize that it's important
for me to be able to name my needs after becoming a person
who has met my own needs or found people to support me and
meeting whatever those needs are.
I think that for a really long time I've been unable to name
them or unwilling to name these needs, and it's like they're
either met or they're not, and regardless, it's me who's
responsible for meeting them. So in not being able to identify
and name what my needs are, what I've learned is that it is
difficult to create boundaries around those needs.
And not only am I creating the boundaries, but also being able
to communicate the boundaries and then also be able to use
those boundaries as a way of setting expectations.
And I recognize that how we do one thing is how we do
everything. And that's been the same thing
here in regards to something positive for positive people as
well as the thing that I'm grieving.
And in that, what I see is I haven't had to, I really haven't
had to state my needs. And I think that I've believed
that I don't need boundaries for a really long time.
I've just believed that. And I think that I've drawn in
and done a really good job of bringing in the kind of people
who belong here, who belong in my space, who when I'm aligned
with what I'm supposed to be doing, the opportunities of
relationships and connections, everything has sort of just
appeared in my orbit. And then I stopped doing that.
And all of a sudden, like my beliefs need to change.
It's not even all of a sudden, but overtime, like I'm trying to
do things differently under the expectation that this is
supposed to be better for me. And I had a recent experience of
finding my notebooks from when I went home most recently.
And I was reading through them. And as I read through them, like
I was able to see a lot of the work that I've done on myself to
become the person that I am and not perfect, no such thing as
perfect, far from it. And in the process of
acknowledging, accepting, embracing my imperfections and
learning along the way, you know, there's been, I'm sure
there's been more damage done than what I can like verbalize
and name or what's in my range of perspective.
But there's also been a lot of healing.
And I think that I've been hard on myself and I've been talking
to family and friends about what's going on.
And it's always a wonderful experience to have different
perspectives because those different perspectives are I
ain't going to say like make me feel better, but do make me feel
like there are just things that I'm unable to communicate for
whatever reasons, right? And regardless of word choice or
like how things are said, I think that the thing that I run
into consistently is that it is more important that a thing be
done than a thing be done well. And along the way, like we kind
of learn and I've learned that from the simulation.
Most recently, I got feedback. A lot of the feedback was we
need to have more lecture. They would like some examples of
using stigma free language for the clinicians that are part of
the simulation and if they really, really enjoyed the role
play. But then I got a phone call
regarding how they wish that people wish that expectations
were a lot more clear. And I think that that's
something that I run into a lot, even in my personal life,
because I've done this thing where I'm like, oh, OK, like
that's the thing that needs to happen.
Let's do that. And then along the way we figure
it out. Like, that's how my life has
worked out well for me. I've learned a lot.
There's been successes. There's been things that are
important to me have been accomplished along the way of
that because there's been so many times in the past where
I've planned and then things just don't go my way.
And then we got to plan again for things accommodating.
But it's so much more efficient and effective for me that we
just, we take action. You know, one of the codes I
live by is I never want to look back on the thing and say, why
didn't I like, why didn't I take action?
Why didn't I do a thing? Why didn't I speak up?
Why didn't I say something? I would rather look back on my
life if there are any regrets and be able to say, damn, why
did I do it this way? I never want to look back and
have regret about taking in action.
I would rather have taken wrong action.
And there's a lot of times in my life where I think about having
taken no action versus wrong action.
And even wrong action has probably had worse consequences
than taking no action. But it it very much feels like
I'm living with an integrity in order to be able to say that
right. Like why?
I remember more times I didn't do a thing then I've done a
thing wrong, but I've learned from said wrong thing and been
able to take the lesson, embody it, incorporated and how I do
things moving forward. Like I always say, I don't make
the same mistake twice. And yeah, I feel like I do,
though, looking at my journals and reflecting on a lot of what
I'm reading and seeing, I'm finding myself in a pattern that
I've been in a few times before. And one of my yoga therapy
client. Shout out to Allie.
Appreciate you. She said this to me and it's
stuck. And she said, we don't just sort
of beat the game of the lesson, right?
Like we have a lesson, it shows itself again and again and
again. And we expected to just stop.
It's like, all right, I've seen this before, like I beat the
game, get it out of my face. But what it is is that from the
previous time, we should have learned something to apply to
the next time that we're met with that pattern.
So we get better at handling the pattern as it comes up.
And I think that my history with patterns is an attempt to avoid
dealing with things that I've had to deal with in the past by
putting myself in different environments and situations and
telling myself like, oh, OK, well, if this is the setting and
environment, then the assumptions are blank.
And that's kind of the same thing with my career field.
It is the same thing with my career field.
It is the same thing in my personal life that there are and
have been a lot of just assumptions about things.
And that's on my part. Like I assume that, OK, well, if
this thing has branches and leaves on it, then it's a tree
because there's other trees around it.
But that may not be the case, you know, when just because it
looks like a tree doesn't make it a tree.
This has happened a lot of times for many of the opportunities
that I've I've had. And you know, yeah, business
wise, personal wise, yeah. It's it's been, it's been really
weird for me because on one hand, one thing's going really
well or seeming really well and then the others not.
And it's, it's regardless of how connected I think everything is.
I, I think I took on an all or nothing approach as if like I
can only do full throttle 100%. So it was full throttle 100% in
my relationship with something positive for positive people and
then in my personal life. So it's one or the other.
And I think that what boundaries are going to do for me and being
able to know my needs and communicate what these
boundaries are set expectations is it's going to Get Me Out of
this all or nothing pattern of I need to pour everything into
only this and allow for me to evenly distribute what I have to
pour and also be able to find healthy ways of filling my
energetic cup. Because I think that people and
things are typically what we pour into energetically.
And for me, I've looked to people to fill my cup, feel my
cup. Now I fill it and I need to step
away and fill my own cup and then enjoy sharing what I filled
my cup up with with people. So yeah, it's going to be a
process for me. I leave from New Jersey on
Friday and I go back to Saint Louis.
I'm going to take my stuff to my grandmother's house.
And yeah, I'm going to spend a lot of time.
I'll have like an office space, just like a sanctuary for
myself. Shout out to Carl for always
telling me I always got a place there.
I always got a place at home, but it's temporary.
I don't want to do what I did before.
Where I go home, get caught up and stay home and look up and
five years go past without me having done much of what you
know, aligns for my purpose. And I say that, but I've been
able to do a lot for people over those years.
And I was just at home starting something positive for positive
people. And now like maybe this is part
of the hero's journey. And when I say the hero's
journey, I mean like bad thing happens, person goes off into
the world, my bad thing, maybe let's call it my herpes
diagnosis, go out into the world and try and like conquer
something. Like finding a sense of purpose,
which was living life. Like it wasn't really any more
complex than that. It was super simple.
And along the way, I got all these little bumps and bruises
and shit. And I've also picked up these
skills and these tools. I learned about simulated
patients. I learned that they don't they
don't talk about sex and sexual health.
I learned that there's like no men learning how to talk about
sex and like being one of I don't know how many of us there
are, but as far as talking about sexual Health Communication,
right, it's just me. It's just my lived experiences.
And in these lived experiences, I see that there's tools and
resources that I wish that I had available, regardless of what
I've learned on my own, regardless of the trial and
error myself, and what I've just been able to pick up from
workshops and books and podcasts like it's not enough.
And I am in a very unique position to be able to.
Recreate and distribute those kind of things, more of those
kinds of things in the settings that matter, and give people the
tools to be able to talk to men about their sex and sexual
health and all this other stuff. Like there's a lot of just
things that I've gotten sidetracked from and even this
podcast, probably like a sidetrack thing, but I think I
need to get this out. I need to say what I'm saying
right now for the sake of getting it off my chest.
I was listening to a Childish Gambino interview club, and he
was talking about working with Erykah Badu.
And he asked, he was like, you know, how do you do this?
Like the pressure of making great music for people?
How do you make what they want? And she told her, she said, I, I
feed them and how they eat it, it's up to them.
Like I make what I like to eat. They can eat it with a fork,
they can eat it fast, they can eat it while they're cleaning
it, whatever it is, like the, the product that is made is
making what I like, what I need. And they take it in how they
take it in. And that was a really powerful
quote for me because I've been also doing that both with people
end in my relationship with something positive for positive
people. I've been trying to do all these
events and it's hard to get people to show up to the events,
but I know damn well that like more of who follows and engages
with something positive for positive people is it's global.
It's not just like, oh, I have such a large community in this
place. And you know, I feel that way
for sure about New York. Like New York is the website
numbers are there, but it's it's difficult to get people to show
up. I don't really have support from
support groups and the the dating site that exists.
So a lot of this is just guerrilla warfare, not warfare.
Oh my God, guerrilla marketing tactics, figuring this out on my
own. And when you figure things out
on your own, like you get good at figuring things out on your
own. And it also gets bored or not
boring, challenging. Like I want to bring people in.
I want to bring somebody in to, to help and be more involved.
And I think that even among that, like I've gotten
sidetracked from what's important here.
And what's most important here is that I serve the people
directly affected by herpes and I advocate in the right spaces.
And also I got to take care of like my yoga therapy school
stuff, which I've been neglecting.
Again, just grieving brain. I can say that now because of
what I learned in yoga therapy school.
So when they're like, where's your homework?
Like grieving brain, y'all taught me that.
But no seriously, and it's it's tough as somebody who I was like
30 whenever the pandemic started, I think a little bit
after that I got into therapy and I'm back in therapy.
I took a two year break to do some things on my own.
Probably should have been in there the whole time, but money
and also like, I think it's important to be able to do
things on your own too, right? Like the integration versus
implementation thing, right? Like there's a need to learn
things, but then we also have to be able to show that we've
learned something from them. And that's what I've been doing
over the last almost two years. Yeah, probably a year and a half
more more. So it's been more so a year and
a half since I've seen and talked to my therapist prior to
like, getting back into it with them.
And yeah, I, he came at me and was like, here's what's going on
with you. And he hit me with the
perspective of like something that was just deep down that I
kind of knew and I was in denial of.
And part of grieving is denial, bargaining.
And there's all these steps of it.
But what he touched on made me angry.
And this is one of the reasons that I do appreciate healing
modalities and, and, and therapy as well as my own self
reflective work because yeah, I can ask myself the questions.
I can find out like, why did I do this thing?
Oh, this is connected to this, right?
I can do all of that. But for somebody to because he
he also a sassy gay black man. And he hit me with, he just hit
me with the real questions, the real statements, man like, like
nobody else can. And so I think that between
having experienced that anger and burning that up and how
comes the, the sadness, I think that I need to feel sad.
And I'm working with him on boundaries for myself.
And I'm, I'm telling y'all this man, because if I don't just get
this shit out right here right now, it's going to spill out in
podcast episodes in the future. It's going to spill out when
y'all engage with me on social media.
I already just had a recent like back and forth with somebody
where I was trying to be my like peppy self and shit.
And I think it was interpreted wrong just based on how the, the
text, the messages went. And I could be completely wrong
because again, like grieving brain like it's, it's I need to
get to baseline. I need to get back to my
baseline. I know what I would normally
like to do right now. I'm not going to do that thing
or those things because they're not, they're not healthy
behaviors. So I'm making the space right
now to just feel, to just feel what it is that I need to.
Yeah, I, yeah. So without, I guess talking
specifically about it, because I don't want to, I don't, I don't
want to. And my reasoning for it is that
I know the core of what the issue is, what my issues are.
And this is what I plan to step away and work on for myself
because I'm going to be a better person as a whole for it.
And it'll show up in my work when I am able to get past this
whole like being needless shit. Because it, it hasn't served me.
It served me, but also it, it hasn't served me in a matter of
like most important, of what's most important, what's a
priority to me? Because also like, if you don't
know what your needs are, how can you prioritize them, right?
Because then everything's a priority.
So nothing's a priority. So it's very critical for me
right now to be able to step back, step away, go into the
fortress of solitude for a little bit, and then lean into
the people that have been supportive to me and like
confide in them and and have these positively supportive and
healing modalities for me rather than coping strategies and
mechanisms. All right.
So yeah, there's a lot of things that I want to just pour out and
say, but I think that the pressure, it's depressurized a
little bit me being able to come here and, you know, say these
things. And while it didn't have
anything to do with something positive for positive people
like herpes at all, like I think that me having to, you know,
cancel the interview that I should have been having right
now on this recording, this Zoom meeting link and everything, I
think that that speaks volumes to it needing to come out
consciously rather than unconsciously.
And I push people away or turn people off from something
positive. But yeah, this is me being real.
Like, I don't like I, I even told the lady I was like, hey,
this is really hard for me to cancel because I'm the kind of
person who we set a date, we set a time like, let's show, let's
do this. We got to do this.
And she was like, Nah, take care of yourself.
Like, I'll be here. We can reschedule.
And so I, I just, I took her up on that and I actually am kind
of glad that I did because what if this shit came out then?
Oh man, I can't imagine. She's just been sitting there
like, you want to talk to me about this?
No, but I appreciate that. Her name's Thesia.
So when you see that podcast episode come up, we'll probably,
we'll probably have some laughs about that.
But one thing I can say is that while, you know, I'm sad, like
I'm also excited because I know what this means for me.
I think that environment plays a huge role in things like I've
been in New Jersey and I've been really fighting to, you know,
like forcing myself into a bubble and environment community
that I haven't just naturally been able to fall into.
And I think that I've been very I've I've separated and created
space for myself from what makes me happy, what play is for me.
I've very much consciously disconnected from what's play
for me and immerse myself in the important, the heavy, the, the,
the big stuff. And I've not allowed myself
permission to play and engage with the small stuff.
I've been reading a lot about sexual energy as well.
Can I pull this up? Probably not.
Nope. Damn, I can't yeah, I can.
I got to go back pretty far. So me and ChatGPT have been
having a lot of conversations. So y'all, y'all probably heard
about this like no FAP, don't masturbate, use your sexual
energy this way, whatever. And something that I've been
grasping with myself lately is sexual energy as a whole, like
not just as sex intercourse, but as creativity, as vital life
force, right? And I try to see like, well,
what is it that I get out of sex, right?
And it's not just sex like work relationships, right?
I think that we have our energy and we pour what we pour into
who and what we put into. And so for myself, for a really
long time, I've poured into something positive for positive
people, what I would have to give into a relationship.
And when relationships would come up historically, like I
wouldn't prioritize their relationship.
And that would be, I think like why some of them if not gone
anywhere because obviously I've been in relationships.
But when I look at how I've not how I've been historically
showing up, like I've been able to really hit the gas on
something positive for positive people and then make space for
play. I'd always have something,
someone, somewhere to look forward to and have like
immersive weekends or time of engaging in that sexual energy,
whether that be in a sex down South, sex down South is a great
example. Or if it's like meeting up with
a partner and just being able to chill and relax and just
experience the pleasantness of, you know, good company.
And I've for a really long time just been trying to like force
that that kind of energy for myself in ways that I haven't
before. And I think part of me was just
like, this is actually what is good for me, right?
Like not doing those things is going to be better for me
because those things are bad because they're externally
driven. But then also within a
relationship with myself, my partner or well, not myself, my
partner or my business, then it's still like seeking that
feeling, that sensation externally.
And till Swan is somebody I follow on YouTube, always listen
to her YouTube shorts. And one of the things that she
said is like, she's very counterculture in spirituality,
which I really like because of the unconventionality of it.
And one of the things that she says is like, we, we need
people. Like we don't learn lessons
without people. So these external things that we
get our needs met from or what it is that we need, like we
shouldn't be demonized for it. And that really gave me a sense
of lightness and a sense of relief because I didn't know
what I didn't know that I was OK.
Like I felt like it was wrong for me to be who I am or for who
I've become. Like, I think that's the worst
shit in the world is when somebody makes you feel like who
you are or is bad, especially when you've worked so hard to
become who you are. It's not like I just looked up
and you know, I was this person, right?
Like this took a lot of work and a lot of the work that I've done
in order to become this. Like this shit ain't easy.
Don't nobody fucking teach you how to do this.
Don't nobody is. Resources are out there.
It's stuff out there. But then like you read some
shit, you find out that so and so is not who they say they are.
And that discredits everything that they've done.
And now you got to find somebody else, find something else to go
into. And man, it's been I, I just, I
don't, I don't like that feeling.
I, I think now like I'm uncovering some new stuff here.
I don't like the feeling of, I don't like the feeling of like
identity invalidation. God damn, that's what it is.
So I, I talk about how I've learned, you know what, why
people have suicide ideation. And it's that I think that it's
an invalidation of identity. Not to say that I have suicide
ideation, but the feelings that I have are an intense resistance
to my environment as it is like my environment in a way of like
consciously trying to view what I've learned to view as good as
bad so that I can do something better or different that's
supposed to be healthier or better.
And I got to, I got to get back into myself because I don't
believe that. And there's a direct conflict of
behaviors and beliefs within myself.
And the environment that I'm in is like forcing me to recognize
and acknowledge that now. And there's a lot of shit that's
just like happening in here in my inner world, as a result of
my external world. In my external world, when I've
been alone has been fucking hard.
It's been really, really difficult.
But I've made it. I've made it.
And I think that in those moments, like I've, I've worn
myself out emotionally because of course the grass always look
greener on the other side. When you single, social media
tell you how awesome the relationship is.
When you're in a relationship, social media tell you what
you're missing out on being single.
And that's just unfortunately how the algorithm works.
It plays on our emotional states.
And I think people do that shit too.
People are taught by the algorithm like what's good,
what's bad, what's cool, what's popular, right?
And people's own inner beliefs have like their own conflicts.
And we deal with those sometimes by projecting them.
We might project them on our businesses, we might project
them on people closest to us or the communities that we're part
of. And I, I feel like that's
something that I've, I've done, like I've been doing that and
it's not mine. It's what I mean by like my
environment. I've been listening to Napoleon
Hills outwitting the Devil again.
And he talks about these 7 principles, right?
One of them is definiteness of purpose, exercise and caution.
How important our environment is self-discipline, mastering the
emotion of sex, harmony, especially in our relationships.
I do not remember what number 7 is.
I always forget the seven, whether it be one of those ones
that I just said or the one that I didn't say.
But in that what motorcycle or bike?
OK, excuse me, sidetracked grieving brain, right squirrel.
But in reviewing those, right, like I'm, I'm looking at myself
and I'm like, damn, you know, I've been doing a lot of, of not
those things. And environment has been a
really key part for me. Like I have not been able to be
myself in the environment that I've been in and it's just not
been conducive to me. It's not been something that I
have been able to maintain my momentum of growth.
And I believed something for myself that maybe doing
something different was growing. Maybe like I outgrew things like
sex positivity or non monogamy or like the being active on
social media and Instagram. I really, I really think that
like that is part of why I'm grieving right now is that my
beliefs change because I really wanted something that I think
that there, that I was convinced that there was only one way to
get. And I think that's bullshit
because I've worked so hard to learn that that's not the case,
to unlearn that as the case and then to learn that to like have
to now unlearn those things and like relearn that what I knew in
the beginning was actually right.
It just needed to be done different.
No, no, like I, I'm way more powerful than that.
Like, I'm not, you know, I think I said this earlier, I'm only
human, but I'm not like I'm, I really truly believe that, you
know, this body is the vehicle of experiencing this part of
whatever it is, the electrical current that runs through the
nervous system of this body that is moving and speaking and
having the experience. And I really, you know, I'm
working to not identify with anything because that's what all
the spiritual teachers say to do, like unidentified with that
which you are identified and. It's like my environment has
tried to like, force me into identifying with a lot of things
and trying to get me to unidentify with things that, you
know, that that have actually served me.
So yeah, I don't, I don't have any desire to go into like
specifics of things. I'm not, I'm not good at that.
I know what I feel. I know what I experienced.
I know what I've experienced and also understand that feelings
are subjective and that people can experience completely
different things from the same exact situation just based on
their proximity to the core of whatever it is.
And so I feel like that's where I'm at right now is needing to
change my environment. I need to really self not
abandoned, whatever, whatever the opposite of self abandonment
is, do that and be present with myself, be present with my
grief, be present with my healing process, be present with
my purpose and be present in delivering the things that I
promised that I was going to deliver and really make make
work what I know I can make work.
And just yeah, that's this. This is just going to be the
upcoming challenge. So if y'all listen to this, I
want to just express my gratitude for your willingness
to hear me. And listen, you know, if any of
this resonates with y'all, like I don't know that I really need,
you know, the sorry, what's going on If you if you follow
me, you know, but yeah, I'm not, I don't want to feed that.
I want to feed what's happening moving forward.
Again, yoga therapy, the peer support calls, the podcast, and
then my training for health professionals focusing on yoga
therapy training and working part time as I can with the
priority being my own personal healing.
So I hope you all continue to rock with your boys, support
something positive and and yeah, whenever I do have any virtual
event type things, I hope that y'all will attend.
I would love to see y'all there, but I definitely I need to stop
trying to work with other people.
I'm I'm over. I'm I almost said something.
I need to just trust myself. I need to trust myself.
That's what we're going to say, but we got this survey still up
and running on the Herpes survey tab.
So if you check that out and please contribute, partake in
the survey. We need as many responses as we
can get so that we can show that we're speaking from the
experiences that y'all are sharing.
Again, tomorrow, Thursday at 7:00 PM, we're at the house in
Brooklyn, NY. Me and Tricia, AKA Safe Slut.
We're going to be hosting an in person social event.
Just something for people with herpes, people who follow her,
people who follow me. Come grab a drink, say hi, start
a conversation, and then yeah, that's, that's it y'all.
Thank y'all for letting me grieve and letting this be like
an act of grief instead of me bitching on social media about
some bullshit or being on there and responding to things and all
of that. This is this is my one of my
part of my space and healing and all that good stuff.
All right, so till next time, the next podcast episode, I'll
be in a different environment and I'll probably be in a
different mood. So just bear with me as I get my
shit back together, y'all, because it's not together.
I'm not OK. All right y'all, till next time.