SPFPP 300: The Dream of a Choice - Celebrating 6 Years of SPFPP

I've been interviewing people with herpes since 2017. I started this platform with the intention of just keeping people with herpes from wanting to kill themselves. All these years later, we've become the leading sexual health communications resource for people navigating herpes stigma. I wanted to do something special like a fundraiser for this occasion, but things just fell through. This episode is a combination of what's for people to understand from the business side and a significant amount of my own personal experience here. I had a dream that I'm integrating into my personal existence as well as how I run SPFPP moving forward, and that's from a place of presence, choice and intention. I have been so afraid of success and failure, but those were covering up my true fear which is my damn self.

Episode 300 Transcript

00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Hello and welcome to episode 300 of Something Positive for Positive People. I'm your host, Courtney Brame. I'm the executive director and founder of Something Positive for Positive People, which is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that is the leading sexual health communications resource for people navigating herpes stigma. Um, ultimately what I do is I teach people how to talk about their sexual health with their partners. Um, 300 300 300 that's six years y'all. The last six years of weekly podcast episodes and I am very thrilled to finally really be able to say what it is that this organization is, what it means, what I do and to be able to relay that messaging to the world because for so long I didn't know what I was doing. In 2017 when I had my first podcast interview with Amy, I didn't know this was going to be a podcast. I saw that there were people living with herpes who wanted to kill themselves and I just felt compelled to do something and that something was to just talk to people who have herpes and are living with it to see how they're living with it just to give people a little bit of a road map for how to navigate their diagnosis on their own.

00:01:49 Courtney Brame: And over time that developed into a nonprofit organization. And I was raising money to pay for people to get therapy for a while and really tried to find my place in the space of herpes education, advocacy, if you will. And I've gone through a number of identity crises, but to say that, you know, I'm teaching people how to talk about their sexual health, that seems to be the most fitting. Um, I am advocating for the integration of people's lived experiences after their diagnosis and education and communication skills that they develop through disclosing and talking about this with their sexual partners into sex education resources. I do believe that giving people the resources ahead of time and the communication skills to navigate conversations around sexual health is going to be what not only minimizes the risk of transmissions, but it's going to really significantly reduce the impacts of stigma. I say sexual health is mental health because so much of our identities are interconnected with our sexuality. An SCI diagnosis, especially one that is chronic like herpes, has the power to not only damage how a person views their sexuality, but how they view themselves.

00:03:07 Courtney Brame: This really does impact the way that people go on to connect with others. It impacts the way that people relate to themselves if we're not able to get our need of connection. And one of the ways that we connect is through sex and our sexuality. And so to not be able to uh merge genitals with someone is absolutely something that can be devastating, especially if this is the way that you connect. And one of the things that I hope that I'm able to do is get people to expand their idea of what connection is and to see that when there's a priority on the whole of the connection, the whole of the person that the physical component of having herpes and the possibility of transmission becomes insignificant because you like someone, they like you back. you are interested in each other. They're aware of the risk. You've communicated the risk. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to move forward. And I think that there's a lot more self-limitations that we put on ourselves than uh what the other person would put on us.

00:04:18 Courtney Brame: I don't think anybody can really inhibit us as people who are sexually active, who are pursuing sex. Because, you know, if it wasn't herpes and we still got rejected, I don't think that the impact of being too short or being less attractive or not making enough money or being a little bit bigger or too small or too dark or too light or just ignorant or not compatible. You know, we don't look at those things with near the amount of intensity as we do our herpes status. And we have way less control over whether or not we get herpes than we do any of those other things. So, I intend through this platform to expand people's perspective on what it means to live with this virus. And my day-to-day work through the nonprofit organization looks like um collaborating with organizations that are willing to hear me out and learn from the experiences of people who are navigating stigma directly to better serve and aid their existing uh STD or STI prevention efforts.

00:05:26 Courtney Brame: I do believe that when people get comfortable disclosing their status, it becomes more of a ripple effect because we're discussing our sexual health and we're making that the norm that we're going to talk about sexual health. And as we disclose to our partners, whether we're rejected or we do move forward with some kind of a relationship, we are encouraging this in other people. And unfortunately, we are the pioneers of this. And while that may be the case, you know, it feels like a lot of uh burden is on us to initiate these conversations, but that's just unfortunately the reality of it. And we move forward and this is what we do. If we want to connect, if we want to have sex, this is just one more thing that we have to do. And I'll be honest, for me, it has become significantly more worth it um as time has passed and I have been having these conversations. And I'm going to be real with y'all. I've rejected more people than have rejected me.

Knowing Your Alignment and Navigating Resistance

00:06:23 Courtney Brame: Not because of my herpes diagnosis, but because of other incompatibilities, things that I've just overlooked throughout the past. Um, for instance, like if someone is not um actually uh in the position to meet me where I'm at in terms of what it is that I'm looking for. If I'm available for a short-term casual relationship and they demonstrate that they want something longterm, it's on me to see that and go, "Hey, I don't think that this is going to be a fit. You know, thank you, but no thank you." And I'm going to be honest, like a couple of times, I think that that might have saved me from a potentially um uh there's a gray area sometimes between what consent is. Because if I'm saying, "Hey, this is what I'm available for. I want to have a sexual relationship." and someone says, "Oh, well, should we not do that? Actually, let's be friends first and then eventually maybe have sex. I don't want that to be the expectation." You know,

00:07:25 Courtney Brame: that conflict, there's a gray area there that I have become so much more aware of its existence that I'm willing to walk away. I'm willing to walk away from a sexual opportunity. And that's just something that has taken a lot of practice for me to be able to do. So if things aren't in alignment, you know, and it's taken practice. It's taken a lot of practice. And that's why episode 299 exists because that is the framework for being able to practice uh having these conversations and being able to talk about and discuss your sexual health, testing practices, whether or not you're in alignment for the relationship, if the sex is going to even be worth it. um if this person is someone that you even want to disclose to. Right? So that's a whole episode. I don't need to go into that. I am just ecstatic that I made it to episode 300. Uh I'm a little bit disappointed because I really wanted this to be something spectacular.

00:08:24 Courtney Brame: I wanted to do a live fundraiser event, stream the podcast, raise money, have all my friends in St. Louis and um the people who've benefited from Something Positive for Positive People to come into a venue. But uh I wasn't able to get enough people on board with attending. Uh the event would have been either the weekend before now or right after. Um but here we are on August 2nd, 2023. I'm recording this and then I'm just going to upload it right away. Um I wanted to cover a few different topics and get participation from the audience. I really had like a vision in my head, y'all, but um I'm just not there yet. And that's okay. Um, I will get there maybe, but if I do, yay. If I don't, then that's okay. Uh, a couple of things that I do want to share. I think that I mostly covered this in the intro, is just that, uh, from a professional standpoint, what Something Positive for Positive People is.

00:09:18 Courtney Brame: I teach people how to talk about their sexual health. Um, mostly people who are navigating herpes stigma. My advocacy is for the integration of people's experiences after their diagnosis to be integrated in the early sex education resources. Um, I do believe that this equips people with the knowledge and understanding and resources for if they do test positive for herpes or if they do come across somebody with herpes, they'll be able to meet this in a way that is going to help support prevention efforts by minimizing the impacts of stigma because stigma has s severe um mental health impacts to the point of suicide attempts. Uh, we have surveys on the website if you go to spfpp.org/data, you'll be able to see that. I've made adjustments to the website, so you'll be able to more easily navigate some of the statistics. And if you want more in-depth data, you'll be able to find that there. Um, I did get IRB approval to launch the survey for the year 2023. I will be including links to that in upcoming podcast episodes once we have the final approval, the IRB.

00:10:30 Courtney Brame: Um, and shout out to Megan for being patient with me because I have been extremely impatient with this process. It should have been done to me in March or in February, March. I should have been collecting data uh from people living with herpes, but it's been a process and I think that it's going to be worth it. Timing is everything. There were two adjustments that needed to be made. She made them and now we're just pending final approval and I'll be able to put that link in. So, um, be on the lookout for that survey. Uh, yeah. I I I've been spending money. I've been putting money into Something Positive. I've been paying somebody to help me with the website, and I'm very happy with how it looks. I'm very happy with the videos that are uploaded, the content, the way that things are worded, um, the location of things, the way that you navigate it, and all of that is beautiful.

The True Impact of SPFPP

00:11:21 Courtney Brame: So, you can go and check that out at www.spfpp.org. I am available for speaking engagements, for trainings, tutorials, uh if you want to talk about herpes stigma. I can speak about this from so many different angles and also the importance of these experiences and how they influence early sex education from the perspective of safety and harm reduction. Uh, I think that consent-abiding, boundary-setting and honoring youth who are able to identify abuse of relationships as well as healthy relationships and understand how to seek support and where to go if they need it. When these people have these frameworks that have nothing to do with sex that the people who after their herpes diagnosis had to go on and learn and familiarize themselves with. If youth has this framework to apply nonsexually to their platonic relationships and their peers, when they do become sexually active adults, they will be consent-abiding, boundary-honoring and setting, healthy relationship having, support seeking in the event of a consent violation- adults. That's a bigger picture of what this is.

00:12:33 Courtney Brame: Uh so yeah, I speak on these things and my concept of STI minimization really incorporates the mental health component of what it means to uh be involved uh what it means to be involved. Wow. The mental health components of STI stigma because they're just not covered. And I don't think that we're including the uh proper organizations in these conversations. Yeah, people with herpes get on social media, they say, "I have herpes." And then people seek support from them and they share their stories, but it's not enough. It's not enough to exclusively engage with the herpes community because I'll be honest, most of the herpes community doesn't want to get involved. Like a lot of people do hide. A lot of people, you know, are comfortable with just dating people with herpes. They find their support groups, their communities. They socialize within them and network within them. And these are the people who are in their dating pool. I want to get people out of that.

00:13:27 Courtney Brame: I really over the past couple of weeks have found what my sense of purpose is and I've identified my intention. I've not been intentional for so long running this organization. I've just been doing things as they've come along and I've been very impressed. A lot of people have said, you know, things that they see wrong or what they need and that's important, but also I have to hold true to what I need. And I realized over this weekend, um, I had a dream. I guess I'll just go ahead and shift into the personal side of this because I was very much trying to decide if this needed to be exclusively personal or if it needed to also be uh or if it needed to just be professional. And uh I've never been one or the other. It's always been a very smooth mix of the two. And I think that, you know, I am serving two audiences here. People who are directly impacted by stigma.

00:14:20 Courtney Brame: Uh people who are living with herpes. I mean, and then we've got the people who um interact with the people who are living with herpes, the organizations, the public health professionals, mental health, sex educators, all of these people uh as well. So, I think I could speak to everybody from a human um perspective here. Um, I had a dream and in this dream, uh, this came after me being sober for a month. I've not had any alcohol for the month of July. And this wasn't a challenging thing for me really. I think the hardest part was being around people who were like, "Hey, why aren't you drinking?" Or, "Would you like a drink? Uh, are you having fun?" And I found that to be interesting because in these spaces, I became the most present that I've ever been. And I was able to pick up on things and perceive things in a way that I otherwise hadn't. I would have normally been drinking too.

00:15:15 Courtney Brame: And while everybody's drinking, you feel more connected to each other. I felt even though I was sober, like I still felt connected to everybody, but I was more so connected to this sort of resistance to the present moment. I think that that's probably what it was the most. I was the most present that I have ever been around people while I was sober. So, I'm not drinking and I'm there. I can hear music. I hear conversations. I can see body language a little bit more. Non-verbals. I see who doesn't want to be talked to and who is talking to someone and might be a little bit insecure about it or I'm very much reading the situations and that constant perception of the world around me being sober. It can be intense. It really can. And when I was in this state multiple times actually, uh what I realized coming out of it was that it was overwhelming from the receiving it.

A Dream About Presence and Suffering

00:16:18 Courtney Brame: Like I'm receiving everybody else's insecurities, or their confidence, their nervousness, their escapism or what they're escaping from. Like I'm, I'm picking up on all of this and their intentions. But what I realized is that I was unable to be grounded in my own intention. So I'm just in these spaces without any intentionality and I'm just like I'm there and I'm absorbing everything around me. And I started to think to myself, man, you know, this might be why people drink. They either drink to pursue that feeling of connectedness that I experienced which was intense and overwhelming or they could be drinking to escape that and not feel that overwhelming sense of connectedness which if I'm sober in that environment that situation I'm perceiving everything around me the way that I am that was that's normal like that is a normal state of being but it's so foreign and it's like you have to practice that and condition yourself to get more comfortable with it and understand, oh, what I'm feeling right now, that's not mine.

00:17:21 Courtney Brame: Or you have to be so grounded in what your natural state of being is and what your intentionality is with being in the place that you are that everybody else's intention isn't overwhelming. And alcohol, different drugs, addiction, sex addiction, all of these things, they uh offer this illusion of presence. You know, not to say I'm not going to. I don't judge people for what their actions are, especially after this dream I had. Y'all, this dream was crazy. I'll tell you about it when I finish setting the stage for it. Um but also not drinking. I also wasn't masturbating. I looked at how much time I was spending masturbating and there were some days where like I counted the time and there were days I'd go 90 minutes a day masturbating like before bed or if I just have like that urge in the middle of the day I'd go rub one out and get back to it. But it wasn't just rubbing one out.

00:18:18 Courtney Brame: It's like you got to find the right p*** that you want to watch. You got to sit up right. You got to get to the right part. And sometimes it cuts off or changes things before you get to the point that you really want to see. Right? And there's a lot of time that I put into that. And I decided I was like, for July, I'm not going to drink and I'm not going to masturbate because these were the two things that were eating up so much of my time. And I set one goal for myself. That goal was to finish the first draft of the book that I'm writing. Um, I don't know what I'm going to call it exactly, but it's between something along the lines of Something Positive for Positive People and then how to have herpes. I think how to have herpes is like a really easy way of uh um it's an easy title. It's very easy, straight to the point, but it's essentially um taking the 300 plus podcast episodes in existence right now and taking the most valuable lessons from them and compiling it into a book.

00:19:16 Courtney Brame: A book that can be purchased, a book that will be purchased. This ain't this ain't going to be free. The podcast is free. So, you can listen to 300 podcast episodes. You can pay whatever the price is going to be for this book. I'm working with someone uh now. I sent it off for editing. She's going to go through it. I know that there's a couple of things that are missing. Um I need to speak to uh a couple of points. I forget what they were. I wrote them down and sent them to her. But yeah, there's a couple of more points that I need to speak to. But I was able to finish the whole book, y'all. Not beating my dick for 30 days and not drinking alcohol and being hung over or going out and you know like spending that time being out super duper late. I was able to get a book done.

00:19:58 Courtney Brame: And I want to shout out my yoga teacher uh who I got my yoga teacher certification from L for trusting me to house it for her because I didn't have to pay rent for three months and I was able to really just lock in and focus especially over the last 31 days um and get this book done. And so it's done. It's ready for editing. I don't know when it'll be published. So, I don't want to really um offer any like oh expected by this time cuz I really am unfamiliar with the process of what that looks like. So, all of this done and you know this past weekend I went to San Diego uh to attend a herpes social meetup at the beach and um not the Yeah, it was a beach. It was a beach and so uh I go and I socialize with people. I meet people and um I connect with the admins and one of the issues that I've had over time has been I can't share my podcast and my survey data in these groups.

00:20:56 Courtney Brame: So meeting them, talking to them and letting them know what I do and everything. They were very much on board with me directly sharing my podcast, sharing these resources, and most importantly sharing the upcoming survey. So um I'm getting back in the herpes support groups so that I can uh further advance my work directly in the community. I know a lot of people who are in the groups, they might not necessarily vibe with it because it's not what they're in the groups for necessarily. Um the groups can offer a form of escapism and just kind of like being drunk or drinking you know that pursuit of sameness and community can also be a distraction from presence or it can be uh the it can offer the illusion of connectedness the illusion of presence right so I don't again I don't want to like shame anybody for that I understand that it's this or that or it you know it can be both. So um going to the dream that I had, I dreamt that I was in fact like connected to everything, everybody.

00:22:01 Courtney Brame: And this dream felt so real to me, y'all. And the way that I felt was I felt this peak sense of connectedness, right? I felt just present. It was the most joyous, joyful feeling. I just don't even think I was in a body. Like one of the I saw like macaroni kind of folding in on itself like the starshaped spiral macaroni and cheese or whatever. It just kept folding in on itself repeatedly. This was one of the images that I can recall from the dream that I was having. And as it folded in on itself, like there was just this feeling that everything was part of this. And in addition to that, I was just feeling this sense of bliss and just pleasure and connectedness. I was just like, "Yeah, you know, it's this oneness." And then as soon as the thought crept in of, "Oh my god, what am I going to have to do to get this feeling again?" I just became

00:23:05 Courtney Brame: miserable. I felt whatever the opposite of that was. And it just felt like my soul was tearing apart. Like I didn't feel pain. My body wasn't hurting. I wasn't necessarily sad. This was a different kind of emotion. And I would like see emotions in this dream. And my soul was just like it was shredding, like tearing apart, like being torn literally. And I saw that and I just was crying, y'all. Like I was crying. And I didn't even know I was crying. like I was in a body in this dream I was having. But as I was uh as I was tearing like I just I heard myself. I was saying like yo this is what everybody is experiencing. This is what suffering is. This is what it means to live. This is what life is.

00:24:02 Courtney Brame: you know that soul tearingness. I mentioned like absorbing everything from everybody else and how when we are or when I was sober I was able to feel connected and like empathize with everybody around me and if that is the collective of what everybody is experiencing in life like that was a demonstration of you don't know what people are going through and I thought to myself yo this is why people want to kill themselves because you feel that peak sense of bliss and then it becomes comes fleeting and you have to chase it. You don't know where it's going to come from again. You're doing everything in your life to just pursue that moment, that feeling. We are all pursuing that feeling of oneness, connectedness, presence, peace, whatever it is that you want to call it. And the pursuit of that is what suffering is. This is what I came away from with that dream that I was having. You know, we have up and down, uh, we have left, right, we have right, wrong, we have, yes, no, right?

Eliminating the Word "Want" and Practicing Intentional Choice

00:25:04 Courtney Brame: We have all of these opposites, these dualities. Um, and I think that what happens is, well, in my case, what happened is I wasn't necessarily present with what those are. I would constantly feel a need to combat or battle one or the other, like being liberal or conservative. um being for this or against that and having to pick a side, so to speak. And also to um to uh have to to um just like to to fight, you know, it was fighting presence or to tolerate, you know, to be and exist in the reality that we live in. You know, that was really a hard feeling for me because if I feel like I'm connected to everybody and I feel that that sense of oneness and connectedness and I'm sober and I see around me that people are just drinking or people, you know, are on drugs or people are somehow running from that feeling or chasing that feeling. But either way, no one is just being still. No one is just being able to rest in the state of presence to where they're able to see that the pursuit of that is where suffering comes from.

00:26:34 Courtney Brame: We are present beings. We are connected. We are in this moment experiencing peace and that everything is all right. But we often escape the present moment in pursuit of the present moment, in pursuit of presence, in pursuit of being connected to. And that's where suffering is like I got to experience that in my own dream that suffering comes from pursuit, you know, and when I say pursuit, I mean like, you know, oh, alcohol, I'm going to I'm going to go grab I'm going to drink and I want to get obliterated. All things in moderation are perfectly fine. I believe I do believe all things in moderation are good. Um, but the abuse of them and I got to see it, you know, I saw it even in myself in the past. Like when I drink, I don't just like to have a beer, right? Or have two beers. Like I drink or I would drink in the past to get drunk. And I recognized that the reason that I would get drunk in the past was to work up the courage to talk to girls and try and have sex.

00:27:38 Courtney Brame: And I've come to realize that like that absence of presence is unattractive to me. The best sex that I've had has been sober. Like hands down, this has been the best sex that I've had has come from being just completely present with someone and being able to communicate. I want this, do this, go here, say this, tell me what you want. Like being able to just say that with intention. And I realized that so much of my life has been non-intentional. A lot of my life has just not been intentional at all. And so coming out of this dream, I woke up with the realization of the importance and value of presence in my life. How I am attracted to presence. That is the most attractive thing to me. That is what my uh practice is. And I also don't want anything anymore. It's a matter of choice. I choose to remove the word want from my vocabulary and say I choose with intention because with that deliberate intention uh I find myself in the direction that I'm supposed to be going and I do feel like Something Positive for Positive People.

00:28:56 Courtney Brame: This is my purpose. I'm doing what um I am. I am in my purpose and I'm present with that now because I've tried to run from it. Y'all, I moved to St. Louis. I packed up all my stuff and left Portland. I was like, I'm moving to St. Louis. I'm about to work towards starting a family. I want to buy a house and have some stability for myself. My life is not stable. Something Positive for Positive People is the most stable and consistent thing that I've done. And here I was running from it. When I was in Portland, I raised twice as much money as I did in 2022. In 2023, in the first few months, so the first few months of 2023, I raised roughly $60,000. Whereas the previous year, I raised about $30,000. And I got to that point and I was just like, "Oh my god." Like, I'm 34 years old.

00:29:44 Courtney Brame: I'm about to be 35. I live in somebody's attic. I work at a part-time job. I need to be making a lot more money. How am I supposed to find a partner? How am I supposed to support a family? And this is where I'm at. This is what I'm doing. And so I packed up and I left and I moved to St. Louis thinking that this was going to be where I planted roots, where I found the love of my life, where I started to develop relationships and uh plant my roots in my career. And that's not how it works. That's not that ain't one. That's not what I want. And I found myself in a place of making a choice out of the absence of choice because I can't choose for you to um the life that I want. And that was how I felt. I felt like I couldn't choose the life that I want.

00:30:35 Courtney Brame: So I had to take the life that I could get. So up and leaving Portland and being ready to pour my savings into creating some stability for myself, that was what I thought I needed to do. And being in St. Louis, and again, I'm so fortunate for lending me housesit and trusting me with her house because I was able to accomplish so much and have the reflection of, okay, this isn't for me right now. At least this isn't what I want for myself. This isn't just what I feel my options are. And I think I'd have talked about this before if it wasn't on this podcast. It was on my other podcast self where I do all this self-reflection and kind of think out loud uh through some of my own self-development stuff. And the word nomad has come up a couple of times and I do really resonate with that because I used to think that it was like getting a van, driving around the country and just living in your van.

00:31:41 Courtney Brame: But nomad life can look like me living in Portland. I have a really good living situation there and being able to just bounce around and travel as needed where I need to go. Um, I thought that what I was going to do was teach genital exams, make enough money to support myself, and be able to run Something Positive for Positive People. And I caught myself. I caught myself. And I'm glad I caught it early because that's what I was doing. And I'm justifying, you know, being able to continue to run Something Positive as I do now by being able to put more hours into making money to be able to support myself so that I don't have to ask for much through Something Positive. But the reality is for Something Positive to grow, I have to grow that and not take away time from it by investing more time into the things that are making me um enough money and a part-time salary to be able to just get by to the next month.

00:32:37 Courtney Brame: I got to stop doing that and I have to be willing to take the risk that um comes with that. And so I decided like I've chosen I made a choice and it's very intentional and I'm a little bit scared of my power and I think that we all are because with our choice comes accountability for the outcomes. So if I'm choosing this and I am taking the action steps that follow up that choice and it doesn't work out then what? And it took for me to continue to read. There's a couple of books I've been reading. I've been listening to a lot less music. I've been listening to less podcasts and I've been listening to my books Psychocybernetics, Letting Go by David R. Hawkins and I've downloaded a few more of David R. Hawkins books just to get the information and different wordings and context but uh I forget who said this but it's not that we make ah it was Psychocybernetics Dr. Maxwell Maltz who said this.

00:33:31 Courtney Brame: He said we don't make right decisions. We make decisions and then we make them right. For so long I have avoided and avoidance is a big word. I've avoided the decision-m process. I've avoided being intentional because with that I have to deal with the consequences of potentially coming across success and what comes with that. But now since that dream I had I'm a different person. I've been a very different person since that dream I had. This was what Saturday night went into Sunday morning. Um I don't know. I don't know who God visited me or what power source that was. Um but whatever it was, I trusted and I think that I've been very disconnected from not just my own intention, but my own spirituality, uh my own sense of self. like I very much cared a lot about what other people think throughout my life and I I take what people say a lot more uh intensely than what my own things to say about myself are and how can I tell y'all to do the thing that I'm not doing right so it's very important to me that now I move forward from here on out with intention and knowing the clarity of my intention is to be present I am choosing to be present.

Taking Action and Letting Go

00:34:56 Courtney Brame: I am choosing to be intentional with Something Positive for Positive People with my decision making. And the first choice that I've made is to really lean into the areas of life that I'm resistant to and then let go of my emotional attachments to get the outcome that I want. So, set the intention, identify the emotions, let the emotions go. And I know my life about to be f****** beautiful moving forward if it's been the way that it has been with no intention. I've been able to travel. I've had very beautiful, healthy, loving, caring relationships. I've had the best sex of my life. I wrote a book. I've been able to um disengage from negativity and toxicity. Uh and I'm able to really hold space for people. And like I've been emotionally avoidant. And I think that in this dream I saw my own emotions and it was intense. It was overwhelming. I am more comfortable holding space for a person who's balling their eyes out talking about how bad they want to kill themselves than I am sitting with my own emotions.

00:36:03 Courtney Brame: And I used to think I just didn't have any. But the way that they came rushing into me in this dream, I realized that I've been holding back so much from y'all and being able to really connect and take things up to the next level out of my own fear. I thought it was a fear of failure and then I thought it was a fear of success. It's none of that by myself. I'm very much afraid of my own power. I'm afraid of what I'm capable of. I'm afraid of becoming arrogant or a narcissist or too confident and then having to be humbled in some way. But the reality is I know what the f*** I'm doing. I've been doing this for six years now. I've been running this podcast. I've been able to get donations. I have the support of a lot of people behind me. I have the support of organizations behind me. And I'm traveling.

00:36:49 Courtney Brame: I'm doing all of the things that I want to be doing. I'm doing all of the things that uh you know, I just looked up and I'm able to say, "Okay, I want to be doing this. I want to be doing that." Right? But how much of that has been a choice? And this is part of the reason why I want to eliminate the word want from my vocabulary because it isn't a choice. It hasn't been a choice for so long. And now I'm able to choose. I'm practicing like I'm even saying with the most small things, I choose to lift this weight. I chose to get out of bed this morning. I choose to and I'm practicing and developing that choice muscle. I'm developing my intentionality muscle. And I very much challenge y'all to do that yourselves. You know, I know that you might be in the darkest place right now with your diagnosis or I know you might be listening to this as a health care provider and wondering what Something Positive for Positive People is about.

00:37:40 Courtney Brame: This is helpful. This is self-help for people who are living with herpes. You know, that's just one more element of it. It's a lot. And I mean it's just me and I choose to do this. I choose to do this every day out of necessity. This is a necessary ass resource. This is a necessary platform. And there are people who struggle with herpes stigma from all different angles and walks of life. I think men deal with herpes significantly differently than women do. And there are people who are on various gender spectrums that I speak with who are on top of dealing with their herpes diagnosis. You know, other things in relation to how the world sees them, how they want to be seen by the world. There are so many different angles and I am doing my damnedest to be able to be present with all of that and I've been cut off from my own emotions in the past.

00:38:35 Courtney Brame: And I think that that's why I've not been as effective as I can be. So, I'm choosing to after now having observed my own emotions and really having the healing experience that came with that dream I had and connect more, maybe be able to not just receive, but to also give my own emotional states to people and have like a more reciprocal relationship rather than me, you know, taking it in and then putting it out on this platform. I feel like sort of a catalyst, so to speak. uh the energy, the negativity passes through me and I put it on this platform in a positive format. But um while I'm off-putting, I think that there's room for me to be able to really connect with people by sharing my own feelings. I'm at episode 300 of this podcast. I'm surprised I didn't start crying yet through this podcast. I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but I am feeling extremely passionate right now.

00:39:33 Courtney Brame: And this is unlike me. Like I I'm I'm very much uh believe I believe that there's like um a difference between purpose and passion. Passion is what you want to do. Purpose is what you have to do. And I feel so compelled. That's why I've been able to be consistent with this. That's why I've been able to do this once a week for the last 6 years. That's 312 weeks is 52 weeks times six. Yeah, that's like 312ish weeks. For 312 plus weeks, there has been an episode of Something Positive for Positive People released. And I feel really good about that. I tried to walk away from it so many times, but I just couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to do it. And I'm so grateful that I haven't. I have met some wonderful people over the years. I feel like I got a place to stay. anywhere that I want to go, I'm able to lay my head there probably for like two days.

00:40:31 Courtney Brame: You know, I don't want to take advantage of the situations, but these are the kinds of connections that I built. This is the community that I built for myself. And this was all unintentionally like early on my intention was just uh I want to interview people with herpes so people with herpes don't want to kill themselves. And that was a very strong intention that carried me to this point, you know, without me even necessarily being more mindful of and choosing that for myself. I didn't choose that. That chose me. And I've constantly been chosen by my environment and people around me and then I just walk into it and I'm there rather than me going, "Hey, this is best for me. This is what I'm choosing and the power of my intention is going to lead me to the outcome that um I am I have to be present with. I have to be present with whatever the outcomes are and be accountable for whatever the impact is.

00:41:29 Courtney Brame: The intention impact, right? So my intention may not excuse me necessarily have the impact that I want it to have or that I'm choosing for it to have but that's where I have to be present and that's why I have to understand that there are these dualities that we operate from this or that and I am choosing to act in the way that the present moment calls for me to respond to. So it's important to me. This is very important to me to be present in my relationships. I've learned that I am very much having a strong and deep sense of gratitude for the relationships, the friendships that I have around me that are as present as they are. I'm very faithful and grateful for my family, my friends, and the podcast listeners. Y'all know who y'all are. The ones that I talk to regularly, the ones who give me feedback on these podcast episodes. Man, I'm tearing up right now in f****** gratitude for y'all.

00:42:26 Courtney Brame: And I'd say your names, but I know I don't know if everybody's okay with that, but it's a real like I f**** with y'all. And y'all might not know what I f**** with y'all mean, but I care about y'all. I thank you. I appreciate you for being here. Y'all are who keep this thing running. Y'all keep me motivated. Y'all show me how necessary this is. Y'all show me how necessary. I may not talk about, you know, how important it is that this be cured because that's not my priority. That may be your priority or what you think the fix is, but I promise you there will be glimpses. There will be moments where a cure is going to become f****** relevant in your life because of the connections that you are going to build through taking the time to do what's happening in these podcast episodes. Do what you'll read when the book comes out and do the self-reflection necessary to get to a place where you know what, if there is a cure, cool.

Closing the Episode and Moving Forward

00:43:20 Courtney Brame: But I'm not attached to the outcome because I'm going to still live my life. Yeah, it may make dating a little more challenging. This may be a little uncomfortable periodically, but at the end of the day, I have everything else in my life, and I am going to choose how I want to respond to this. So, that's what I choose for y'all. I choose for y'all to be able to feel empowered by your own ability to make the choice. Herpes took away your ability to choose. And now I'm really banking on myself and the community of people who've come here and shared their stories, their experiences to have re-energized you with your own power of choice. And I want you to practice that. I don't want- I can't say I choose that, but I want to. I'm eliminating the word want from my vocabulary, but this is what I want for y'all. I hope I can say hope.

00:44:14 Courtney Brame: No, I said I was going to eliminate hope from my vocabulary. Now I'm about to contradict myself so much. Here's what y'all need to do. And then I say I don't want to tell people what to do. But please practice choosing. Even if it's just in little baby things, every chance you get, consciously choose the next action that you're going to take. Say, "I choose to put my shoes on." Say, "I choose to get up and go to work today." Start doing that and you will start to see that those bigger decisions that you make, they're going to have more intention behind them. The intention behind them is going to lead to you being able to be more present. And the more present that you are, that's going to lead to more of the desired outcomes that you have. And then we can get a little deeper into this with the whole letting go process and all of that.

00:45:05 Courtney Brame: But I don't know if y'all ready for that yet. But I got to tell y'all like the motivation that I feel now 300 this is the 300th numerical podcast episode weekly for the last six years. I done lost jobs. I quit jobs in shorter times than this. So for me this is the longest thing that I've done aside from playing football. And it's meaningful to me. This ain't I ain't going to sit up here and say I'm passionate about it. I have brief moments of passion and excitement, you know, excitement, joy, pleasure, moments that come, they that come through and I'm present with those when they come. But this is necessary. So many people have come into this space and, you know, claim to want to help people and do something in regards to stigma and they've gone. They've come and they've gone. They've just disappeared. They might have settled into, you know, what it is that they needed.

00:46:00 Courtney Brame: They might have just needed to come say a few things and offer some support to people and then get overwhelmed and dip up out of here. But that's not what I'm doing. Like this is a necessity to me. If I don't do this, I don't know what will happen to me. And when the mission is complete, whatever that looks like, I'll be able to rest easy and move on to the next thing, whatever that may look like. So I the way people getting diagnosed and the obstacles that I have like even with positive singles positive singles does not let me talk about my work they don't let me offer the kind of support that I offer they are a huge resistance and they are also the largest platform for people who are navigating herpes stigma and that's one of the barriers that I have aside from you know having my post removed from support groups in the past for self-promotion, which I'm so grateful that after meeting with the San Diego support group that I'm able to share Something Positive for Positive People resources in that group.

00:47:06 Courtney Brame: So, I'm very grateful for that. Uh, but in addition to that, you know, I'm choosing to put myself back into these spaces for the sake of advancing the progression of Something Positive for Positive People. I'm doing everything that I know needs to be done, all of the things that I've also been resistant to. So the resistance um I've been the again that dream man that dream was powerful for me. I woke up different. I woke up with intention. I woke up with uh clarity. I woke up with an understanding of who I am. And I remember you know I think that we're all on the pathway of remembering what our power is. And that power is the perception of others, connectedness, that sense of oneness, connection to the source, whatever that is, connection to our environment. And for so long, like I've been distracting myself uh by chasing what was the illusion of that sense of presence and oneness and connectedness.

00:48:06 Courtney Brame: I've been doing that. So, I'm very much leaning into this not drinking thing anymore. I might even be leaning into this not masturbating thing. I don't know how much longer necessarily, but uh like I yeah, I I know that I don't want to watch other people's p*** anymore. I make my own, but um yeah, I don't. I don't have any desire to do that. And I recognize that I just I have. It seems like the things that were taking my presence away from me, I have now. I have that back in me. And that is where my power is. My power is not in the pursuit of the things that offer the sensation of what presence is, but to recognize that I am present and to be in that state of presence and always offer myself a choice. I choose this. I choose that. I choose. And just I was listening to I'm going just share this real quick, but they uh in David R. Hawkins Letting Go, he talks about the letting go technique.

00:49:09 Courtney Brame: Essentially, you have an intention or desire. There's a goal in mind that you would like to achieve and you have that goal, be specific, and then you let go of the feelings that are attached to that outcome. And then it happens. I was on the plane and I tried to stay awake, y'all. You know how on Southwest at least they pass out beverages early on the flight? They told me they were like, "Yeah, we're going to pass out beverages soon." And I just knocked out. I passed out. I woke up and I was like, "Dang." I looked over, the girl next to me was uh she already had her cup. I just sat there and I was like, "Man, I really want some orange juice." I thought and I was like, "Oh, well, you know, we'll land soon." And then I make eye contact. The lady, the flight attendant, makes eye contact with me. She was sitting down eating her lunch and she was like, "I saw that you were sleeping. Did you want a beverage?" And I just mouth to her,

00:50:01 Courtney Brame: "Orange juice." And she was like, she gave me the thumbs up. She got up. She grabbed me one of them cans. She poured the orange juice in there, gave it to me, and then she even asked me. She was like, "You want the rest of the can? Here you go." I said, "Oh." Cuz one of the examples um that David R. Hawkins gave was about being at a restaurant and there was a passing thought of butter and then a waitress showed up with butter and there's this uh I guess it's called like silent transmission or something where you have whatever your intention is and then you let go of the desire for it. You let go of the feelings attached. You let go of the outcome and then that thing makes its way to you. And that's what I'm practicing and that's what presence is. Um, so I I I'm I'm I'm working on that. I'm practicing that.

00:50:53 Courtney Brame: That is the foundation of my work moving forward is the choice. I am choosing to continue my advocacy efforts to integrate all of these lived experiences post STI diagnosis, integrate those into STD prevention efforts and sex education resources so that we have a much more normalized environment that can effectively communicate about sexual health. I am choosing to continue to teach people how to talk about their sexual health status. I am choosing to be more intentional with what it is that um I would like to have out of my life and have my life look like because so much around Something Positive is unstable and I am choosing to create what that stability looks like. I'm choosing the relationships that I'm in and what they look like and you know being more forward with what my intentions are. And I've been practicing that. Um, and I can be better still. Uh, however, like this is new to me. Like waking up Saturday, I'm I'm a different I'm I'm different.

00:52:02 Courtney Brame: I'm very different now. So, all that said, thank you for being here. Thank you for making it to episode 300. Like I said, there's a book that I've written. We're going through the editing. We'll go through the publishing stages and everything. If you listen to this and there are things that you would like to see in the book or there's um things that well it's going to have to be in the book, the survey is done. I'm not making any more edits to the survey, but if there are things that you want uh to be addressed in a book essentially guiding people on how to have herpes, please reach out to me. Uh just let me know. Um and if you already think I'm going to cover everything because of the podcast, like please don't think that way. just let me know what you would like to see because it might not be in there. What's important to me may not be as important to someone else.

00:52:53 Courtney Brame: So, please share. Uh now, this book is expensive. I already had to drop four grand to this lady who's doing the editing and the publishing and all of that. So, I'm going to have to pay her some more. So, if you're somebody who wants to fund that project, let me know. Uh but I got it. I know that this is going to be another successful thing. This is something that I'm choosing. Uh again, this is my choice, right? So, uh that choice for myself is fueling my intention and I'm very present with it and I'm not attached to any particular outcome, but I just have this knowing that it's going to be a success. And my life purpose, even through my herpes diagnosis and my work in herpes, but I think it's going to be overall my life purpose um is to be present and to respond to the world around me with presence. That's what I choose.

00:53:48 Courtney Brame: I choose presence and you can choose that for yourself as well. So, moving forward, I'm still going to be interviewing people. If you want to be a guest on the Something Positive for Positive People podcast, please hit me up. Let me know and we can arrange it. Um, I can be found on social media, Courtney. My website is www.spfpp.org. And yeah, go check it out, y'all. The website looks good. The herpes data and information can be found on the Something Positive for Positive People website. You can contact me via email at courtney@spfpp.org. It's just the first letter of each word and Something Positive for Positive People. And yeah, please join Patreon. I'm adding behind the scenes bonus type content to the website uh as much as I can. This is just an easy way for you to continue to donate as well as get some behind-the-scenes content from me directly. If you are someone who uh is interested in like a pep talk before your disclosure or if you need some type of guidance for navigating the dating world, hit me up. Um, I don't charge anything. I just ask that you consider making a donation. Um all of that helps. The money that I'm really asking for is going to be from these organizations out there that um are in the realm of STD prevention. Um, and if you know anybody who's at these organizations, if you know anybody in colleges, universities that I can connect with and do any type of speaking engagements, any opportunity for me to raise money through Something Positive for Positive People with an organization or institution, please send that my way. Uh that is one of the things that's really been able to keep me afloat here is being able to give these talks at these youth uh based sexuality sex education organizations uh training health care professionals and departments of public health on how to talk to patients about herpes um conferences where I get to speak about sexual health and mental health um schools, universities, whatever.

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