SPFPP 334: Common Unity is the goal

I promise I'll start getting back to the interviews rather than talking about my trials and tribulations of my one off herpes experience haha. But seriously today I wanted to just share what my intention is with SPFPP and that's to create community through this common unity. Herpes does not have a cure as of today, and I wish for people to not live their life in anticipation for one.

I had every intention of exclusively talking about Letting Go this podcast episode and while some examples were injected, that didn't quite happen haha, but I do believe this offers some clarity on my intention behind creating events and structuring community focused opportunities for us to connect with each other and for people to know what I'm doing. I think people believe I post on social media and talk on a podcast but that isn't even the half of it. Listen to learn.

Episode 334 Transcript

Providing Resources and Stepping Back from Social Media

00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that provides a variety of resources to people navigating herpes stigma. Um, in addition to that, I don't think a lot of people know this, but we offer training and resources to health care professionals, people in the field of sexual health, um, treatment management, education. and like we offer training education resources to them as well. And if you want more information about that, please visit www.spfpp.org. Uh for those who aren't already, please join the newsletter. Um, I'm way less active on social media these days just with you've listened to the last few episodes, you know that I have a lot going on and social media is not actively contributing to that necessarily. So, uh, I I have to, you know, decide where I'm going to uh, limit what takes away from my time. I'm doing a lot more reading. Um, I'm doing a lot more things for Courtney, which is such a weird thing to say.

00:01:53 Courtney Brame: It's weird to say that. Uh, but it's what I tell everybody else to do. And now I'm putting these things into practice and I'm seeing the things in my life that really don't create happiness for me. And I'm sorry y'all, but social media is one of those things. And I think that because my engagement, my interactions are lower, I think that I'm also kind of being punished by the algorithm by not having my posts be as visible as they used to be. Uh like when I was more engaged, and that's okay. That just comes with it. Like I'm much more fulfilled and happy in life. And I mean, if you haven't, I encourage y'all to do it, too. So, I'm really only active on social media Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to Monday. I'll uh take it off. I'll check it periodically just to see if there's any uh messages that come in. But Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is when I'm active on social media.

00:02:44 Courtney Brame: So, uh because of that, I strongly encourage y'all to join the monthly newsletter so that you can see what's going on. If you care to be engaged with Something Positive for Positive People in any capacity and the podcast is typically where you find out about what's happening, uh that's cool. But the newsletter is going to be where you see what I would normally post on social media, announcements, things like that. I will still like to post on social media, but you will miss it. And I'm just going to go on and say it. You will miss it um on social media. Um just because that's that's how I'm seeing it. Okay. So, the letting go series of yoga classes has come to a conclusion. Um, I'll finalize the uploads for it today, but I'm very glad that I was able to get through that. Um, I made a large commitment, y'all, to two, three, four days a week to complete 20 yoga classes consistently, same time each day that I said sent the calendar invites out, you know, and unfortunately, like I had people come to a few of those and I thought these were really, really dope.

The Practice of Letting Go

00:04:13 Courtney Brame: I'm going to speak for myself, y'all. So, I mentioned Letting Go. There's a book by David R. Hawkins. The book is about letting go of emotions. It's about experiencing the emotion and then it's about being able to free yourself from the strain of it in order to use the energy that has been put into repressing, avoiding, escaping or suppressing the emotion so that we can experience it and healthfully express or release that emotion. Y'all, I have read this book for years again and again and again and again. And I gotta tell you that more than any herpes resource, any statistic out there, um I think that this yoga uh prioritizing just living my life and having sort of a sense of purpose through Something Positive for Positive People, these have been the most useful tools to me as far as making herpes stigma irrelevant in my daytoday life. I cannot say that it will do the same things for you, but what I will say is that it's worth a try.

00:05:39 Courtney Brame: Why not? And so, I got this, you know, bomb yoga series that's up. It's available for members of Something Positive for Positive People. That won't be all. Uh, this was just something I wanted to try out. Um, I got 10 people who signed up and committed to, you know, joining. They organized the time around their availability. And if y'all listen to this, like I'm not s******* on you in any way, shape or form. I understand things come up. But a lot of those times like I spent, you know, in a class by myself. And some of those times… I like it… what I enjoy about teaching yoga class is to engage with the people who are there. And granted, I made sure I did have to change two of the dates for the classes, but I reached out directly to the person that I knew had said that they were going to be there for sure. Um and we were able to make the adjustments.

00:06:30 Courtney Brame: But um this was kind of like a reflection of cuz people ask me “why don't we do events? Where's the community events? Where are all the people with herpes?” And the thing is like everybody we're out there, right? And I make my efforts to organize events and I honestly think that not enough people are seeing it to where I can say, "Hey, we've got this many people coming." Because you know, you know how it is when you're invited somewhere. You want to know who all are going to be there. You want to know how many people are going to be there. Don't nobody want to be the only person at the party, right? And I kind of think that that's what this turned out to be. Um I'm so happy to have gotten the support. I've gotten some donations. I've gotten some uh people to subscribe to the memberships. Yay. But that isn't my genuine intention here.

Community Means Common Unity

00:07:20 Courtney Brame: My genuine intention is to create community. I'm going to die. I don't know when. I don't know when it's going to happen. There is going to come a time where I'm going to die and Courtney will not be running this organization, this podcast, these yoga classes, all of the things that y'all see here that are as useful and valuable as they are. And what my dream is is for this community itself to be self- sustaining. Like there's people who are living with herpes who have no need to ever find this organization that exists out there. And I want y'all to be able to when you find this because typically you're at a dark place. You don't know how to disclose it to somebody. Your outbreak sucks. Uh stigma sucks. You heard a herpes joke that was stupid. Somebody pissed you off about herpes. or you're educating yourself, right? And then when you get here, you learn that you have a choice.

00:08:15 Courtney Brame: You have a choice to go back to those support groups that you've been in. You have a choice to uh go out into the world and prioritize living your life. You have a choice to further engage with this community uh and see what the gifts and challenges and skills that herpes has to offer you or what your diagnosis and the experiences that come after that have to offer you. And I think that that's what my goal is. Like I want for y'all to be able to experience that choice. And no, there is no cure for herpes. Like stop looking for it, right? I cannot tell you how many people I talk to who ask questions and I understand why they're asking the question long before they do. They want to be able to justify to another person that they aren't bad and that they got herpes. They want to be able to explain why they got herpes and that that's not what you need to be doing.

00:09:09 Courtney Brame: Like you need to just be focusing on living your life, not uh trying to get this person, convince this person to want to sleep with you because of how you view your character uh as somebody with herpes. You assume that that's how they're going to view it. But anyway, that's besides the point. Uh, community is so important. And when I say community, I mean common unity, right? Herpes and stigma, that is our common unity. if you are in this place and also the people who engage with the podcast. I think that the but the podcast listeners are significantly different than the people who follow me on Instagram and are significantly different than your general people who have herpes because I believe that the people here have a willingness and a willingness to move forward through their herpes diagnosis in a way that is like self-help healing, right? And those are the kind of people that I like being around. I like being around those kinds of people.

00:10:10 Courtney Brame: And I like bringing those kinds of people around each other and together, right? That sense of connectedness is probably what many of us are longing for. And we may not exactly know how to articulate that. We don't know how to ask for that. We don't know how to say, "Hey, I'm lonely and I would really just like a friend who understands this thing. That is such a challenge for me." so that we can develop a friendship. You know, people are always asking me, "What can I do? How can I help? I want to help." And it's like, "Oh, I just need y'all to show up. Show up." And yes, the events do have fees associated with them, y'all, because uh this has been more than seven years of this work. And I ain't got to justify, you know, what the spend has been or anything, but a lot of this has come out of my pocket. I'm going to be honest.

00:11:05 Courtney Brame: I don't know how this thing has been running for seven years. Aside from 2023 having raised $61,000 and me working my part-time job, uh I don't understand how this has developed into what it has developed into. But I don't have to understand it because I've let go of my need for understanding so that I can just get to the what rather than the how or the why, right? Like the how and the why. Like how is this working? Why is this working is not nearly as important to me as the “what” of it. And that is that it is working. People are finding Something Positive for Positive People. People are finding Courtney. People are finding, you know, the I'm catching fire. If you ever had a lighter and you're trying to strike it for a fire and it's just a little low on gas, right? Like that's where we're at. We're just sparking.

Refocusing on Healthcare Professionals

00:12:00 Courtney Brame: We're almost there. We almost caught fire, y'all. And I believe that the offerings that we now have are able to make that happen. Right. So the conference is coming up and I'll be I'm I'm going to tell y'all there's four like regular email addresses that are registered for the conference. Four I think there's um 85 people who registered. I got to send out links to some organizations who bought clusters of tickets. But uh of 100ish people there's like four regular emails which tells me you know these are the people who just have herpes right and this conference was initially I wanted to present the herpes research survey data to the people living with herpes and I saw who was registering and I had to make the adjustments right so I I've learned now that my target audience is not people with herpes my target audience is in fact health care professionals. These are the people who are at the forefront of stigma. So when people ask me about helping me, if you are in that field, I need you to get me in front of the people who have funds that can support continuing education, who can support uh their training for health care professionals to understand how to deliver

00:13:22 Courtney Brame: a diagnosis to people with herpes, how to further support people who are living with herpes. Right? So this if y'all listening to this podcast and you are someone with herpes and you happen to be in public health uh sex education, right? Because our resources support STI prevention efforts and sex education and there aren't herpes there's not good herpes research and information out there. And the research that I have may not have the stamp of approval from people with letters behind their name, but it's the best we got. The most recent survey that we have has uh IRB approval with the Utah Valley University. So that's as official as it can get. There are uh I'm sure there's flaws to the survey, but like the information that we have is truly valuable to supporting and serving our community, people who are living with herpes. And so if you want to help me, help me get money. like you you don't have to donate yourself but like help me with these fundraising efforts by connecting me to these health care professionals so that I can create community so that when we like I I've been so here just to give you an idea right so the Something Positive for Positive People conference I was able to get three $3500 in sponsorships with that $3500 I've been able to pay four speakers as well as uh Jolene for the documentary showing and put time into

00:14:56 Courtney Brame: uh also the marketing and selling of tickets. So, thank goodness we've been able to sell tickets. So, bam, conference costs are covered. Zoom PE speakers are now paid. Um and uh in addition to that, with some of the leftover money, I was able to take and pay for a venue for September 29th. The venue is secured. That was the upfront cost for us to be able to host the Safe Sex Expo. The Safe Sex Expo is an event in New York City. It's at HitMeUp space. It's two floors up from a building where we will have vendors. We will be hosting workshops. We will have uh refreshments. We'll have uh something with art. And I've been able to do this because of the money that's coming in, right? Like the money comes in and I flip it. I paid myself for the first time in April because now this is what I'm doing.

00:15:49 Courtney Brame: I'm doing this full-time. Uh I'm nervous as f***, not going to lie. But I'm committed, right? And if this doesn't work out, then on to the next thing, right? It is just how I choose to live my life, right? I'm going to ride this thing until the wheels fall off and then if it doesn't work out, I'll move on to the next thing. So, um, the community component is there. I think a lot of people may not see where their donations go or what I'm doing, but I also don't really… I don't have opportunities to show you what I'm doing. So, unless you talk to me, unless you engage with me, unless you ask me, "Hey, Courtney, what's going on with the organization?" There's no way to really, there is no way to show it. So I I just kind of have to tell people like come to the thing so that you can just see the people and the quality of the people who I engage with one-on-one who do contribute to community who want to see this develop into something that uh let's say creates a community of people who are able to best advocate for themselves and advocate in the health care setting, advocate in their relationships, right?

00:17:01 Courtney Brame: Like I see because people tell me, "Courtney, oh my god, I did this thing." And it's like, "Yeah, tell the world." Like, "Don't tell me. I know this s*** works. Tell the world." But I understand we're not there yet due to stigma. And part of the initiative that I'm taking is I'm encouraging people to get more involved in the community. join the Something Positive for Positive People membership as an individual so that you can get access to these community resources to get yourself to a place of being able to choose how you want to move forward. And if you are able to join a community and meet other people, uh like that would be this… that's what this is. Like there's some cool people here, y'all. And so often we get so caught up in oh my god, I need someone who's going to want to be with me? I need to be in a relationship. But what about our relationships to others?

Creating Safe and Intentional Spaces

00:17:58 Courtney Brame: What about our relationship to ourselves? What about finding people who are in a similar, you know, like-minded state of the kinds of people that we want to be like? And you know, I've mentioned being lonely in this herpes thing because there's so much, there's so much community out there that just does not align with me. I don't want to avoid the feelings of my diagnosis. I don't want to party through it. I don't want to escape through drugs, alcohol. Like, I'm very much into this yoga lifestyle. I love anime. I know y'all hear me talk about that all the time. And I just don't see groups that represent that. And the closest thing to it is what I've created through Something Positive for Positive People. And it's people who are curious about, you know, alternative ways of living with this virus. Because that's what we're doing. We're coexisting with this virus.

00:18:52 Courtney Brame: It needs us to be healthy and we need to be healthy. It's just unfortunately a lot more coercive than what we might have preferred, right? Because now it's like you better take care of yourself or else you're going to have an outbreak. You better take care of yourself or else you're going to have these symptoms, right? And the way that we can take care of ourselves better is by managing our emotional health. And I always talk about how useful yoga's been, how great reading has been, how letting go has been. But that's me. I'm my own person. So, you can try it out yourself. Or you can join and be part of the community that I'm busting my ass to create. Y'all, I'm busting my ass so much that I'm quitting. I'm leaving the comfort. I am so comfortable in Portland, Oregon. Like, just for perspective, I pay $700 a month in rent.

00:19:48 Courtney Brame: I live with one person in this big ass house. My bedroom is probably bigger than the studio apartment. If you've seen the yoga classes, if you've seen my videos of me from my bedroom, you know what I'm talking about. I am comfortable. I pay $50 a year for unlimited public transportation. my expenses uh on a monthly basis come out to less than $1,000. That is how I've been able to do this s***. I've been making the ultimate sacrifice. For perspective on my tax, I made $15,000 last year. 15 grand, y'all. Me and my mom, we laugh at how little money I've made over the years working for myself. But it's come with sacrifices. I've made sacrifices. and I work part-time at the medical school. Uh I've done like side things, but the side things that I've done have been for the progression of Something Positive for Positive People.

00:20:40 Courtney Brame: I can't tell you how many times I've tried to pay myself, but then had to put the money back, right? And so it is that I'm willing to go there. I'm willing to do and I apologize because these last handfuls of episodes have all been about my experience with herpes and it's come from a place that I don't think a lot of people can relate to because I don't think that y'all are running a business. Y'all aren't fostering or attempting to create community. And this is like a call to those who are like on the fence, right? Like if you just don't want to get involved or you want to get involved but you don't want to give money like that these are the things that I need right now right in order to continue to create community it costs money to host uh these events to book these venues to book these speakers to to attract people into a space so that you can have the experience that I want to give to you.

00:21:37 Courtney Brame: I get this s*** every day. People reach out to me, "Oh my god, thank you Courtney for what you do. I appreciate your work." Like that's great. But what my intention is is to create a community that is so connected that people are able to network with each other. People are able to find job opportunities through one another. Uh places to live, if people are traveling, that they can stay with each other. The same s*** that y'all so willingly pass on to me. I would like for the I I don't want to be the bridge to that. It's bigger than me. This this herpes stigma s*** and the healing that can come from it is so much bigger than me. My existence is like the center of this web of connectedness that no one else is directly willing to connect with. It all has to come through me. I get the I'm the spider on the trap that gets the vibration from that particular point of the web and I know exactly where it's coming from and like I respond to that signal that vibration.

00:22:46 Courtney Brame: I envision a world where we all have that with each other and the need for me to run Something Positive for Positive People is obsolete. So, right now, like I, I've been trying to do a lot of stuff and I'm I'm sacrificing my comfort, y'all. My comfort. I wanted to move to New York. Uh it was what 27 or 37 days ago. I started to learn Spanish when I downloaded it. It was like August 2023 when I made that decision that I was going to move to New York. Didn't know when, didn't know how, but all of the things leading up to that uh to now cuz I I leave in four days. Four days ago I move... I found me an apartment. It's in North New Jersey. Uh, I can get to New York City easily, bu t also like it's affordable. Yeah, it's expensive, y'all. But I believe I can do this.

00:23:44 Courtney Brame: I really do believe in myself and I trust that my intuition is leading me out there and it's just constantly being validated. I foresee a tremendous amount of success in my vision for creating this community and I think that New York might actually be the place for it. Um I hope that people show up to events. The September 29th Safe Sex Expo is not exclusively about herpes. Of course, I'm going to make it about herpes. I'm going to sprinkle some uh herpes education on that thing. But overall, like we got four uh workshops. I'm calling them play shops. We've got Dr. Evelin Dacker who's going to, you know, have us be able to practice our STARS Talk and talk about um asking for what we need in our relationships and from potential partners. We've got um we've got uh Steph Zapata who's going to talk about uh dirty talk spanking. We've got Jordan uh Jones who's going to present uh an sensuality and being able to experience pleasure.

00:24:54 Courtney Brame: You know, that may look a little bit different than what we're used to. When we think about pleasure, I think we often think about either how food tastes good or how sex feels good with another person, right? But what's sensuality and playing with that um outside of, you know, with another partner or outside of just your genitals, right? So, being able to expand the field of pleasure. Um, and then we've got Dakota Rampen who's going to also host something that's a little more like education… on the education side, but we're balancing out the fun pleasure as well as the informative educational uh safety stuff. We're really creating a balance there. And so there's going to be vendors, people you can buy stuff from. Um there's going to be some raffles, giveaways, art. Um and really it's just like a day of community. It's on a Sunday, September 29th, and it'll be all day. It'll be roughly 11:00 a.m. start time.

00:25:52 Courtney Brame: We'll probably be closing the doors um by the time the sun starts going down. But again, that's New York City. Um, and the tickets to that are on sale now. Early bird, Something Positive for Positive People, uh, spfpp.org. Now, if you are a member of Something Positive for Positive People, please, you know, use your perks, right? Like, I don't know that I have a lot of them, but for the ones that I do have, I I think they're pretty good. like you get access to all the yoga classes, you get access to so there's the digital, you know, stuff and then contact, you know, with me if you do need to have any type of support calls or anything. Um, join the membership. It's just the easiest way to go and I think it's the most value for what you would be donating. And also, your donations are tax-deductible. Write that s*** off on your taxes. I don't care if you give a dollar, if you give $100, $1,000, whatever amount you give, like, write that s*** off on your taxes.

Call to Action and Conclusion

00:26:52 Courtney Brame: It's… you, you lose nothing that way. Like, I don't know why more people don't just like to do that. Like, I get donations and people like, "Oh, no, no thanks." And I think it's because of the stigma. People don't want to see Something Positive for Positive People go to their accountants or the government and then they think that whoever it is that, you know, is checking to see if they're paying their taxes is going to know they have herbs. I I don't know. I don't know cuz people don't really tell me these things, right? I just kind of have to assume. So, I did have somebody tell me how things showed up on their bank statement. They were like, I donated and you might want to be careful with what it shows. So, it's like, why do I need to be careful about something positive being what shows up? Cuz it's not even the whole name, right? So, when you donate or you make a purchase, I think it just says “Something Positive” and then the rest of it cuts off.

00:27:44 Courtney Brame: Nobody knows what this is. It's not like it's at the core herpes resources, right? And again, this is just another one of those symptoms of stigma. So, come to these events. Please, please y'all come to the events and you'll see the value of what your donations are. I can't show you because people also don't want to be on camera, right? Like I can put together a cool marketing video. I can look for people who want to record the video podcast or events and who want to show themselves eating and having a good time. Like I can organize something like that to show you what these events would look like, but that'd be b*******. That wouldn't be real. I think I would have to do a casting call for a venue and have a photographer just take pictures of people at a bar having a good time. And that's not I don't f*** with that. I don't do the fake s***.

00:28:37 Courtney Brame: It's not real. And that, that realness is what I think really is what people gravitate towards uh with Something Positive for Positive People. I think that realness is what got you here. That's what brought you here. The authenticity, the rawness, right? Um I I I know I know that if you're someone who's on the fence about showing up to an event, if you're someone on the fence about donating, about getting involved, whatever, right? Like that's what I need. I need people to do very uncomfortable things. And donating is like the easiest thing you can do. So that's the smallest ask I make. Share these resources. Share them. Share them on your social media. I've been bitching about like only a 100 people seeing my Instagram stories lately. Uh when I post an event, like no one sees it. Uh but the few people who do, I guess it's just not relevant.

00:29:40 Courtney Brame: I don't know. It's not exciting. It's not attractive. Herpes is not attractive. Herpes stigma ain't attractive. None of this s*** is attractive. And it does not align for me to go and become like one of the entertaining sex uh pages or whatever where you know there's just… it… I got integrity like I'm maintaining and I'm building and creating and maintaining relationships with people in the field of public health and STD prevention. It doesn't make sense for me to appease the social media algorithm and perpetuate this ignorance. I'm not doing it. So, I can probably do like reaction videos when people talk about, you know, some herpes b******* And I just sit there and I like to look at it and make faces. Somebody told me to do that and I bet you I bet you that would actually be helpful. But it doesn't help me with my goal of, you know, creating community cuz that's what this is about.

00:30:45 Courtney Brame: But all that to say y'all, I'm making, I'm prioritizing, you know, what's important to me. What's important to me is that I see this through. I see this community development through. And that's what we doing. That's what we doing. We, we making it more… excuse me, I'm making it more about that. Uh I don't know that I've ever said it before, right? Like everybody's like, "Where's the cure for herpes? Where's the cure for herpes? Ain't one." Accept that. Like y'all got to accept that answer right now. There is not a cure for herpes. Are you going to wait on one before you start living your life? You going to learn how to live your life and then make waiting for a cure irrelevant. And then oh, if a cure happens to come along the way of you becoming the kind of person that you love, then as a bonus, you get a cure for herpes, right?

00:31:40 Courtney Brame: You learn how to talk about it and then it becomes irrelevant because now you don't need to talk about anymore because you got that cure. But I keep saying this all the time. If I would have waited, I'd have been waiting for 11 years. And what we see now is, you know, so supportive and helpful to so many people. And you know, the few people who I know who've gotten into relationships, gotten married, had kids, um, through just listening to this podcast, hearing y'all stories, I can't take credit for that s***. This is the stuff that y'all like the building of community. While it's one interview, one episode at a time, like the collective experiences here are a community. It's representative of what uh the herpes community, if we want to call it that, looks like. And despite how, you know, s***** of a name that might be to go out and be like, "Oh, I'm a member of the herpes community." Like, that s*** sound ridiculous, right?

00:32:36 Courtney Brame: But I'm sitting here and I'm looking at this uh this Wisp hat. Shout out to WISP uh conference sponsor and it's just a white hat and in red it has stigma with a line through it. You can represent it like that. Like you ain't got to tell people you got herb because you could tell people, hey, I'm I'm against stigma or I'm I'm for education around stigma cuz I I I really emphasize the nonviolent language. Um, whenever I'm talking about uh stigma, when I'm talking about herpes education, I think that those things are uh that's a very important part of minimizing stigma is to not feed it with any violent communication. But um wow, letting go. This was the whole point of this podcast episode was just to introduce this concept and tell y'all like for $25 a blank. First off, you get 20 yoga classes that have been recorded that go in sequence. These are yin yoga classes and meditations. It's not a lot of movement.

00:33:42 Courtney Brame: It's very easy. You can even, you can do this just sitting on the floor or even lying in bed and just listen and just just listen to it the same way you're listening to this podcast. Quite honestly, it's just that it's been organized in a way that moves through the book, which I also encourage you to get. If you don't have the book, Letting Go by David R. Hawkins, get it. And then, um, I think that I'll most likely do another series of yoga classes from my other favorite book, Psychocybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. Um, and yeah, I'mma do that. I enjoy this s***, y'all. I really do. I enjoy hosting this podcast and I enjoy the self-help component of things and talking about, you know, talking about self-help and talking about becoming better, you know, and improvement and genuinely becoming who we see ourselves to be. that that stuff really appeals to me and I hope that it like I hope it radiates through me and like into y'all, right?

00:34:49 Courtney Brame: That's what I that's my that's my hope. That's my hope cuz I I think that this community cares. The Something Positive for Positive People community. Let me just start saying that. The Something Positive for Positive People community because this consists of public health professionals. Uh it consists of nurses, sex educators, therapists, uh education advocates, pleasure advocates, and oh by the way, people who are living with herpes. And we don't have to say that, right? Like yeah, our support resources are about herpes education, but how much more of this is about self-help? How much more of this is about mental health? How much is it about sexual health? And how much of it is about stigma? Right? Like so much of this is I people are so scared of being found out for having herpes, but like being here. Be here and see and experience how much more this is about than just like trying to be low-key about your herpes status.

00:35:56 Courtney Brame: And this community is made up of so many dope ass people. Y'all, I've made some great friends uh through this rel through this um resource. Uh I've had some wonderful relationships that, you know, I wouldn't have met if I wasn't putting myself out there uh in the ways that I have like social media, like the podcast, going to conferences, going to workshops, uh traveling, right? And I've had dinner with some really dope people. I've learned some very incredible things and I want to extend that to y'all. Like that's that's that's my choice. Like I'm choosing to walk away from my less than $1,000 a month lifestyle. Uh fortunately I've been able to save some money though uh over the last two two and a half years of living in Portland, Oregon. And I want to shout out man. I really want to shout out to my landlord roommate. Like it… He has no f****** idea.

00:37:00 Courtney Brame: He has no idea how much of an impact that I've been able to make on people through not having to stress about my finances, my living situation. Y'all, I'm like, ah, I'm I'm tearing up right now because I'm just experiencing such f****** gratitude and I'm excited about this next transition of my life. I'm I'm 35 years old and I've been doing this s*** since I was 28. I've been running a nonprofit, y'all, since I was… Well, it hasn't been a nonprofit for seven years. has been a nonprofit for five, but this podcast is the most consistent I've ever done. Ever. I mean, I played football for 13 years, but I think that's a little different. Um, yoga. I've been doing yoga for 11 years. Yeah. Wait, 11? Yeah. When I got my diagnosis, I started yoga. But, um, f***, man. Like, and I guess this might be all I'm talking about because this is where I'm at.

00:38:11 Courtney Brame: This is what I'm going through. And I mean, it's the experiences of people living with herpes, right? So, I guess it is on brand for the podcast. Um, I'm looking around my room and I've got my paintings down, my little anime paintings. I just got a backpack. Like, I'm bringing a backpack of stuff. I already moved most of my stuff out there. Um, and I I I'm moving. I'm moving. And this is the next part of my life. This is it. f***. I'm hosting conferences, y'all. I never thought I'd be doing this s***. I thought I was going to make commercials. And I mean, fortunately, like I have made commercials. This was something my dad and I talked about recently. He's like, "I remember you, Lily." You said, "I want to make commercials." And here I am like I'm some sponsorships.

00:39:00 Courtney Brame: Thank you to our conference sponsors. I also want to shout out the American Sexual Health Association as well as affirm a Arizona uh sexual and reproductive wellness for all. Shout out to y'all for just believing in me, man. Like I I'm asking organizations for money to f****** do something I've never done before. I can't tell these people how many people are going to be there, what the value of it is to them, and bam, check for $2,000, check for $1,000, check for $500. And I've been a I was able to f****** do this. And you know how easy it is to do things when the upfront costs are just covered and I don't have to like go out of my own pocket or like hope that I'm going to recoup the funds for it. Like come on. Come on y'all. f***. I'm excited as f*** for this conference. I'm excited as f*** for what's coming next. I'm excited as f*** for this expo that's coming together because people are going to people coming.

00:40:01 Courtney Brame: People coming. Y'all might not have showed up to my yo class. Y'all come to this m************ expo. I shouldn't have said that the way I did, but I'm I I I don't need to inhibit myself. s***. This is my podcast. Um and so yeah, my doors are open. And I think that I am going back to the letting go thing, right? I have to let go of my comfort. Oh my god, that hurt. That hurt to say. I f****** felt that in my chest. I am letting go of my comfort of being in Portland, Oregon, where it is so easy for me to live in Portland, Oregon. In letting this go, I am able to receive all of that which has been around me the whole time. But I was just so attached to my cheapness, my um being able to say, "Damn, I'm saving money. I'm saving a lot of money." And now I got to invest.

00:41:01 Courtney Brame: I wouldn't have been able to put this conference together if I didn't invest. I wouldn't have been able to put the expo together if I wasn't willing to invest. I wouldn't be who I am if I wasn't willing to invest in myself. And my last day of my standardized patient job was Friday. That was it. That was it. I got the next three days. I'm only back in Portland now because for the next three days I have to do my genital exams. Um cuz uh yeah, then I make a month of rent in three days doing that. So, they don't give us a lot of opportunities. So, I'm here for this. I need to do these. Uh yeah, this is it. And then after that, it's just something positive. It's going to be a yoga therapy school and then you know that I might have the opportunity to do the genital exam jobs again.

00:41:54 Courtney Brame: go y'all. Just the feelings y'all. Like there's fear. There's so much f****** fear and at the same time excitement right? All right. Like I, if you join the Something Positive membership and you listen to the uh yoga classes or take the yoga classes or if you just download the book by David R. Hawkins like this will make more sense. But in all the negative emotions that exist, there's an underlying fear. And I look at the fear and the payoffs that I got from the fear, right? I got a lot of, "Oh my god, that's that's great." Like, you're such a good person for making all the sacrifices. I know nonprofits don't make money and you know you're you're doing this thing and you're asking for so little and you're compromising your needs right like I'm saying it you know exactly for what it is like people will sing your praises and like there was so much of my own ego that's been tied into uh running this organization in the way that I have like asking for nothing essentially so freely giving away my time and so freely like answering questions like people don't understand this when you

00:43:16 Courtney Brame: have a question for me okay you can ask anybody on the internet and they can answer your question but when you come to me and you ask me a question understand that I want to answer your question me answering your question is going to lead it's going to start with me having to ask you a lot more questions than being able to give you an answer cuz I can't just say yes or no to your question without any context or I kind of get to I need to know the context of the story. I need to know who's involved. I need to know you so that you can answer the question cuz you're going to be the best person to answer the question. You just need to flush out all of the details for me to be able to listen and hold the space for you to be able to identify the things that you're not saying. That's what I do. So when I tell people, hey, yeah, you got to fill out this form when you ask me a question.

00:44:07 Courtney Brame: Like that's not me being a dick. That's me knowing that this is what that is. I'm not going to say that you would be a dick. But when you reach out and you have a question, man, how do I tell this person I really like this person? How do I tell them I have herpes? What do these results mean? When you ask that kind of question, like that's about a 30 minute to 45 minute conversation. And anywhere that you would go for a consultation, you would be filling out insurance paperwork or like sending some type of payment. I'm just asking for a donation, right? Like on the site, I think it shows a $50 support call, right? If that's how you find it. If that's how you find it, that's how you find it. But if you're a member for as little as $25 a month, then we can have the call. I'm encouraging more of that because of all of the additional things that are coming with that uh the support groups.

00:45:03 Courtney Brame: I want to bring back support calls for groups of people. I want to bring back one for men. I want to bring back one for everybody because and and there has to be accountability with this, right? Like I'm not doing the f****** uh popup support groups. I'm not opening it up to anybody because I've seen what that's led to. My safety was compro my safety was compromised and I didn't even think about how other people might feel about others joining for one call asking people well how did you do how did you deal with your diagnosis how did you d and then they go through explaining that whole story and then we never see these people again like the emotional exhaustion and fatigue from sharing like that is real and we had people who were so committed to showing up every week to where we weren't even talking about herpes we forgot it was a herpes support group. We talking about real s*** and just having pleasant conversations with one another.

00:46:01 Courtney Brame: And uh I would like to bring that back, but it's going to be members only and the membership like over time because the value of what's coming in increases, the cost increases. And again, these are tax-deductible donations that you're making. So, at the end of the tax season, all you got to do, you get my EIN number, the tax ID, you send that to your accountant with the amount of money that you gave. They deduct that from your gross income and you pay less taxes. That's how it works. Okay. So, I keep getting away from talking about letting go. Where we at? 46 minutes. All right. Yeah, I'm going to be moving to New Jersey. I'll be spending a lot more time in New York connecting with other sexuality educators. Um the nonprofit is registered in the state of New Jersey. It is pending uh registration in New York.

00:47:04 Courtney Brame: I had to go through some legal consulting in order to get the uh in order to be able to do business in New York. So, I'm waiting for that to come through. And once that come through, y'all, this m*********** fa to take off. I feel that s*** like I felt that one in my nervous system. Um, this this this s*** fa get real. Um, so I have to put boundaries in place. Um, the podcast is our fundraising tool. I will be consistent with it. We will have weekly podcast episodes. If you would like to sit in on the recordings, reach out to me cuz I'm I'm tired of doing things. I'll be like, "Yeah, I'm going to do it at this time on this day consistently." and then nobody shows up and it's like, well, I could have done this earlier, right? So, follow the newsletter for the times and dates of when I'll plan to record.

00:47:56 Courtney Brame: Reach out to me and say, hey, I want to sit in on these recordings so I can give you like, all right, I can figure out what time works for you cuz I can record podcasts whenever, right? What… right now it is 7:30 a.m. Pacific time. I woke up and I I went I had a protein shake. I had to use the restroom. I did my Dolingo and I was like, you know what? Let me record a podcast. Let me go ahead and do that. I got a little bit of catching up to do. So, I might need to record a couple of episodes uh so that I can stay on par with the one a week since 2017 20 17. Yeah. 17. Yep. Um so yeah, if you want to sit in on recordings, let me know. If you are interested in the support groups, let me know. If you're interested in the men's only herpes support group, if you're interested in everybody herpes support group, like I can make time for this and and make this a once a week thing, but I don't want to block out this time and then people not show up or the only people, you know, the people who consistently show up are being taken from by those who, you know, just like I I don't know.

00:48:59 Courtney Brame: I don't. I don't really know how to explain it, but I had a situation where I decided I can only host support groups for people who are members of the organization who are, not of the organization, but who are members of the website. So visit spfpp.org/membership so that you can be part of the community and um yeah, join in on these perks like the if you're a member, you get free membership or uh admission to these virtual events. If you join at the next tier up, you get admission into all events. This includes the conference, y'all. This includes the conference. This includes the expo. Um right now, tickets are on sale for $75 for the conference. And then uh tickets are on sale for the expo. Early bird tickets are $25. They will go up to $40 once we announce like the presenters and everything at the conference or I'm sorry at the expo. Um and then as we start to add more things, I know that the cost of admission is going to increase.

00:50:03 Courtney Brame: I don't know what it's going to increase too, but we're we're making we we about to make this s*** an event. And I've learned, and it's so unfortunate, but I've learned that like different price points weed out people or certain people, I guess, like your people who will come to the environment and like not really want to contribute to it and take from it. So, uh, we will do some giveaways for some tickets and admissions, I'm sure, but we're not going to have like you ain't coming for $5. Like, ain't no more $5 tickets. Like, invest. you investing, you'll go out, if you making it out and you able to buy a drink in New York City, then I know your ass can afford a ticket to come to this expo. So, come to this expo. Uh visit our vendors that we'll have, meet people, socialize, and and yeah, just come be present with us, y'all. Come be present. All right. And as a bonus, you get access to all of the recorded yoga classes.

00:51:02 Courtney Brame: You get access to the um the uh what else is there? Damn, there's so much s***. Like, I don't even know what I'm doing. The one-on-one calls and communication, blah blah blah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, that's that's it. I'm going to talk more about letting go in the next episode. So, today, uh I've got roughly Yeah, I've got three recordings to make for the yoga classes and I'll have those uploaded and finalized on the website. So, members will have access to the concluded letting go series of yoga classes and then um yeah, I will go I will get to a point where I'm teaching at least twice a week. I'm not going to keep recording yoga classes. I want people to come live and I think that the fact that they're recording makes people go, "Oh, I'll just watch the recording later." And then they don't watch it cuz I can see I see how many people watch these videos

00:52:01 Courtney Brame: and yeah, I'm not seeing y'all who registered to watch the yoga classes. So, it's like, damn. All right. Like, I could have done this differently. And I don't. I don't want to just take your money. I want y'all to have these experiences. I want to co-create a community with y'all, right? Cuz like I said, I'm not going to always be here. And, you know, I'm working to put myself out of a job. I don't think people understand that, right? like this is a passion, purpose-driven project and I don't want to. I don't want to be needed, right? Like I love being needed. It feels amazing, but I'm not doing this to sustain like people being in this place. That's what Positive Singles is for. Oh, did I just say that? Um I don't, I don't care to do that. I want y'all to not need Positive Singles.

00:53:02 Courtney Brame: I want to get to a point where y'all don't need Courtney and this space has the opportunity to do that and be that for y'all. So, let's connect. All right. I love y'all. Take care of y'allselves. U please reach out if you want to be in a support group. If you 're interested in that, if you're interested in attending like the recordings like now, like I would have opened up Zoom and let people in who are interested in just being part of this conversation. s***, that might even change the conversation cuz I might be like, "Hey, what y'all want to talk about?" And we talk about that. So, that would be great. But I'm only doing this kind of thing for members cuz I need to see some type of investment from others, from the community, too. So y'all give me that and I give y'all this. All right. I love y'all. Take care of yourselves and until next time, stay positive. Like we got a choice. I'm a a****** for that.

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