SPFPP 362: Gratitude for Herpes - There is Light in There Too
Episode Transcript:
Courtney Brame: Hello, and welcome to something positive for positive people. I'm Courtney Brain. Something positive for positive people is a 501 c. 3 nonprofit organization supporting people who are living with herpes and navigating herpes stigma.
Courtney Brame: I started this organization in 2017 as a way of bringing awareness to how many people who were struggling with their herpes. Diagnosis also had suicide ideation. Consistently. When we conduct surveys, we see that 36% of people do have suicidation
Courtney Brame: after their diagnosis related to their diagnosis. We're figuring it out in our survey. We have a 2025 Herpes stigma survey. This is about a 20 min survey. There are a lot of questions for people who are living with herpes to
Courtney Brame: share their experience in a way that we can quantify and be able to use this to integrate into our advocacy efforts to talk to public health professionals and say, Hey, you know, here's
Courtney Brame: different ways that you can go about delivering a diagnosis. Here's some language you can use some things to just kind of soften the blow of stigma, and, as you know, help with minimizing its impacts from the psychological perspective which also go on to help the physical perspective. We have our 1st training with a healthcare organization, shout out to a firm az in Phoenix, Arizona.
Courtney Brame: They are our 1st
Courtney Brame: stimulation client. We're going to come in with some patient actors who are sex educators, and they're going to be patients who are receiving a diagnosis with their clinicians and giving them feedback, giving feedback on what it was like to be their patient.
Courtney Brame: And this is gonna be at the end of February. So you'll be hearing about that. Once we get it up and running, we got a photographer. We got funding for this shout out to the Love and action fund for making this possible. We're going to make a commercial out of this. So I'm I'm looking forward to what's to come? If you haven't been to the something positive website yet, or lately.
Courtney Brame: Please check it out. spfp.org. We reorganize things in a much more clean and concise way, so that you can find services, resources, and education tools that you might need for yourself in a little bit easier of a way. And the offering. Now, as we are in 2025,
Courtney Brame: I was not
Courtney Brame: really been, I guess, pushing this on social media, partly because I'm still in training. But I'm a yoga therapist in training. And as a Yoga therapist in training, I've been working with mentors, I just completed my introductory course, which has been 300 h partially. Why, y'all haven't seen me so active on social media.
Courtney Brame: and in the completion of that I'm now transitioning into working directly with clients and being guided under mentors and completing some additional modules. If you're curious about yoga therapy, what that is the difference between that and therapy therapy and what that looks like. Check out the Yoga dash therapy tab on the website, and you'll be able to get more information there but
Courtney Brame: smooth transition, because we're going to be talking to someone who's been a client of mine in Yoga therapy Melissa, hey? 1st off. Want to thank you for having trusted me. This, you know, stranger, who is doing this new thing to be one of my guinea pigs and provide feedback for the case study. But second off, I want to thank you for being willing to participate in a podcast episode.
Courtney Brame: especially because
Courtney Brame: this is a vulnerable thing. This is one of the things that you reached out about was, you know, working through your diagnosis and learning from it. So I want to give you the space to just share 1st off. If you want to introduce yourself, however, you want to introduce yourself, please do. But the 1st question I have for you is, why did you want to do this? Why did you want to become a podcast something? Positive people.
Melissa: I am so excited to be here, and so excited to be having this conversation with you. And I feel like
Melissa: this gives me a wonderful opportunity to live my truth.
Melissa: and I think that's been one of the hurdles in being diagnosed with herpes
Melissa: has been knowing something about myself that feels like I can't
Melissa: be out in the world with it.
Melissa: and this just gives me an opportunity to live in that truth, live with integrity, live in honesty and also
Melissa: help other people see that you know it can happen. And it does. And and also it's just it. It's okay.
Courtney Brame: So I unmuted. And then I muted myself right away. Yeah. And I'm gonna tell you now like this, this, we've had plenty
Courtney Brame: conversations. This is just as laid back as any of those conversations that we've had. This is no different than just being like a a Yoga therapy session minus too much personalization, of course. But yeah, like, we're just talking to each other. And whoever's listening in later down the road they're listening in later down.
Courtney Brame: So you reached out you were my 1st yoga therapy client. We made it through our 4 or 5 weeks of working together. I want to ask you like, what brought you in? What sparked your curiosity about yoga therapy
Courtney Brame: 1st off.
Melissa: So I'm actually a yoga instructor myself.
Melissa: and I know the healing that Yoga can help can bring
Melissa: I've been through
Melissa: some dark places in my life not related to my diagnosis at all, and Yoga really helped me through those things. And then, when I saw that Yoga therapy was available, and I'd never done Yoga therapy before. Only, you know, taking Yoga classes, I was like, Oh, my goodness, this is yeah. This is this is for me.
Melissa: you know, just I don't know. Connecting truly connecting mind, body, and spirit together is what Yoga is all about.
Melissa: And yeah, helping with that healing process.
Courtney Brame: Yeah. And when you came in, what like, what did you hope to get out of it? Right? Because I think we're led to things, maybe not really fully knowing
Courtney Brame: what we want, what we need. But we just feel like this, pull this, this, there's a compelling force that attracts us to a space, an environment, a thing, a person, an activity whatever. But I think I asked you this on the intake form like, did you know what you wanted to get out of it.
Melissa: I knew I wanted healing, and I knew
Melissa: I knew that I needed to go deeper.
Melissa: I just knew that I was in, had
Melissa: lots of tools from other other places. Been in therapy, you know. Been in groups
Melissa: done Yoga classes, but Yoga therapy just offered something to allow me to go deeper.
Melissa: and I wanted to try it out. And it, yeah, it turned out to be something
Melissa: way, yeah, way more healing than I than I knew in the beginning.
Courtney Brame: Yeah, all right. Now, let's let's let's go ahead and get past the superficial things. I guess. Yeah, it was healing. What does that mean to you. Right? So we talk about doing the work, and you have very much exemplified doing the work from our time together.
Melissa: You know.
Courtney Brame: You were seeing a therapist. You were in these groups, you were putting into practice the things I was asking of you doing the homework, and like when I don't know why this was so shocking to me. But it makes me smile so big when I hear that people are doing the things that I can do, like one of the 1st exercises is the intuitive teaching. Right? So you're a Yoga teacher.
Courtney Brame: Okay?
Courtney Brame: And you would. Normally, you mentioned scripting or writing out what the class is gonna look like. So taking that tool into your class, can you speak a little bit about what that particular thing did for you, or what you got that exercise as an example.
Melissa: Yeah. So you and I talked a lot about the coaches, and you brought me
Melissa: to a place where I kind of understood that I was in the thinking and emotional part of the Kochia.
Melissa: and I wanted, with with your help, to kind of go a little bit. Go deeper into the next, you know, into the into the next layer. The wisdom layer, I guess, and because I'm a yoga teacher.
Melissa: that sort of meant leaving behind this, thinking that I was doing this, writing things down, scripting it out, making lists, making a sequence
Melissa: from what I yeah, thought before I went in. And then when I actually went into a class.
Melissa: Sometimes it matched what the class was feeling, but sometimes maybe it wasn't. And so you encouraged me to do this intuitive sequence. And I did. And it was, yeah, it was really amazing.
Melissa: I yeah, I just let whatever energy that I felt and that the class felt bring what postures we were going to do. Of course I had, you know, in my head I know how the flow of how the sequences go. But
Melissa: the intuition, just feeling, just being in my own body. And one of the most beautiful things about teaching Yoga is that I can bring to the class whatever. I'm feeling, too.
Melissa: and I think that energy comes out in the whole class. So it was sort of this exchange of energy between that intuition, part exchange between myself and what my class was doing. So yeah. And I did that for a really long time.
Melissa: And what now I've settled in is I make an outline.
Melissa: and then I feel free to leave the outline. I feel free to whatever I'm feeling. I don't feel like I need to stick with that particular sequence and go.
Melissa: So yeah, it was a beautiful thing.
Melissa: you know, that intuition part really, really hit me in other places in, you know in my life, too, not just in Yoga, but actually being able to verbalize things that I want or didn't want.
Melissa: According to what I was feeling. I had spent a lot of time kind of ignoring those feelings.
Melissa: and when I tapped into it and Yoga was kind of the key, the catalyst to it all. I started. Yeah, I started being able to be a little freer in my own
Melissa: yeah, personal life. And yeah, with friends. So.
Courtney Brame: Yeah. And what I'm hearing in that is
Courtney Brame: vulnerability. So just to give people an idea, the Koshers are the 5 sheets or layers of self. There's the physical body which is made up of your skin organs, body what you eat, and that turns into what your body is. There's the energy or the breath body. There's also the mind body which is inclusive to thoughts and emotions. There's the what I call
Courtney Brame: the best way that I can describe. It is your collection of life experiences that make you who you are. This coach is more of like your intuition, your inner intellect and wisdom, basically like what you've absorbed from life experiences, making you who you really are when you are out of your head.
Courtney Brame: any single aspect of yourself. And then there's the bliss body, which is who you are, in your most pleasurable or desired, or happy state, like who that person is, detached from their other aspects of self like at your core, as a happy person. Who are you? What makes you happy? Who you are in those settings?
Courtney Brame: So as we spoke about that one of the things that we did was especially in Yoga therapy, right? So much of it is looking at the elements and what the 5 elements represent
Courtney Brame: earth, water, air, ether, fire, and with the elements they all have different things that they represent. I'll write an article about this and link it in the show notes for more detail. But a lot of it is really just looking at a person having a conversation and feeling where they are seen where they are identifying, based on their word choices. What's resonating with them and using the language that they
Courtney Brame: give in order to identify the imbalances or inconsistencies of those elements, because we all have each of those 5 elements within us in our body, in the way that we do things as well, and what we want to do is just restore balance, and that's what a lot of
Courtney Brame: yoga therapy in my language it has been. It's not always through movement or meditation, or just breathing that we do think sometimes it's practical journaling exercises, and if you're open to it, I'd like to hear about us like
Courtney Brame: coming up with your relationship mission statement. And then, after we talk about this piece, because it seems so unrelated to what you came in for. But this was something that you spoke to on your feedback. So can you speak about like what that was for you? Just whatever you have to say about.
Melissa: Yeah, so, and I think what you're asking me is
Melissa: how the Yoga therapy spread from not just this thinking about herpes and my herpes diagnosis. But how that?
Melissa: And integrated into the rest of my life
Melissa: is that yeah, what? You're kind?
Melissa: Yes, okay.
Courtney Brame: What a concise question! Yes, that's exactly right.
Melissa: So. Yeah, I think when I found something positive for positive people, I had a very specific
Melissa: thing that I wanted to come, for I wanted to come. Okay, how do I disclose this
Melissa: to partners? And how do I deal with the stigma?
Melissa: I mean, I think those were the 2 things that I came seeking, and and through Yoga therapy, which
Melissa: was a lot of talking in addition to movement, too. I mean, you and I had lots of lots of really cool conversations, you learning a lot about me and me, learning a lot about myself and
Melissa: and out of that I came away with how, how I seek
Melissa: relationship or how I'm in relationship with people.
Melissa: how I want to, how I want to be in relationship with people
Melissa: and the stars. Work that we did was
Melissa: it was just. It was great. You'll have to remind me of each letter and what it what it represented.
Melissa: But I took each letter and worked on it for a different day. So the 1st day I did s second day, TA. You know, all the way through and then
Melissa: looking at it.
Melissa: coming up with this mission statement of how? Yeah, how? I want to be in relationship with people
Melissa: and
Melissa: and also yeah, being able to look at it and see, like, I didn't do any of this stuff in seeking a partner before.
Melissa: And but it's what I really wanted. It's what I truly wanted. And I came up with them.
Melissa: Yeah, a mission statement. And I mean, I don't have to read it. But yeah, just
Melissa: yeah, it really helped. It was. It was truly amazing.
Courtney Brame: Yeah.
Melissa: Yeah.
Courtney Brame: And just to give people background. The Stars framework is created by Dr. Evelyn Dacher, who's 1 of my board members for something positive for positive people. The S stands for safety. T is for turn ons. A is for avoid. R is for relationship, intention, and then the second S is for Sti status. And this is in episode 299. If you are someone who's wondering how
Courtney Brame: to talk to someone about your herpes status. But it's really good for doing on yourself to identify what you need from a partner to feel safe, or to be able to
Courtney Brame: have the freedom of experience and pleasure, right to identify your pleasure and safety needs and compatibility with another person. This is a great tool resource for that. Again, that's episode 299. Thank you so much, Melissa, for speaking to that. So we we can get past the Yoga therapy stuff now. And
Courtney Brame: I want to know, like I I want for you to just share your story right? So you didn't just look for yoga therapy for something positive for positive people, and
Courtney Brame: obviously something had to happen. So in your own way, in your own words, I just want you to just share your story. What happened in relation to your diagnosis, and then we'll just have a regular conversation from there, as you feel comfortable. If there's anything I ask that you're not comfortable with, just you know. Let me know.
Courtney Brame: I'm gonna do it in a few people
Courtney Brame: go around a thing I'll pick up on that, and we'll just
Courtney Brame: smoothly flow through the conversation. Alright.
Melissa: That sounds great.
Melissa: Yeah. So
Melissa: I had been married for 30 years and
Melissa: just getting out getting back into the dating world. And I say, getting back into the dating world. And I got married so young that
Melissa: yeah, I hadn't really dated a lot even prior to that. So
Melissa: very yeah new to me, but also very fun. I you know, I was enjoying doing the online dating.
Melissa: met a met a couple of guys and dated both of, you know, dated for a little while. And then.
Melissa: yeah, the the last guy that I dated. He
Melissa: says he didn't know that he had Hsv. One and Hsv. 2.
Melissa: Let me start. Let me let me kind of back up. I I got really sick, so
Melissa: I came down with a fever of like a hundred 2, and I had no idea
Melissa: what was going on.
Melissa: and thought maybe it was Covid thought maybe I had the flu. Then I thought, Oh, my gosh, I have a uti
Melissa: went to the doctor.
Melissa: Had a you know, a uti test, and it came back negative.
Melissa: And then, about 2 days later, I noticed sore.
Melissa: and I was like, Oh, my God, what is going on? I thought maybe it was like an ingrown hair or something.
Melissa: And
Melissa: I called the gynecologist.
Melissa: She got me in right away.
Melissa: and you know she did the exam, and she looked at it and said, Yeah, this looks like herpes. And
Melissa: you know it didn't, even though I didn't know this before, you know. No, I didn't know.
Melissa: It just settled on me that. Yeah, yeah, that's that's what it is. And and he just yeah didn't. If he knew he didn't tell me. But he says he didn't know
Melissa: And yeah, we I called him out on it. He went. He went and got tested, or he says he went and got tested.
Melissa: and then he told me that he did have Hsv. One and 2,
Melissa: and now I don't know if I have one or not. I know I have 2
Melissa: and it caused it really caused our. It caused our breakup. Because I just
Melissa: yeah, I just didn't know if he I didn't trust that he knew, or that he didn't know.
Courtney Brame: When you say it caused our breakup. It wasn't that he gave me herpes, so I don't wanna be in this relationship, it was actually more to it than that right?
Melissa: It was actually yeah. Without yeah. Going into detail, I guess.
Melissa: He had invited me to go for the weekend somewhere, and during all of this
Melissa: I don't know what I have. I'm sick.
Melissa: He I couldn't decide if I wanted to go or not, and he gave me a choice, he said. Well, we can go or not go, or I can come there. He lived in a different place in a different city. I can come there. It's like whatever. And then I made the decision. Once I found out that I had herpes, that I didn't want to go on the trip, and I asked him to come see me.
Melissa: and he got really angry, and said that
Melissa: you know I didn't want to do what he wanted to do, and I was like you gave me a choice dude. And this is what I chose.
Melissa: And so it turned out that
Melissa: yeah, I was angry at things other than just the herpes. I was angry at his lack of being clear about what it was that he wanted, and then the herpes was in the back of my mind there was just a lot. And
Melissa: yeah, looking back on my relationship with him.
Melissa: we were both so vulnerable with one another through texting.
Melissa: And it just wasn't a good way to really get to know somebody.
Courtney Brame: And, in short, this man didn't align with your relationship mission statement.
Melissa: Right?
Melissa: Right?
Melissa: Yeah, he yeah, he just he wasn't truthful.
Melissa: And oh, yeah, it's hard. It's hard, Courtney, to talk about it.
Courtney Brame: Yeah, I was just.
Melissa: Ask me. Something. Yeah. Ask me.
Courtney Brame: Are you?
Melissa: Ralph, and let me. Yeah.
Courtney Brame: Yeah, well, let's let's talk about that. Let's talk about like what you're feeling, because, also, right like, we're on this, podcast. We're talking about herpes. We're talking about something so taboo and stigmatized, and there are so many layers around that. And also just so, you know, like, if you don't want your face to be out here. I can only release the audio. There's that. And then the second thing, too, is, if you're uncomfortable with how this feels or is going for you like
Courtney Brame: I have to post it off so just letting you know. But.
Melissa: Yeah.
Courtney Brame: Bear with me what's coming up for you like? What are you feeling.
Melissa: Yeah, well, I guess I'm I'm really.
Melissa: I didn't know that this would all come up when I started
Melissa: talking in this way, like, I'm I'm feeling, yeah, embarrassed like that starts to come out that I
Melissa: that I that I didn't ask about Stis, that I didn't, yeah, that
Melissa: that I didn't do what I needed to do
Melissa: in order to protect myself, and
Melissa: I think just working with you
Melissa: has helped me know that I can do that for myself now.
Melissa: And but it doesn't stop that
Melissa: little bit of embarrassment, not little bit that embarrassment, that kind of yeah kind of comes up shame
Melissa: that comes up in in this. Yeah, I wasn't who I was not expecting this. Yeah.
Courtney Brame: Yellow.
Melissa: Yeah.
Courtney Brame: Well, let me share with you, too, like I. I've experienced that embarrassment right? Because when I 1st got diagnosed, when I reached out to my most recent sexual partners like it was embarrassing to think about having to tell someone. Hey? I might have given you herpes right. And on the other side of that was
Courtney Brame: me asking them, Do you have herpes? And I'm saying No for me to just be relieved like on the other side of that shame and embarrassment, I would say, is a sense of relief. Now, of course, there can be. You know, the the chaos that could happen, but I also don't think that we have the kinds of lifestyles or people in our life that are going to
Courtney Brame: at us and be like, oh, of course you have herpes, and and I think that's what we oftentimes expect. But the shame piece and the embarrassment piece right like this is a space where at least 6,000 people a month who are searching and finding something positive for positive people can relate to. So I want to just let you know, like you're more supported than you probably think you are. The
Courtney Brame: challenges of what's coming up for you and talking about this is absolutely something that over on like episode 3, 70 ish right? There's also that like that
Courtney Brame: there are plenty of other people as well, who have been exactly where you are, who need to hear this, who are already having gotten something out of you, just sharing your experience as being somebody who's relatable. You know how many people can say.
Courtney Brame: you know that they got herpes from someone, and it was a bad situation, but also the being a Yoga teacher also, the being divorced. Also one of the 1st people after you know you end your marriage, and you're able to get back out there in the streets again, only to be met with something that makes being out here more challenging. Right? So there's a lot of elements to your experience, one that are relatable.
Courtney Brame: and then 2 that like hope, that, as you, you know, get through where that is coming up for you. It looks like, maybe in your chest, in your heart, and you feel that openness of what you're giving reciprocated in the receiving of all of the love and support that you might get in feedback on the episode. But you might get just energetically from people hearing this and being like Damn, I can relate to that.
Melissa: Well, you know, while you were talking, and while I was just kind of letting myself sort of feel grounded and and be, yeah, this is, you're right. It.
Melissa: This is what I think.
Melissa: Yeah, that is relatable for people.
Melissa: and maybe they can relate to with the anger. Oh, my God. Yeah, I had so much anger that I carried around with me. And yeah, I mean, I would literally just growl, you know.
Courtney Brame: I remember, yeah, we talked about that.
Melissa: Yeah, be so angry and
Melissa: just working through that. And and I won't say that I don't get angry anymore, because that's still kind of an underlying thing.
Melissa: but just the talking, the the movement man being in, you know, group with you and seeing that someone else is feeling the same, you know, a similar way. The same way has just been so helpful.
Melissa: Yeah, to help that anger kind of
Melissa: just dissipate, not go away, but just, you know.
Courtney Brame: Oh.
Courtney Brame: I want to ask like, how are you with the anger, too? Because you know, we yes, we had the exercises of how to manage and navigate that? But has it shifted for you? Is it less intense? Are you doing anything with the anger? What! What's your experience of anger. Now on the other side of Yoga therapy.
Melissa: Yeah, so it's definitely a lot less.
Melissa: and I know I can tell by, like I journal in the mornings. And my journaling isn't filled with all the angry, you know. And actually, right, yeah, actually writing it, writing my anger out helped. And I loved the the humming exercise that you gave me
Melissa: where you just
Melissa: hum as you roll your head. And that helped instead of the growl, and then also breathing out of my right nostril. So that was very helpful.
Courtney Brame: I was. Gonna say, I forget I I gotta look it up if we're talking about which nostril it was.
Melissa: Yeah. Well, I to you.
Melissa: because if you breathe out of your left nostril it's cool and your right nostril it's hot, and I was like, Well, wouldn't I want to cool down? You're like, no, you want to match it. So that it goes. And I was like, Okay, yeah. So right nostril. Yeah.
Melissa: And those things were just tools as well as child's pose, you know, getting on the floor and stretching my arms above my head and just allowing my head to be above or be below my heart, so that I can slow my heartbeat down. And
Melissa: so, yeah, it's really helped with that. And I think once the anger kind of goes, and it just allows you to go a little bit deeper. One of the things I kept that kept coming up for me, too, is
Melissa: working with you allowed me to see patterns in my.
Melissa: in my anger, in my sadness, in my grief.
Melissa: That were sample patterns that I had always had.
Melissa: It wasn't new herpes patterns.
Melissa: And so what we were working through was not only helping me through my diagnosis of herpes and through the stigma of herpes. It was also helping me in my life with my mother and the life with my you know my! Just what's going on in my life.
Melissa: So yeah, it's
Melissa: the whole experience has been great. I think I even told you this one time that herpes doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Melissa: There, there's just so much, and on some level
Melissa: I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to
Melissa: look at these patterns to look at, to look. Just go deeper and look and see
Melissa: like doing the stars thing like without herpes. I wouldn't have come up with a mission statement. I wouldn't have been able to
Melissa: really identify what I was looking for in a relationship.
Melissa: And yeah, I haven't gone back out into the dating world yet. So that's, you know, to be continued, and I'm sure that will offer its own challenges. Once I decide to do that.
Courtney Brame: Yeah, thank you for that. I'm I'm hearing in this, right? Like
Courtney Brame: Yoga has been powerful for me in the sense of when I got my diagnosis. This is the thing that I leaned into to help with managing stress and outbreaks right? So to have from 20. I guess 13. It's been about 12 years now that I've been practicing Yoga consistent, let me say that.
Courtney Brame: And now, having gone through the Yoga therapy component, there is such a therapeutic component to yoga. And what I'm hearing in your experience with me, I'm like I was thinking to myself, damn do we even do much, yoga, it's much more therapy than it is, Yoga. And you know I don't want to devalue therapists, mental health professionals, coaches in any way, shape or form, and I'm also not saying that in the way that
Courtney Brame: puts Yoga therapy on a pedestal or devalues it. But it does give me a framework resources training in order to be able to navigate our conversations, and what your challenges are in a therapeutic approach. So would you say that this was more therapy than Yoga for anyone who's like, Oh, yoga like I don't want to do. Yoga! I can't do a headstand or anything like that.
Melissa: Definitely it. The the Yoga component I felt like was a smaller amount of time, but also
Melissa: it. The whole Yoga therapy experience touched both mind, body, and spirit in the sense that we did a lot of talking. You asked me a lot of questions. I got to tell you exactly where I was in every moment. You've heard so many things from me about
Melissa: yeah, maybe things you didn't want to know about me, but
Courtney Brame: That's the beauty of the therapist relationship, right? Like. I never saw myself in a therapist, even though people always say courty. You should be a therapist right? And I started to try and get people access to a therapist in 2021 when this became a nonprofit, and there were issues with that. So it was very much like
Courtney Brame: divine intervention that Yoga therapy came across my life. When it did, I happened to have the availability. It became accessible and available to me. I was in a place where I could understand and grasp some of the concepts. And
Courtney Brame: yeah, it's very nice to just see that this is something that I can offer that is helpful, like coaching never really aligned for me. Teaching Yoga classes never really aligned for me. There's a lot
Courtney Brame: specs to it that
Courtney Brame: always felt like, Okay, well, maybe I can just connect people to what they need. But here we are now like so seamlessly. This feels so natural to just be able to look at a person, have a conversation about what they're going through, and also touch on, not just the relationship to stigma, but also their relationship to relationship, their relationship to their family, their friends themselves. Even so, yeah, I thank you for saying that. And I feel like you were. Gonna say some more.
Melissa: No, I mean it just it came. It just came to me that the work that we did
Melissa: just allowed me the the talking that we did the
Melissa: you sharing part of your story with me, and then, you know, opening up about you allowed me also to open up even more.
Melissa: and then carry that openness out. And I don't mean telling everybody but feeling okay in my body
Melissa: and out in the world. Yeah, I don't know if that made any sense but.
Courtney Brame: It did to me. Yeah, it yeah.
Courtney Brame: It makes sense. Because so much of this is the emotional component like, that's really what my focus is right, like there is a physical element to it. Moving opens things up on an emotional level. And I'm going through that as well in my training. But right now, like, I'm just seeing that so much of what we experience here is emotional
Courtney Brame: and I often interchangeably use spiritual, energetic, and emotional, just for people who maybe don't resonate with the woo woo component if you want to call it that. And they're very much like the same thing.
Courtney Brame: because what we have to learn from this emotionally is a spiritual journey. If it feels better to call you all this an emotional journey cool. You can do that. But you came here for healing, and not a lot of people would look at their herpes diagnosis as an avenue for healing. But it really is because how much more did you learn about yourself as you started to look at and examine and ask questions around your herpes diagnosis.
Melissa: Right. Well. You know, I think I think I came to you telling you I'm grieving
Melissa: like that was the that was the healing process. You know the the healing of just the grief
Melissa: that I held, the grief of. Yeah, feeling like I was missing out on this new
Melissa: dating life that I had. And yeah, feeling like that had been taken from me. And I think grief itself is just a spiritual
Melissa: space for us to be in and sit in.
Melissa: And yeah, you allowed me to be okay in that. In that grief 2 fine.
Courtney Brame: On the topic of grief.
Courtney Brame: I wanna ask you about that thing that we talked about before the episode. We had a day where you
Courtney Brame: had a session with me. Right after I had completed some of my own brief work, I journaled and recognized that I had been holding on to grief for 23 years, and I recorded this podcast episode and posted it 23 years of grief. If you want to check that out. But I came into our session immediately after putting that.
Courtney Brame: and you said something to me. You're like, Yeah, you look like lighter, like what's going on, and I have no intention of like coming in and talking about this, but I shared with you what was going on with me, and it was so synchronous, or whatever the word is for me to have had the processing that just occurred for myself around my own experiences with grief and loss of something that
Courtney Brame: I can't really say that I have, but looking at, you know my perception of abortion, and the partner that I had who had an abortion, and my relationship to my grandmother, who
Courtney Brame: helped my mom, fought for my mom to carry through her pregnancy with me, despite my mother's parents, wanting her to get an abortion. And so coming away from that, having had my own process, and, like you, saw the
Courtney Brame: after effects of my own grief work, and there was a little bit of a parallel there that as much as you want to. I'll let you speak to, and I'll kind of follow your lead with that. But can you speak to that as best you can?
Melissa: Be. Yeah, if you remember specifically a little bit better what it is that will help jar my memory. So yeah.
Courtney Brame: Yeah.
Melissa: Yeah, yeah.
Courtney Brame: So this was very connected to we talked about we talked a little bit about emotional availability, and how important emotional connection was for you, and someone in your life had held on to some grief that they were unable to process until you said that you had seen that
Courtney Brame: similar situation regarding brief with this person, and how that person.
Courtney Brame: how that person's grieving or not processing grief, might have played out in your connection.
Melissa: Yeah, I think maybe you're talking about my ex-husband and
Melissa: yeah, he he lived. His father died when he was really young, and he carried a lot of
Melissa: the grief with him his whole life without even realizing.
Melissa: I don't think realizing that that's
Melissa: what was going on with him, and it caused him.
Melissa: It affected our marriage. It affected how we were.
Melissa: It was just hard to be emotionally available for him. He was hard. Yeah. And
Melissa: yeah, and I had to.
Melissa: I wanted that emotional availability so deeply and so much. And
Melissa: it turned out when when I was on my own, and I was single. I was seeing the same patterns of looking, you know, for people that maybe weren't quite as emotionally available as I thought they were.
Melissa: And is that?
Melissa: Does that speak a little bit to what you're yeah.
Courtney Brame: Yeah, it does because it affected your marriage and a lot of the work that we do here, especially revolving around emotions right? Like, we're talking about getting people to express experience, identify their emotions.
Courtney Brame: And then we kind of see some of the end results of what happens when people don't. I do believe that emotional availability is 4 of what can keep people together. Because, yeah, physical attraction. There's 1 aspect of it doing things for each other right? Like, if it's a transactional relationship like
Courtney Brame: I can go to Walmart, or I can go to target to get things. So if we're talking about companionship investment, if we're looking at a relationship structure that aligns with those values
Courtney Brame: right? Like
Courtney Brame: what's keeping me from going to target instead of Walmart. And now we look at the you know, I just feel like Walmart just gets me or people who drink Coke or Pepsi, but would never drink the other one. That's another good example. Like to some people. It's just like, Okay, it's Cola, like, I like Cola. But it's Coke or Pepsi, because they speak to that person's identity. When someone is not emotionally available.
Courtney Brame: They can't truly know you, and you can't truly have intimacy with them, and you can't truly know them. So we're talking about 30 years of marriage of.
Courtney Brame: you know, a grief situation from you know your ex-husband, and also the grieving of a need that you had, which was the emotional availability in your partner which allows for you to have that intimacy. We talk about the coaches right? How can you get out of your head in your relationship and into
Courtney Brame: all these aspects of yourself when your intuition, your true you is telling you, hey? You know this isn't. This isn't like real, this. There's no way that we can connect and the emotional component being something that
Courtney Brame: is needed for you. As we talk through the relationship mission statement, you know that that speaks to how you can, moving forward, identify
Courtney Brame: the kind of relationship that is more likely to work for you because of the importance of that need. So I just thought it was very beautifully timed. How I'm coming to you with like, hey? I just processed grief. And then you bring up this thing
Courtney Brame: in your life, and I never. I was never gonna ask like, Hey, what happened with your marriage like? Why didn't that? Because it didn't seem relevant? But then, when it became relevant, relevant. It was like, Oh, so that's why emotional connection is so important to you. Because over the last 30 years you've been fighting for it. And then you just got exhausted. Didn't have it. And you know, here we are.
Melissa: Right? Right? Well, and I mean at this point I can actually say
Melissa: I'm grateful for where my herpes diagnosis led me to here, because without it
Melissa: I was still continuing in the same patterns of relationship, even though I'd been through
Melissa: 15 years of talk, therapy, dream work, all kinds of things.
Melissa: Looking back in Yoga therapy over these same patterns with these
Melissa: you know, men that I was dating. I was doing the same. It was like I was doing the same thing, and I didn't. I didn't know it. And by yeah, working through the stars and talking to you and having this mission statement
Melissa: helped me to see that pattern. And I'm Oh, my gosh.
Melissa: yeah, none of the men that I had dated after
Melissa: even came where? Near, close to what I really wanted out of a relationship.
Melissa: And and yeah, the the last, the last man I dated it was so interesting because
Melissa: he himself was an amazing listener.
Melissa: and would hold lots of space for me to be vulnerable with him. But looking back on it.
Melissa: he was not vulnerable with me.
Melissa: and so I was mistaking, you know this, his listening and giving me space which I hadn't had before for his vulnerability, and he wasn't at all. And so that's very important to me, and is very much written in my mission statement that it's reciprocal, allowing me to be vulnerable.
Melissa: and then for him also to be vulnerable
Melissa: at the same level, too. Like, there are different levels of vulnerability.
Melissa: Yeah. And I think this modern dating thing is so hard because we get we get so, or I did. I got so involved so quickly because texting was we could be so vulnerable in text. But yeah, right.
Courtney Brame: Can we? Can we put the air quotes with vulnerable? Because it's so. It's detached in the sense of
Courtney Brame: you can be. Whoever you think the other person wants you to be, and vice versa, and then, like on the phone or in person, you know, like, you can't be as spontaneous because there's all these other things that are happening, that you're feeling the nonverbal cues, the vocal tonality, the pitch, the the sounds, the way that a person's carrying themselves, their body language. Right? There's all these factors in person to person communication that don't exist with text.
Courtney Brame: So yeah, you can be more vulnerable if you will, because there's there's more of a safety net there. There's a barrier there, a literal barrier, and it's like
Courtney Brame: you. You're not able to be seen.
Melissa: Right?
Melissa: yeah, you've got time to think. Think about something before, you know, rather than having to say it in real time.
Melissa: And yeah, it's just a. It's a false sense of vulnerability. And I didn't know that. And yeah, that's where this gratitude for herpes actually comes in for me is because I
Melissa: would not have.
Melissa: Maybe I would have come to that conclusion.
Melissa: But it would have been much longer. And I feel like this, yeah, this
Melissa: yeah. Set me on a on a different path.
Courtney Brame: I very much appreciate that, and just like your willingness to, you know. Enter yoga therapy, you know, even with me as a yoga therapist and training to be here on the podcast and just share your experience. And I gotta ask this, too, like, what do you hope that someone in your shoes gets out of listening to this podcast episode from hearing your experience, your story. What do you want them to get out of this.
Melissa: I want them to feel like I'm not the only one.
Melissa: it it can be. It can be kind of lonely and isolating, and I hope that someone can hear me and go. Oh, I'm not the only one.
Melissa: I hope that.
Melissa: Yeah. The the more people
Melissa: that can come out and say, you know
Melissa: that they have herpes. I don't know how to put it, but yeah, the less of a stigma it will become, the more. I mean, the
Melissa: yeah. My gynecologist told me when I was in the office and was diagnosed, that 50% of her patients had Hsv.
Melissa: And I was like, well, nobody has ever told me that. Or yeah.
Melissa: and the other thing, that even if you don't have herpes and you're listening to this, that it will help you be okay to be with someone
Melissa: who has herpes.
Melissa: Yeah, just reducing shame. Yeah. And
Melissa: it becoming just a normal thing. I mean, heck, it's just. It's just like the chickenpox. It's not a big, you know.
Melissa: It's just it really isn't a big deal. What makes it a big deal is, we've yeah. We've joked about it and made fun of it. And yeah, just made it a much bigger deal than it is.
Courtney Brame: And other than your anger coming to the surface. I want to ask first, st were there any other emotions that your diagnosis brought about for you. And then the second part to that question is, let me just ask that first.st Go ahead. I'm sorry.
Melissa: Oh, well, yeah, the the
Melissa: There's just like this huge spectrum of emotions that herpes brought out for me everything from anger to shame. Just darkness.
Melissa: and a place to.
Melissa: or something to ground me so that I can see in the darkness. I know that sounds crazy, but there's light. In there, too.
Melissa: there is light where I can now have some gratitude for the opportunity that I've been given to learn more about myself.
Courtney Brame: Yeah, well, you kind of were starting to answer the second thing that I wanted to get from you, which was, you know, we talk about healing happening. I don't think that it ever is done, and you've spoken about having been in therapy in the past. I know that when you and I were working together. You were also working with a coach. There were support groups that you had healing modalities.
Courtney Brame: You and I just want to know, like, how did Yoga therapy fit in with those other things that you had already been doing?
Courtney Brame: That's my question.
Melissa: So I think it was just a different approach to
Melissa: like really speaking my language of mind, body, and spirit.
Melissa: and not just addressing emotions and thinking, but addressing movement in that
Melissa: was different than what I had
Melissa: different than what I had been doing before, and also like how conversational it felt for the 2 of us in in that therapy that it felt very like very much of a two-way street
Melissa: versus just me doing most of the talking, and yeah, somebody listening and interjecting a question every now and then, which I don't want to knock that because I learned a lot that way. But yeah, being in conversation
Melissa: was great.
Courtney Brame: Amazing amazing that conversation, I mean, that's really all I have on my end. I thought that that was really cool of you to be willing to have this conversation to share with me your experience with Yoga therapy, sharing a little bit of your story and coming on here to just put it out there, and I hope that this has offered you
Courtney Brame: some additional healing for yourself, and that you feel a little more empowered to share with your community and invite them more into your circle, your life, and have more depth in the community around you. Through this I know that that was something that we talked about
Courtney Brame: when you came when you filled out the form. And
Courtney Brame: they very much appreciate this like, Thank you.
Courtney Brame: yeah. Is there anything else that you wanna say I'm looking at our notes that I got from you, and.
Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. I think that
Melissa: this has given me a springboard for
Melissa: the rest of my life. I felt
Melissa: re-energized and have a new focus
Melissa: to start from now. And I think I've told you I'm a spiritual director, and
Melissa: and I haven't practiced in a long time.
Melissa: and this has given me like, just a cool place to offer a new focus.
Melissa: So I'm looking forward to yeah, redesigning my website. And and yeah, learning this new. Yeah. I don't know how I'm gonna I don't know how I'm gonna jump, start it, but it's it's all in here. It's gonna come out.
Courtney Brame: Yeah. Well, we want to get it out of here and more in here in the.
Melissa: Yeah, oh, that's true.
Courtney Brame: Right.
Melissa: Yeah, yeah, I think
Melissa: I know. I want to know right? I know in my head. I want to know in my heart.
Courtney Brame: Yes. So we just want to embody this as a whole sense of knowing for ourselves. So I'm going to close this out if you can just mute yourself and stay on so we could just chat about how this was for you when I finished the record button. But yeah, this is an inside. Look at Yoga therapy. Y'all something positive for positive people. Yoga therapy donation based. Obviously there is a
Courtney Brame: this model there. If that price model does not work for you. Please feel free to reach out to me and let me know I'm happy to work with people, and other people have donated and given more in their own sections to be able to accommodate for those who might need more assistance. If you're somebody who's interested in being a podcast, Guest, spfbp.org, slash, podcast, scroll down, fill out the intake form.
Courtney Brame: And we can set up a time day, conversation for you to tell your story. One. On one support calls are offered donation based as well on the website.
Courtney Brame: visit spfbp.org, slash not, dash, slash, herpes, dash, support, dash, call. All of this is on the website. If you just go through the resources again, we redid the site. It looks cleaner smoother. It's showing up on Google now, depending on what it is that you're looking for. So I'm hype about that. And yeah, be on the lookout if you haven't already joined our newsletter so that you could be on top of events that are coming up. I am going to be
Courtney Brame: facilitating a Nope. I just did that. The herpes, disclosure and stigma workshop with chlora. We might have to do that again because it was really good. It was successful, and a lot of people
Courtney Brame: that got a couple of conferences I'll be attending, I submitted abstract abstracts for so maybe I'll be able to present some of our survey data which the survey is out for you to take it.
Courtney Brame: Please share it if you like the survey, or if you come across it like, please get that out there. Share it. Send it to your networks. I put it on Reddit. It's on Instagram social media. So yeah, we want to get as many responses as we can and be on the lookout all these announcements. But
Courtney Brame: all this to say, if you're listening to the podcast you support the show. I appreciate you being here. Thank you, and I encourage you to just go a little deeper, whether that be to look for community or to look for what the spiritual meaning or significance of herpes can be for you and your life
Courtney Brame: till next time.
Courtney Brame: That's it.
