Friday, July 26, 2013

Performing an experiment on yourself

It appears that I espouse that eating a certain way and doing certain exercises will have a given effect on our blood sugars. While I hope that I have provided some information that will explain why I might think that, such as the material in this article.

However, my true message is this: perform an experiment on yourself.

I was once told that the definition of insanity is repeating the same answer over and expecting different results. When it comes to the way we address our mind and body, this is the same.

Eating the same foods and taking the same medicine produces the same undesirable result. So find something else. Be brave and experiment with different foods. Don't think about putting yourself on a "diet" but that you are simply finding foods that nourish you the way you want to be nourished. It takes careful observation and willingness to admit when something isn't working. You might have to adjust your insulin dosing or other facets of your life as you go along, but be willing to experiment.

Moreover, this method of experimentation applies to our minds. Do you have recurring thoughts, worries, fears that in the end do not help you? Do you have attitudes and perceptions that are not useful in the end? This again takes careful observation and a willingness to let things go.

As we confront parts of our mind, we will find that certain attitudes and reactions to things do not help any situation. For example, believing that there is not cure to type 1 diabetes make it impossible for one to imagine a way that there is. We are so attached to what we take as "medical fact" and so attached to our way of life with the disease, that we cannot and will not believe there might be another way. We take it as fact that "the insulin producing beta cells have been destroyed and there is no way to get them back." It may or may not be the case in reality. But that is unimportant. What we can work with is giving up our attachment to this thought- be it reality or non-reality.

It is the attachment itself that creates our suffering over a thought pattern. We can find ourselves outside of what we take to be solid and unchanging if we can slowly loosen our grip on those perceptions. It is a slow process, but day by day you can quietly propose to yourself that you loosen your grip on all perceptions. They may stick around, but at least you can find yourself increasingly free of them. This has nothing to do with what we think is fact or fiction. Once you loosen your grip, you might find something entirely different than you had unwaveringly accepted as fact to be true.


Practice Suggestion:
Pick a time of day where you can sit quietly for 5 minutes.

At this time propose to yourself three questions having to do with harmful thought patterns or beliefs you wish you could let go of.
They might look like this:
       1) Could I less attached to the thought/fact that diabetes will never go away?
       2) Could I believe that I will be healthy and in control?
       3) Can I be less attached to what people think of me?

These could be anything that you want to address. Take a few minutes and honestly propose if you could possibly, some day far in the future, do these things. This is not a "I will do this today" type of thing. It takes time and by honestly proposing the possibility daily, you might find that you can loosen your grasp on harmful thought patterns. 

4 comments:

  1. I enjoy your blog, thanks. I appreciate your patient and persistent examination of "reality." I will indulge blaming/resentful thoughts regarding my T1 even though I intuitively believe I am the author of my reality. I suspect the main key is to forgive myself (for anything and everything). Just let it go. Of course, if I believe something to be so, then I will create and experience it to be true!

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  2. Thanks for reading! What a wonderful comment to see posted here. Thank you for adding some great positive energy to my blog. Reading these kinds of comments adds to my motivation to keep on going.

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  3. Hey Keith

    I stumbled upon your blog while trying to find some reliable nutritional information concerning diabetes type 1 as most official guidelines seem horribly wrong to me nowadays. You are definitely correct in your methods. Being a type 1 for 23 years (I'm 30 years old) I had shoved my diabetes to the side most of the time. I measured my blood sugar often and corrected with insulin, but I didn't think much about what I was eating until some weeks ago.
    I always knew that pizza, pasta, potatoes, grain and their like were bad for me because they made my blood glucose spike, but I did not want to stop eating them and the doctors said it was okay to have a spike for a short time after eating. I must say i'm really lucky. Most diabetics at my count of years and same way of handling their blood glucose levels have serious complications (blindness, amputations.. you know the drill). I've been completely okay until the age of 20 when my mind started to become clouded. I needed 10 hours of sleep and was still tired as hell, I couldn't concentrate, couldn't find the right words, had irritable bowel syndrome, went from doctor to doctor without success and became depressed.
    I had to abort studying and started to get completely absorbed in computer games where I didn't have to feel as defect as in the real world. I had more or less arranged myself with the situation: "This is how it is. You can't do anything else against your condition. It's not going to get better, just be thankful it's not worse.. yet." Fatigue and stomach cramps while exercising got worse and worse.
    I got the first real help in years from an osteopath, who told me my sympathicus was completely riled up and wouldn't let me regenerate because of the physiological and psychological stress.. playing fast paced computer games wasn't helpful to the matter either. He relieved it with special massage points. We sat there literally 15 minutes and then I just sacked down and was completely relaxed for the first time in more than a decade. That night was the best night's sleep I had in many many years. He had also freed me of some vertebral blockage.
    My body had much if its energy back, but my mind was still clouded and depression soon tore me back down. Some weeks ago I stumbled across Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" and it was maybe the most important read of my life (And NO, this is not an advertisement, it just perfectly resonated with me..it's a free pdf even.. otherwise I wouldn't have read it). I learned to let go of my mind and control it instead to be controlled by it, so I can very much relate how yoga and meditation must be helping you in your efforts. Since I've finally found inner peace now (seems strange to say that at the age of 30 and i'm not done yet..there's so much more to this), I'm trying to help my body heal since I finally have the energy and the strength of will. I probably won't get my beta cells back (who knows), but I want to finally get rid of that fog in my head and that pain in my guts once and for all. So I've started to go low carb high fat (not completely paleo yet), cut out all dairy and grain and my irritable bowel syndrome is so much better for it. My blood glucose levels are so much more - leveled =). I use a third of the dosage of insulin that I had used before.

    I still have some concentration issues, but I guess it's to be expected that it's not going to change that quickly. I'm doing Tai Chi now and plan to start yoga and meditation as well. Maybe I'll go no carb soon. I've been confused by ketosis and ketoacidosis so I was hesitant like so many others and looked for more information. Thanks for debunking that fear for me. Every diabetic should follow low/no carb and will live so much better.

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    Replies
    1. What a great story. It sounds like you are on an amazing track of discovery and healing. I love to hear stories like this because it continues to inspire me to explore and find greater peace and healing. You've worked with the disease much longer than I and I hope I can carry on with strength like that.

      I've always been told by my teacher that the martial arts like Tai Chi and QiGong are very, very similar to yoga, so I'm sure you will find much of the skills and attention to the body you've learned the same.

      I've also heard great things about "The Power of Now". Even if it was an advertisement, if it's wise, I'd want people to hear about it!

      I hope that the stuff here can be helpful :)

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