The Psychology of Diabetes and Healing

Mary’s* birthday “surprise”

It was the summer of her 30th birthday – the big 3-0. As if leaving her twenties wasn’t enough, she received unexpected news. At her annual wellness check with her primary care doctor, things seemed to be going okay – until the very end.

“You have Type 2 Diabetes,” he announced nonchalantly. “Don’t worry; you can take some Metformin, watch your food, exercise a bit, you’ll be fine.”

But it wasn’t fine. She couldn’t believe her ears.

For the first six months, she committed to following doctor’s orders. She monitored her blood glucose levels, saw her doctor regularly, had her labs done as scheduled. Still, she struggled with managing the varied and many aspects of her illness.

More than she bargained for

Despite all her best efforts, she was struggling with her life, which seemed stuck in a continual holding pattern with itself.

In addition to the known signs of her illness, Mary also noticed other symptoms that troubled her. She felt tired and heavy. She had low motivation, difficulty focusing, and a hard time sustaining the changes she tried to make to support her health.

At times, she was irritable, depressed, and lethargic. Her glucose numbers varied dramatically as she fought off powerful cravings for sugar, carbs, and processed foods.

She also felt assaulted by a culture whose relationship with food was anything but healthy. She found it exceptionally hard to make and sustain healthy food choices.

Health care – or scare?

Her doctors, operating within the dominant healthcare model, simply didn’t listen to her. They read her chart, looked at her glucose monitoring log, lab workups, and decided, without asking her, that she’d eventually have to take insulin.

They didn’t listen to her desire to try different approaches. They didn’t support her own thoughts and intuitions on how not to just manage – but to reverse – her illness. They pigeonholed her into the mold of someone who would never get better, only worse.

Not surprisingly, Mary felt less and less motivated to make change and more and more anxious about a possible future of worsening health and illness.

In our culture, a diagnosis of diabetes is life-changing. Living with diabetes carries profound consequences and a call for deep change.

But rarely does our society have supports in place to encourage, inform, or enable such change. And many times, people around us do not fully understand what it means to live with a diabetes diagnosis.

Apart from the medical aspects of such a diagnosis, it also affects the way we think, feel, perceive, and live our lives. Diabetes is not just a biological process but includes layers of deep personal change across all aspects of life.

*Compilation of many clients

But is that as good as it gets?

So often, our dominant medical model views any disease as an enemy to be vanquished or held at bay till it has run its course.

What if, instead, you could view this diagnosis not as a problem to be managed, but as a guest who has come to the house of your life?

A guest who, though not wholly welcome, has something to teach you about how you’re living, being, reacting. One with profound wisdom, who holds the keys to your transcendence.

Whole health and diabetes

Working together to evaluate, support and improve your whole health and wellness, we can directly address limiting beliefs, lifestyle habits, thought patterns, and many other aspects that lie behind what is preventing you from shifting the course of diabetes in your life.

The first step to healing is understanding what needs our attention, our support, compassion. Then, we strive to learn how best to work with that.

Your health is more than a glucose measurement!

You are more than just a medical diagnosis or constellation of symptoms. Let’s go deeper and find the well-spring of vitality and wellness that exists when you step fully into whole health.

Call us for a complimentary 30-minute phone consultation to learn more about how we can help create an individualized approach to help you reach your best self – your optimum health and wellness.