“Feed the Warrior by training the body to follow the mind.”  I heard Lance Armstrong say this on a TV commercial the other day.  It sounds like a quote from the Marines but it may be a Lance Armstrong original, I don’t know.  I have been thinking about it in terms of how I deal with my Type 1 diabetes.  Dealing with Type 1 diabetes requires a creation of a manual system to deliver insulin and to obtain and maintain good blood sugar levels.  The body is a manifestation of the mind.  At the same time the body and mind are forever connected and interconnected in our present state as human beings.  In my yoga training I was taught that the mind has a casual body and the body has a gross mind.  The warrior in us is an attitude.  It is an attitude that can be described with characteristics like persistence, confidence, strength and courage among others.  This is the attitude that is best adopted when confronting and dealing with an “enemy” such as diabetes.  Perhaps enemy is too strong a word for some of you.  If it is, then replace it with opponent.  But make not mistake, we are always in a state of competition.  You can choose to sit on the sidelines and not engage or you can strive to be on the starting team and play like you mean it.  That part is up to you.    So, with respect to taking on Type 1 Diabetes, we are tasked with staying alive and maintaining health by injecting insulin, taking close account of what we eat, exercising (or not), and testing blood sugar levels to obtain feedback on how well we are balancing.  It requires constant contact with the enemy/opponent.  Ok, I am going to go out on a limb here and tell you that my highest goal in this fight is to defeat the enemy.  I have chosen not to play this game in a way where I become friends or partners with my opponent.  I have decided not to relent or concede defeat to the disease.  My objective is to win.  And for me, that means I have defeated my opponent and I move on to the next competition that is placed in front of me.  I intend to “heal” diabetes.  I intend to experience a day in my life when I can say the game is over with this opponent.  I have never and will never come to a point of acceptance of its power over me.  That would be defeat.  I believe that this warrior attitude I have cultivated has been the primary reason why I am healthy after 31 years of fighting.  At times it has not felt like a fair fight.  I have gotten depressed, have lost hope, felt defeated, wanted to give up but for some reason have been blessed with strong support of others who are my “brothers and sisters in arms.”  They have helped me stay alive to fight the next day and the next.   Think about the advantages of making the warrior attitude yours.  I believe that in our current situation on earth there is really no better choice.  Always remember that the enemy or opponent is never found in another person and neither is your warrior.  Others are cast members in your movie.  Some may appear as opponents but they are only acting as a mirror for you to see the direction to take.  Both the enemy and the warrior reside in you.  Which one will you feed?

About 20 years ago I went through a personal development course called Lifestream.  It was very profound at the time and provided me with a lot of tools.  The other day while going through some papers I stumbled upon this “poem.”.  It got me thinking about how I have dealt with my diabetes and my life.  Be compassionate to yourself as you read it and as you review your past, and perhaps current, approach.  There is great wisdom in the words.

The Difference Between Leaders and Victims

Leaders make mistakes and say, “I made a mistake,” and make up for it.  Victims make mistakes and say, “I’m sorry,” and do the same thing the next time.

Leaders say “I’m good, but not as good as I can be, yet.”

Victims say “I’m not as bad as a lot of other people.”

Leaders affect others.

Victims are affected by others.

Leaders would rather be admired than liked, and wind up having an abundance of both.

Victims would rather be liked than admired, and wind up having little of either.

Leaders respect others and try to learn something from them.

Victims resent others and try to find their faults.

Leaders stand for something and are willing to to fight for it if necessary.

Victims stand for nothing and either fight about everything, or nothing.

“There are essentially two categories of people in the world…leaders and victims.  Leaders are those whose purpose seems to be to inspire and motivate victims until they become leaders.  Victims are those whose purpose seems to be to criticize and resist leaders until they become victims.”

Ross Quinn

A diagnosis of diabetes can easily lead one to the path of being a victim.  Make no mistake, there is great pain, self pity, depression, resentment, anger, fear that comes with being diagnosed with a chronic illness that you did not ask for and did nothing to get.  So, if you fall in the category of being a victim do not be too hard on yourself.  Instead, be grateful to the people around you who have inspired you and who have helped to motivate you to at least be a survivor.  Life is not black and white.  Yes, you either fall in the category of victim or leader but because you are here you have the makings of a leader.  The universe would not have given you a chance if you didn’t.  So, don’t give up.  Keep searching for the ladder that leads you out of victimhood and you will begin to get a glimpse of the light of leadership.  I am still climbing…………One step at a time.  And to you leaders out there.  Thank you and forgive us victims for our parasitic nature.   We are in debt to you.

I was diagnosed over 31 years ago.  I was 14.  The message that the doctors and nurses gave me was that you can live a normal life.  All you have to do is take your insulin, eat good and test.  At the time I got it there were no blood sugar monitors.  No, I peed on a strip to see how much sugar I was “spilling.”  I wanted to believe the doctors and nurses.  My family and the people around me who cared for me wanted to believe them to.  The diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes is a shock to the system. It is a massive body blow that knocks the wind right out of you.  Nobody wants it.  Everyone wants to minimize its impact.  So, when there is a message that you can be normal you want to believe it.  Sorry.  I am here to tell you that you cannot live a normal life.  Not possible.  Not going to happen.  If you try you will be denying yourself the taste of truth.  And without the taste of truth life is bitter.  So get it out of your mind that you can live a normal life.  Normal is out.  However, you can live an excellent life.  You can live a happy life.  You can live a productive life.  You can live a meaningful life.  Give up the desire to be normal.  This has been a lifelong lesson for me.  You see I got the freakin disease when I was 14.  I was captain of my soccer team and hockey team and an A student.  I was popular at school and I had a lot going for me.  The one thing I wanted to be was normal.  I was the standard for normal.  Anything not normal to a 14 year old is abnormal or weird.  Normal is out.  Thank God….

I am not going to get into an esoteric discussion of religion or spirituality here.  No, that seems to have been going on since the invention of humanity itself.  There is this camp and that camp and there is a growing movement that believes it is all poppy cock.  I am not part of that movement but I am watching it with curiosity and amusement.  What I am going to do is provide you with a sliver of a perspective regarding type 1 diabetes.

I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 14 in 1976.  I had not been brought up with any real model of how the world works except that it revolved around me and my immediate family.  I soon came to realize that this model was not very workable and started to explore other possible ways of understanding “how it works.”  

In college I studied the great philosophers and the great religions and have continued to study, explore and experiment throughout my life.  I have never been able to buy into any particular way of looking at our existence (like a religion or a cult) and have managed to stay in a low grade fever of existential crisis pretty much all of my life.  

The acquisition of Type 1 Diabetes was a shock and it focused my attention on my mortality perhaps quicker than most get to think about it.  However, all of my study and exploration has not been for not.  I have come to a foundational understanding of the human condition that I believe is true and accurate and is supported by the latest science and current ways of thinking that are expressed in books like “The Secret” and the movie “What the Bleep do we Know.”  

I believe that the foundation of spirituality is found in the interplay between Fulfillment and Desire.  Two apparent polar opposites.  Our world is full of polar opposites.  And Fulfillment vs. Desire is the Grand Daddy of them all.  

As you know, if you have read some of these blogs, I have had Type 1 diabetes since age 14.  I am now 45.  I believe I am in the process of healing from the disease.  Notice I did not say I am curing myself.  A cure is coming and people are working on a cure.  I have realized that it is my role, my responsibility to heal not to cure.  This perspective has sent me down a few roads I would like to share in this post.  Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune deficiency disease.  The immune system is designed to attack invaders.  The deficiency is that it somehow decided that the cells that produce insulin are bad and therefore killed them off and continues to kill them off.  As I understand it this is one of the problems with stem cell implants.  The immune system still sees the insulin producing cells as foreign invaders and proceeds to attack and rid them from the body.  The result is catastrophic;  complete system failure.  Thanks to medical science the path of curing disease has been established and continues to progress. Injectable insulin allows the body to survive and blood glucose testing allows us to gain good control.   But why?  Why has the immune system wrongly identified these cells for termination?  I know that there are some medical explanations and genetic faults that perhaps allow it but why?  The answer to why is what has driven my healing process and I have a few clues.1.  I have concluded that there is part of me that does not want to survive in this form, at this time.  2.  I have concluded that there is an issue of addiction.  Think about it.  We need to inject, get our “fix” or be “hooked” to a pump.  3.  There is an issue of balance.  The result of the disease is an imbalance of a critical system in the body and the means to survive involves an ongoing balancing act.The cure will come only when the healing has begun.