Mantras and More

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Today’s Topic:  Yesterday we opened up about how diabetes can bring us down. Today let’s share what gets us through a hard day.  Or more specifically, a hard diabetes day.  Is there something positive you tell yourself?  Are there mantras that you fall back on to get you through?  Is there something specific you do when your mood needs a boost?  Maybe we’ve done that and we can help others do it too?

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Laddie_Head SquareAll day long I’ve tried to think of something to write on mantras.  Reading multiple #DBlogWeek posts about mental health has not done much to inspire me. I’m feeling a little gloomy reading about the struggles of my fellow DOC members. Right now I just want to yell “GROUP HUG!

I wasn’t a cheerleader and “push ’em back, push ’em back, way back” doesn’t doesn’t seem to have much relevance beyond what I should be doing to dessert at the table: “Push it back, push it back.” I’m not much into meditation and “Om” mostly reminds me of Sheldon’s throat singing on The Big Bang Theory.

The Little Engine That Could is a charming and inspirational children’s book, but “I think I can, I think I can” seems a little trite on my 1,460th insertion of a long-needled Silhouette infusion set. I know I can, but I still don’t want to.

“Take one for the team” implies that because I have diabetes, I am statistically saving another person from getting diabetes. If only.

I’ve often written about getting up every day and trying to do a better job with my diabetes. For the most part, that is what I do. But I can’t use the “Try, try, try again and you shall succeed” mantra. What will be the measure of my success? That I didn’t die? That my diabetes is cured? That I have a good A1c? The only good prize to win with diabetes is that you don’t get the bad prizes. “I guess that is a good prize,” she says, smiling….

Just Do ItMaybe “Just do it” should be my mantra. With visions of a Nike swoosh, that can be inspirational like climbing Mt. Everest. Or swimming the English Channel or finding a cure for cancer. I’d look good in a Michael Jordan basketball uniform (not!).

But “Just do it” can also mean “Quit thinking about it, you ninny, and do what has to be done.”  Test your blood sugar, count your carbs, change your pump site, calibrate your Dexcom, order your supplies, bolus for meals, do it again. Do it again and again and again. Don’t think about it. Just do it.

Yeah, that’s the one. Just do it.

13 thoughts on “Mantras and More”

  1. I so admire your great attitude Laddie. Great post. Best line: “The only good prize to win with diabetes is that you don’t get the bad prizes.” So true. That may sound bad but it is the truth and it motivates me.

  3. Yes, good mantra! I admit I started to get a little down yesterday too but then at the same time it was refreshing to hear how most people are going through the exact same things I am. Diabetes is hard but we just do it! 🙂

  4. Two things I’ve come away with after reading this:
    1.) I’m not the only one who has found conventional mantras unhelpful;
    2.) A new mantra to use.

  6. I just tell myself there is a cure. They told me they were almost there when I was diagnosed in 1980, so I figure we must be getting close by now.

  8. “I know I can, but I still don’t want to.”
    This hit home for me. Just because we can do all these things doesn’t mean we ever want to, or ever get used to it. Great post!

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