I’m done, finished. Over feeling like I have to stay positive with diabetes! I don’t like being permanently sick. And no matter how much I love yoga and my yoga practice. No matter how strictly I count carbs and manage my diet . Diabetes is hard. Hard on me and hard on my friends and family. No one likes to see their child suffer, their beloved racked with fear or their friend having to have one more rant about the unfairness of it all. And no one can stand in my shoes. Even a fellow diabetic doesn’t have the same conditions to deal with.

But its no use being angry all the time, in fact not one emotion is useful when it comes to the facts. Diabetes requires nerves of steel. And I mean literally. It takes bravery to face the endless injections, the finger pricks and what ever else comes along.

This week my challenge has come in the form of a cold. I haven’t been sick since going on Insulin. I’ve had some challenges, yes, a kidney stone operation, the 24 hour vomiting bug but it never really affected my blood sugar levels more than a day or two. It’s been days now and my levels keep climbing and that’s in spite of increasing my dose of long acting insulin, and resting and keeping up my yoga practice.

In spiritual circles they say its good to “live in the mystery” or to “be the mystery” But stuff that!

My partner John sees it differently and so do I. After spending years in India studying traditional teachings and understanding the mechanics and subtleties of human nature and creation, he says that nothing can ever be a mystery once we understand ourselves. Even disease and its complexities can be put in it’s correct place.

In a nutshell we can’t change the creation, its plan or purpose. We can’t know on our own why we were born into creation and what creation is. Our teachers name everything for us, objects, people, places, situations. We are given beliefs, ideas and ideologies. We have our afflictions labeled, categorised and managed but still nothing in our experience of creation shows us the nature of creation or reveals the nature of ourselves. In other words who is tasting, touching, feeling, hearing and seeing in the creation? Who is the one having the disease?

We are constantly living the mystery. It’s a given. But thinking that’s the solution? That’s the “mystake”

So what am I actually trying to say here? Can I ever come to terms with my diagnosis? When will I stop being angry, sad and overwhelmed? Will I ever feel like I’m on top of this disease?

Maybe….but perhaps that’s not the issue

I’ll always have days like today. Where I make the disease bigger then me. Feeling like diabetes stands in the way of freedom, happiness and contentment.

But does it really? Inspite of my feelings creation just keeps happily going along. And in reality regardless of what my body does, I do to. Being alive and being able to enjoy the creation is a prescious gift. Having friends and family to share it with another huge bonus. I often find inspiration from the words of chronically ill people or people with disabilities. Who hasn’t been touched by someone who survives against all odds.

It takes a lot for this body to stop working, and we have the miracle of medicine to keep it alive. Maybe it doesn’t have to be about staying positive to accept our fate. What if positivity has nothing to do with it? Perhaps it’s about understanding that creation is there to facilitate us. It enables everything, our breath, heartbeat and our will to survive

with great respect….Rachel