Humility from Trees

I’m finally reading Peter Wohlleben’s NYT bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees. Having a job that once again revolves around ecology, I find myself sliding back into the field’s writings. I should have always kept an eye on it, but Life pulled me this way and that over the years. I must humbly accept that fact and try to understand what’s been learned in the last 25 years.

As I began reading it, I immediately saw many similarities between Mr. Wohlleben’s observations and my own in my book, Dear Warriors. Specifically: interdependence. Even his cover and the first image I put in my introduction are similar. Both depict flourishing trees in modified cross-section. Whereas his focuses on 3 trees and their roots, I drew a single tree, its roots, and the elements it’s exposed to.

Initially, I experienced an embarrassed flush of nervousness. I worried that my book’s art and ideas would be construed as a copy, even though I hadn’t read Mr. Wohlleben’s work before publishing. I could have easily slipped into a mental canyon of inadequacy, telling myself that my work was yet another example of my lack of originality and hidden it. Instead, I’m choosing to wave it as another support for the veracity of this notion that life is all about interdependence.

My whole point in pulling trees into my analysis of living with type 1 diabetes was to draw an analogy between trees and people. I felt a connection. Mr. Wohlleben’s book focuses solely on the gorgeous details of what trees go through, emphasizing specific ways they relate to both others of their own kind and entirely different species. I would suggest reading his book first, then mine. If you can learn to believe that trees aren’t independent and self-contained, then you can be open to the notion that no human is, either. You can also learn to believe that our daily activities can reflect that we’re stronger together, as I tried to state in Dear Warriors.

We’re stronger together, whether we’re talking humans or trees.

I titled this essay Humility. Humility and being humble are vital to our best lives, in my opinion. With them as our foundation, the ego can’t take over. We cannot become engrossed by the “wonder” of our own ways and thoughts and act as though other humans are enemies.

The science behind Peter Wohlleben’s work shores up his claims about trees- ideas that many might find fantastical and easily discounted if they were not being tested and corroborated by others around the globe. If we’re open to seeing deeper truths. To me, they prove one thing: we cannot believe we know everything about this world we live in. We have to be open to “if”.

We must humbly admit that we are not omniscient.

The networks that trees appear to thrive best in reminds me of other networks being uncovering and studied in recent years. For instance, take the human microbiome. Nature.com has a great timeline review and specific deep-dive information on this expanding field of study. Over half the cells in and on our bodies are not human. They all can affect how we live and perhaps we can adjust our living to maximize our relationships with these other entities to improve how we feel and how well we live. Can we humbly admit that we need some of these other species and encourage them? Can we accept that they may need us and we might do best by allowing them to coexist with us?

Can we accept with humility that we need other humans and other species to survive and thrive?

It can be an uncomfortable shift in thought. But, it can also be comforting because we’re capable of seeing truths and falsehoods. We’re capable of testing to confirm. We’re capable of failing and trying again. We can move forward, even if the steps are painful.

I’m looking at trees a bit differently of late. I knew I thought of them in some sort of kinship, but Peter Wohlleben has given me some substance to firm up those feelings. If their bodies are linked to many others and if our bodies are linked to many others, then how far does this linkage idea go? It fills me with hope, wonder, and a sense of place.

Neither a tree’s life nor a human’s is idyllic. Both eventually come to an end. But I can pat a tree’s bark and consider its journey, as I can my own, with humility and kinship and smile.

We can be stronger together.

Our Collaborative Music

The following is an excerpt from my book about living with type 1 diabetes, Dear Warriors. The biggest gifts I received in writing this book were connecting to others and forcing myself to be more open to my humanity and that of others. The book has art from 12 others with this condition. I referenced several others within my writing as well. Overall, I believe the book became a testament to the universal fact that we're so much more alike than we think and we need each other, no matter what we may say, believe, or do.

We're stronger together.

I saw BTS again this past weekend on their Speak Yourself tour. I met some more amazingly fun and positive fans. My whole family was in Chicago with me, and we all experienced seeing and being within thousands of ARMY throughout the city. So many different people and yet...connected. My husband said he has a new respect for and comfort with the BTS fandom- it wasn't what he expected.

We weren't what he had assumed.

I think we all make that mistake a lot in life. We make assumptions. We grasp onto fears. We hide in ignorance. It's "safe" but we can all also make efforts every day to be more collaborative. Whether big or small- we can do more and live better if we take the risk to share our personal music.

Let me show you...


THE WARRIOR SPIRIT

Artist: Natalie Force, 15
Age at diagnosis: 14

Title: You’re Not Alone

“When I was first diagnosed, I struggled with how alone I felt. I constantly felt that no one knew what it felt like to go through this. It soon became clear that many people are going through this every day of their lives. I realized I’m not fighting these demons alone and I never will fight them alone. The inspiration for my drawing came from how scared I felt in the beginning, to how I feel now knowing I can overcome this obstacle that life has thrown me.”
 
OUR COLLABORATIVE MUSIC: NATALIE FORCE

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”
- Lao Tzu, Philosopher

To me, my soul is the part of me that connects me to others. It’s akin to the spirit I talk about through this book. When I care for someone or something, my soul is involved. Art, pets, people, and places: when we feel that deep sense of linkage, our soul is touching the soul of that other. That’s how I see it, anyway.

Sometimes, we don’t feel that connection. Natalie’s image does a great job depicting what that feels like. Here, she shows people with T1D, including herself front and center, in carefully drawn detail and frozen flat-footed by the situation they find themselves in, whereas everyone else around them continues with their own lives, seemingly oblivious. She furthers that theme of disconnection by showing every single character, Diabetic Warrior or not, going about their business…alone. Everyone is alone. Natalie has illustrated that very “solitary warrior syndrome” that I say is not the only option we have when we consider the Warrior term.

From the Lao Tzu quote, one soul can speak outward to be heard. The reverse is true as well: we can open to the universe’s music, and our souls will be nourished and restored.

From what Natalie’s mom has told me of her and her diagnosis, of the three parts of ourselves that I’ve outlined, Natalie lived actively in her body before T1D. She has excelled as an athlete. Physical talent and a bright personality can allow easy entrance into this other part of ourselves: that community and spirit. Disrupt the confidence in and performance of that body side, and you might find yourself experiencing a plunge of the spirit: alienation. I see that in Natalie’s tears, her worried face and the Blue Circle, the “universal symbol for diabetes”, above each Diabetic Warrior’s head. Marked. Different. Alone. She drew the other Diabetic Warriors with small smiles as if they were somewhat comfortable- more so than she felt. Why? Perhaps she believed they had the condition longer and were more comfortable with it and what it takes to deal with T1D even as they still appear alone.

Natalie portrays a range of alienation levels between self and other. I’m proposing in this book that we all have a spiritual component that can take hits but also grow, therefore we have another bond with each other instead of a divider. Alopecia. Fibromyalgia. Cancer. Race. Religion. Gender. Sexual orientation. Eating disorders. Those dealt physical and mental trauma. All these life factors can tear and destroy. And yet, I’ve known people with struggles within all these areas and have been awestruck by how some have handled their lives. These are Warriors with songs we can all learn from.

Each condition affects how we identify ourselves and how we relate to others. These variables alter our music: we feel it, and others see it. Sometimes what we face deepens and richens our song of life. Sometimes it causes strife and off chords develop. The wild oscillations can become unbearable noise. If we consider these truths and apply those details to the various shadowy figures in Natalie’s picture, their vagueness disappears like fog burned by the hot summer sun. Those faceless masses become companion Warriors, each with circumstances, each needing others and what they possess. We are different, but also the same.

Lao Tzu described music as being in the soul. What if we say that music is our soul? Each person has a song deep within, including notes of struggle. Those songs are audible to the world if we share them. That’s key: if we share them. If we do, the world’s chorus can fold those tunes into the overall score and we can all benefit from the net effect. We can. We should. We must.

By doing that, as Natalie described, “It soon became clear that many people are going through this every day of their lives.” I believe Natalie’s eyes will soon dry enough for her to sing her song loud and proud as time marches on.

The athlete within Natalie taught me a lesson. On sports teams like those she plays in, each player has a different role and needs to display various skills. The same applies to the world full of Warriors. We all do better by bringing ourselves and our talents together. Both before and after my T1D diagnosis, I’ve undergone that drifting alienation that Natalie has depicted in her drawing. By receiving this image (and all the others in this book), reading the attached messages, and sitting with it all, I’ve also experienced an example of the opposite of alienation and apathy: empathy. I felt her music resonate with mine. I’ve sensed our spirits touch. When we build identification like that, we can keep moving forward. That touching is what gets us through our dark times.

When we don’t feel alone, we have hope. With hope, almost anything’s possible! 

It all comes down to connections. We each need exposure to different songs, and the world needs to hear ours, too. Where? How? It depends. Things like family, friends, religions, special events, personal interest groups, social media and professional organizations are a few. And we can’t sit on the sidelines while we’re there. We must actively participate to feed our souls. Are we going to a concert? Let’s introduce ourselves to those around us. Do we have a medical condition? Let’s speak clearly and calmly without embarrassment and look for comrades-in-arms. Are we attending a family event? Let’s really be with the family and not just merely suffer their presence or hide our true selves. Are we traveling? Let’s earnestly move within that new place and interact with its people. By doing these things, we may gain new friends, appreciations, and songs.

Shared meals, art, events, stories, and time bridge the gap between us and the “other”. Touching other spirits, we can begin to see we’re part of one big music-filled dance instead of single notes scattered across an empty keyboard.

Exploring the Warrior Spirit Together

Cover art by Amber Hall

This essay was originally posted September 7, 2018 on Healthline by Mike Hoskins for DiabetesMine. This was in preparation for the release of my new book, Dear Warriors, now available on Amazon. For signed copies, please contact me at dearwarriors2018@gmail.com.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

- African Proverb

I first found this quote back in 2012 on Facebook via Voices Education Project. Little did I realize then how its message would resonate with me today as a way of being, and not just a great slogan for a childhood school sign.

Its importance has grown on me, and I can now trace its influence back much further than 2012, like a seed that was sitting there, waiting for me to be ready for it. Today, I can say that it plays a significant role in my daily thinking and actions, including my life with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

I felt very alone and inadequate with this condition when first diagnosed in 1994, a year after graduating from college and beginning a job as an environmental technician, where I helped to identify wetlands by plant and tree species. I treated T1D like my work: scientifically and systematically, down to spreadsheets. I spent years dealing with it by myself, shielding its difficulties and influence on me even from close family and friends. Later, having children began softening my approach, but I didn’t have my big growth of understanding until making my way into the world of education as a classroom assistant. It was there that I began recognizing our vital need for and benefits from collaboration: working together.

Something struck me. If working together is the best choice in schools, why not in the adult world? 

We live in an extremely fractured culture, and many of us feel it's me-against-the-world. I wondered: are we asking too much of our children to emphasize the power of interpersonal skills and relying upon each other, or are we not asking enough of ourselves as adults?

Even teachers struggle with feelings of inadequacy and separation. While they can be incredibly skilled at nurturing those around them, they can ignore their personal care and worth. Using my interest in writing, I penned my first book, Dear Teachers, for them. It sought to provide a school year of supportive messages based on beautiful nature photos taken by my friend, Marlene Oswald, covering subjects like needing teamwork, being present in the moment, feeling safe enough to reveal oneself, making time for self, accepting that we all suffer, celebrating our diversity, and enjoying the tiny sweetnesses of life. I asked the readers to focus on themselves and to further the team concept of the book I added writing prompts and space for the reader to include their thoughts. In the end, I wanted all readers to feel and see their dearness and ways to move forward in their lives.

After that experience, I was finally able to look at diabetes through similar topic lenses. Could I reveal facts and stories from my own life that others might relate to and enjoy? Could I create an interactive framework for a book to help us all deal with this condition and see our dearness and place in the world? How could I make this book an example of going farther by going together?

I knew I wanted to stay with the “Dear ___” base, but for the longest time, I didn’t know what word or words to use, so I left it blank. The term “Warrior” has been promoted and fought over in the diabetes world for years. I’ve always been on the side of the argument as voiced by people like Craig Idlebrook in Why I Wince When People Say They Won’t Let Diabetes Stop Them on InsulinNation in 2016 and by Mike Hoskins in Why I’m Not a Diabetes Warrior on DiabetesMine in 2017. I didn’t like it because when I pictured a “Warrior”, I thought that was going back to that "alone" theme. I didn’t want that; I couldn’t go back there.

Then, I sat with the ideas of "Warrior" and “togetherness” some more.

Just as some people pointed out to me that my Dear Teachers book and “Teacher” moniker apply to anyone who has kids in their lives, the “Warrior” term applies to anyone alive. We’re all Warriors. We can be Women’s Rights Warriors, Cancer Warriors, Homeless Warriors, Parent of a Child with a LIfe-Threatening Condition Warriors, Racism Warriors, LGBTIA Warriors, Environmental Warriors, and more. And any combination thereof. From that perspective, I could embrace the concept.

It was always my intention to have a variety of people with type 1 diabetes provide the visuals for this book. If my message was legitimate, I felt I would see support in other people’s artistic expressions. For six months, I asked people with T1D on social media to send me images they felt represented who they were. I didn’t specify the subjects, style, or media because I didn’t want to influence their work and thoughts. As they came in, I placed one at the start of each section of the manuscript, ending with 12 artists and a total of 16 images. One image stood out to me as symbolic of the Warrior spirit, so Amber Hall’s Jamie was highlighted on the cover. Two images in the introduction are my own, but I can’t take full credit for those.  Actress Anita Nicole Brown, another person with T1D who reached out to my requests, inspired one. Sometimes, I had to edit an existing essay, but I never had to write anything from scratch. I shared the pieces with the artists as I placed them, learning more about each person as I continued building the book.

I could never have created this book without them. I could have written a book (fast) but not this one (far).

Dear Warriors grew to be my view of what ALL people deal with, a few things only people with T1D have in their lives, and the things we can do to live more fully within ourselves. It evolved to fold in the importance of togetherness into this term “Warrior” that sometimes feels so incredibly individualistic, unobtainable, and isolating. The subtitle even changed to be much more inclusive. I ended up choosing “A Memoir and Guided Journal for Those Touched by Type 1 Diabetes”, because this book is a bit about me, a bit about type 1 diabetes, and a whole bunch about how we’re all in this as fellow Warriors.

We can do this. Each story is a bit different, but we can go far if we go together.

Cause and Effect of Our Actions

The following was written by Carina Hilbert @CarinaHilbert on Twitter on August 12, 2018. She writes from a classroom perspective. I believe anyone can use the wisdom of her thoughts and I challenge myself and anyone else who reads them, to do so. Swap “students” or “kids” with “people”. Swap “classroom” for “workspace” or “home”.

“I have been seeing a lot of posts in my TL lately saying that negative behavior in the classroom is always a sign of learning struggle or that the student needs more support. While I agree that’s true a lot of the time, it isn’t true all the time.

Some students act out due to boredom. They don’t need more support, and they aren’t struggling: they’re bored. Just ask them, and they’ll tell you. These tend to be active learners, kids with engineer minds, kids who see the big picture quickly. Give them more to do.

Some kids act out because they know they’re safe with us to do so. It’s like how kids are worst at home because they’re safe to act that way and still be loved. That can happen in the classroom, too. It takes solid conversation with that kid to find out why it’s happening.

Some kids act out in class due to power dynamics. They want power, feel like the teacher has all the power, and so they undermine the teacher in order to get the level of power they need to feel safe and comfortable. (Here’s a secret: give them power. It’s okay.)

Some kids act out in class because they are overwhelmed with something going on in their private lives. They’re struggling with a move, with grief, with depression, with anxiety, with a million things, and they need a safe space to process that. Give them that space.

Some kids act out because they hate the book, the material, the curriculum, the subject. It isn’t that they don’t get it; it’s that they really don’t like it. Listen to them. You might be surprised at the insights they have.

Some students act out because something physical is going on. They have to go to the bathroom every day at that time, but you don’t allow enough bathroom passes. They have chronic pain and the short fuse that comes with it. They’re hungry. Respect those bodily needs.

Some kids act out due to mental health issues that aren’t being treated right. In schools, we get all kids, including sociopathic ones. Work on those relationships, and be ready with many different strategies and backup plans. Work with your admins, too, on safe spaces.

Some kids act out because they pick up on our exhaustion, our racism, our biases, our disrespect. Kids read us every second of every day, and if we, deep down, don’t like a kid, trust me, that kid knows. We have to eliminate those biases as best we can can every day.

In all reality, there are as many reasons kids act out in class as there are kids. Get to know your students, work on those relationships, and also work hard to make sure at least your classroom is safe for all learners. A safe space in the building for cooling down helps, too.

Too many schools don’t have a safe space for kids to cool down, talk through what happened, and rebuild any relationships they damaged with their behavior. We are too quick to punish without understanding. Work within your school to fix this, and you’ll see a huge change.”

Young or old: we’re a complicated product of the days we’ve lived and the realities we’ve faced, coupled with the innate skills and interests we have on the inside. We all need the things Carina describes here to be our best: safety, security, a sense of belonging, mental health, physical health and a belief that life’s challenges can be met and are worth risking ourselves for.

These concepts that Carina has outlined are at the root of my current book-in-progress, Dear Warriors. Dear Warriors is a book to support and inspire those with type 1 diabetes. However, as I wrote it, I saw universal truths that apply to everyone. We’re all Warriors. And what do honorable Warriors do? They help each other out. They give each other space, but never abandon each other. They use their individual talents together to get the job done. That’s what Carina is suggesting, too.

Know each other. Give to the other what you have and they need. Take from the other what they can offer you. Stick together. Work together. That will lead to positive change for everyone.

It Pays to Bend: The Benefits of Emotional Flexibility

Isn’t this a great image?

Ayden A., 10, drew this. He has type 1 diabetes (T1D), like me. His mom sent this to me in response to one of my requests on InsulinNation for art by those with this condition.

I want to connect with others with T1D. I also want to practice my preaching that we're stronger together. I'm looking to answer: What will happen to me and my writing if I work with other artists?

For my art requests, I’m intentional vague on what I want to see. My parameters are flexible. I’m simply looking for images that people feel tell something about themselves and their stories.

Flexibility is a powerful and scary skill to practice.

We like control. Flexibility requires a release of control. It takes courage. I was reminded of this in a great TED talk by Harvard Medical School psychologist Susan David, called The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage. She's also written a book on this flexibility, called Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life.

As I was absorbing this talk, my mind went back to Ayden's picture. I’d had a strong reaction to it initially. With Dr. David’s words running through my head, possible reasons appeared.

In Ayden’s art, I see a pumpkin with two faces in it. One, a regular smiling face. The other, what appears to be a devil in red, also smiling. Both faces are framed together within a single segment of the pumpkin’s rind. Perhaps Ayden feels like he has different things inside one whole. I know I feel that way. There are days when I’m feeling great. And there are days when absolutely everything feels awful and I wish for a “get off this crazy ride” button.

Both his faces are smiling broadly, but very differently. That reminded me of Dr. David’s admonitions on false positivity. In the loss of her father, she described herself as the master of being OK. She wasn’t and hiding it only made it worse. We do that quite a bit, whether we have diabetes or not.

That devil’s grin has teeth.

If we try to smile all the time and simply reply, “I’m OK!” without thinking, we’re lying.  We’re hurting ourselves. We have a huge pile of emotions, none of which are bad. We need to accept them all and be open to what they can teach us about ourselves. To me, Ayden’s picture shows that. Having only just entered double-digit age, he’s depicted a whole person (pumpkin) contains many feelings.

We are complex. Our lives are complex. We can’t hold everything in a certain place.

Dr. David indicates in her talk that many people want feelings to go away. Alas, “Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” We are not our anger, fear, jealousy or disappointment. Nor are we happy. We feel these emotions and they tell us something about ourselves and situations.

Life’s not all neat and perfect. That’s another thing I like about Ayden’s drawing. He colored within lines but there’s a mix of the real and the imaginary. There’s a corner that maybe should have been green, but is red. The pumpkin is partially blue. He’s added hearts and stars with pencil. Not everything is just simply blocks of color. And why not? Life’s like that. Unpredictable. Pleasure within pain. Growth within change.

Dr. David used the term “tyranny of positivity” to describe our culture today. Let’s loosen its control by embracing flexibility. When we’re feeling sad, it’s good to explore it and its causes. When we’re feeling glad, it helps to look at why. When we’re at our wits’ end, it’s best to admit it and look for steps we can take. We need to face the emotions we’ve come to understand as “bad”, both to ourselves and those around us. As Dr. David concluded,

"Emotional agility is the ability to be with your emotions with curiosity, compassion and especially the courage to take values-connected steps."

We can all benefit if we do this. In fact, if I had one complaint in Dr. David’s theory, it would be a greater emphasis on the need for us to understand how linked we all are and how we all need to participate. I know so many people who have been reduced to living with this one mantra: “Keep your head down and just get through it.” The “it” can be anything. Sometimes diabetes feels like that. There isn’t even the false positivity to hide behind.

We can (and must) all help each other out. We can all get through more if we do it together.

I’ve been able to understand more things by looking at Ayden’s art and listening to Dr. David’s research, just as I was able to flesh out my messages of support for teachers in Dear Teachers using the images of my friend, Marlene Oswald.

I thank Ayden for his work, both artistic and as a Diabetic Warrior, and his mom for the opportunity to show this in one example and I hope to do more in the days ahead! Stay tuned and keep sending that T1D art (from all ages!) to dearwarriors2018@gmail.com!

Serendipity

From Merriam-Webster:

Serendipity: (noun) the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for

I decided to take a picture of one of my favorite t-shirts and post it on Twitter on Friday. It was a spontaneous decision and I’m glad I did.

My shirt came from TeeSpring and reads:

Mistakes Are Proof That You Are Learning

I love the mental space this message offers. It was sold as a math shirt, however I think it applies to quite a bit more. Like...everything. I’ve made mistakes in math, writing and science. I’ve also made some pretty epic ones at home and at work. With things. With people.

The very fact that we HAVE to make mistakes in order to grow has been a hard lesson for me to learn. I grew up with a nasty combination of both high expectations from outside and anxiety from inside. I suppose I posted the tweet to encourage others to embrace the strength of this message in a more timely fashion than me. That way of living is so painful and destructive.

What came after that post was the truly beautiful bit.

Two individuals stood up and responded. One from New Jersey (Jace @inspire0818). One from Georgia (Chris Shearer @hbprincipal). Between the two, something clicked in me. I found myself back in Wisconsin combining their thoughts into a brand new statement:

Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn, but either way, you cannot lose.

Then, Mr. Shearer took it up another notch and designed this cool graphic and shared it with us all. (As an aside, I can even see this as another t-shirt opportunity. I know I’d buy one.) Let’s dig a bit into this collaboratively-crafted sentence.

Sometimes You Win & Sometimes You Learn

There are times when we totally get it. There’s nothing better than feeling that wave of adrenaline when we achieve what we had hoped for and we can raise our arms up and howl in triumph. We’ve won! And yet, typically, we reach that AFTER we’ve failed. Whether it’s catastrophes or a simple series of minor hiccups, the victories come AFTER we learn from our mistakes.

Teachers remind students of this every day. We all could benefit from a voice gently whispering this reminder into our ears as we go about our days. “It’s OK! What worked? What didn’t? What can you do differently next time?”

Either Way, You Cannot Lose

When do we really lose? When we quit. When we lose hope. When we close ourselves off from people, from experiences and from the rest of the world. Initially, it may feel like we’re protecting ourselves. However, when we lock ourselves away from opportunities to win or learn, we in fact become adrift. Why? We don’t obtain the tools needed to captain our ships. Adrift, we are tossed about by the storms of fear, doubt, depression, and anger that brew for us all.

My experiences on Twitter over the last year have been amazingly uplifting. If you’re in education and aren’t active on it, you should check it out. You can find some fantastic peers and sources of inspiration. This was one of many beautiful connections. I’m encouraged to see what resources I can find as I continue my memoir/journal book for those with diabetes and begin writing another edition of Dear Teachers.

We’re all stronger #together. We’re all stronger when we win and when we learn #together. As long as we’re doing one or the other with positive intentions, we cannot lose.

Not...Yet.

Thanks to Teespring for this shirt that keeps popping up on my Facebook feed. Folks that know me know that I’ve been lured into buying novel t-shirts quite a bit this year. I’ve managed to resist this one, but I do have a story to tell about it.

Through some strange alignment of my chakras or planets or something, I’ve actually started to get in pretty good shape this year. I’ve have Type 1 Diabetes since 1994 and given birth to 2 amazing boys so I’ve had my share of food regimes and drives to keep moving, but this is different. I’ve actually started running.

I never thought I’d be able to stay on a treadmill for 3 miles.  I’m still working on *really* running- you know- on paths. In sunlight. Up hills you can’t hit a button to reduce the incline on. But when I first started a Couch to 5K program, this t-shirt’s message screamed “YES!!!!” to me. I honestly didn’t think I would be able to finish my goal. I sat and read through much of my childhood. I had tried this running thing once before as an adult and ended up with shin splints that shut me down completely. I’m in my 40s- I deserve to kick back and relax for a while, right?

Sometimes, life is like that. Sometimes, it really does hurt all over and you can’t do it. What if it’s just that you’re meant to do something else instead? Perhaps it’s just not time for this goal...yet.

I’ve juggled these pins (my mind, my body, my food, my insulin, my exercise) countless times already. They have been both my guardians and my demons over the years. I’ve cursed each and every one of them at some point. Right now, we’re all agreeing to follow a common contract- I can’t pinpoint a specific part of the puzzle that sealed the deal. I’d like to think my boys in BigBang might have been part of it. Lol! I’m just grateful and hoping we can all just keep getting along as we are for a good long while.

We each face obstacles along the way. Some return again and again. We can’t give up but we can cut ourselves some slack when a goal pulls away from our reach- when it hurts all over and we feel like dying. Life might be telling us to go somewhere else and do something else first. What might happen if we’re open to “Not...Yet”?

Problems Versus Opportunities

When you focus on problems, you’ll have more problems.

When you focus on possibilities, you’ll have more opportunities.

- TheDailyQuotes.com

If you’re in a negative mood, this quote can incite you to do a giant raspberry with rude gestures at it. At least, based on my own experience it can. ;-)

However, that doesn’t take away from the message’s truth. In fact, it affirms it.

Case in point: I have a chronic, lifelong disease: I have Type 1 Diabetes. There are spans of time where everything’s running well. I test my blood sugar, I dose insulin, I live my life and that’s that. Day in and day out, a comfortable, if imperfect, pattern can be maintained.

Then there are other spans where everything’s off. I pork out, I overdose insulin, I underdose insulin, I get hurt so I don’t exercise, I get stressed out and again I pork out and/or enjoy a beer or two or... Rinse and repeat.

Believe it or not, there are times when I feel a level of gratitude for having this body error. It’s trained me to feel my body in ways that others probably don’t or just can’t. It’s taught me to be grateful for all the amazing biochemical processes our bodies do on a daily basis: thousands of things that just happen without our knowledge but without which, we’d die. To me, it’s amazing our bodies work as well as they do! It’s humbling- we think we’re so smart. However, with diabetes, I myself must do what other people's bodies take care of automatically. Sometimes I’m good at it and sometimes, I fail miserably. There came a time when I set a bar and thought, “This is as good as it’s going to get.”.

Over the last 4-5 months I’ve pulled myself up to the best physical and mental shape I’ve ever been in, if I do say so myself. Other people inspired me. I had a mental shift. I saw opportunities. Growth mindset, one might say.

Each person has to be open to the possibilities/opportunity-based mindset. It doesn’t happen overnight nor is it likely to stay forever. We’re all in an awe-inspiring, ever-changing and intricate dance, as I’ve written before. We go up, we go down, we go back up once again.

Possibilities and opportunities. They may come in unexpected forms and uncomfortable times but we will never fail to become stronger if we can see life in those terms.