Type 1 Thursday – Self love & Diabetes?

Diabetes & self love – why is it necessary? 🤔And why is it so crucial to find your way of showing yourself self love?

We’re going deeper than the ordinary advice when it comes to diabetes (“Medication, food & movement” 🙄) , this is more about the mental aspects of living with a chronic illness, such as diabetes. The mental aspect that no health care professional has ever talked to me about in my 34 year long experience with Type 1 Diabetes. But that is oh-so important and can make a world of difference to your management!

It’s time for Type 1 Thursday!

Self love & diabetes, is it necessary? – Hanna Boëthius

How do you show yourself some extra love when it’s needed? Let me know!

Transcription

Prefer to read this information about self love and diabetes? No problem, I’ve got a text version for you right here:

I cannot wait to discuss today’s topic, which is maybe a bit more on the “fluffy” side, rather than, you know, what health care tells you, which is, “medication and nutrition and movement – that’s all that matters in diabetes care”.

No, no, it’s not. As we’ve seen, during the past few couple weeks, I have gone through quite a lot of interesting topics (if I can say so myself!) with you guys, and this is yet another one! This is about diabetes and self love. Why is self love is so important when it comes to diabetes? I will first go through what self love is, because the idea of it is kind of fluffy on its own, I will go through how to show yourself a little bit more self love. It’s maybe not as difficult, or as easy, as you think it may be. And then I will also go through why it’s especially important in diabetes, to take good care of yourself in the form of self love.

What is self love?

So let’s get right to it, and start with what self love actually is? Self love is, to me, the same as self respect, self improvement, self compassion, that you feel compassionate towards yourself. It’s self acceptance, and remember acceptance – it will come up a couple of times in this piece, so bear that in mind. Self love is integral to your well being, because it just makes sense to make yourself feel better than you would feel otherwise. But it’s not just about feeling good, it’s also about making the right decisions for you as an individual, whether you are diabetic, whether you are not diabetic, whether you are struggling with a health issue, whether you are not, it doesn’t matter. It’s about making the right choices for you. And these can, of course, differ as I so often say in my videos, be very individual. So don’t just take model from someone else who’s doing something, and calling it self love. You have to figure out what works the best for you. And this also comes down to that you have clear values for you, and that you accept your weaknesses, as well as your strength (there was that word again!)

How can you show yourself self love?

So how can you show yourself a little bit more self love? Well, let’s get all cosy up in here, on this episode of Type 1 Thursday! For example, you can find your happy place. Where do you feel good, what is a good place for you to be in, whether mentally or physically, whether actually spatially. What would be a good place for you to be at? For me, it somehow often involves a beach and some sunshine… Make sure that you know what places work the best for you.

In order to raise yourself love game a little bit, do something you’re good at! It’s not even that out of this world, just do something you are good at, whether that’s knitting or writing a story or and maybe that’s growing a plant – it could be anything that you’re good at. (Maybe you should choose something that has more immediate results, maybe leave the plant thing for another time?) Do something that you’re good at, because that really raises your self love feelings.

Practice mindfulness. Whether that is in the form of a meditation practice or some other form, it really helps to put things into perspective, and makes you see the positive things a little bit more, well, positively.

Decide whether you’re going to act on what you need, or what you want. What you need is often more permanent, and what you want in that instant, can actually just be very, very temporary. Make sure that you always go and make choices for what you need, rather than for what you want in that moment, because that can lead you astray.

Make sure that your self care game is levelled up! That means eating the right nutrition for you, for example, it means moving your body, it means sleeping properly, making sure they have the right sleep hygiene, as they say so nicely, and make sure that you have social connections. Make sure that you are working with people that you enjoy being around, and that you have people around you that you can turn to. This is the whole point of the series that I’ve been making recently and Type 1 Thursda, it’s been a lot about self care and how to improve it.

When it comes to people, do set boundaries! Set boundaries for things and people. For example, if you notice that you’re not feeling uplifted after talking to person, or being with the person, or even thinking about a person, then maybe they are an energy thief and maybe they need to get out of your life for a while? It’s the same with things like workplaces, offices, make sure that you set boundaries. And even on social media, do set boundaries, about when you answer messages, so that you make sure that you are appreciating yourself and respecting yourself.

A real biggie is forgiving yourself. You know what? You’re not perfect, but you know what? It’s completely OK not to be perfect! No one is perfect. No one’s ever going to be perfect. No one’s gonna be that one perfect person. So let it go. And make sure that you understand that it is completely fine. Forgive yourself for not being perfect, because you never will be. Okay?

Live by design. This means your design, not my design, not that person’s or another one’s. Make sure that you know what you want from your life! This goes back to boundaries, it goes back to self respect, it goes back to self improvement, compassion, acceptance… What are the things that you want to achieve in your life? It’s not going to be the same as for me, and that’s fantastic! Go for it, as long as it is by your design.

When you start something like this, it can be really good to check in at in the beginning. Where are you now? Mentally, physically? Where are you in terms of self love? That’s how you know what you’ve got to be working with!

Self love & Diabetes?

Why is this particularly important for diabetes and living with diabetes? Well, we know we all know that we are more than people with diabetes. And and we also know that it’s a mentally frickin’ difficult illness to live with. It’s incredibly difficult to live with it, especially if you have no idea what your blood sugar is going to do next, for example. That’s really where the self love, self compassion and self acceptance comes in! The whole thing is that you have to take excellent care of you, because no one else will. You see your doctor seven minutes a couple of times a year? What are they going to do? Nothing. Who’s going to take care of you between those doctor’s visits? Yeah, that’s you. Don’t look to other people to take care of you, because you’re the only one who can actually do that.

When it comes to diabetes, no matter what the number, whether that is cholesterol, blood pressure, blood glucose levels or HbA1c – it doesn’t matter. You are enough! I have problems realising this myself sometimes, but you really are enough and you don’t have to do anything more than you’re already doing. You work your best and I know you’re working really hard, so please just show yourself one love and make sure that you know that you are enough!

You can also turn it around and look at the positive sides of diabetes. I know some of you out there right now, thinking “there’s nothing good with diabetes and it’s all shit”. It’s actually not! NEWSFLASH – it’s not all shit living with diabetes! it’s actually quite cool, because you get stronger than most other people, you have more courage, you are more resilient, you are more independent. You have all this amazing knowledge about health that not very many other people have, how cool is that? It’s actually a kind of a blessing in disguise to live with diabetes, if you think about it. It’s not just all negative and all shit, I promise, it’s it’s actually it has a lot of positive points as well.

The main point when it comes to self love and diabetes is acceptance. accepting yourself, accepting diabetes as a part of you, that is a huge topic in self love for diabetes. And it really just means that if you fight against the diabetes, you, first of all, know that it’s going to come back and bite you somewhere it hurts quite quickly. Secondly, you’re not going to get anywhere by fighting it! Your ultimate goal, my ultimate goal, everyone who lives with diabetes’ ultimate goal is to befriend diabetes. I know some of you are shaking your heads and probably closing your phones and laptops right now, but it is to befriend diabetes and work with it and not against it.