Welcome to diabetes stories. My work is to help motivate people who have diabetes to create their best life – not despite having diabetes but because of it – by improving their medical competencies and emotional resilience, and by using diabetes as a catalyst to design a healthier and more fulfilling life. And yes, you can do this.
I share here what I continue to learn as a "patient-expert" sitting at the feet of an incredible community of diabetes experts and fellow patients.
I see living with diabetes as a stimulus to create greater health and a more joyful life. Many people with diabetes begin to eat better, get regular exercise, appreciate what they do have and create a life that has meaning and purpose. I will hold up a lens here for you so that you too can use diabetes as a catalyst to manifest what's truly important to you: Others' judgments be damned!
My expertise is twofold:
I have type 1 diabetes. I got it at 18 and have had it for 37 years. Four years ago I had a change of heart, and career. Click here if you'd like to know more about me.
I've made it my business to learn about the true substance of living with diabetes by interviewing more than 135 people who have diabetes, their loved ones and experts in the field. These include endocrinologists, diabetes psychologists, certified diabetes educators, fitness coaches and frontiersmen and women in patient empowerment. I've also devoured books and articles about diabetes, change, coaching, neuroscience, happiness and our search for meaning; they give me new insight and pictures of how we can live with diabetes more successfully so that we're "thriving" rather than just "surviving." Click here, if you'd like to learn more about the research I'm conducting and the books I've written.
I learned something very early in my research interviewing people: we want to know what living with diabetes is like for others and sharing our stories is the most fundamental way. I also learned something surprising that is also a route to healing: When people finished sharing their story with me they told me how helpful, and how healing it had been, to talk freely with an empathetic listener and to reflect on their early days with diabetes and the journey to where they are now. What I know now is that sharing our story is not just helpful for others, but also for ourselves. This forms the basis of my work as a health coach.
Take a look around, and please check out my blog where I'll be posting industry news and developments, things I learn from others and my own blessings and harangues.