Overcoming Exhaustion: Diabetes Discussion & Meditation

This meditation is for people who live with diabetes. The session begins with a short discussion on exhaustion inclucding insights and strategies to boost energy. A guided meditation follows that offers healing and peace to the parts of the body most impacted by diabetes.

Transcript

Welcome to this meditation.

My name is Patricia Daker and I am the owner and founder of a company called Better Diabetes Life whose purpose is to help people with the emotional and coping strategies necessary to really stay in the game and live long and well with diabetes.

So I have type 1 diabetes.

I was diagnosed in 1991.

I also am a registered nurse and during that time I found very little support for diabetes and during that time I found very little support for this other side of diabetes.

We all know what to do but how to do it and how to do it gracefully was never really taught to me.

So over the years I have learned quite a few lessons and I put together that and also got certified as a nurse coach and so I am a nurse coach and I specialize in diabetes.

You know if you ask me the word that kind of sums it all up it's probably burnout.

That's where we all get to when we're tired of it.

It doesn't seem fun anymore that it ever was fun but you know you get to a point where the struggle just is really really too difficult and so that's what I want to focus on is helping people with tools so they don't become burned out and it's actually possible.

Let's see so the format of this presentation tonight,

This meditation slash talk is we're going to talk about a topic and tonight's topic is overcoming exhaustion.

So if you live with diabetes I'm 100% certain you have felt exhaustion.

For me that was my number one presenting complaint.

All the other stuff I thought was kind of normal but I got tired and it still shows up and I think there's a lot of good reasons and so we're going to explore that topic tonight and then we'll do a guided meditation again like I said earlier that touches all the parts of your body that can be impacted by diabetes and gives us a little bit back.

While we're getting started here if you know someone that has diabetes that would benefit from this meditation please send them a chat.

I think you can forward this link even to a friend so it might be useful if you know somebody that would want to join us.

I will do Q&A at the end so if we have any questions I'll be happy to answer them at that point.

So there's a donate button and if you enjoy what we're doing here on my particular channel and on Insight Timer in general please if you feel called to do so offer a donation that helps out everybody.

And then lastly if you want to know more about my services and what I do my bio has a link to my website which has everything that you will need to know.

Okay so it looks like there's quite a few of us on here and so I always like to start by gathering and that's like a mental exercise where you know I want you to take a breath and relax and I want you to imagine us all in a room together.

Maybe you close your eyes and you feel the presence of others maybe you imagine us in a cloud above your head but I want you to know that you are among friends with people who understand unless you've lived with diabetes in some form or fashion perhaps it's even a family member a lot of people just don't understand the struggle and I want us to all know that we understand each other and we're here and we're supportive.

And so in that idea of togetherness supporting each other and also supporting ourselves we'll set an intention and the intention I would like to offer tonight is for the greatest rest and restoration of your body so that you can have the most energy.

So that's really what we're going to be talking about and certainly you can add your own intention if you want that was just one I thought of.

So as we get started let's everybody just take a deep breath and relax.

So this is the fun part for the next hour I get to work and you get to just listen and I would offer that be open to what to some ideas maybe you hadn't thought of sometimes you get that aha moment and it changes everything those are magical because there's no work involved you just see it differently if I could give you that every time that's what I want to do.

There's no right or wrong way to do this and there's no right or wrong way to do diabetes either I feel I think that's something we can all agree to are also very different different circumstances different anatomy different everything.

So okay so tonight we're going to talk about exhaustion and as I said I'm sure we've all experienced exhaustion to some degree so I'm going to talk about kind of the three different levels my approach to diabetes management is a holistic approach and that is a body mind and spirit so body is the part we all think about right we're so hyper focused in diabetes management about our bodies and we need to be I'm not saying that's not right but we also have more to us than just that so we also have our mind we have thoughts and ideas in there and our mind helps us make decisions about our diabetes and we also have our spirit which is kind of where we get a lot of our inner strength and perseverance and call it your essence but that's the part of you that decides it's all worth it right so all three of those pieces need support and care or they get exhausted so I'm going to talk about each one so your body your physical exhaustion so especially if your blood sugars are high there's several reasons that you might experience exhaustion so one when your blood sugar levels are high your body tries to dilute that extra sugar in your blood and it pulls water from everywhere in your body your body also tries to get rid of extra sugar and so you urinate more and so we get rid of water so what that leads to is very common it's dehydration and when we go back to my training in nursing school the number one sign of fatigue or the number one reason for fatigue is dehydration so when the body's not well hydrated we get tired right so we are going to experience dehydration with diabetes at some point right because our blood sugar levels fluctuate and all that stuff happens so that's one reason if our we're dehydrated number two could be absolutely that our cells the parts of us that are doing the work are not getting sugar or glucose so literally you have no energy on a physiological level there is no glucose getting into the engine to burn so that your muscles can do the work and that sort of thing and number three we often have other complications so we're not functioning on all cylinders your kidneys might be a little off you might have digestive issues any number of other things and when an organ isn't working optimally it has to work harder therefore it consumes more energy so just from a physical reasoning and understanding there's good there's many reasons to have fatigue and be tired we're using a lot of resources to manage manually our blood sugar or our body's reacting to these blood sugar levels that are out of out of order so that's kind of in your body I'll talk a little bit about what we can do but that's your body right that's the part we hear about probably the most common so we can also can have mental exhaustion and I think this is the one that flies under the radar but it can be the most depleting right and so when we think of our emotions and worry and fear and oh my gosh what's going to happen that mental energy actually consumes a lot of your body's physical strength and I don't know if this is the exact number but I want to say 20% of the calories you eat every day feed your brain activity right so our brain is a huge consumer of our resources and our energy so if we're constantly worrying if we're constantly in a processing mode where we're thinking and you know trying to predict the future and manage all the balls that we have in the air you know think about how many times that you've had a busy day at work and you come home and you're just like wiped out you may not have even done anything physically exerting I think travels that way too I always find that when I get home from a trip that you get home and you haven't done anything but sit on an airplane but you're exhausted right well there's a lot of stuff you're processing where you got to go are you in the right place what's next am I going to be late right so that's mental energy you're just processing a lot I've talked previously about that worry gets us in the state of fight or flight from a clinical standpoint that's called a sympathetic nervous system response and when you are in fight or flight your body thinks it's in danger and so all of your resources are shunted away from your inner organs and to your arms and legs in case you have to run or fight more to your heart too if your heart needs to beat so when we're worried worrying hard to say we're telling our body there's something out there that we need to be prepared for and so again energy is shifted away from what we want to do to being vigilant and preparing for some unknown danger so again our mind is creating these scenarios where we're depleting our energy so our body has a reason our mind has a reason and third your spirit or your essence so there's several reasons but if you ever just have a down day right there are some days where you just don't have any mojo right and that can be considered kind of a spiritual thing and typically that happens when what's your spirit person knows it once and who it is is not in alignment with reality so a good example so deep down inside we all know we're whole and we're perfect and we have so much more and people don't really get us and if they only knew the truth it would make so much more sense right there's a sense of who we are what we could do if it was all fair if the world had been different there's a part of us that's been with us through you know our first heartbeat until now that really isn't affected by the body or the mind it's the things that we like to do it's why we like chocolate versus vanilla it's why we want to be an artist or why we want to build things right there are some innate things within us that just are just who we are and that part of us is whole and perfect but if we have this other side of ourselves where we're feeling that we're living in a world where we're broken or incomplete or not doing what we want we get this sort of disconnect and it really zaps our spirit our spirit can kind of get down because it's like i know i can do so much more but the world isn't letting me that makes any sense right so it's wanting things to be different than what it is now so we'll talk a little bit about that um what else on spirit so resisting the lessons that you need so sometimes our spirits want us to move forward and do something different and new but we're comfortable we don't want to do it that can be exhausting right so all of these things come with some ideas and things that we can do to help better manage them right so our body can get depleted of energy our mind and our spirit can get depleted so let's talk a little bit about solutions right so what do we do because these things are going to happen so as i go through these we'll talk a little bit about each one so from your body and all of these you're going to find are going to have some similarities so hang with me so first is pay attention right so with our body have we been drinking enough have we been checking our blood sugar is our blood pressure a little high you know all these things so we just need to be mindful and notice like i'm tired i wonder what it is and you can go through this mental checklist i also advise to write it down so what we think we remember but what actually really happens can be vastly different so i'm a big fan if things are kind of out of whack write your blood sugars down go back and look over them because you'll think oh they were good yesterday and i have been surprised so many times you go back and you actually look and you're like oh well maybe they weren't right so we need to be in truth not what we remember which can often be wrong but in truth and that that be informed right we need to be informed so that we know and we can make decisions so if something isn't making sense there's a ton of resources whether it's the internet talking to your provider talking to other people with diabetes whomever those people are we need to be informed we need to understand what's really going on so that we're not stuck in a place of unknown because unknown is very difficult to pleading also um what else so oh and i would say this one is too is um loving choices right so when you choose something sometimes we choose a quick fix oh that tastes good i want to do that i'm too busy right now i can't get a drink of water etc etc i want you to think about how loving those choices are to you so what's a loving thing to you to do to your body you know is it loving to go eat the whole big thing of sugar or whatever that might be um you know sometimes it is because you need to treat and it's you deserve it and you're going to indulge but you just need to be mindful about what you're doing and if it's if you're doing it repetitively all the time and that moves out of a loving thing to do for yourself into something that's almost self-sabotaging so right so make loving choices what does your body need what would be good thing for you to do for yourself so on all those things there's two things that i want you to do when when you start feeling that one take a breath because taking a breath gets you out of worry mode calms you down and moves you kind of over into um a state where you can pause the most beautiful things happen in the pause the pause is where we can get a little perspective we can ponder my dog's making noises behind me um right and so we we can take a breath and pause and that gives us an opportunity to think about it and make a new choice right so that's your body really if there's a physical thing really what does it need how can we do it so then the mind right so we talked about the fight or flight the constant worry brains processing and overdrive so some fun and easy things i think it's fun and easy but i love to meditate so that is spending time on purpose not chasing those thoughts thoughts still occur when we meditate i personally try not to chase them as much just to notice them right but that can get us out of busy busy um beta brain waves that are really busy you know really fast and disjointed into a lower brain wave that is more coherent and functioning better so meditation can do that also on your mind keep your expectations in check so if our expectations are perfection all the way up here has to be perfect all the time every every you know i is going to be dotted t's crossed the world can never do anything unusual you're going to be stressed right so what's what's what's the realistic expectation right so we might need to put this down like today i can't do it all today i can do these 10 things so and i'm a list person you know i have a lot of stuff to do but it's like which ones am i really going to get done so we just manage our expectations so it's possible to be successful like being successful feels really really good and it also gives you energy back because if you're unsuccessful then there's all that anxiety and worry and what am i going to do um notice your thoughts as i said just notice them a lot of times we don't even pay attention to what we're thinking there's just a track playing in there of all this business oh i'm not good enough somebody's going to judge me what are they going to say what do my friends think what do these people think how am i going to do this like that loop can play on and on and on so when you notice those thoughts i want you to ask yourself the question is it true right can you even answer the question so often i find that um people will think i was raised that way my mom is like what will people think and what i've come to find out especially living with diabetes is i don't know what they're going to think i can never know i can imagine and every once in a while they might tell me but really i can can i cannot control anybody else's thoughts i can only control mine right so when i think when i have these ideas in my head about other people's ideas expectations stop and ask is it true is it really true they're going to think that and if they do so what you know is it really true these bad things are going to happen or are they just worries so is it true because if it's not true then you don't need to worry about it right we can just say okay well that's just an idea that's a thought and you notice it and you check it off as a thought i'm going to put it over here in the thought box just a thought it's not true maybe it'll be true someday maybe it was true back then but right now maybe it's not right so when we again start noticing these busy thoughts and a lot of mental gymnastics and worry and fear and panic same thing take a deep breath and then pause pause and notice what is going on here right that pause is such a brilliant opportunity to change things okay and your spirit so this is the harder part but it's actually the easiest on some levels right so you know look in the mirror and see who you see just notice yourself i think we get so busy looking at other people and maybe looking at our flaws but look at in the mirror at who you are what's important to you because it starts with knowing yourself right what do i want what makes me happy what's my purpose so i can guarantee you your purpose is not to be a diabetic on this earth you may have diabetes but if that's the only reason you're getting up in the morning every day then you're going to be really tired because your spirit does not agree with that you may have diabetes but you are not diabetes if that makes sense right so look in the mirror and remember who you are right remember what lit you up when you were a kid back when we were children we didn't have all these expectations and all this sort of baggage and we had passions and things that we liked and things that we did and we didn't really think a thing about it so maybe try to go back and tap into some of those things that you liked before life got hard i think we need to learn to trust yourself so in this modern medical world that we live in we have relinquished a lot of our trust to machines doctors people hospitals other stuff right and so how often have you had an idea and you're like i knew that was right i shouldn't have done that right we have an innate wisdom inside of us that can guide us and actually your whole body is constantly synthesizing all the different things that are going on and there's a part of you that even when you're not awake is keeping your heart beating is keeping all the you know your blood pressure up it's doing a lot of stuff and so that wisdom part of you exists right it's there there's something when you sleep that makes sure that you wake up in the morning and keeps all the stuff functioning and everything moving around like it should right we need to trust that part of ourselves and not be so influenced sometimes by what other people tell us we should right and we've talked about shitting before it's very common but a lot of times we start changing our outer world to match the shoulds and the expectations and it gets again out of alignment with our inner world that's not what your inner person your spirit wants so trust yourself follow your heart not your head right so our head is I get a lot of those thoughts your heart is where you can find that inner person those things that you're like oh I just want to do that I love that that makes me happy that brings me joy that just lights me up when that happens I love doing that I lose track of time when I'm doing that those are the things that you need to focus on and find time for because those things fill your cup back up right if you ever I'm okay this is weird but for me it's spreadsheets I can get lost in a spreadsheet and getting everything per like I literally lose track of time and for some people that's mental mentally draining for me it makes me feel really good to have it all neat and ordered and back in the way it should and it literally gives me energy because it's something I find fun and I think that goes back to I love puzzles and to me it's a puzzle right puzzles and solving things are just part of my makeup it's my DNA it's what I like to do so I do puzzles almost every day because they turn off the thinking mind and they light up my spirit person right that's energizing to me maybe only takes a few minutes it's on my phone but you know a good Sudoku game can just be miraculous so there's that um okay so what else can we do stop fighting so right so we're trying to align our outer world and our inner world and you've all heard the phrase what you resist persists so if this inner person needs to go do what it loves that brings it joy yet it's stuck in a world where all these other external expectations beliefs worries um false you know not even truths but falsities are out there what if we stop fighting against it right stop fighting against what's what your body wants to do I love this analogy and I think I wrote a post about it a long time ago but and again water is one of my big things so if you imagine I'll give you this so let's say you're standing in the ocean and you're resisting right those waves are pushing you back pushing you back but you're standing you're not going to move you're not going to be bothered by that and you are right and you're not moving those waves are exhausting it's really hard to keep your footing solid and that sort of thing but you can also let go float on your back and all of a sudden those same waves are very soothing right you can ebb and flow feel that you know that buoyancy just that what's the word release you surrender right and so there's something to be said when your spirit inside and your outside world is not in alignment to surrender to let go sometimes you know and I think I've told y'all I used to have a necklace that said let go let god and it was really like when things start getting too much it's that reminder to let go and for you type A's like me I'm a recovering type A sometimes we can let the balls drop you know we feel like we have all these things in the air we have to keep going and honestly the world will not stop spinning if you let some of the balls drop and so those are those self-imposed things we do and when we're that busy that we can't tend to our own needs I'll offer I can't I mean I can't prove it but I'm going to offer that it's distraction so a lot of times we keep very busy to distract ourselves from the things that we don't want to deal with and maybe that's our inner stuff maybe that's our inner person saying I don't like this I don't like this job I don't like this place they don't like this whatever it is I need I need connection I need freedom I need joy all those needs that inner stuff sometimes you have to let some of those balls drop so that you can attend to that that's going to give you more energy again chasing all the balls in the air is exhausting and the other one I'll say on this one as far as your spirit is be kind and I mean kind to yourself so typically and again the people that I've met we all tend to beat ourselves up a lot because what do we do to deserve this why did I get it you know does God hate me how did I get diabetes what did I do this is so unfair there's a lot of self-negativity so I would just say be kind and I offer this it's kind of like a you know the what's it called the golden rule but this is the golden rule for diabetes and I would say treat yourself as you wish to be treated so I know in the diabetes community a lot of times we'll you know see posts and comments about oh these other people said this did this you know didn't think I could do something nagged at me about my food there's a lot of external judgment right and we all experience it and it's all there and we just wish these other people would get it and they would understand what we need and understand that we really didn't bring this on ourselves and we're not lazy and it's not like that that's the wish I want you to give yourself right that you treat yourself with the same respect so treat yourself as you wish to be treated by others a little bit of a spin and of all these two as we look back at our spirit opportunities again it's deep breath and we pause and we listen right you listen to our heart what's missing because honestly when you get really quiet there's a lot of noise in there but when we get quiet well these ideas these thoughts a picture will come to you and pay attention to those right don't don't discount what you're gut saying so how so just kind of to recap three types of exhaustion physical mental and spiritual you know those three pieces all of those parts of self can get depleted and when those parts of self get depleted right well you don't have energy on anything and so sometimes let's say for me this is what where I got my energy when I quit talking to myself like I was so bad and being so judgmental when I quit trying to be a perfect diabetic and realize some days it's going to be weird my spirit person kind of came alive I could breathe again I had more energy and then I was more interested in being kind to myself right it's like that and sometimes when you really are dehydrated and your blood sugars really are wacky and you don't feel good then maybe you can tap into some of this other energy maybe from your spirit from other pieces but I just want you to remember that we're a system really body mind spirit and they all are connected we are not just body we're not just blood and bones and glucose we're so much more okay so those are my three things that's our little talk tonight about exhaustion and we'll transition now actually the one other thing I do want to say I didn't do this for all three of those every one of those no matter what it is take a deep breath and pause and just notice is it my body issue is it my mind is it my spirit right and the breath this is another cool one the breath is the linkage between your body mind and spirit so you breathe through your body with intent through your mind and really that breath is where we get our life which is our spirit essence so no matter which way you're feeling drained a pause and a breath are never a bad thing okay so let's do we'll get ready for our meditation actually when I left two questions out sorry I'm going to add this because I think this is good so as you're pausing and breathing here's two questions that you can kind of that you can think about to help you clarify you know which is it and how is it so one I think this took half the time will this matter on your deathbed so when you have all the balls in the air and all the stuff and all the things and all the worry and the running around and what she said and he said and how do I do it and all that we read so one question is will it matter on my deathbed when I'm laying there taking my last breath am I going to look back and worry that the spreadsheet wasn't turned in in time you know or I didn't get my whole task list done is it really one of those big deals and then you can further break that down into will it matter in five minutes five days or five months so the things that won't matter in five minutes don't don't spend a lot of time on them because the five minutes will pass like that right the things that don't matter in five days okay pay attention get a plan the things that will matter in five months those are going to be longer term things we need to have a plan but we need not to panic about it right so we can say okay we know this is a bigger issue this is going to be you know we're talking about complications right I need my glucose to be where I need it to be so I stay healthy for as long as possible that's a five month deal right that's worth some time attention but you know panic about being five minutes late to an appointment think about how often you get there you're five minutes late and once the meeting gets started it's all forgotten those are the things you know you're you're stuck at a traffic light those are the things that in five minutes they won't worry okay so those are your questions will it matter on your deathbed and will it matter in five days five months or five minutes and that helps you decide all right okay now the fun part you just get to sit back and listen to me talk oh hi Daphne thanks so this is and we finished the talk part and now we're going to do a guided meditation and so the purpose of this meditation is to just give back to your body which really bears a lot of the brunt of diabetes we diabetes can be hard on our body so we need to give back so to get started let's um let's regather imagine us we've got a lot more people together here and so as we do this i want us to remember that we're here together if you're hearing my voice everyone else that's hearing my voice is on the same call and we're joined and we're joined with a common understanding of life with diabetes and so this time right now we're going to give ourselves permission to relax to receive to restore and to heal so let's take a deep breath pause take a breath and relax so hope by now hopefully find a comfortable place that's quiet that's um maybe dim the lights shut the door and take these moments for yourself because you deserve it your body deserves it your mind deserves it and your spirit deserves it we'll go back and remember our intention is for the greatest rest and restoration so that we have optimal energy to do the work that we want to do and we're going to give ourselves permission to do this very self-indulgent thing we're going to give ourselves a treat so i'm going to go and through your body and i'll guide you kind of on a mental image i'll take you and i'll mention the body part i'm going to ask that as we talk about each part just to mentally bless it i'm going to describe the body a little bit what's going on we'll focus on a part and i want you to relax that area relax offer blessing and then that smart part of you deep down inside that's responsible for healing we're going to ask that that part that your resources be sent to healing so as we relax we get out of that sympathetic fight or flight we get in a parasympathetic which is rest relaxed i can't speak rest relaxation and restore and we're going to focus that energy and that relaxation and that restoration on your body okay so let's take a few deep breaths we'll do three really good breaths that get us they're called polyvagal breathing and it gets you from the sympathetic fight or flight into the parasympathetic so i'll count what the purpose of this breathing is or how we do excuse me is we'll do um breathe in through your nose and we'll breathe out through our nose twice as long so we're going to stimulate our vagus nerve and the many different aspects of our vagus nerve to help slow our heart rate down and shift us into a healing mode so i'll count and we'll go in four two three four and then out six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve so in for four out for eight which is a total of twelve and i'll guide that we'll do i don't know three or four we'll see kind of how we feel as you exhale exhale fully and relax that's the point let your body go limp breathe in goodness and light and then we're going to exhale and relax and all the while doing this through our nose with a closed mouth to stimulate our vagus nerve you ready okay so let's breathe in two three four out six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve in two three four out six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve in two three four out six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve one more deep breath in two three four exhale fully six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve okay close your eyes relax so much of our day is spent outward noticing all the things we have to keep track of and so this time is spent inward on our inner self the part of us that's wise and knows how to heal and we're going to do that in a very relaxed state where our parasympathetic systems are turned on to allow for this so as you close your eyes move your attention to your heart in the middle of your chest the heart that beats and has beat every moment since you've been born the heart that offers love the heart that beats and circulates your blood to every part of your body and the heart that often can have trouble because of blood vessels that are damaged by diabetes i want you to imagine the inside of those blood vessels and they're pink and shiny and clear and the blood is flowing smoothly and feeding your heart and your heart is pumping slowly and strongly if there are any plaques or bumps in your blood vessels i want you to imagine them melting and dissolving away so that your heart can do its job easily and effortlessly keep your attention on your heart beating slowly and steadily thank the heart for its diligent efforts and offer your blessing and restoration and healing from the heart will move down into your abdomen which is largely comprised of your digestive organs your stomach your small intestine your large intestine this area is fed by very small blood vessels and nerves that can become damaged by diabetes we can have symptoms such as gastroparesis constipation diarrhea or other digestive issues as you take a breath and inhale imagine healing love and light flowing over and through these organs imagine slow and rhythmic waves guiding your food and digestion from every aspect that is necessary imagine the small blood vessels feeding your intestines and your stomach to be flowing fully delivering oxygen absorbing digested food and nutrient so it can take it back your digestive system also houses much of your immune system as well as factors that control your emotions and as you breathe in exhale let any negativity and worry dissolve in the vapor of your breath breathe in and allow peace and calm to cast over you like a shadow that comforts and calms bless your digestive system for the work it does for it is truly the most miraculous part of your body it takes dead things your food and turns it into living material your body which is quite amazing if you think about it if you're having any gi distress ask the smart and wise part of you to send restoration and healing to this area even if you don't know what it is the wise part of you does just give it permission and direct resources and energy breathe in again thank the abdomen and your digestive organs for their work offer them blessing next we'll move your focus to your liver that's in the right upper quadrant just beneath your ribs breathe and as you breathe in and out you actually massage your liver with your inhalation and exhalation your liver has very many functions and once again is fed by blood supply imagine these vessels open clean clear blood vessels that are pink and healthy easily delivering blood to the organ while in the in the liver the liver will process toxins it helps to deal with clotting factors and the liver also manages your backup glucose stores it's often this process that can cause blood sugars to be high when you are under stress or when you're insulin resistant because when your cells feel like they're not getting enough energy because the glucose because the insulin can't open the doors of the cells to allow the glucose and signals are sent to the liver to provide more glucose so breathe and remind your liver that sometimes we don't need all that extra sugar and it's okay to relax unless we're really hypo our blood sugars are very low send blessing and healing to your liver we thank the liver for its unending job purifying cleansing and managing many of our internal metabolic states one more breath relax your abdomen massage there for the liver from the liver move several inches to your midline tucked in by your stomach behind your belly button is your pancreas if you live with diabetes to some extent or another your pancreas has suffered injury take a deep breath and allow healing and peace and forgiveness to this part of your body that can't do what it used to do offer love for its efforts ask the healing part of your body to send restoration and repair and bless this organ that for most of us still does many other functions besides insulin production the pancreas also regulates our glucagon which can bring our blood sugar up and it also creates digestive enzymes so even though we may be frustrated and make jokes about our pancreas right now thank it for its tireless job for doing the best it can even though it's broken a bit and let go of any tension or anger you may have once again bless this part of your body operate love and healing next we'll move to your kidneys most of us have two kidneys the kidneys are located beneath our ribs towards our back above our waistline they're protected by our ribs because they're very important the kidneys are two organs full of blood vessels that filter out impurities and help regulate blood pressure and fluid balance the nephrons and the kidneys are supplied with very tiny very tiny small blood vessels and these blood vessels can become damaged over time by high glucose levels resulting in kidney damage I want you to focus on both of these areas in your back take a breath and relax that area let the muscles that are holding them loosen up a bit imagine the blood flowing cleanly and easily even if you don't know what it looks like imagine your kidneys doing their work perfectly unimpeded by any sort of blood flow barriers if there are plaques bumps irregularities of the blood vessels imagine them melting away opening up the circuit to bring healthy blood fluid oxygen and nutrition for all of us our kidneys can take quite the beating so we're going to reach into that wisdom and wise part of ourselves and ask it to send healing send the resources the immunity the reconstruction the peace the restoration to these organs that help keep us safe bless our kidneys for the work they do relax and let this healing flow through them from our kidneys bring your focus down to your lower extremities as we leave our torso large blood vessels travel down either leg and it branches into smaller and smaller blood vessels as we travel down our thighs past our knees to our lower extremities our calves our ankles into our feet when we reach our feet and our toes we're the farthest away from our heart we're the farthest away from the energy and the force that makes the blood flow for the blood to return back to the heart it has to overcome gravity so often we might find swelling in our feet as the blood flow gets backed up as we think about our feet offer loving kindness to our feet we instruct the blood vessels to contract the blood flow to pick up all that extra fluid if we have swelling in our feet we ask the blood vessels to open wide to allow for optimal blood flow we instruct our tiniest blood vessels to open up to reroute to grow new blood supply to any area that may be losing circulation we offer calmness and peace to numbness or tingling caused by damaged nerves if anyone has any wounds or healing or excuse me wounds we offer and ask for extreme healing for all the immunity properties to go to our feet for circulation to remove waste toxins and unnecessary substances and fluids that remain in our feet take a breath imagine that blood swirling through your feet you might even feel a little tingle or energy in your feet wow that to happen you know that that's fresh oxygenated blood healing these areas as we travel back up our legs we bless our lower extremities we bless our legs our feet our toes that carry us around and often go unnoticed until they're hurting we thank them for their service as we move next to our upper extremities and our shoulders once again we notice inside the blood vessels traveling through our upper extremities down through our biceps around our elbows into our forearms from the inside out feel the blood vessels the tendons through your wrists and your hands our hands do so much work every day drawing up insulin preparing medications preparing our food helping us with exercise doing our jobs typing writing talking on the phone our hands are very busy take another deep breath and let your hands relax right now they have permission to not do anything but receive our hands are such givers of work right now we're going to offer them an exchange we're going to give it back to them for a little bit imagine fluids flowing easily between your joints soothing any arthritis tension stiffness carpal tunnel any of the things that might be common trigger finger there's many many things that might impair our fingers so right now imagine all of those deformities any grains of sand any roughness melting away and instruct and give your body permission to do that to let go and to repair and to heal we offer an extra bit of thanks for the fingers that may have to get poked or blood sugars we thank our fingers for doing this hard job for the betterment of the rest of our body many of us for years have a little pricks in our fingers daily we offer thanks for the service and the sacrifice that those fingers offer us if you're not a finger tester at this time thank the part of your body that helps you know what your blood sugar is maybe it's your thigh your abdomen the heel of your hand any area on your body where you might at might test or have a CGM you want to thank that body for taking one for the team for doing this hard work as you think about that part of your body relax your shoulders and allow waves of comfort and peace to wash over you send resources to the part that gets poked so that it stays fresh and healthy uninfected and ready to do the work again another day travel back up your arms focusing on your neck through our neck we have blood vessels that feed our brain we have our thyroid that can often be compromised in people with diabetes and in our neck is a source of our voice our truth what we want to say to the world and often it's difficult to say we want to bless everything in our neck our voice our thyroid our blood vessels we thank it for their efforts for the work for the part they do for our body as we look at these blood vessels deep within us traveling from our heart up into our brain once again we imagine blood flowing easily smoothly cleanly with blood vessels that are pink on the inside healthy resilient able to diffuse oxygen nutrition and other goodness back and forth swallow once and relax your throat offer blessings to your throat and all the organs there thank your throat and your voice for speaking your truth and once again ask healing for any parts that may need it from your neck we travel up into your brain full of blood vessels once again carrying oxygen nutrition and supplies i want you to imagine a beautiful peaceful mind with calm waves flowing through it relaxed open pliable if there are any damaged areas of any blood vessels encourage and ask your body to heal any weakened blood vessels any erosions any plaques any blockages take another deep breath and as you exhale once again allow peacefulness and relaxation to transfer across your brain the brain that has to think so much so many thoughts every day about food about blood sugar levels about activity choices meetings supplies and on and on at this time we're going to put that on the shelf and let our brain relax in the state of parasympathetic goodness and healing there is no danger there's nothing chasing us at this moment and will offer to our brain right now i am okay i am breathing i am here i am whole i am at peace and let your brain believe that because what you think your brain will reply to bless your brain for its activity and the work that it does once again offer healing if it's necessary and encourage it to remain calm so lastly we'll move to our eyes the windows to our souls it can happen that the retinas in the back of our eyes which are fed by very small tiny blood vessels can be impacted by diabetes and high blood sugars i want you to take another deep breath exhale relax the small muscles surrounding your eyes relax your eyebrows relax the space between your eyes relax the space behind your eyes let your eyelids gently and softly close flutter down put your attention on the back of your eyes and once again even if you don't know how it happens imagine healing blood vessel repair restoration of any impairment of any retinal issues of any vision problems allow your body to heal itself accept and request that your eyes and your retina are healthy with beautiful blood flow and constantly being restored and finally i want you to put your attention in the center of your brain behind your eyes between your ears and above your throat in the deepest oldest part of you breathe in we'll relax and restore all parts of self we ask for restoration and energy for your body we ask for energy and restoration for your mind and we ask for energy and restoration for your spirit and from this deepest part of yourself relax let go and allow this wonderful gift to flow through your body take another breath linger here for a moment this is what it feels like to be in a parasympathetic sympathetic state where your body can heal relaxed warm at peace we'll take one more deep breath as we come back from the journey inside our bodies as we inhale we notice again the breath moving in our chest we notice our chest in the room we notice our bodies in the room and we come back to this present moment feeling restored refreshed and hopefully with a lot more energy so when you're ready blink open your eyes and we'll wrap up this meditation as we wrap up i want to do one more gathering so as we are together on this meditation i want you to imagine all the people that are linked on this call in the cloud above our heads take a big breath know that you are supported and surrounded by people who care and i want you to imagine that you are handing goodness health and wellness to the person on your right and then mentally turn to the person on your left and receive goodness healing and health well thank you so much for joining me and i'm going to sign off we'll see you next monday

Reviews

Always feel the healing from Patricia's meditations. Flow in the body, peace in mind, connection with spirit.

Thank you Patricia this is so educational and powerful. 🦋

Informative, yes, and also healing. Truly meets a need for diabetics, and others will also benefit as they apply to their own needs in body, mind and spirit.