Diabetes – Laughing Medicine Woman

February 8, 2018May 28, 2018

Ahnalira’s Detox Protocol

How do you know that a detox protocol is a good idea for you? When you have a health goal that seems stalled regardless of your effort, chances are the biochemistry of your body is compromised by environmental toxins, heavy metals, and/or pathogens. If you have a chronic health condition that compromises your vitality, it’s likely your body needs help detoxifying the debris from daily metabolism. If, like me with autoimmune hepatitis and autoimmune encephalitis, you find yourself in the midst of a health crisis…detoxification may be your lifejacket back to shore.

For me, the process of discovery led me through at least 50 hours of medical lectures and conferences to develop an understanding of how I could detoxify my severely compromised body safely. This is what I learned…and am learning ; >) Continue reading “Ahnalira’s Detox Protocol”

April 21, 2011April 21, 2011

Diabetes, An Expert Teacher: Part 6; Making Peace

Life goes on…

It’s been many years since the events I described in the previous installments (see parts 1 – 5). I’m 25 years older now. Circumstances changed. Focus shifted. Priorities evolved. The one constant – Type 1 Diabetes, my teacher, remained true to me.

How does one make peace with an unwanted condition or circumstance? The million dollar question, and I know the answer…. Continue reading “Diabetes, An Expert Teacher: Part 6; Making Peace”

March 29, 2011May 5, 2011

Diabetes, An Expert Teacher: Part 5; the inevitable solution

Nobody gets out of Life alive. It’s a popular saying in my neck of the woods. Yet, somehow, I did. Again.

Inevitably, the pattern of choices I made – starting with not testing blood sugars – led to a medical emergency. I had been watching it approach like it was a dream or someone else’s story. I noticed little sores on my body and told friends they were from keto-acidosis (by-product of high blood sugars) but didn’t make the connection between them and the importance of testing my blood sugar and adjusting insulin. It was apparent to me that I was losing weight quickly, but it seemed unimportant to me. How could I think about those things when I felt like I had the flu (for about a month :P) and just wanted to rest?

Finally, the morning arrived when I came ‘awake’ just enough to realize I was about to kick to the bucket. Continue reading “Diabetes, An Expert Teacher: Part 5; the inevitable solution”

March 8, 2011March 8, 2011

Diabetes – An Expert Teacher – Part 4; not a cautionary tale

Let me explain.

Anyone reading the first three segments of “Diabetes – An Expert Teacher” might start to think this is a story of what can go wrong if Diabetes isn’t managed well. Understandably. However, this story is about so much more.

Carl Jung defines the primary drive of living as a process called Individuation. He describes the human experience as one of continual expansion and inclusion of the aspects in our nature that are both sub-conscious and super-conscious, merging and evolving into more and more wholeness of Being. Individuation. He says, further, that the experiences that challenge us most offer us the greatest opportunity to embrace and integrate the shadow-aspect of Self; the parts of us most unconscious and/or denied. Continue reading “Diabetes – An Expert Teacher – Part 4; not a cautionary tale”

February 28, 2011March 1, 2011

Diabetes – An Expert Teacher: part 3; the tarbaby called guilt

I found relief for the immediate internal conflicts between what I knew I ‘should’ do to manage Diabetes and what my emotional urgings demanded by refusing to test blood sugar levels. To my mind at the time, it was a simple and elegant strategy. Since my friends didn’t know enough to question the absence of this step in my regimen, it seemed – along with the flawed logic that created it – a perfect solution that allowed me the ability to socialize and eat more like ‘normal people.’ Without realizing it, I had placed one hand firmly into the the Tar Baby.

Br’er Rabbit from Songs of the South made the Tar Baby – a mound of sticky tar shaped to look like a person – famous when he sought to teach it a lesson by slapping, hitting, and kicking it.. to no avail. Because not only did the Tar Baby not feel anything, but everything Br’er Rabbit threw at the mound of tar, stuck to it – Leaving our friend, the rabbit, unable to free himself from his flawed solution.

For me, the sticky trap was more subtle. Continue reading “Diabetes – An Expert Teacher: part 3; the tarbaby called guilt”

February 24, 2011February 27, 2011

Diabetes – An Expert Teacher: Part 2; the slippery slope

The mind can be a tricky terrain to navigate.

As my dedication to following ‘the perfect Diabetic plan’ faltered, I struggled. The voice of Science played in one of corner of my mind with hard facts; the cause and effect of high blood sugars and low blood sugars. The melody was fearful and reinforced a hum of anxiety on the periphery of my consciousness. Over it, however, what played louder and stronger in my awareness was a need for relief. I needed friends; I needed to eat a treat; I needed to feel normal.

My mind, in its attempt to find a path through the clashing sounds these contradicting thoughts and feelings made, came up with a simple – albeit flawed – solution: Stop testing blood sugar. Continue reading “Diabetes – An Expert Teacher: Part 2; the slippery slope”

February 23, 2011February 26, 2011

Diabetes – An Expert Teacher

A friend told me recently that I am a model Diabetic. We were traveling together, and – as she watched me testing my blood sugar and injecting insulin before every meal; as she observed me carefully selecting foods and reading ingredient labels to maintain a sugar free diet – she noted that I was the exception to her experience with others in her life who lived with Diabetes.

I thought about that.

It was 28 years ago that I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and told I would forever require insulin injections, would forever live with the range of complications that high blood sugar creates, and would forever have to be ‘on a diet’… until I died – probably from one of the Diabetic complications. In the next breath, the doctor told me I would get used to the changes in my life, and it would come to be as easy as brushing my teeth. I wasn’t all that great at oral hygiene then, and his metaphor was lost on me. To me, it was a pretty big deal. Continue reading “Diabetes – An Expert Teacher”

October 24, 2010March 11, 2011

A Satisfied Mind – In the Flow of Law of Attraction

It’s all happening at the zoo. That’s what Simon and Garfunkel sang. Those were the words anyway. It seems to me, though, that where it’s all happening is in the mind.

Lately, I’ve pondered the qualities of a Satisfied Mind – how does it think differently than a mind that is dissatisfied? I came to this conclusion: A dissatisfied mind struggles. A satsified mind flows.

A Satisfied Mind sharing the same experience with a dissatisfied mind will find more humor and reason to enjoy whatever the circumstance is. A dissatisfied mind will find reasons to want the experience to be different.

At first glance, it may seem that a Satisfied Mind is always preferable to a dissatisfied mind.. that it is always better to relax and let whatever is happening be as much fun as possible. I always thought so..
Continue reading “A Satisfied Mind – In the Flow of Law of Attraction”