Zen and the Art of Diabetes Management – Part 2 | Patience

If we didn’t capitalize on the lessons that diabetes so willingly teaches us, that would be a shame. As we all know, the lessons are abundant.

Today we’re talking patience. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Patience is a virtue. Whatever.” I know, that’s what you’re thinking. Patience defines us though. Try as we might, we cannot control all aspects of our blood sugar or, well, our life. There are days we wake up high. There are days we wake up low. Do we stay high? Do we stay low? As much as it feels like forever in those moments, in time, we come back to normal… or to the opposite extreme.

Jon Kabat-Zinn defines impatience as “the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it.” That sounds awfully familiar to me. I tend to blame something for the high blood sugar. Just like in life, there’s usually no one to blame.

This is the quote, again from Kabat-Zinn, that really hits home, especially in those high blood sugar moments, “Bring balance to the present moment, understanding that in patience lies wisdom, knowing that what will come next will be determined in large measure by how we are now.”

So, next time we’re high, if we remember our own wisdom learned over the years, we know that we will soon again be back in balance, and that it’s not always our fault. If we stay patient in that moment, perhaps we’ll avoid the roller-coaster glucose ride, too.

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s quotes come from the book, in this link, Wherever You Go, There You Are.