Yes, Meditation helped me, in ways I never thought possible..by Bob Parant
By Bob Parant:
I just received my “50 Year Joslin” medal for living with Type 1 Diabetes for 50 years. So looking back I realized how much my body and mind has gone through. Living with T1D is constant, no let up in keeping your Blood Sugars in the pro
per range. Along with that came a number of life changing complications along the way. There is a lot of shame, guilt and stigma along with it. You live your life trying to keep that number in check as your main concern but along with it there are a lot of psychological stresses behind the scenes. I always had the “ Positive Attitude” and did not let anything stop me from doing anything. By doing this I feel like I buried many many feelings. I battled through many complications. Recently after a bad shoulder injury, I needed a total replacement shoulder and 3 days after that I had an emergency Triple Bypass. At this time so many thoughts came over me through my recovery. Felt a little like I died and came back.
I met Peter Friedfeld through the T1D community and funding a DRI Bike ride. He introduced me to DiabetesSangha, a group of people living with diabetes who meet virtually and practice mediation. I had always heard of mediation and tried it maybe two times. Peter said I should give it a try and I did. I’m not sure I can find all the correct words to describe what happened to me as I attended more of these sessions. I certainly started out feeling a calm that came not only over my body, but also my mind. I believe that triggered many emotions and thoughts from a long way back. In seeing these events play out during the practice, I realized how much pain had experienced and the impact these events had on me , and realized I just buried them.
The facilitators are all great and bring different sessions to the group. They sense what you are feeling as you speak openly after the practice. The thing for me was I felt comfortable with this entire group. All have lived or been a caretaker and know what it is to live with this disease. It's a safe place for me. One of my most dramatic experiences was the loss of my leg ( a very long story) the point being I felt comfortable to talk about what I went through and how I feel when someone says to me ‘Oh you didn’t take care of yourself’ or I have the bad diabetes and many more stupid comments. Expressing this brought about so many kind, thoughtful, caring responses to me. I cried and felt this tremendous feeling of relief.
As I kept with the meditation and experienced different facilitators and types of practices I was hooked. As a newbie I would recommend taking a couple of sessions and seeing if it calms you. Oh, by the way breathing is a huge part of this practice and calms the mind and teaches you to do this as well throughout the day. There are so many other feelings and thoughts that come along with this practice that I may not be describing properly, but certainly recommend it. I do love all the facilitators of this group and they do a great job staying in touch and bringing you new things daily.
note: Bob is a life long activist, cyclist and is fully engaged in supporting the T1d community recently introduced President Biden at a ceremony for the Inflation Reduction Act, representing the voice of the T1D community, addressing the high cost of insulin.
