aiming for grace: more gentleness.

I been thinking about gentleness lately. Gentle isn't the first place I go when dealing with my diabetes that's for sure. For so long I've felt hindered by the regimen of my life with this disease, annoyed by the many tasks it imposes and all the little details I have to attend to because of it. I've lived with a low grade feeling of irritation in my life because of all the little physical intrusions and the unending nature of diabetes.

Well just recently it's started to occur to me that a lot of that irritation I feel has actually been directed at myself. I've internalized the feeling to such a degree that in a very real way, I blame myself for having got this disease and worse yet, for having to live with all the annoyances and worry and discomfort that it brings. Only now am I beginning to really see how much I blame myself for having diabetes.

This is strange to me. And sad. It doesn't make sense and yet, there it is. I've been kicking myself in ass about this disease in one way or another for the last 22 years. Amazing!

Which brings me to the subject of gentleness. I've written about it a couple of times in the past, but given how many posts I have written overall, it's most certainly not a theme I've consistently explored. For some reason now though, slowly, slowly, gentleness, as a concept, as a healing tool, as a practice, is coming to mean a lot more to my picture and experience of living with diabetes. It's only a formulating idea at this point. I honestly don't exactly know what "more gentleness" looks like yet, but I plan to actively pursue it going forward. Does it mean something as simple as more massages in my life, or maybe a day off here and there for no particular reason? Or maybe it's just permission to linger a little longer when I'm doing something that's enjoyable, like reading one more chapter of a great book rather than doing that "pressing" chore, this very minute. Or maybe it's just sitting in the sun and just being still for a while. Still, open minded, quiet. I really don't know yet, but I do plan to start finding out more consciously what more gentleness looks and feels like for me. I've learned how to take shots and blood tests and carb count and wear the pump so it seems like learning how to be more gentle to myself is a skill development I can tackle. Given all that I know how to do for the technical maintenance of my disease, it seems high time to get better at the care and feeding of my heart and soul in the process. And learning how to be more gentle to myself seems like a excellent place to start!