On Feeling Centered

Ever since the Partnership With Patients Conference and the Health Ca.mp Unconference a few weeks ago, I’ve really been feeling better about things in general.  Morpheus even noticed at our following session that I was just “carrying” myself differently.

When she asked me how I felt, I said “centered”. 

We discussed a few things at that session, first up was the Partnership With Patients and the Health Ca.mp weekend.  For those of you who have never experienced a d-meetup, this was the closest thing to one that I may ever experience.  There was just an instant acceptance and respect for everyone there.

The diabetes didn’t matter, the depression didn’t matter, the connection we all shared was that we wanted better healthcare for people. We didn’t want our experiences repeated, we wanted our experiences learned from so everyone can benefit from an improved system.

Honestly, it was nice to not have diabetes be the “topic” de jour for once.

As we were discussing it more, we talked about the tweet chat session described in that link above.  We went into a lot more detail about it than I did in the post, but she seemed surprised that I had shared some of the info I did, that I seemed more open than I normally am.

Again, I came back to feeling centered.  I hadn’t thought about it much, but as we discussed it, I realized that  Why Bother and Will Bother had spoken up when needed, without effort on my part, it was just happening.

That was something I have been actively working on, trying to make a new habit so to speak.  I was using Why Bother when stating or asserting something.  Will Bother was running the show when listening to stories and questions.  And when asking or answering questions, they tag-teamed it.

And honestly, I think they did a pretty good job.  **see there? I even gave myself a compliment #whodathunkit

But of course, no plan for tranquility will survive contact with the real world.  Also during that last couple of weeks I got blind-sided by something that I should have not even been involved in, my name should have never even come up.  But it did, and I was right in the middle of someone else’s eff-up having to pull something out of my ass… well, my ass saved the day once again it seems.  But that isn’t really the point.

The point is that I got angry. Very, very angry in fact.  In the past, when I was that angry it felt impotent.  Like I could do nothing about it, it was my fault.  This one was different.  It was a very focused anger, I’m not sure I can remember feeling anger like that before.

Then it got a little scary for me.  On the drive home, I realized that I was feeling excited, exhilarated even, in that anger.  I quashed that feeling, worried that I was trading an addiction to the negative emotion of shame for an addiction to another negative one, anger.

Speaking with Morpheus, she wasn’t so quick to come to that conclusion.  Anger isn’t always a bad thing, it can give us strength when we need to protect ourselves and indeed is a normal reaction to things.  A useful tool when proper, I just need to make sure I remember that “when proper” part.

But again, when I was angry I also felt centered within myself.

Morpheus then brought up my last post, Yes, Actions Do Have Consequences.  She said that she was glad that I didn’t let myself get sucked into feeling guilty.  Thinking back to that conversation, feeling guilty never really crossed my mind.  Questioning whether I should feel guilty did, but my answer was “no”.

She wanted to discuss it because stories like that are the ones than can cause change.  We all have stories, knowledge, wisdom that we can share.

We often describe diabetes as being an isolating disease, we can also feel isolated in how we receive treatment  in our healthcare.

It’s important that we share these stories, there will be other people saying “me too”.

That’s a pretty powerful tool.©

© 2012 Scott Strange, Strangely Diabetic and http://StrangelyDiabetic.com