Originally published September 2010.
I’m sure you have heard of the book and video “The Secret”. I’ve got to elaborate on this because of how important a single idea has been in my life and how powerful it has been concerning my diabetes.
First, let us take out the mystical aspect misguided fans of “The Secret” like to propagate. Let's keep things simple and logical.
What do a professional athlete, business mogul, award-winning scientist, and best-selling author have in common?
Is it talent? Is it drive? Is it intelligence?
I’ve come to believe it is FOCUS. Obsessive focus.
People in “The Secret” video tell us we have to imagine what we want, feel good about what we are imagining, and deeply believe in whatever it is we want. We also have to think about it-a lot.
The Secret is basically talking about something called the law of attraction. I read somewhere that according to the law of attraction, by us diabetics raising awareness about our disease and worrying about it, we are in turn attracting more diabetes to our world.
I feel this idea misrepresents what the law of attraction means. Here is my interpretation of it and how we can apply it to our diabetes.
You’ve probably heard that the law of attraction means that whatever we think about and focus on, we’ll attract more of.
Lots of people are quick to say this is garbage but, let’s consider a few things…
In psychology we learn about something called the self-fulfilling prophecy. This means that if you believe a false idea, you will create a new behavior to prove that idea true. Remember the saying, “I do the time, so I might as well do the crime”?
What about constantly telling a small child he is bad? He may grow up believing he is bad and guess what? He may very well behave badly. In fact, he is very likely to.
Tell yourself you can’t eat healthy. You probably won’t be eating healthy any time soon. Either you’ll quit eating healthy or you won’t ever begin to.
Have you heard of the “Placebo Effect”? Researchers have found that giving people a plain sugar pill meanwhile letting them believe they are getting some type of medication actually does something. Placebos that have been given to treat someone’s depression have been studied and it has been discovered they literally impact the same area of the brain that antidepressants do. (see source here) This works even better when a doctor shows extra enthusiasm to the patient regarding the prescription they’ll be taking. Interesting no?
Personally, the way I see it is I recognize the brain’s amazing ability to either help or hinder us. In the past, when I have entertained negative thoughts such as, “my diabetes makes me sick” or “I’ll never have a normal person’s A1c” I got nothing but negative results. I had terrible A1c’s and I felt all sort of terrible physical symptoms which I couldn’t even keep track of because there were so many. This in turn, helped me say more negative things and thus the destructive cycle continued.
When I finally began saying that I deserved to enjoy a normal person’s A1c, I felt a sense of empowerment and even entitlement. Soon after, I got my A1c level down to a normal person’s (4.6%). This led to more positive thoughts (because I felt so good with improved blood sugars) and more and more positive things and thoughts followed after.
This is a simple way of interpreting “the secret” or the “law of attraction”. It works for me however and it fits into my very practical view of things. I want to be healthy so I think I am and I act in a way that supports this and everything else comes as a result.
I endure many moments of doubt and of failure but I have realized that as long as I have a surplus of positive thoughts and actions (in relation to negative ones), the end result is positive.
So to sum it up, positivity outweighs negativity. Phew, what a relief!
I’m really curious, what’s your take on all this? And do you think we should all take some personal responsibility in the way we feel about our diabetes? After all, we are in control of our own minds are we not?
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