Dia­betes is fright­en­ing. Com­pli­ca­tions from dia­betes are fright­en­ing. Try­ing to con­trol or pre­vent dia­betes and com­pli­ca­tions can be over­whelm­ing and discouraging.

That’s why most uncon­trolled dia­betes is psy­cho­log­i­cal more than any fail­ure of infor­ma­tion or diet or med­ical treat­ment. Because dia­betes con­trol is a self-managed dis­ease, even the very best doc­tors, diets and exer­cise plans can­not suc­ceed unless you, the dia­betic, have the right attitude.

Now, by “atti­tude” I do not mean your feel­ings and emo­tions. Feel­ings and emo­tions cer­tainly do play a part in your atti­tude, and can even deter­mine what your atti­tude is, but they are not the same thing.

Your atti­tude is actu­ally less sub­jec­tive than your feel­ings and emo­tions. You have far more con­trol over your atti­tude than you do your feel­ings and emo­tions. Atti­tude has more to do with your mind­set. In fact, your atti­tude is your mind­set. It’s what you estab­lish for how you will face each day and how you will face cir­cum­stances as they occur.

Most peo­ple do not con­sciously estab­lish their mind­set. They let the “default set­ting” estab­lish it for them, which is a mind­set and atti­tude based on their feel­ings and emo­tions. This allows fear and doubt, anger and frus­tra­tion, and all sorts neg­a­tive feel­ings to rule them and to color their deci­sions and their will-power.

This can­not help but weaken your dia­betes con­trol, your diet, your blood-sugar test­ing and so on. Which leads to poorer con­trol, which feeds your neg­a­tive feel­ings about your dia­betes, which leads to an even more neg­a­tive atti­tude and worse dia­betes control.

There is a way out of this mess. You don’t have to stay trapped in the neg­a­tiv­ity cycle.

If you have let the default set­ting of feel­ings and emo­tions deter­mine your atti­tude, you can re-establish a new atti­tude for bet­ter dia­betes con­trol. In fact, you can re-establish a new atti­tude for a bet­ter life all around.

The keys to re-establishing a new atti­tude are first based on what I said before. You have far more con­trol over your atti­tude than you do your feel­ings and emo­tions. Learn to sep­a­rate feel­ings from thoughts. Feel­ings are in your body, thoughts are objec­tive, and in your mind.

Thoughts are more propo­si­tional, that is, they can be expressed in an idea. What thoughts should you think? Start with your­self. There is more to you as a human being than a mass of change­able and uncon­trol­lable feel­ings. You have a heart, a soul. You have con­vic­tions. You have beliefs. You have desires and expec­ta­tions from life.

Think about your con­vic­tions, beliefs, desires and expec­ta­tions. Think less about what you feel than about what you believe and what you really want for your life. You will find your feel­ings have less and less rule over you as your con­scious mind takes over.

Use this habit of mind over emo­tion to develop your new mind­set and atti­tude. Your con­vic­tions, beliefs, desires and expec­ta­tions can cer­tainly focus into deter­mi­na­tion. Deter­mi­na­tion is one of the most impor­tant keys to your new attitude.

Now start to apply this to your dia­betes. You know what you need to do. In the past, you let your feel­ings be the moti­va­tion to do it. When your feel­ings were good, you did well, but when your feel­ings were low, you did poorly.

As you develop an atti­tude that does not take its orders from the feel­ings in your body but from the con­vic­tions of your heart and mind, your moti­va­tion will also change. You will over­come feel­ings and do what you need to do.

You will still often “not feel like it”, or even still feel some degree of fear, doubt, or dis­cour­age­ment. Rec­og­nize these things as feel­ings sep­a­rate from your atti­tude. You have deter­mined what you will do, and deter­mined it on bet­ter things. So no mat­ter how you feel you’ll do what you have to do.

And the funny thing is, you’ll feel bet­ter about doing it. As it turns out, feel­ings are more a response than the cause of things in your life. When things in your life start to turn around because of your new atti­tude, your feel­ings will tend to turn around as well. Your whole dis­po­si­tion will brighten and your dia­betes con­trol will improve. All because you learned how to sep­a­rate thoughts from feel­ings and live by what you believe instead of what you feel.

The Dia­betes Book That Could Save Your Life!