Music can inspire conversations about different life topics, even ones that are different from the song lyrics. For example, Ledisi’s hit song, “I Blame You,” is an upbeat track about loving someone so good that you have no choice but to keep loving them. With song lyrics, “I blame you each and every day, It’s your fault that I’m completely blown away, You’ve been building castles in the sky, A place for only you and I, I, I, I”, who wouldn’t want to be told that you make someone you love to feel loved, and feel joy, how beautiful is that?
Words have power, especially when put to music. You can find yourself singing along to a chorus without even knowing what you’re saying. Repeated listening to a song can trigger random associations that slip into your subconscious and support or hinder your actions. This is why self-reflection is crucial. It allows us to understand how our words and thoughts impact our actions and, ultimately, our diabetes management.
Imagine if we ‘reframed’ Ledisi’s song title, which means changing the perspective or context to refer to the words you might find yourself saying about your diabetes daily. For example, instead of ‘I Blame You ‘, we could think of it as ‘It’s All My Fault’ or ‘I Gave Myself Diabetes ‘.
Blame and shame are the two biggest culprits that often sabotage your ability to manage your self-care. It’s not hard to imagine that these negative thoughts can slip into their minds without much effort. The light might be green, but we can still see red if we’re in the midst of despair. It’s a struggle to keep the negative self-talk at bay when you find yourself in the valley rather than at the peak of the mountain top.
How can you succeed at making lifestyle changes if your starting point begins with a negative mindset?
Regret, despair, anger, and frustration are the common emotions people experience when they’re initially diagnosed with diabetes. But here’s the thing: some people can overcome these emotional obstacles and improve their quality of life, while others cannot.
Many people who make and sustain changes to improve their care cite their children and grandchildren for giving them a reason. Others feel they have no choice but to change and return to the quality of life they once enjoyed.
What is your experience? We encourage you to share your thoughts and feelings about the impact of negative self-talk on your diabetes management. Your insights could be valuable to others in our community.
The words we say to ourselves are the most harmful.
Negative talk we repeatedly say to ourselves goes deep to our core. Unintentionally these repeated hurtful phrases playing inside our minds stop us from achieving our health goals. Moreover, every insult we say to ourselves chips away bit by bit at our self-confidence until it’s gone.
My big takeaway from Valerie Bertinelli’s recent confessional video about body shaming is that the voice inside Valerie’s head is probably much more toxic than comments posted by strangers. Valerie, like the rest of us, is capable of being her own worst enemy at times. Our internal conversation and negative thoughts can be extremely limiting.
I assume her tearful reaction to the comments posted about her weight confirmed her worse fears about herself.
“You have to separate who you are from your weight,” says my friend and colleague, Dr. Beverly S. “Dr. Bev” Adler, Ph.D., CDCES. I’m paraphrasing her words, but she added, “You are not your weight.” Dr. Bev is a licensed Clinical Psychologist, Certified Diabetes Care & Education Specialist, Author, and Speaker who specializes in treating the emotional issues of people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Bev has been a frequent guest on Divabetic’s popular monthly podcasts. Most notably, she appeared on a series of Diabetes podcasts spotlighting the five stages of accepting a diabetes diagnosis.
Have you ever thought that you weren’t good enough? When we feel we aren’t good enough (young enough, tall enough, skinny enough, smart enough, attractive enough, etc.) we tend to drown in this emotion of self-doubt and pity. But the truth is that we are all good enough and worthy of receiving what we want in life.
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash
Instead of saying, “I am not good enough,” tell yourself that you are worthy, just like everyone else
Here’s my story:
I know that from personal experience that we can defeat ourselves before we even try. I let my psoriasis stop me from going to the beach or, more specifically, Asbury Park, NJ because I thought my psoriasis patches were so unsightly. Finally, after several years of avoiding the beach, I agreed to go with friends. At the time, several patches of psoriasis on my torso were visible. I felt uncomfortable taking off my shirt in public and exposing my psoriasis, but it was too hot to keep in on. I barely had my shirt off when my biggest fear became a reality. A woman I didn’t know approached me on the beach, pointed at my patches, and told me that my patches looked ugly. I couldn’t believe she said aloud what I had been telling myself for years. But in a moment, I realized what she said wasn’t nearly as bad as what I said to myself. I described my psoriasis patches as ‘horrible’ and ‘disgusting’. The word she used ‘ugly,’ by comparison, is lightweight to the terms I choose to tell myself. My mood quickly changed. I wasn’t going to let some small-minded person stop me from enjoyment.
Looking back, I’m so grateful for that brief interaction in Asbury Park. It made me realize that the only person who could stop me from doing the things I loved was myself. We need to love ourselves unconditionally. It’s not easy but if you ease up on yourself and sprinkled words of kindness into your daily thoughts you’ll be surprised by the results. Our thoughts directly affect how we feel and, therefore, what we do in life. Don’t limit yourself or your dazzle! See you on the beach!
3 Simple Ways You Can Start Loving Yourself Unconditionally from Vunela
Give yourself permission to follow your heart.
Forgive yourself for past mistakes.
Show love and kindness to others.
“If you can learn to love yourself and all the flaws, you can love other people so much better. And that makes you so happy” — Kristin Chenoweth
The seven-time Grammy Award-winner has sold over 70 million records and is one of the best-selling R&B artists of all time.
We are featuring music from Toni Braxton’s multi-platinum second album, “Secrets”. This year marks the 25th Anniversary of its release. Toni has said about her sophomore album: “The motivation for this album was to include a little bit of everything. Our aim was to come up with material that would have a familiar ‘feel’ to the people who bought the first album without being musically redundant.”
The album’s first single, “You’re Makin’ Me High” became her first #1 hit on the Hot 100 singles chart.
The album’s second single, penned by Diane Warren, “Un-Break My Heart” became Toni Braxton’s biggest hit spending eleven weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 and also topping the Hot Dance Singles Sales chart.
Other album singles include “I Don’t Want To”/”I Love Me Some Him” (which peaked at number one on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart) and “How Could an Angel Break My Heart”.
When Toni Braxton was first diagnosed with systemic lupus in 2008, her doctors told her that she would need a heart transplant and might not ever perform again.
“I remember being petrified,” she said. “I was scared. I didn’t know anything about lupus.”
Lupus is an autoimmune disease that can affect the joints, skin, brain, lungs, kidneys, and blood vessels. It can also lead to heart disease and kidney disease.
Insulin resistance is increased in people with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Insulin resistance occurs when excess glucose in the blood reduces the ability of the cells to absorb and use blood sugar for energy. This increases the risk of developing prediabetes, and eventually, type 2 diabetes.
July’s podcast guests include Dr. Sara Reece, PharmD – NGMC, GME, Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDCES, Keith Anthony Fluitt, and Sonya Hogans. Hosted by Max ‘Mr. Divabetic’ Szadek.
Valerie Bertinelli confessed she made the ‘mistake’ of reading some ‘comments’ online about her weight as she clapped back with a powerful video message. Valerie Bertinelli is done with body shaming.
The 61-year-old took to social media to clap back at a comment made about her weight with an emotional video where she confessed being “vulnerable” was difficult. “When you see somebody who has put some weight on, my first thought is that person is obviously going through some things because if I could lose the weight and keep it off, I would,” she said in the Instagram post shared on Friday, July 9, responding to “someone” who “pointed out” out she “needed” to lose some pounds. “But since I haven’t been successful with that my whole entire life, at 61 I’m still dealing with [it],” she said through tears as she spoke to the camera, makeup-free. “You think I’m not tired of it, lady? Where’s the compassion. You think a stupid little comment like ‘you need to lose weight’ — not f***
Yes! Valerie Bertinelli responds to weight-shaming and we love her for it!!! Judging a person does not define who they are, it defines who you are! No one should sacrifice their mental health to live up to someone else’s expectations.
According to Healthline, body-shaming “involves criticizing and harassing overweight people about their weight or eating habits to make them feel ashamed of themselves,” with the intent to “motivate people to eat less, exercise more, and lose weight.”
Some believe that making others feel ashamed of their weight or eating habits may motivate them to get healthier. However, scientific evidence confirms that nothing could be further from the truth.
If you are going through these same things, remember you are not alone. Actress Emma Stone said, “There’s a sense that we’re all ‘too’ something, and we’re all not enough. This is life. Our bodies change. Our minds change. Our hearts change.”
Body Shaming Yourself
A social media troll body-shamed actress Valerie Bertinelli but most of the time we body shame ourselves. The worst part is that when we talk to ourselves we use much more toxic language than Valerie’s troll did.
Self-shaming is a destructive mindset. When we body shame ourselves we are working against our bodies and putting obstacles from attaining our diabetes health goals, and our overall sense of well-being.
“We know that people who experience body shaming are at a much higher risk for both depression and anxiety disorders,” said A. Janet Tomiyama, an associate professor of health psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles in Washington Post. “It’s easy to see how feeling bad about yourself could lead to more serious emotional troubles.”
One way to break the cycle of negative talk is to write down everything your body does for you. Going forward, every time you experience a negative thought about your body, try to replace it with something from your gratitude list. If you started to spiral into shame, quickly correct yourself.
After a yearlong delay, my fabulous goddaughter and niece, Ashton, and her wonderful fiancé, Irby were married this past weekend at OceanCliff Inn in Newport, RI. Every moment shimmered in effortless elegance to create an ‘epic yet intimate’ celebration. Hats off to my brother and his amazing wife for hosting such an unforgettable weekend. I had the honor (and anxiety) of officiating their fairytale wedding against a spectacular backdrop of sailboats on the sunset.
I admire my niece so much for sticking to her guns and holding out to have her dream wedding in Newport rather than cancel it and host a much smaller ceremony at her home. She stayed true to her vision against the odds, and it worked out beautifully. The experience also taught me to turn off the negative talk that I say to myself. After 15+ months of not hosting a Divabetic outreach event, I felt very unsure of myself in my abilities to host such a monumental event in front of 200 people. Thankfully, I stumbled upon this phrase, “Stop being afraid of what can go wrong, start being excited about what can go right,” which I repeated to myself for two weeks leading up to the event. It worked! Everyone enjoyed the ceremony, and my niece told me, ‘it was perfect!’
By the way, it was truly a family affair. My mother, Mama Rose Marie was the flower girl, the bride’s sister was the ‘Maid of Honor’, the groom’s father was the ‘Best Man’, my nephew, Troy and his wife, Devon, were attendants, my brother, Rich designed their wedding monogram, and Joe did the bride’s hair and my mother’s makeup and hair. The Bride’s father, my brother, Bob highlighted the fact the newlyweds patiently waited over a year to exchange their vows in a speech that can only be described as ‘astonishing and mindblowing’!! I’d also like to add that there’s no way an event of this size and scope could have been presented in such a masterful way without one of the most accomplished women that I know at the helm, my fabulous sister-in-law, Laura. She rocked it!
Since my niece is also a Luther Vandross fan like her uncle, she plays his Christmas album nonstop every year (!) I used Luther’s beautiful song lyrics as inspiration for my wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, the happy couple didn’t choose ‘Here & Now’ as their wedding song, but I’d like to send this heartfelt message to them on their new journey together.
Divabetic’s Luther Vandross Tribute podcast guests include Lisa Fischer, Jason Miles, Jeff James, Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDE, and Chuck Flowers.
By the time Luther Vandross headed to the studio to record his fifth album Give Me the Reason in 1986, he’d become one of the most successful soul singers of the first half of the eighties. His four previous albums have been either certified platinum or double-platinum in America.
For Luther Vandross’ fifth album Give Me the Reason, the album comprised nine tracks including the hits: So Amazing, There’s Nothing Better Than Love, Stop To Love and Give Me The Reason.
Throughout the podcast, we will be featuring music from Luther Vandross’s Give Me The Reason album courtesy of SONY Music.
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