Life Beyond Diabetes: F*ck the Status Quo and Find True Healing

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It's been about two years.

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A lot of life has been happening.

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Good things, not so good things, interesting things.

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Just growth realizations and changes that I honestly just wasn't prepared for.

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I needed to take some time to really figure myself out.

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I really just needed to sit and understand what I want.

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Now to be clear, I'm still figuring some parts out, but for the most part,

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I have a, a good outline as to what it is that I want for my life, how I

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see myself, and how I want to be seen.

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I think I have a better understanding of understanding what it's going to

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take for me to see those things come.

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To life.

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I was struggling with that because I'd spent so much time grinding, surviving,

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and building for everything and everyone else that I just wasn't sure

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what it actually looked like for me.

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I stepped away because I was drowning in my physical health.

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When I finally got a doctor that truly listened and was willing to try different

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things, I ended up on a medication regimen that significantly changed my numbers.

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I was able to receive technology that significantly changed my day to day.

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Physically.

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My number's on paper.

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Were great.

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They were going in the right direction.

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They were, they were going down, which is what we wanted to see.

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I went from a 8.9 A1C to 6.5 and my first 90 days of this regimen.

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And what continues to make it interesting is that.

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I've been on Metformin for years.

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Variations of it.

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Two things got added, the CGM and the Ozempic.

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I feel like the CGM did more.

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The CGM gave me the ability to understand the decisions I was

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making as well as other things going on with my body, like sleep.

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That was the true beginning of changing.

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The way diabetes has affected me, it's frustrating that it took so long.

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It's frustrating that I sat for six years struggling trying to find a way to

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get these numbers down, the environment that I was in, the relationship that

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I was in, the jobs that I ran, none of those things were helping in that.

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And so when I finally got a CGM and I finally got out of that relationship and

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I finally got out of that environment that I was living in, things changed.

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The job.

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Stuff was still a little chaotic, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was previously.

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And not that even previously, my jobs were bad.

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I just couldn't maintain.

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Because everything else that was going on in my life was causing my job situations

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to be basically detrimental to me.

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So in receiving these things, I started to really tune into

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myself in so many different ways that I really hadn't before.

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When I started the podcast back in 2020.

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It was just shy of when the pandemic really hit.

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I got laid off right before all of it.

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It was in that downtime that it dawned on me to start this podcast because I

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finally had the, the space and and mental room to think about what did I want.

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And why haven't I really made moves on this?

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Why did I keep this brand up?

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Why did I keep this domain name up?

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What was the point?

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Anytime anybody brought up talking about living with diabetes, why did I perk

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up and say, yeah, I started this thing, but I didn't really do anything with it?

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I started digging into that and realized that the medium at the time that I

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was trying to just share my story in.

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In hopes to connect with others was the raw one.

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I've been listening to podcasts for years at that point, probably

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about three years at the time, and I grew up in home studios.

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It was just like, oh, duh, you don't need to write so much.

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Even though I enjoy writing, I felt like I needed to write medical

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dissertations about my life because I was nervous about misleading people.

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All you need to do is.

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Hit record and talk about it.

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That's all that you've been doing with people.

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You've been having conversations, you've been telling your story, you've

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been sharing what you've experienced, and that's how this started.

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I decided that since I bought the domain, I've had it since 2015, so I was like, why

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don't I go ahead and just make it an LLC.

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At this point, podcasting had been huge and it was only continuing to grow,

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and I'm like, this is what I want.

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I wanna be able to create content, share it, and it hopefully help people, but

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it be something that can sustain me.

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I can be creative.

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So let me get ahead and just start this process with the help of my partner.

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I file for my LLC.

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And that was when Healing Hindsight was officially born.

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At that point, I had one season out.

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I batch recorded 10 or 12 episodes and it started, I was doing this while working

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full time dealing with the pandemic, the Wild cultural C climate at, at that

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time my partner had to do the Covid mission 'cause he is in the military.

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Stressing about him traveling and all of these things.

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We experienced a lot of

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insights.

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We experienced some trauma.

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We experienced some growth.

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We experienced some heartaches.

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All the while I kept pushing for this, and I did season two and I season three.

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Then I started to do season four.

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That's when it started to get a little shaky because I. I had decided to step

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away from the role that I had been with because my health had started

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to take, uh, another nose dive.

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I had started to really consider looking into more than just

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talk therapy for myself.

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I decided to.

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Not immediately go back to looking for a job.

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I ended up on short-term disability.

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As hard as it was, I told my family, I think I need to take six months.

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It ended up being a year, but at least the next six months to just try this out.

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I, I did manage to

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sustain myself for a bit.

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I got a couple sponsorships.

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I was able to.

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Pursue and do things that I never thought I was gonna be able to do.

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I was the master of my own time.

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I got to wake up and create.

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I had help for my dad, who was my producer.

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He edited all of my episodes, which was great.

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So it's like I had a team, even though it was just me and my dad, and I loved that.

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I really was starting to build out something.

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I'm doing all these things.

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And my savings start to run out.

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Hitting a wall with building a true audience and building

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recurring income on my own.

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I was starting to think through rebuilding and coming back

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because I just couldn't let it go.

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I would be doing myself a huge disservice if I gave up.

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Now, what is it that I want from this?

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Now what I realized is that.

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Just how the way that I was managing my diabetes evolved.

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The content that I wanted to share, the things that I wanted

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to talk through, needed to evolve.

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I hung on to healing in hindsight, not only as a business and a

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brand, but as a name because of so many layers of what it can mean.

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What I really.

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Deep down realize is that I needed to talk through what healing meant

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through my experience so far in a big picture way, because zooming in on

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life with diabetes and the challenges that comes with that, really.

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Isn't easy to explain without completely zooming out.

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There were a lot of subtle passive things happening that aided me as I

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sit here right now, I am no longer required to take diabetes medication,

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and I've been wrestling with, does that mean I I'm free of diabetes?

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Does that mean diabetes is in remission?

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Does that mean I cured it?

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I think I have.

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Accepted.

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I am holistically managing my diabetes, which is what I wanted, but I will be

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honest with y'all, I, I did not think I would actually see this day, which

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probably sounds a little wild considering I started a whole brand and business

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around me working towards no longer needing medication to manage my diabetes.

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That was the very core, original.

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Purpose of me starting this, and here I am at that point, almost 10 years.

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I know there are a lot of people that don't have that kind of choice.

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Them coming off their medication could mean life or death.

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Them not using a CGM could mean life or death.

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And I don't take that lightly, but for me and my story, am able to do that.

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And I'm, I'm grateful.

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I'm grateful every day that I was able to do this and that

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I'm continuing to do this.

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I really decided that if I was going to really come back, that I needed

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to come back and it be bigger than just diabetes because during the last

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two years, not only have I continued therapy, but I've also started

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seeing a psychiatrist and I realized that I have a DHD being diagnosed.

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Officially and understanding that some of the habits and the ways I was doing things

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was just a product of a chemical imbalance in my brain was a whole new world for me.

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Battling with anxiety and depression, understanding of my mental health

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aided in my physical health.

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I had to start creating routines and habits, having conversations with

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myself and digging deep into my mind and spirit about things going on with

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me to understand why I do things the way that I do to realize that I need

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structure, but I need structure that has some flexibility to realize that I can do

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anything and everything for other people because I have this deep seated fear of

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being a let down or disappointment, or.

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Wanting to be helpful, but at the same time when it comes to doing stuff for

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myself, it's a struggle because when you are the person that has to run everything

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and you advocate for yourself, it's 20 times hard and you generally don't know

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if it's you, the A DHD, the anxiety, the depression, you don't know which it is

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because they all just come together and have a beat down party on me sometimes.

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I decided that healing in hindsight needed to evolve into a way that can address

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so many more things that impact how you navigate through the world and how we

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can translate into some of the things that you see when I look back on my life

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when I was first diagnosed with diabetes.

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It was more than just, yes, I was overweight.

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I'm still technically considered overweight, which

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is why I don't like that.

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Our medical system and our culture has conditioned us to believe that

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weight is the end all, be all and answer to that, and it's continuously

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being proven that it's not.

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But if we are not looking at the unique things that make up a person's body.

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Then we are missing out on opportunities to really help people because we're

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going off an archaic system that wasn't even considering bodies like we

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have to look at more than just that.

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Healing in hindsight has to be different.

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We all gotta work to live in some capacity, whether that's you're your

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own boss and you're creating content, or you're going the entrepreneur

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route, working for somebody else.

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Either way, we all have to find some way to survive and have a

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comfortable livelihood, whether that's for ourselves, whether that's

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for families, things like that.

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In that time away, I got married.

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Sadly, we haven't been able to have her, but we did go to the

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courthouse and I am legally married.

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Now.

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That also provides another angle of.

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Needing to take care of my family and my household.

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We have a house dogs and bills that are not temporary.

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We own this.

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We have to maintain it and take care of it.

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So working became even more important in order to be a supportive partner.

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I realized that my physical health, mental health, spiritual health environment.

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Who I associated myself with, who poured into me who didn't play a role, but now

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the thing that provides access to so many things and my ability to even get

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my medications, that also plays upon me.

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Some of my early years in living with diabetes, I struggled very hard because

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I could not live up to my professional.

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Abilities.

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I could not live up to the professional name that I had built, and that was

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frustrating and hated in my mental debt that caused me to actually lose a job

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at one point because I was so sick.

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I realized that it is a constant battle to balance all of these things.

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Somebody looks at me if I say.

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I live with diabetes and decides to tell me that I just need to

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lose weight, and yet here I sit in normal A1C range, no longer required

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to take any type of medication.

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I wasn't eating great.

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I wasn't always exercising after that, I really didn't exercise

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much, but the things that I did do

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was change my environment.

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Changed who I associated with.

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Got real deep into my mental health, got really honest about myself as a

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professional, and started caring myself in a more authentic way as a professional.

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There are so many things that took place to get me to this point that is healing.

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That is.

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What this is about.

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All of those things being balanced and being true to me in

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the way that it's meant to be.

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For me, my unique blueprint of all of those things is what led me here, and

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I feel that everybody should have that.

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I wanna understand myself.

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It's such a way I. That not even a microscope can tell me

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about myself, better than me.

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And I think that is the thing that we should do is just how can we understand

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ourselves better and how can we navigate our environments better to suit US bus?

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Because diabetes is very unique to the individual.

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There's different types of medications, there's more ways.

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To go about this.

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There's more options.

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There's so much that we are not considering.

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Instead of treating the person in the unique environment that

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they're in, we just treat symptoms.

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I think we should all take a moment to think about how each of those

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different areas are impacting us.

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Whether you have diabetes or not, that to me is the true reason why I've, I've

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healed, eat right exercise, lose some weight, and he'll be for some people.

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That's the answer.

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Absolutely.

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But that one answer for me, I am.

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I'm fully vested in bringing everything that I've rebuilt, refreshed and

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refined in these last two years in a way that could benefit anybody.

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I wanna ensure that I'm reaching the people who feel stuck between

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obligation of self, obligation of others.

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And trying to navigate themselves as a professional too.

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All of those things are hard and trying to do all of that and

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possibly deal with an illness.

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Yeah, it's not easy that, but you can do.

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So let's talk about it.