From my heart to yours. Enjoy.

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As a white person it hasn’t been easy to have a simple answer to, “If we defund the police, who will protect us?” In a passionate and loving effort to know more, this is the best answer I have, at this point.

Question: “If we defund the police, who will protect us?”
Answer: “The Police. But the police would be required to do ONLY that.”

The police’s primary duty is to protect people and property. Over the decades the duties (and budget) of the police have expanded to include 4 major responsibilities: enforcing laws, preventing crimes, responding to emergencies, and providing support services. There are other duties, all of which expand the Police budget.

The result of this expansion of responsibilities, and budget, has proven to be profoundly unsuccessful. Especially for minorities, people of color and low income people. These three characteristics mostly describe black American communities.

By defunding the Police the Police budget would be reduced to allow them to carry out, and focus on, only their primary duty. The rest would be assigned to other specialized institutions and organizations.

“Defund the Police,” can be somewhat misleading, because the words focus on the budget aspect of the program, rather than the needed actions. A different way to say it could be, Reorganize the Police, or, Restructure the Police. But it is important that “Defund the Police” stays unchanged, because it has deep roots in the history of Police abuse of power against black Americans.

In business this is equivalent to when a large corporation has grown over the years to include many ancillary, secondary businesses, on top of it’s core business. This has diluted the focus on and efficiency of not only the corporation’s core business, but also its other branches. Over time this made the corporation unprofitable and not competitive. The typical and often most effective solution is to restructure. Sell everything that is not the core business, and refocus energy and resources on what the corporation was created to do, and does best.  

Defund the Police means get the Police to do what was created to do. Everything else would be assigned to other groups and organizations. What is now lumped up in the Police Budget, would be allocated accordingly.

To have a better and enormously more entertaining understanding of the subject, watch this. Please watch this.

The second and even more important question that must be asked is, why is defunding the Police relevant for black American communities? I’ll give it my best shot to an answer in another post.

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Here’s a poem, to life, death, and love.

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Here’s another minute for your mind and heart. Travel with words and images.

Enjoy.

The post I Will, a Poem by Annie Wood appeared first on L i f e R e f l e c t e d.

Click, watch, listen, travel with your mind and your heart. With love. Enjoy!

The post The Unexpected Sorrow, a Poem by Annie Wood appeared first on L i f e R e f l e c t e d.

Create something together from a distance, make your voice heard in ways that are smart and safe.

Meditate and connect, with the energy of your being. Kiss the sun.

You are the sun.

Click to watch and listen. Enjoy! Share. Be well.

For more information about Annie Wood, click here.

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My Italian friends, you have been a beacon of light as you moved forward toward the other side of this situation.

This is JUST ANOTHER STEP toward the other side, this isn’t the finish line. You/we aren’t there yet. Please stay smart and conscientious. We can do this and we’ll be better for it. Keep moving forward with your eyes… full of stars (…Pieni di stelle).

We’ve also reached the end of this book of Italian poems that took us traveling. I hope you had as good a time listening as I had sharing this. Here’s the last reading from Anche la vita vola. Enjoy!

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Here’s my next to last contribution and thank you to ALL MY ITALIAN FRIENDS, known and unknown. I appreciate you. 5 minutes, Viaggiando…

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The hardship is shared and known by all. I prefer to focus on the time we have been given, the silence I’ve been hearing, the emptiness of the streets, the enormous space I see everywhere.

I let myself go into my emptiness and I love everything I see. Even what terrifies me, and I felt some terrifying things. I’m just happy I can feel it. I know I’m more and better if I feel it. The more I feel, the more I am. The more I feel the more conscious I am that I am.

I see and feel a lot of people going within and reaching out in a more essential way. When I listen, I can hear the Earth breathing, taking a breath of fresh air, for the first time in so long. It gives me a feeling of massive beauty.

Here’s another installment of Italian poems. At some point I’ll read my own English poems (if you want me to read something, please let me know). For now, I hope you enjoy this. If you don’t understand Italian, the images will entertain you for a few minutes.

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Enjoy! (Feel free to share.)

Listen, watch, travel, click…

Anche La Vita Vola, poems, Elena Pagliacci

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Three minutes at a time. Enjoy! (Feel free to share.)

Listen, watch, travel, click…

Anche La Vita Vola, poems, Elena Pagliacci

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Listen, watch, travel, click…

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We sailed to Venice for my wife’s art show, “Beautiful Imperfections,” and, as if riding on the title’s wave, I experienced what it means to live with a beautiful lightness of being. And the difference when I live without that lightness.

I prefer to live with it. 

We left at the crack of dawn. The city’s night lights still on, some people prepping for the day, some going to bed after a long night. Sliding on the flat water of the harbor heading out at sea gives an unusual perspective on everyday life, like being able to sea the forest for the trees. It always feels precious, intimate, powerful.

The day is cloudy, the temperature is warm, not humid.

We are the only boat in sight.

As the sun rises the sky turns into a masterpiece.

We sail on waters studded with oil and gas rigs. When I was a child there were two. Now it’s tens of them spread over several miles. I am always amazed by human’s ingenuity and creativity in building these things on the water.

We got some sun from mid day on. A veil of haze, scattered clouds, and a slight breeze made it just right. After twelve hours we sailed into the Venice harbor. This is our second time arriving in Venice by boat and the feeling is like none other.

Venice (the Republic of Venice) used to be the most powerful maritime city of the old world. Sliding on the waters between Lido and the Grand Canal you can feel all that ancient energy. I believe that Venetian’s current attitude is a result of that original power still embedded in their DNA.

Finally we docked in Certosa Island, a green blossoming stretch of land in the Venetian Lagoon.

We take a walk to the other end of the island to visit the Marina Vento di Venezia where we are. One fo the first things we see is a lovely library. Four book boxes carved into three marine wooden poles. Books are in various languages. We bring some and take a couple.

The land mixes with the water. I love both and a constant smile forms on my face.

The fields are bright green. On the trees along the way red cherries will be ripe and ready to land on tables everywhere in a couple of weeks.

When the sun sets  we are in Lido, waiting for the ferry to take us back to Certosa. It’s low season and mid-week so there aren’t many people around. We feel like locals instead of visitors. It’s intimate and personal. It feels good.

When the sun sets behind the clouds we look forward to dinner on the boat and a good night sleep.

We spend the next day visiting some of the installations of the Biennale of Architecture. Beauty, creativity and curiosity are everywhere. One of the most interesting installations for me was the Unintended Architecture. A group of architects from Macao showed a series of projects that were intended to be one thing but turned out to be successfully used as something else.  

For example, a video showed a historic stairway in Venice which was the access to a big church. During World War II the church was destroyed, but the stairway still exists as passageway and touristic attraction for everyone who visits. 

Or, a sound proving material was developed but once installed it looked beautiful and it’s been used for interior design.  

Peggy Guggenheim

We visited the Peggy Guggenheim’s Museum and what I loved most, above and beyond anything else, is Peggy Guggenheim.  A creative, strong, fun, quirky, brilliant woman who helped art, and thus humanity,  like few others in history and lived by the beat of her own drum. The museum used to be her home in Venice for thirty years and as I was walking through the collection I kept feeling her presence, I felt her in the living room, in front of the fireplace (which is no more now) and I could feel her incredible life energy as if she was there welcoming us into her house. I felt very lucky for experiencing all this.

We had two heavy pieces of luggage packed with all of Annie’s art. We could’ve used the ferry but it would’ve been a 45 minute-lot of work ride with  potential hazard for the art itself. The prospect of it wasn’t attractive. So, I kept asking  around until finally I found a guy who got us on his ‘topetta’ (typical wooden Venetian service boat) motored by an electric engine all the way under the bridge next to the art show location. It took us fifteen minutes. The electric engine makes no sound and being in the Grand Canal with just the sound of water around us, felt incredible.  A water taxi would’ve been E100. The topetta was E20, and we got to navigate and see stretches of water that the main vessels, and the majority of people, never see. The ride with the art started as a hurdle and it ended up being better than we could’ve expected.  

We installed the thirty-two pieces of Annie’s show in four hours on Thursday night. The ferry ride back to the boat late at night was spectacular.

Friday afternoon we had the opening.  

The turnout was great. Annie and her show were written up on an Italian newspaper and people loved her art, jewelry, apparel and accessories. We felt very happy for having showed up every step along the way for all this to happen, and grateful for  people’s and the universe’s help.  

The following day while sailing out of Venice two things broke on the boat that would’ve made our stay on the Croatian coast unpleasant and potentially difficult.  I immediately suggested to sail back to Rimini,   “But what about the planned vacation to Croatia?”

As it turned out we got a spectacular day of sailing, with a favorable wind that took us straight into the Rimini harbor at night, in a gorgeous spectacle of lights. In the following days several thunderstorms populated the waters where we would’ve been had we stuck to our original plan. It would’ve have been nothing even close to the spectacular, easy, fun day we had this way.  

I thought that unintentional architecture, just as Annie‘s show’s title,
Beautiful Imperfections, should be the theme of everyone’s life. Certainly my own. When I embrace my beautiful imperfections and the different than expected results of my actions, when I chose to live with a lightness of being, I can only be happy. 

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I close my eyes and meditate, every morning. I hear birds chirping all around me. I focus on their sound. It’s loud, fun, full. Always different, if I listen.

We just travelled over six thousand miles across the world to Italy and I’m now sitting on the terrace of the apartment in Rimini. I close my eyes and meditate. Birds are chirping everywhere. I focus on their sound. It’s loud, fun, full. Always different, if I listen.

I smile.

I took a walk on our street. A big tree has been cut down and all the other big trees along both sides of the road have been trimmed dramatically. New small trees have been planted. A huge visual and esthetic change. It takes me a few hours to adjust. 

The family run drug store at the corner has changed management. It was the place where everything felt known and special, since I was a child. That feeling of knowing what’s what is gone, the feeling of “everybody knows my name” isn’t there anymore. The warm welcome of the lady who owned it, the small talk that felt personal and reliable because it never really changed is no more. I almost ran out of there. Why did they sell? Don’t they know how important it was for me to rely on something stable?

Then I heard a seagull squawking, loudly, as if to shake me awake. I smile. I know. 

The only constant is change. 

For a second I forgot the spectacular now.

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When you eat, you eat substantially more than necessary. Most of the time it’s not your body that needs nourishment. It’s your emotions that need comforting and, more importantly, numbing. It’s tough. It feels lonely.

Invariably, after we’re done eating everything  feels “wrong” and we’re cloaked in a carb-hangover with various shades of guilt.

What can we do when we get hit by the craving storm? These are eight things I’ve found helpful and successful for me. Most of these things apply to anyone who’s familiar with the rough waters of cravings. The first is specific to anyone who, like me, has diabetes. (I have Type 1 diabetes. If you have Type 2 and want information about how to use nutrition to your advantage, here’s a good article.)

1. Check my blood glucose level. 90% of the times when I have a craving, my blood sugar level is either too high, too low, or moving in either direction fast. Before I put anything in my mouth, I check and make sure to take the necessary adjustments. This happens often before going to sleep or at night. If I’m in hypoglycemia or if my blood glucose is going down fast, my body and mind go through a little “death” experience. They feel deprived of the necessary energy to “survive,” which is what, in my experience, creates a craving for food (food=life). The first thing I have to do is fix the imbalance. What that means is, I eat glucose tablets or drink juice to fix the low.Now, this is very important and it took me some time to get to grips with it. When I’m in hypoglycemia I don’t use it as “a-time-to-eat-a-lot-of-stuff-I-usually-can’t.” I don’t  binge on a pint of ice-cream or a bag of cookies. Because that will set off another imbalanced cycle which I will have to chase with insulin, which in turn will create new hypoglycemia and set me up for other cravings and other binges.This is very difficult because we all know that hypoglycemia is a perfect time to eat everything we’re not supposed to eat otherwise. But that’s a way to rationalize and add stress to our body and mind, because it’s very easy to overeat.Similarly, if my blood glucose is high or rising fast, I get a craving. No energy enters the cells and my brain feels starved. Again, the experience is that of a little “death,” whether I’m conscious of it or not, just like for hypoglycemia. This is why, at least in my case, I get a craving and want to overeat. As If to make sure that “I won’t die.”But all I have to do is take the right amount of insulin and wait.First I fix the low or high blood glucose level. Then I deal with the craving, if it’s still there.
   For someone with diabetes, like me (T1), this first point is paramount. By checking and dealing with my sugar levels, I handle 90% of my cravings. I don’t eat until my blood glucose level is in balance. By the time it’s in balance I usually don’t have the craving, anymore. Not only this helps with keeping my blood glucose balanced, but it helps me stay fit and not gain weight.
2. Drink water. Anytime I have a craving, I drink water first and wait 10-15 minutes. This is a “magical” remedy. It works most of the time. Make sure to drink water throughout the day (eight full glasses, at least), and add a full glass or two when the craving knocks at the door of your mind.This isn’t a trick, rather it’s based on scientific evidence. The symptoms of (even minor) dehydration are similar to and confused with hunger. When the body doesn’t get enough water it sends signals to the brain that are mistaken for hunger, but are really thirst. I never even thought of water. Now I drink it regularly and I feel well, alert and my cravings are minimal. Make sure you drink water regularly.
3. Exercise. It’s better to do a little everyday, than to do a lot every once in a while. Make exercise a habit. You don’t have to sweat your rear-end off to benefit from physical activity. Take a brisk 20 minute walk, that’ll do. But do it every day. I go to the gym, whenever I can. When I can’t, either because I don’t have time or because I’m slacking off, I get myself to take my 20 minute brisk walk (even at night or early in the morning). And that’s better than not doing anything and it makes a huge difference. I always feel better because of it.Among the many benefits, physical exercise stimulates endorphins, which help our mind stay alert and our mood stay positive. A positive and alert mind is the most powerful antidote for emotional cravings and excessive eating.
4. If I still have the craving gnawing at my mind, I share with a friend. I speak of my craving with my wife or with a friend. If you are in a support group you have plenty of phone numbers to call. The idea is, before I eat, I talk it out. Before food goes into my mouth, words about my craving and my mood must come out of my mouth.A variation of this is what I call, “speak-eat out loud.” This will sound funny, but it works for me. I once had a craving for peanuts I couldn’t resist. I knew I didn’t “need” to eat peanuts, but the craving wouldn’t leave me. I also know peanut cravings for me have a physiological component, since my body needs some of the nutritional components in peanuts, and it often manifests during low blood glucose levels. Peanuts also have an emotional component (connected to my childhood with my father), which is what pushes me to eat too much of it. So, being an actor and writer, I just spoke out loud in detail as-if I were eating peanuts. “I’m going to get a bag full of roasted shelled peanuts. I’m going to sit in front of the television. I dip my hand in the bag and pick one at a time. I’m going to crack ‘em open and pop ‘em in my mouth. I chew and feel that flavor…”I get as specific s possible to make the experience as real as possible. Doing so I feel it. I feel the texture in my hands and between my fingers. I taste each peanut. I taste the skin and the occasional shell fragments. “And I eat more! So good!…” I continue speaking about it aloud, as if I were actually eating them.It’s not before long that the emotional memory induced by the words, settles the craving enough and I don’t have to eat.You can do this with someone else as part of your “share with a friend” (sometimes I do it with my wife), or by yourself, or to your dog or cat. It doesn’t matter, as long as you speak aloud. I will say, it’s also kind of fun. After the first few times, now the monologues are very short. As soon as I induce the “experience of eating” whatever I’m craving, just by speaking about it aloud, I lose the craving. Try it, you’ll see. Let me know if it works for you too.
5. Snack. If I starve myself, if I eat scarcely or infrequently I’m setting myself up for a craving. It’s better to eat smaller portions often, rather than big amounts every once in a while.Don’t starve your system. It’s best to eat every couple of hours. Obviously, I don’t have to eat a loaf of bread every two hours. I just  have a  healthy, tasty snack. This keeps my metabolism running, my energy and my stomach full and keeps me satiated. It makes me more unlikely to get a craving down the road.I can even outsmart my cravings. For example, I have a passion for chocolate. So I make sure to use healthy and balanced chocolate snacks (nowadays we’re very lucky, there’s an abundance of healthy balanced choices) every time I can. This will make it very unlikely that I’ll crave chocolate, because I’ve been having it, regularly. To handle peanut cravings, I’ll add a handful in my salad for lunch, thus my body gets the nutrients it needs. Regular snacks in between meals work beautifully for me.Also, keep in mind that when the craving isn’t emotional but is physiological it means that my body needs a specific nutrient, but my misinformation and confusion leads me to binge on a common food that has some quantity of that ingredient. For example, my chocolate (and even peanuts) craving means that I need magnesium. Now I take magnesium every morning, I don’t crave chocolate or peanuts, almost ever. And when I do, a small amount of it satiates me. Check out this chart and try it yourself based on your cravings.
   

   Click on the chart to see more (source NatureWorksBest).

6. If all else fails and the craving is still screaming at you, do not eat alone. Once I had a craving I couldn’t resist. I called a friend. After talking for a little while, I still couldn’t shake the craving. My friend said, “Okay. Get your food and come over. You don’t have to eat alone.” Suddenly, I felt embraced by a gentle breeze of “acceptance.” The craving left me with the same speed as a scrap of paper is blown away by a gust of wind.You don’t have to eat alone. Get together with your spouse, your friend, someone who will not judge you, and say something like, “I can’t get rid of this craving and I don’t want to be alone. Will you please keep me company while I eat?”
7. Chew. I chew a lot. This was taught to me in elementary school, then I promptly forgot it. As a person with a health condition, it’s recommended that I chew over 50 times, 100 for complex carbs. If I chew a lot I will automatically eat less. My body will process and absorb the full nutrition from the food, which will make me feel satiated. I will also enjoy what I’m eating a lot more, and the overall experience is better.
8. Choose to be happy. If everything else fails and I end up eating, I say to myself something like, “I’m now going to eat ______. I will chew it well, and I will enjoy every moment of it. I am grateful I can eat this now. I’m happy to eat it, and I’ll be happy for having eaten it.”The most powerful and vicious trick of emotional cravings is that they keep us bogged down in that guilt-ridden hangover. I have found that my choice to “be happy even if I give into the craving” is the single most powerful antidote to that emotional vicious cycle.

These eight strategies to deal with cravings are what I use all the time. They’re not exclusive of one another. I use them simultaneously, they complement each other. Since I have diabetes, I always start from the first. But I always make sure to drink water, exercise and do all the rest, to either avoid cravings or handle them when they come.

The key is moderation. I can eat anything I want, as long as I don’t hurt myself by over-doing it. Again, the key and the bottom line is “choose to be happy.”  Giving into cravings mindlessly, rationalizing and finding excuses, being in denial about them, doesn’t make me happy. I tried it. I know.

I found out that there’s a big difference between being happy and being high. Giving into cravings mindlessly makes me “high,” as in “intoxicated with a temporary deceitful feeling of wellbeing.” But the simple truth is, it only hurts me.

I choose to be happy. Because once you experience happy, you won’t settle for high.

_______________________________

Original article published by permission on Diabetes Daily Post.

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Her name was Avigail, born and raised in Israel, and immigrated to America when she was 39 years old. Annie called her Eema, which means “mother” in Hebrew.

The last 12 months have been a progressive decline of her health, which wasn’t strong to begin with. The last month has been a succession of falls, runs to the emergency room, therapies and a fast downturn.

Until finally last Thursday when doctors assessed, in agreement with Annie, that there was nothing left that could be done to improve the quality of her life. Surgeries and probing would’ve only given her the discomfort and added pain of the procedures. Annie was clear, “No more pain. No more hospitals. Let’s make whatever life she has left the best it can possibly be.”

No one specific cause, just a health condition in continuous deterioration. An avid smoker her entire life until the very end. The “Active Problem History” from her health insurance was a page long, with forty-four conditions listed, any ten of which could’ve killed a Navy Seal.  In the end the most critical were compromised liver and lungs, and a heart that, albeit powerful, had a chronic disorder and a valve that should’ve been replaced five years ago.

So, on Thursday it was decided to bring her to her home, where she always said she wanted to die. She was in a quasi-unconscious condition, with moments of fleeting lucidity that lasted a few minutes. As they were wheeling her into her home on the gurney, she woke up, her eyes opened wide, she smiled and clapped, filled with joy.

Annie, myself and a caregiver moved into the apartment to be with her 24 hours a day, assisted by a medical service with which we coordinated daily medications and dosages to minimize her pain and discomfort. A nurse would come every other day to check her vitals and fine tune medications. She would always say, “Yes, she’s dying.”

And time always stopped for me when those words were spoken. Intellectually I was well aware of the situation. But, in my heart, the reality that we were there to prepare Eema for death felt huge. A huge responsibility and a huge privilege.

She couldn’t get up from bed anymore. She didn’t eat. She didn’t drink. All those things that we take for granted every day and we subconsciously associate with life were suddenly gone.

Each time I saw and was reminded of that, I was shaken. I was reminded of how grandiose life is. When I was watching Eema, when I was helping the caregiver to change her, when Annie and I were draining liquid overflowing from her lungs out of her throat, I kept thinking of how huge life is. I believe that “life is short” is an absolute lie. Life is short only if we sleep through it. Otherwise, life is huge, every second of it is eternal.

I kept thinking, “Is this really happening?” Then I would look at Eema fading away and, like looking into a “mirror of life,” I would feel how every little cell of our body hosts the entirety of life in which our mind exists and thrives. And how often we completely forget it.

Death is the one thing all people and beings have in common since the beginning of time. Yet it is the one thing that has the most fear, doubt, taboo, denial, confusion, anger, pain, secrecy, mystery associated with.

For me death is a crucial, intrinsic part of Life.

When my father killed himself one of the things that gave me devastating sorrow was how sudden and violent his departure was.

It was a uniquely special privilege to accompany Eema out of this life.

It was an honor to be with my wife during this time.

Annie informed everyone she could reach. Near and far friends and relatives came to visit her to say goodbye. She would smile to the people she loved. At times she would make sounds reminiscent of words.

She had moments of huge physical discomfort, and she kept reaching upwardly with improbable strength trying to get out of the bed. Or maybe she was trying to grab hold of the universe and pull herself out of her body. Those were the moments that required medication to help her stay calm and serene.

Annie and I kept looking at her. I kept looking at Annie, an indefatigable love conduit for her mother.  Annie would look at me and say, “Where is she? Where is my Eema?”

For over five days we hardly ever slept. We camped on the couch and the chair around the hospital bed that was placed in the middle of the living room. She had a very distinctive smell. Not bad, just very specific (I can smell it now if I think about it). The sound of her labored breathing that shook her exhausted body with each inhale and exhale accompanied by the rhythmical oxygen machine was the score that Annie and I were constantly tuned into, asleep or awake.

Since Annie was a child she always said, “My nightmare is the day my mother dies.” Yet, Annie has been extraordinary as her mother’s health started to fade away. Instead of refusing to accept it, she got closer to her mother. She took charge, she helped her father and older brother deal and accept it. She coordinated all the practical, medical and social things necessary to make the last year of her Eema’s life the best it could be.

And Eema knew how fortunate she was to have Annie as her daughter.

As we were assisting Eema around her bed, Annie chanted, invited dear friends to sing for her mother, meditated. She laid in the hospital bed with her unconscious mother, talked to her incessantly, knowing that the sense of hearing is the last to go. She kept whispering to her “I love you, you can go now, everything’s good, go to the light…” She made sure that everyone that Eema loved came to visit her, she surrounded her with the pictures of the people Eema loved, she tuned the television to the shows she loved. She poured love and care constantly, relentlessly, for her beloved mother.

Until, Tuesday night Eema took her last breath and she passed. Six of us were there with her and it was an extraordinary moment of liberation. My hand was on her heart, Annie was caressing and kissing her face whispering words of love and relief and she closed her eyes. Her ninety year old husband, Joe, held her hand. Becky, the friend who originally introduced Eema to Joe. Melisa, Annie’s dear friend, and Magdalena, the caretaker. We were all filled with gratitude for her life, the end of suffering and the passage to the next stage of her existence.

Like Annie wrote, it was “profoundly beautiful.”

As we got busy doing the necessary practical things that follow the moment of death, I kept looking at Eema’s body. Without the heart pumping and the breath going in and out of her cells, it was as if her body became flat, I felt it 2-dimensional. It literally looked as if something essential had left.

Maybe that’s the answer. We are the breath. We are the breath within the breath. That’s where your Eema is, my love.

As we were driving home on Tuesday night Annie looked at me and said, “Now everything’s different.”

We accompanied Eema out of this life.

For this I’m forever different.

I’m forever more.

I’m forever grateful.

This is what Annie published the day after Eema’s passing:

And this is Annie’s blog, “Dear Eema.”

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We took our angel Lucy to the vet today. After nine miraculous months of extra life, tail wagging, and smiles, it finally became too uncomfortable for her and we helped her leave her beautiful little body.

I’d never done this before.

Lucy was my wife’s dog when Annie and I met, seven years ago. She is an integral part of our story, of our life and of us. She shared with us everything we did, from sailing, to traveling, to spending time watching television in bed (find out more in Lucy’s last blog post, “The Last Cookie.”) When it became obvious that her malfunctioning kidneys were making her too miserable, we had to make that choice.

I kept thinking, “Okay, I (we) now make this choice, and this being, as I know her now, will be gone.” I (we)  have the responsibility of stopping her earthly life. This angel that makes our life so beautiful and full of life and laughter, will stop because of a decision we make. This thought filled my heart with pain, even if I rationally understand that it’s better for Lucy. Who prefers pain, for ourselves or others, right?

Then there’s the whole, “This is the last time I see her,” or, “This is our last weekend together,” and all the “this is the last” thoughts we can have.   

For me the trickiest part is that I know what she’s got here, but I don’t really know what she’ll get, as a result of my (our) choice. What bothers me isn’t death. I became acquainted with death very early on in my life and accepted it as life itself.

What bothers me is the fact that we don’t really know what’s what. All we can do is live our entire life as an act of pure faith. Even agnostics live on faith, the faith in their belief that nothing else exists other than the material world and what we can intellectually comprehend. But they too don’t really know. They can only have faith in their belief. 

For this reason (that we all exist on faith) I believe life is holy and we are all heroes.

I believe that there’s an energy place where our spirits, our souls exist above and beyond our bodies. This energy place is the source and the destination of all life as we know it and life as we don’t know it. I also believe that we can experience that energy field. But that’s the best I can do, believe. I don’t know.  

When I was looking at our angel Lucy today I felt she was my hero because she was going to experience that transition by herself. Annie and I were there with her. We enveloped her with our love. But she was going to experience her transition by herself. And the feeling of her solitude in that moment wringed my heart and tears wouldn’t stop running. (The only thing more painful than that is to see my wife in pain.)

Annie was singing and talking to her, I kept telling her, “I love you, puppy,” as the solution mixed in her blood. I kept looking into her eyes, until the vet felt her heart and said, “She’s passed.” 

I was so confused. Her body was still warm, her eyes still open. I put my hand on her and felt her stillness. I wasn’t sure what had happened, because nothing significant had happened, compared to the magnitude of what I was feeling in my heart.

So I kept holding my hand on her body, in disbelief. I didn’t feel that she had left.

Annie and I went home where Lucy is everywhere in the silence that surrounds us. Her absence is deafening.

Luckily we are okay feeling everything that we have to feel, because we know that this makes our hearts bigger, ready for more love.

Until, at a specific moment I felt something very clear in my heart. Like something went off and these words formed in my mind, “She left” (her body), and I felt joy. Even if for a moment, I felt happiness. And if I don’t think of how much I miss her, I can feel that joy.

As I write these words everything feels unreal. I feel lucky for having had Lucy in my life. It’s another thing I’m grateful and thankful to Annie.

The pure love and pure life that our angel brought to us is a privilege that stays with us forever.

Thank you Lucy. I love you, puppy, our angel.

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I said, “What a beautiful day, I love the sun!”

My father said, “Let’s see if it lasts. Usually when we get out the fog fills in.”

And I thought, “If we get a sunny day you don’t deserve it, Dad.”

Cynical is not my thing.

Being cynical feels to me like a sin toward life, God and everything that is good and positive.

I’ve been asked, “What tools do you use to help you be positive? Don’t tell me it’s just a ten minute meditation, or affirmations, it can’t be as simplistic as that. What do you actually do?”

What I do, for whatever it is I’m working on, is exactly the things that are minimized in the question. It is simplistic, as they say, but it ain’t easy.

I meditate five minutes every morning, I listen to affirmations anytime I can and I state affirmations as often as necessary. I end and begin each day affirming what I care for and being grateful for what I have. Anytime someone says or does something that feels negative or against my vision, I either say something to correct it, possibly in a light and humorous way, or I immediately disconnect.

But the simple truth is this. I choose to be positive, every moment of every day, as best I can. Because it is a choice, it is only mine to make and it is my responsibility.

People say, “Yes it is a choice, but…”

The “but” tells me that they think there’s an external solution. There isn’t. It’s all up to me. Because even the meditations, the affirmations and everything else that I do are just actions that result from my choice to be positive and to move in a certain direction.

And there’s nothing simpler. Sometimes it’s not easy, but it sure is simple. I hear a negative thought in my head, I state the opposite and I keep repeating it until I get busy doing something or the negative thought is gone.

It requires desire, belief, passion and determination, continuously. Until it becomes second nature. And it is absolutely worth it.

Imagine what would’ve happened if some of the great heroes of our history were cynical.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed… unless it’s inconvenient.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural speech, “Only thing we have to fear is fear itself…but a tyrant is pretty scary too, a bully, and I know many of you are terrified of public speaking.”

Steve Jobs, Stanford University commencement speech, “Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life… unless, of course you want them to pay your bills, then to heck with your dreams.”

Which speech do you want to give?

You can be cynical about having $10 million in the bank.  You can be cynical about falling in love. You can be cynical about a sunny day.

You can be cynical, it’s your choice. Go ahead. See how life turns out.

You may say, “Based on my experience it’s hard not to be cynical…”

But being cynical is not a subconscious reflex, like the beating of your heart. It’s your choice to be cynical. Your thoughts can be changed. You can choose which thoughts you want to think. You can.

I highly recommend choosing belief and positivity.

See how life turns out.

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Whether you hated it, loved it (because you could eat everything that’s forbidden) or you didn’t care for it, it was clear that you were in hypoglycemia.

Fast forward one or several decades of life with diabetes. Now, for some reason, you’ve lost the capacity to detect most, if not all, your low blood sugar levels. These are some of the things that happened to me. Maybe some of them are familiar to you too.

I found myself driving (car or motorcycle) with my glucose level ridiculously low, and, even if I got to destination, I didn’t remember how I got there. Other times I found myself in places I didn’t remember driving to.

I started mumbling on the job or during business meetings, repeating things without finishing sentences, or going off on tangents. Everyone who’s not aware of my diabetes thought I was drunk or high. (Someone got curious about what kind of drug I might’ve been on.)

I found myself shifting from happy to angry or sad, while with friends, or family.

While playing a sport, my coordination went out, my reflexes got slow, I became silent and passive, I made mistakes, but I didn’t say anything.

I woke up soaked in sweat, my PJs and linens drenched, I couldn’t talk. Sometimes I couldn’t even walk and I had to crawl to the kitchen for sugar.

Not aware of my descending sugar level, I fell to the ground during my morning yoga and went into a seizure.

In these and other situations I was unaware of my low blood glucose level and I just kept going, until I either took glucose, carbs or sugar, or I fell in hypoglycemic coma.

What happened that made me become unaware of hypoglycemia and its symptoms? Well, very simply, I just got used to being in hypoglycemia.

This is the case for the majority of people with hypoglycemia unawareness (unless the cause is autonomic neuropathy).

This happens frequently when we tend to keep our blood sugar levels in a tight and low range, which easily creates frequent low blood glucose levels. The more we experience hypoglycemia the more we become used to it. Our brain learns to function at low sugar levels, and we bypass the symptoms. (For a clinical explanation of how hypoglycemia unawareness works you can find a good explanation here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetic_hypoglycemia#Hypoglycemic_unawareness.) The more we do this, the more unaware we become, until we place our life, and sometimes other people’s life, in danger.

Is our awareness gone forever? No (in most cases). More importantly, we can do things to turn the awareness switch back on. How much hypoglycemia awareness can be restored depends on several factors. But even a slight increase in awareness can make a life changing difference, for the person with diabetes and everyone around them. (There’s even been a program that has scientifically proven that hypoglycemia awareness can be reactivated, the Blood Glucose Awareness Training, or BGAT.)

Here are five things I did that restored my hypoglycemia awareness.

1. For three months, I raised my optimal range higher than I was used to, from 70-140mg/dl to 80-180mg/dl. I agreed that I wouldn’t take insulin until my blood glucose level went over 180. I was very afraid of pushing my A1C to a high level, as a result of this adjustment. But the fact that it was going to be temporary made it doable for me. Getting used to having higher blood glucose levels is essential to restoring hypoglycemia awareness. It doesn’t have to continue forever, just as long as the body re-learns to secrete epinephrine and other substances to create the symptoms and for our brain to relearn to detect them.
2. I made an agreement with my wife (you can do it with anyone you live with whom you trust to have your best interest at heart). I looked at my wife in the eyes, shook her hand and said, “We both want my health to be at its best. As soon as I feel, see or hear the signs of hypoglycemia I immediately take action and compensate for it. If you tell me to do it, I will follow your direction.” Point 1. and 2. were recommended by my diabetes nurse, and they worked like magic. Particularly at night, when often I have not listened to my wife telling me to check my blood glucose level or take glucose, because I was in a dream-like state and I didn’t think it was necessary.
3. I said a mantra (I basically made the same agreement with myself). The mantra is, “As soon as I feel, see or hear the signs of hypoglycemia I immediately take action and compensate for it.” For the first three months I said the mantra three times as soon as I woke up, three times before falling asleep and anytime during the day when I remembered to do it. This also worked like magic. Anytime I feel that I might be slacking off on awareness, I repeat the mantra, and my hypoglycemia sensors are reactivated.
4. I took note of any “new symptoms” of hypoglycemia. After decades of life with diabetes the symptoms might change a little bit, and you might get some specific ones that I don’t get, and vice-versa. For example, I’m an actor and memorizing lines is an integral part of my work. Anytime I feel my lines are slipping, I now know to check my blood glucose level. Also, anytime my mood swings, there’s a good chance my blood glucose level is low, or getting low (or high, or rising). If I keep thinking that I should say something, but I don’t say it, there’s a great chance I’m low or on my way to a low. If thoughts are looping in my mind, it’s likely I’m in or getting to hypoglycemia. If I walk back and forth (in the kitchen for example) with thoughts looping in my brain, without really doing anything, I’m definitely low. And so on and so forth for other situations.The important thing is, take note of these behaviors (make a mental or written note, whatever is more effective for you). Thus doing your brain will become aware and alert you next time you experience one of them, and you will connect it to “I’m in hypoglycemia, I need to compensate for it.”
5. Do anything that increases your awareness. For example keep a log of mood swings, mind confusion, lack of coordination, sweat, and similar in connection with blood sugar levels. You can do it with pen and paper or with an app or device that makes it fun for you.Having a continuous blood glucose monitoring system (CGM) also helped restore hypoglycemia awareness. Not in and of itself, but because I continuously compared my awareness of how I am feeling with the levels and trends shown. Often the CGM system is wrong and I found myself saying, “I don’t feel low now,” or “It shoes 140, but I’m feeling low.” Sure enough, I checked with a blood meter and 99% of the times I was right.Something that’s fun and has great impact on my awareness is to guess what my sugar level is, anytime before checking it. Either high or low, I guess what I feel my glucose level is and then compare it with the actual number. This has been very effective for my awareness and its accuracy.

These are five tools that restored my hypoglycemia awareness. They will help you increase your awareness by connecting “how you feel” to your blood glucose levels.

Now I feel the hypoglycemia eight times out of ten in perfect timing, and the remainder twenty percent of the time I still feel it, just slightly delayed, but never when it’s at a dangerous level.

After the first three months I continued with the higher range set for a few more months. Now I brought it back to where it used to be. With my restored awareness I can keep my A1C around 5.6% without any dramatic or dangerous hypoglycemic events.

The most important thing is to want to switch your awareness back on and to be consistent and honest with yourself in doing the work. There’s not a lot of work required, but the pay-off is big.

This has been really good for me, when by myself, with friends, or on the job. My increased awareness has drastically improved our family life. My wife and I feel a lot safer and trusting.

Very importantly, as soon as I slack off with my nutrition, insulin and overall diabetes management, I have to go through the process again and reactivate my awareness. Not as much work as the first time, but certainly the mantras, the simple awareness tools and a new determination to keep my levels, nutrition and physical activity in check. Like everything else, it’s a work in progress.

Even though it worked very well for me, make sure to first check with your doctor and diabetes team, and coordinate with them based on your specific lifestyle and condition. If you decide to try it, I hope it generates positive results for you too. I wish you all the best and I look forward to hearing about your experience.

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(*) Based on the original version of this article appeared on Diabetes Daily Post on 3/27/2014.

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