I just got back from the Netherlands. I went as a speaker in Novo Nordisk’s 5th DAWN Summit. Doctors, patients, psychologists, policy-makers and researchers gathered from 33 countries for two days of idea-generation and planning how to improve the lives of people with diabetes. I met wonderful people equally committed to help people with diabetes live fuller, healthier, happier lives, including a noted Dutch psychologist, Frans Pouwer, who hearing of my Flourishing Approach now wants to research it.

While in the Netherlands, I was also invited to speak to the leadership team of AstraZeneca, NL. AstraZeneca acquired Bristol-Myers Squibb and now diabetes is one of their largest market sectors. 

For the past few years I’ve been noticing, increasingly, we live in a time I’d call “The Rise of the Patient.” As patients, we are leaders in our own right living with an illness, and many of us have insights and capacities to help transform healthcare delivery for chronic illnesses. My own work toward that is sharing with health professionals how to work from a Flourishing Approach, as opposed to the traditional Coping Approach. And for people with illness, to live from the same orientation. I shared the Approach with Ginger Vieira in this recent post, “From Coping to Flourishing: How a Better Mindset Can Transform Health.”

Every year since I’ve been working in diabetes I’ve said, “I’m in the first year of my 20-year overnight success.” Of course each year it increases by one. Now I am in the twelfth year of my 20-year overnight success – and I feel the traction: of my own success, of the power of the patient and of minds opening to the idea that we have to do chronic illness differently. Actually, I have been sharing the Flourishing Approach over the past several years at various conferences e.g. the American Association of Diabetes Educators’, TCOYD, DiabetesSisters and each time I am met with enthusiasm and respect.

In the past few months I have received many opportunities to share the Flourishing Approach and its tools around the world. In December in Melbourne, Australia at the IDF World Congress, where I addressed 134 Young Leaders in Diabetes on behalf of Novo Nordisk.  A few weeks later, at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney where I addressed the endocrinology department.  

In January I spent 18 days in Bangalore, India where I gave six classes and workshops to health professionals at the Jnana Sanjeevini Medical Center, a diabetes clinic for the poor. I have also addressed more than 200 medical professionals at two premiere hospitals in Singapore. Two years ago I gave a workshop for health  providers of the Pascua Yaqui tribe. It was held over two days and the second day patients joined providers and together barriers dropped, communication opened and both saw a new space open in front of them.  

In March of this year I presented the Flourishing Approach to the Telehealth group of NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation. There a staff of committed nurse/coaches speak weekly to people with diabetes in need of help. They, like all I have spoken to, have been delighted to hear this more positive approach and are interested in applying it in their coaching practice with patients.  

I have written a number of articles on this approach. “A Flourishing Approach to Mental Health in Patients with Diabetes” in last summer’s issue of the peer-reviewed On the Cutting Edge. Two recent articles on The Huffington Post include, “Chronic Illness’ Opportunity for Patients and Providers” and “The Antidote to Living With Diabetes.” There will shortly be an upcoming article on Sanofi DX. And now I feel fully confident that I have enough research, tested the waters and seen everywhere I present this new framework/lens and way of working and living, providers and patients have only wanted more. 

So this year I will be writing my next and fourth book on flourishing with diabetes. It will provide the understanding of a flourishing framework and how – and why – we need to treat people with chronic illness differently than we do today. Moving from problem- to solution-focused. To look at what’s working instead of what isn’t, work from a trusted partnership, be compassionate, see the whole person and understand the context within which they live, not merely micro-manage the disease. 

We must offer hope and possibilities, knowing the power of both and that there is post-traumatic growth, not only post-traumatic stress. We must explore patients’ strengths and resilience, as we help them move toward a healthy, happy, vigorous, robust and purposeful life.

For twelve years I have said, “You can have a great life, not despite, but because of diabetes.” Because people shared with me this is how they were living. 

We can open a doorway to a new space to be with patients, and a new space for people with illness to be in, where coping is not the target or the answer, but flourishing is. 

It is time.