New Beginnings Module 3: Understanding Your Emotions | Diabetes

overview

Discussion time: 45-60 minutes

• The emotional impact of diabetes
• Healthy Coping Strategies
• Diabetes and depression

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Identify at least three positive coping strategies.
• Identify at least five signs of depression.

resource:

Recommended Stories

Yvonne's story: Yvonne shares her story of finding out she has type 2 diabetes and overcoming denial to make lifestyle choices to manage her diabetes (audio: approx. 4 mins).

Lysynthia and Terry's story: LyCynthia and Terry talk about the importance of family support in managing diabetes (audio: approximately 4 minutes).

Key messages

It's normal to experience a range of emotions when you have diabetes.

Acknowledging your emotions is an important first step, and you can do this by pausing throughout your day to check in with how you're feeling.

Healthy coping strategies help people with diabetes manage their emotions and adopt actions that support healthy behaviors.

When you're under stress, you can develop healthy coping strategies by adjusting the way you think, feel, and act in your daily life. It's also important to ask for help when you need it.

It's important to recognize the signs of depression and seek help if necessary.

Recommended Connection Threads

Virtualization Tips

Spend a few minutes at the beginning of your session explaining the capabilities of your video conferencing platform and the ground rules for your virtual session. For example:

• Mute your video or phone when you're not speaking.
• State your name before speaking (especially on the phone).
• Participants are not required to use video cameras, and if they are more comfortable with a video camera they can use a photo of themselves instead.

Instead of having participants work in pairs for the activities in this module, use the breakout rooms feature in your video conferencing platform (if available), or go around the “room” and ask each participant to share with the whole group.

Promoting new beginnings online Ideas for adapting activities for virtual groups: The video story in this module can be played by sharing your screen (and computer audio).

Another option is to share a link to the video with group members before the session begins. A new beginning PowerPoint Templates There are also images that reflect the story.