Futility Sets in ... I Should Just Quit

Good Morning.

So this is the third day of my Lenten fast.

I gotta just say it: I'm not as excited about this fast as I was about my stumbled-upon two-week fast last fall. It was so scary and adventurous and could I do it? And I did it! And the blog helped me face my fears every day! And I loved it!!!!!

But now, I feel like ... this whole fasting thing ... I think it's a little extreme. I mean, 40 days? That's a really fucking long time, in case you hadn't already thought that same thought. And, it seems so severe. So harsh. It doesn't necessarily feel like I'm really loving myself. It feels more like I'm a masochist who has been given an AWESOME excuse to beat up on herself for a month or so.

The hunger pangs have not been bad, the initial feeling of sickness and the withdrawal headaches weren't so bad, either; mostly because I knew to expect them. I'm not even that frantic about drinking water this time; if I get thirsty, I drink. I'm not as proactive about the water and that could be the most dangerous part about this endeavor.

About half way through yesterday, I got thinking about this whole fasting thing, this whole "prove I'm as tough as Jesus" mentality, and I thought, "Well, this is just stupid. It's not loving to myself or my body. It's mean. It's harsh and mean and there's simply no point to it.

"I should just quit.

"Who even cares if I do it or not? It's not like I've got money riding on this thing. In truth, no one would be the wiser if I followed through on this or not."

But then I thought about how I'd feel if I did quit. I've been talking with you guys about this fast - I haven't been talking with people in my circle about it, just my blog audience - since last fall. But also, I've been talking with ME about it. And I realized, if I did just give up, I would totally hate myself. I would have really disappointed ... me.

As I do all of this self-exploration, I am realizing more and more that those random little thoughts that pop into my head, "You should do this now, you should do that now," are really little guided instructions. From my higher power, from my higher self - I don't know. I don't know that it matters from what or who they come. What I do know, is that there are times when I walk past someone, and in my head I hear like a line whispered to me, I have started to say those lines. And they have always ended up leading me to a fun, happy moment.

Now that I am starting to trust those little cues, I'm starting to believe the other cues I get internally - for example, last year I wanted to take a vacation to Connecticut, and when I said that, I got an image of the dates I should go in my head. I hemmed and hawed on asking off, I waited on getting my train tickets. But I did it. And it was great - the weather was wonderful, the fall leaves were gorgeous, as if they were at the peak of the season. The trip was so lovely. There were other elements of it that I got little suggestions to do that I ignored, that I realize now I was probably be guided to do, but didn't. It makes me wonder what I possibly missed out on.

These little instructions are carrying through with other parts of my life, too. With bigger decisions. With my job, for example. I keep getting this little whisper to interview at places that I just can't believe I'd be qualified for. But the whisper keeps prompting. And I know if it's something I need to do, it'll persist until I do it. Sounds a little kooky, I suppose; but it has proven to be true, also. I guess it would be good to just go with it, right when I hear it, just trust it and do it. But I don't. I let it beg me, in a way. I don't act until I am absolutely certain that it really wants me to do what it's telling me to do.

That might be a little masochistic, too.

Anyway, how all this relates to the fast is this: I have had it in my head to do this fast. Maybe the point of doing it is just that: that it's not as tough as I think. Or that the goal I set isn't ultimately important; it's that I set a goal and followed through. Or, that I can trust a planned execution of a project. I mean, really; if I can get through a 40 day fast, I really do feel I can get through just about anything. I can plan and execute anything. It's an important feat for me to do.

Yesterday, as I was contemplating quitting the fast after seeing some A-ma-zing looking dishes on line, it occured to me that I do not need to live a life in fasting mode. That's been a concern for me - how do I go back to eating normally? One of the stories I was reading on fasting said that fasting can lead to eating disorders, kind of a blending of anorexia and bulimia in that the faster is starving themselves (anorexia) for a specifice period of time. Like the binge mentality with bulimics, except its binging on nothing instead of something.

I read another article, one in which a guy fasted "for 30 odd days." He posted a blog bitching about fasting, how stupid it was, how he wasted away to nothing. He was already thin when he started, and posted a picture of how skinny he got. He lives on a raw food diet, and felt that fasting was just taking things too far.

His ideas pissed me off. At the same time, his preachy demeanor hit home. Afterall, isn't there a little part inside of me that feels superior for doing this? That I'm tough enough, where as others are not? That maybe I'm just like him, just with slightly differing viewpoints? He sounded like he was trying to convert people to his way of life. Well... I guess it's probably true that I'm trying to do that with this blog too.

What did bother me, is all this info that's on the web about fasting, or about nutrition, seems to me to be primarily theory. Afterall, the old-fashioned nutrition pyramid ... was invented by two guys who were healthy who said, well, everybody should just eat like us. All the stories on fasting - they were all "reporting," they all sounded like the reporter found a previous article and reiterated that info.

I was internally screaming, "Where is YOUR evidence??? What is YOUR experience with it?" Like the pudgy priest the other night, it enfuriated me. What is YOUR KNOWLEDGE BASE??? IS IT FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE? HAVE YOU TRIED IT????

Wow, I've really got some anger on that. I think to me, having grown up being told I don't need to know or experience certain things, I get a little riled up when someone tells me "fact" based on bullshit. To me, fact is personal experience.

So maybe I'll do this fast and wind up like that guy, proclaiming it to be bullshit. Well. Ok. Then at least I have a personal experience to back up my opinion. Maybe I'll come out of this feeling amazing and preaching the wonders of fasting to everyone. After all, I've been dabbling in this for the last few years now. I didn't just wake up and decide to do a two-week and now a forty-day fast without having had smaller realizations around the amount of food I really need to be consuming in the year or two prior.

If I may get on my soapbox (that's what these blogs should really be called; a BlogBox) here's my opinion having not yet completed the fast: everyone comes to everything when they are ready. And that's all there is to it. And it's not for me or anyone else to judge. So while it made me angry that that guy was bitching about a fast that (oops, a judgements coming) he couldn't even stay on for the complete 30 days, I also feel he shouldn't judge those who do find fasting helpful. He pissed me off because he said in the blog that he ate pretty healthily all the time, and he was already thing. Well, no shit you're going to get emaciated looking after 30 days without much food.

My opinion is that fasting can be a good way to break patterns or identify patterns. I do see the point about exacerbating eating disorder tendencies; I definitely went off the fast and right back to the shitting eating I was doing before. Although, that's just part of my experiment. :)

Bottom line is this: I am doing this fast in the name of setting a goal and honoring it. And - I am curious to see what 40 days looks like on just water. If nothing else, the good thing that came was that yesterday, when I found those recipes online, I was looking at it, and I said, "I think it would be good to just eat moderately." If we look at how I do things, I don't do anything steadily. Every aspect of my life is big, wide swings from one extreme to another. Stuffing myself full of food to fasting. Paying my bills on time to incurring debt. Being close with people and then pulling away.

Yesterday afternoon, when I realized that I do want to commit to this fast to which I promised myself, I thought, "Besides, I've only got 37 more days to go." And saying it like that, "37 days," seemed to me to be the equivalent of 37 minutes. Like, Oh, that's not much time; it's just a little over half an hour over the course of a lifetime. Nothing. I can wait half an hour to eat those delicious looking recipes.

Maybe this fast, for me, is to show me that a middle ground is OK. By the way, I actually counted the days until Easter, and it's 47. I grew up Catholic and never realized that the 40 days ended the week prior, with Palm Sunday. So, I'm clarifying it here: I have committed to the 40 days. I will do the 40 days. I might decide at that point, what's one more week, let's go til Easter. But my commitment was and is for only 40 days. Guess we'll see how it goes. Thanks for listening. Until next time.