Transformative Fasting

Fasting can bring awareness growth and healing in ourselves and our relationships. It is no wonder many health and spiritual fields invite us to engage in periods of fasting. We are promised longer life, more vitality, more clarity, freedom, holiness, awareness. Yet one element of fasting I’ve been noticing in my conversations and reflections is it’s healing property for our own relationship wounds.

Fasting sometimes begins as “giving something up” or withholding something from our lives with the sole focus being the sacrifice itself. This is a very important element and has great fruit. Yet, we must go deeper. When fasting and sacrifice leads to noticing and then changed action within ourselves and our relationships, this is where it can have a real healing effect. For in fasting, the absence creates space to observe what happens when that element is no longer in our lives. It creates space to notice what feels challenging and why, where and why is there an empty feeling, what does the absence trigger or unveil?  And it is in what we shift or do with this awareness that can have real and lasting growth and healing – making fasting transformative and not just performative. Some examples of how this works…

*Giving up the morning coffee or tea. Fasting from this could point out our need for an automatic routine, thirst for an energy boost, seeking a small comfort. Detachment could positively lead to more time, more money, experiencing and surviving for a time discomfort and fatigue. Pairing those needs with what is now available can help us understand the shifts that we can perhaps makes that would have transformative healing. Extra money may invite generosity (sharing money and time with others that instead would have been used standing in line and purchasing that morning drink) and compassion (experiencing solidarity with those that often experience discomfort and fatigue). This can have a healing effect on the wounds of scarcity, never enough, grasping and holding. In sharing generosity, in offering compassion, we heal others, but also remind ourselves that we have much to offer, that we are enough to help others, and that our kindness and compassion can also be shared with ourselves.

*Choosing not to scroll or post on social media. Fasting from this could point out our needs for connection, excitement, validation. Detachment positively leads to more time, space to think and focus on present life and people, less comparison and more contentment. Again, pairing the needs with what is now available can help us see the needed shifts that can heal. Wanting to connect in the absence of virtual connections can lead to more presence and intention with those individuals in front of us, noticing our need for validation in the absence of constant comparison leads to contentment throughout our internal and external lives. This can have a healing effect on those wounds of being seen, known, and loved by intentionally connecting with others, sharing and receiving true affirmation and acknowledgement.

This way of fasting to bring healing can be applied to whatever behavior, habit, automatic go-to we are stepping away from. How?

Steps:

1.    Fast: Use a Fast to step away from those items or behaviors that have become routine and automatic; Use the Fast to make space to peer into my life.

2.    Notice: Notice the heightened awareness into what is really happening with those items or behaviors (look deeper) – why does that behavior keep happening? Why do I reach for that comfort so often? What am I trying to distract from?

3.    Shift: Think about how both the awareness and space give me a freedom to act or choose differently – personally and in relationships.

4.    Act: In what relationship can I choose to share this freedom? How can I show up differently? How can I try something new?

5.    Return: When I show up differently, notice what changes inside of my mind and heart and in turn, how does this then heal or help that part of me?

I often tell the women and families that I work with, “When we are wounded in relationships, we must heal in relationships.” Looking deeper at our fasting practices and what emerges allows us to see our own hurts and wounds that perhaps began in our relationships, and then provides resources for us to then relate differently and in turn help others, and also heal those parts of ourselves.

Fasting is meant to be transformative, not just performative. When we look at fasting through this lens, go deeper, allow it to inform and direct our presence and actions in relationships, not only do we help others, but can improve the relationship and in turn,  heal ourselves.