A Skeptic Fasts

does this ancient practice still have something to teach us?

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

If you grew up in the church, you probably endured countless teachings about “the flesh versus the spirit.” It’s one of my least favorite apostles’ favorite old saws. The teachings often went like this: your body is BAD. Your heart? Also BAD. Don’t trust the things you want! Don’t follow your intuition! Just listen to the Bible! And by Bible, I mean my own very narrow, possibly out-of-context interpretation, aka, the one true way.

Thanks, I hate it!

There are many problems with this reading of flesh-vs-spirit: the way it demonizes pleasure and attempts to divorce the body and the brain. The way it idealizes “logic” over “emotion,” which often carried shades of sexism (because men, as we all know, are logical, and women are drama queen hormone monsters.) This teaching also leaves us wide open to manipulation and abuse by those in power.

So, yeah, I don’t love these interpretations. A lot of my recovery from fundamentalism has been learning to listen to my body and embrace pleasure. I don’t want to be governed by externally imposed religious rules, but I’ve also realized I don’t want to be governed solely by pleasure, either. Because habituation, but also because I don’t love how our capitalist culture is always pushing us to pursue pleasure by constantly consuming. Think fast fashion, think the constant push to replace our phones and cars and kitchen countertops even when the old models are perfectly functional. This is bad for our wallets, bad for workers, and bad for the planet. But it can be hard to resist the slick marketing we’re stewing in, where every “problem” can only be solved by buying more.

Is self-control the answer? Is that what the letters of Paul were actually trying to move us toward? And if so, how do we get there? I’m starting to think the answer may be fasting.

This month I’m doing Dry January, I’m trying to eat less sugar, and on top of all that, I decided to try a 24-hour fast. It ended up being more like 23.5 because I wanted to eat dinner with my kids. During my fast I drank tea, water, and coffee, because hydration is next to godliness and giving up both caffeine and food in the same day seemed like a recipe for me becoming a total bitch.

I expected that my hanger would get the better of me during the fast—I have been known to lose it when lunch is late, and I tend to stash nuts and granola bars around like some kind of squirrel. But I was pleasantly surprised by how hard it wasn’t. Yes, I was hungry at points, (though not constantly) and yes, I felt pretty sleepy from 2pm on, but these feelings were totally manageable. Could it be that my annoying mindfulness practice is actually paying off?

Maybe. Since the end of December, I’ve been using the Eat Right Now app, which is an evidence-based mindfulness curriculum to help curb unhealthy eating habits like sugar binges. (And no, this is not a sponsored post.) One thing the app has taught me is the difference between “resisting” a craving and “riding it out.” Resisting a craving means identifying with the craving while simultaneously trying not to feel that way. Riding out the craving is noticing it with mindful attention while recognizing that the craving is not in control. Maybe the difference is obvious to you, but it kind of blew my mind. As I grew hungry during my fast, I noticed and validated my hunger, then reminded myself that I would eat in the evening. And I got through it without screaming at any of my loved ones!

By the end of the day, I felt kind of like a superhero. (Is this what you weirdos mean by “type 2 fun?”) It felt like an accomplishment, like proof that I didn’t need to be held hostage by my cravings, whether it was for chocolate or cheap crap on Temu. It proved that my bad habits are not a life sentence.

Part of why I think this fast was so useful was that it was something I chose to do. It wasn’t externally imposed by a pastor or guru. And the more I think about it, the more I realize self-control is not a lesson you can inflict on someone else. Maybe that’s the real problem with the flesh vs. spirit teaching. We can’t approach this issue from a position of telling others what to do, because that will mean substituting external control for self-control. You can shame someone into abstaining from premarital sex, but you can’t shame them into self-control around their sexual impulses. The church has tended to reward external signs of piety instead of focusing on harder-to-measure metrics like spiritual growth or attaining wisdom.

As for me, I think I will make fasting a regular part of my spiritual practice.
Maybe working it into the upcoming Lent? (Though Ash Wednesday is on Valentine’s Day this year, which, I don’t need to point out, is deeply unfair.) I think that self-control is a muscle I can work on, not as a way of shaming or punishing myself, but to get better at taking care of myself and others.

In a fitting twist, I drew “the devil” from my tarot deck this morning. According to Tarot and Tequila, this card asks, “What is holding you back from being your true best self? You may not see it now, but these things enslave you and force you to lie to yourself.”

from the “Tarot & Tequila” deck by David A. Ross

Would you ever want to try fasting? Is there an area of your life where you could use more self-control? Or is self-control just repression in disguise? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Have a friend who’s trying to break a bad habit this year? Why not share this post?

BONUS MATERIALS:

• My fav apps for cutting back on drinking and eating healthier (there’s also one for smoking cessation.)

• Love this quote from neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor: “Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but we are actually feeling creatures that think.”

• This post by Tom Pendergast on our modern obsession with metrics got me thinking about how we judge intangibles like wisdom and maturity. Is it even possible to measure the things that matter most?