Fasting from Attachments
In the last post, we discussed the Lenten practice of almsgiving in the context of reaching out to others with the gift of ourselves. In this post, I want to talk about another key Lenten practice, fasting. Fasting has waxed and waned in popularity over the years in the health and dieting realm. Different fasting strategies have been purported to help with weight management. Many patients fast from certain types of food to try to effect specific medical goals, for instance, to manage blood sugar in diabetes or to reduce salt for high blood pressure. Heck, scientific research has even suggested that fasting increases lifespan and overall health…at least in mice!
Aside from health purposes, could fasting play another important role for us? The fasting that I am referring to is not strictly fasting from food, but something broader…fasting from attachments. Attachments are those connections to things that keep us, well, attached. Some attachments are good, like those attachments to family or old friends or the town where we were born. But many of our attachments hold us back, and lock us into a trapped kind of mindset that prevents us from being better people and from continuing to grow.
Patients with cancer and other chronic illnesses are well aware of the need to let go of attachments. All those plans have to be put on hold. That long-awaited bucket list vacation you had booked, or that big event that you had been looking forward to…now no longer possible due to side effects from chemotherapy, such as risk of infection from low blood counts. Or desperately wanting to wear your own hair to your high school reunion, but realizing that a wig or head-scarf (or skipping the reunion altogether) are the only options.
There are so many things that we hold on to so tightly. Our identity defined by our career or social status. Our childrens’ accomplishments. Our homes or cars or toys. Our looks or clothes or jewelry. Our bank accounts or retirement portfolios. Our memories of times past, good or bad. Or worse, our desire to control things, especially the way other people behave or how the future plays out.
Practically speaking, it is virtually impossible to rid ourselves of all unhealthy attachments. It is more reasonable to try to fast from these intermittently as we are able. This is the basis of the practice of “giving up something for Lent” or abstaining from eating meat on Fridays. Albeit, there is likely something better that we can do than temporarily avoiding candy before Easter, or trading meat for a lobster tail on Fridays.
Why bother? Why give up anything that I don’t have to? Perhaps because there could be real benefits that are not so apparent at first glance. Fasting can be painful, but it might lead to a clearer sense of things, a more realistic view of what is truly important and necessary in our lives. It can cleanse the clutter from our minds and homes and schedules. It can aid our ability to make tough decisions and see a path forward (or at least trust that the path forward will become more evident when we get there). Fasting from attachments may even lead to a feeling of freedom, of a weight lifted. To awaken to the realization that the things we thought we could never give up and still be happy, are actually the attachments that are holding us back from the deeper peace and simpler joy that we all truly seek. In this way, fasting from attachments can help purify the soul.
Maybe think about some attachment in your life that is holding you back. Something that you can’t possibly do without or have a really hard time letting go of. Lent is almost over…what might you be willing to fast from for the next few weeks?
