March 2022
A question I ask clients all the time is “What purpose is this serving for you?”- “This” being whatever addiction, eating disorder, negative coping habit, or rut they are stuck in. It is a question that stumps at first, then induces anger, and eventually leads to a real deep look at what this thing is doing for my life.
As a teen and young adult, I battled anorexia.I asked this same question of myself in eating disorder recovery. The answer, for me, was that the eating disorder was protecting me from having to fully engage in a life that had been very chaotic and difficult. Anorexia gave me something to control: my body. Anorexia was my god, for a long time.
I did recover, sort of. But I held onto certain aspects of the eating disorder because life was still too chaotic and scary to engage in without some semblance of control. My second attempt at recovery began when a friend who had also struggled with an eating disorder said: “I realized that God gave me this temple to live in, that He dwells in as well, and I could no longer desecrate it with my eating disorder.” That hit home hard, and eventually I returned to treatment and finally let go of the eating disorder.
The thing about needing control in this sometimes scary life is that we may let go of maladaptive behaviors….but we usually take on others, until we figure out the real reason we need this constant sense of control. I am learning this now as I struggle to do things I want to do, as I hide and procrastinate and play small and don’t take risks and don’t move forward- how is this behavior serving me? It is keeping me in my comfort zone. Which, I should say, is incredibly UNcomfortable. But, it’s what I know, so therefore it is where I stay.
I got really angry at myself for keeping myself in this small, suffocating place. I realized that I am STILL having to ask myself the question “What purpose is this serving for you?” THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS THE SAME. And I realized that the only way out of this current small space I have crammed myself into is by taking a sledgehammer to it. I am no longer willing to serve gods other than GOD. I am no longer willing to stifle myself for any reason, or to not dare to dream or DO because of what people might think or because I feel like I am not good enough.
This Lent, I am giving up my gods and giving it all to God. I am stepping out of this tiny space and moving forward no matter how afraid I am. I KNOW what purpose all this turmoil has served me, but it isn’t serving me anymore.
What purpose is your stuff serving for you?
