“Making the word of God of none effect
through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do
ye.”
Mark 7:13
The holiday
season is all about traditions. Families build their own, everything from the
food to the decorations to the outings.
Traditions
can be wonderful. However, seen through the prism of eating disorder rituals,
they can be imprisoning.
“Rituals
are both a tactic not to eat and also a piece of obsessionality associated with
anorexia. When eating disorders are starting, people will try to make it look
like they are eating by cutting things up and shifting food around on the plate
so as to not draw attention to how little they are eating.”
Cynthia
Bulik, PhD, eating disorder specialist at the University of North Carolina-
Chapel Hill
Traditions,
rituals- it all represents the same unrealistic expectation: perfection and a
sense of safety.
These
rituals can be anything: counting to a specific number how many times one chews
his/her food before swallowing, meticulously counting calories or eating from
the same bowl and spoon, in example. There’s an exacting precision attached to
keeping these behaviors- and a dreadful fear if one is unable to do so.
It certainly
doesn’t make the holiday season very joyful. And God has desired abundance for
us:
“…I am come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly.”’
John 10:10
Furthermore,
God has given us freedom to choose:
“All things are lawful for me, but all things
are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.”
1
Corinthians 10:23
“All
things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are
lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”
For someone
struggling with disordered eating, however, that’s easier read than lived.
Yet, if we
face our own truth about why we do what we do, fully aware of perfection’s
demanding and impossible nature, we can ease up on ourselves and be fully
present with the holidays as they occur.
“It may be helpful to
realize that the "picture-book" holiday sense is not a reality for
many people. Some cannot afford it, there are many single people who are not
close to their families or do not have a family, and there are many families
that do not fit into the dominant cultural model of "family". Do not
blame yourself for family or friendship conflicts. People are not different
during the holidays than any other time of the year. Remember that you are
responsible only for your own actions and for taking care of yourself.”
NEDIC Bulletin: Vol. 7, Coping With
the Holidays
National Eating Disorder Information Centre
(NEDIC)
And that’s
more powerful and life-giving than any
ritual!
Copyright © 2021 by
Sheryle Cruse
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