Dear Wildflowers,
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you, whether or Irish or not, may it bring you some luck this week because we could all use that!
I happen to be Irish, my maiden name being DeLaney, and while I do not partake in a day of drunken festivities, I do love to spend the day touching in with what I personally love and think about what it means to “be” Irish. For example, I love fairies and folklore and the art of Irish storytelling, so my daughter and I love to clean up and rebuild our fairy house after not really paying much attention to it all winter. I also love Irish music so without a doubt, it’s been playing all day. And naturally, I already have some Shepherd’s pie in the making for dinner tonight.
I didn’t always care about or connect with my Irish heritage. There was a long time when I even rolled my eyes at it, as I come from a big Irish family who wouldn’t let you forget who our ancestors were, except when you’re young and a kid, you often try to do the exact opposite of what your elders tell you to do, or not do. So for a long while, I forgot and then when I turned 40, I discovered that I really did want to know more about the people and culture from which much of my family originates.
But in truth, I’m not aiming to write about being Irish today. It more has me thinking about identity and how often we are taught that who we are is a fixed entity. Depending on the messages we receive when we are young, we may believe that who we are is what we are born into. As we develop and receive messages and feedback we begin to develop that sense of ourselves which can be received by others with love and care but also rejected and questioned, sometimes even by ourselves.
What does this have to do with eating disorder recovery? In many ways, doing the work of recovery is a lot about re-discovering ourselves. There is also a part that is about figuring out who we are without the eating disorder. This can feel incredibly scary, vulnerable and all the other feelings that we tend to not want to feel. However, something that I have had to remind myself often is that when I am the most afraid of entering into a new relationship with myself is that as comfortable as I may have been with what was, it was never a fixed thing. And, I can choose to keep with me or even re-invite parts of myself back again whenever I wish to so nothing is ever lost even if it does morph.
I believe wholeheartedly that the healthy/soul self is what heals the eating disorder self. Therefore it’s not that that part of me goes away completely, but it did find a way to shift into a part of me that knows and believes that I am worthy of nourishment, care, love, compassion, healing, respect, confidence, body acceptance and all the things that prior to this metamorphosis, my eating disorder worked so hard against. I liken it to my discovery of my Irish-ness because it’s true that while I have always had Irish blood running through me, my relationship with it as an identity has shifted over the years. We know that there are very real genetic and environmental/cultural aspects to eating disorders, but neither of those things determine our relationship with it forever and ever and always.
If we believe that we are always becoming, then we can begin to let go of the stronghold that keeps us tied to who we think we “should” or are “supposed” to be, or even the idea that “this is just who and how I am”. To me, now, choosing and working on who and how I am is the most exciting thing about life. While once it was the most overwhelming thing in the world, recovery has taught me that because no part of me is “fixed” and all of me gets to continue to grow, I get to now wake up each and every day and design and cultivate who it is I want to work on becoming. It’s not always perfect, I don’t always succeed, but I will wake up the next day and do it again and again and again because that is a big part of what makes life so beautiful. The discovery of it all. And perhaps that is the greatest gift of recovery…learning the skill of how to turn it into discovery with an open heart and curious spirit.
I will leave you this week with a poem from poet and the 9th President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins:
Take Care – Michael D Higgins
In the journey to the light,
the dark moments
should not threaten.
Belief
requires
that you hold steady.
Bend, if you will,
with the wind.
The tree is your teacher,
roots at once
more firm
from experience
in the soil
made fragile.
Your gentle dew will come
and a stirring
of power
to go on
towards the space
of sharing.
In the misery of the I,
in rage,
it is easy to cry out
against all others
but to weaken
is to die
in the misery of knowing
the journey abandoned
towards the sharing
of all human hope
and cries
is the loss
of all we know
of the divine
reclaimed
for our shared
humanity.
Hold firm.
Take care.
Come home
together.
And for my clients…