Joy and Body Love in Abundance: Adar and Eating Disorder Awareness Week

Now that we are more grounded in our bodies, minds, and spirits, I want to introduce us briefly to a selection of Jewish texts that help us to understand:

- the various ways we as humans exist in this world;

- the way joy (and "Jewish joy" as I like to call it) manifest in Jewish texts;

- the ways this is uplifted and made complicated during the month of Adar and the holiday of Purim;

- and the ways we can embody this joy, in healthy doses, and with mindful practices.

This source sheet was created to honor this time on the Jewish calendar, and it coinciding with national Eating Disorder Awareness Week. This is put on by the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), Project Heal, and other organizations.

You do not have to be in recovery from an eating disorder to utilize this source, and to be in a space where this material is taught. It's a resource for everyone.

Eating Disorder Statistics via ANAD: https://anad.org/eating-disorders-statistics/

"The ancient kabbalists describe a system of Four Worlds—Assiyah/עֲשִׂיָּה (physical/world of action), Yetzirah/יְצִירָה (the heart/world of emotion), Beriah/בְּרִיאָה (the mind/world of intellect), and Atzilut/אֲצִילוּת (the intuitive world of spirit)—as a template for the divine world and the human experience...Aligning all of these worlds/levels in our self-care brings us to shlemut/wholeness and well-being."

Some ways to engage with these aspects of our selves include:

1. Grounding ourselves in text, such as with this source sheet.

2. Engaging in breath work/meditations that allows for physical, emotional, mental, and/or spiritual tranquility.

3. Using intuitive movement to "experience our bodies as a source of fluidity, playfulness, and joy."

R. Nachman was a 18th/19th century scholar and founder of the Breslov Hasidic* movement in Judaism.

These two texts create for many an unhealthy binary of binging on alcohol and food, and completely abstaining from food and drink.

As a person who does not engage in ritual fasting--and who practices mindful eating practices, particularly during the Jewish holidays--I admittedly do not find meaning in these practices.

I eat hamantaschen (Ashkenazi Jewish triangular filled-pocket pastry eaten on Purim; in Hebrew they're called אוזני המן oznei haman or "Haman's ears").

I eat my three meals and snacks throughout the day.

I boo at Haman's name.

I celebrate Esther's resilience and divine feminine inspiration.

This holiday helps to shape the entire month of Adar. As you can see, this joy can easily become complicated.

How do we work to seek this joy? Is it possible for us to seek this joy in the midst of internal/community/global darkness?

1. Have the group spend ~2-5 minutes in comfortable seats with their eyes closed (if that’s what feels best),

reflecting on the happiest moment or moments of their lives.

Consider playing some upbeat tunes from your adolescence during this moment to set the mood.

This can be about anything and for anyone! Sending happiness to others magnifies our own happiness. More is more is more. If it feels right, it can be a doodle, a poem, a thank you note, a list of puppies they saw recently that made them smile. At the end of five minutes, seal it up and folks can send those when they get home.

Additional Activity By And For Trans/Nonbinary Folks (though I welcome everyone to try this out as well!)

It’s a revolutionary act for trans and nonbinary folks to be happy and live their happiness out loud in a world that often tries to rob us of joy.

For trans/nonbinary folks—and everyone who wants to be brave about their gender! Consider adding the following exercise:

If this is feeling too hard, take care of yourself. Write a note about all the ways you can be a caretaker for you. (Examples: Your favorite steaming cup of tea, made just the way you like it. A warm comforter and cold pillow. A lap cat purring during a rainstorm.)

Regarding Ability Modifications:

For folks for whom writing is a pain (literally) or inaccessible, this activity can be modified so that it is done by typing lists, or voice recorded if the Circle is meeting on Zoom and everyone will be muted. If meeting in person, either spread out in the space enough so that everyone has a little more privacy (the person or people who will be using the voice recorders should not be the only folks outside of the Circle).

"But everyone has an opinion on fatness and when we acknowledge that, as Indigenous people, we live in a world where one of our most notorious foods — that frybread though — was developed out of food rations given to us by colonial governments, fatness is inherently tied to colonial structures and fatness is seen as undesirable by colonial people...

It's constant talk about how decolonial diets mean better health aka slimmer bodies.

"In some ways these two perspectives of spiritual care and social justice align with the Jewish mystical attributes of Hesed and Gevurah: hesed with its unbounded and unboundaried lovingkindness, flowing to all and not distinguishing between kinds. And Gevurah, boundary itself, the great “No!” which recognizes the world-building and world-saving power of judgment and justice. In Fat Torah, we recognize the deep value of each of these Divine attributes as well as the need to balance them.

And my grandest hope is that the necessity of including perspectives of both social justice and spiritual care in confronting weight stigma will also provide an opportunity to increase our understanding of how these approaches can work together in confronting other systems of oppression. While as an individual I may be limited by my positionality (as a white, straight-ish, temporarily-abled, educated, Ashkenazi woman), I dream of Fat Torah serving as a resource and an ally for anti-racism, disability justice, queer liberation, and other movements of the marginalized just as it learns so much from them and owes so much to them, a Fat Torah that embodies both the need for and the possibility of a complete healing of each human heart and of the world itself.

In other words, Fat Torah is a Torah --a source of wisdom and spiritual sustenance-- that is fat: rich and expansive, nourishing from itself and beyond itself, with room for all, teaching through its love of fatness a love of all other marginalized bodies --Black and brown and queer and trans and disabled and old and sick and neurodiverse.

“A Torah that is fat: an unfolding knowing of delicious plenitude and, God willing, a breadth of fresh air.”

"Mimeographed.

My child, it was mim-e-o-graphed.

Typed on a typewriter and mimeographed

and then given to me by elders I admired and trusted.

In the beginning...

this sacred text,

this key to the life I wanted: friends and fitting in.

Neat fractions

and small numbers:

1/2 a grapefruit

1 piece of toast or 1/2 a cup of oatmeal

Such options!

1200 calories or, if you weren't as serious, 1600 calories

And that's how my idolatry began.

My worship of what was not true.

My giving over of sovereignty.

My belief in this higher power: a lower number on the scale.

If only I would follow its commandments.

If only I was good.

I so wanted to be good.

I was 7.

...

I hear my four-year-old daughter’s voice in my head as I type this. 'Right, Imma?' she asks me several times a week, 'Right, Imma, I’m growing every day?' She doesn’t know it, but my answer to her is also my blessing: 'Yes, my sweet love, you are growing every single day.'"

None of these texts encompass this topic of "joy and body love" in their entirety. Rather, I see my creation of this source sheet as a starting point. As I return to this on a new day, my perspectives change. I may add a new text, or remove/edit some in Adar 5784. This is a living document for me, for anyone who comes across it.

I acknowledge, in bringing in all these complex sources, that many of us may be struggling with our own journeys. This is okay. This journey is never linear, in a forever-upward direction. With this month of Adar being a time of increasing joy, I wish to share one final thought on this:

It's okay to embrace the sadness on the sad days.

The Jewish calendar has built-in times of the year for sadness, for mourning, and for acknowledging that pain and suffering in our history, in our present realities, and in our world. There are days like this in recovery as well, in our journeys with our bodies.

Sadness is painful, and is sometimes brief, sometimes lasting. It is one of the many raw human emotions that without it, we would not know what joy is.

One of my teachers taught me that it's then important to,

It's important to embrace the moments of joy, though they may be fleeting.

Eating disorder recovery is not about achieving this complete state of joy, peace, and serenity with our bodies.

And still,

it is possible to seek joy and embrace the joy when it comes onto our path.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Project HEAL: https://www.theprojectheal.org/what-program-is-right-for-you

National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA): https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/help-support/contact-helpline

ANAD: https://anad.org/

National Alliance for Eating Disorders: https://www.allianceforeatingdisorders.com/

Nalgona Positivity Pride: https://www.nalgonapositivitypride.com/

FEDUP (Fighting Eating Disorders in Underrepresented Communities): https://fedupcollective.org/

Eating Recovery Center: https://www.eatingrecoverycenter.com/

Meditation for Simcha (Joy):