Spiritual

Ramadhan 2022 Self-Reflection

“Do it”

I read that message on SnapChat as I filtered the thoughts swirling through my head.

Over the previous few weeks I had noticed my mental resilience wavering. I was getting angrier faster, I was losing my patience around my children and the self-doubt monster was rearing it’s head, disguising itself as jealousy so that I wouldn’t see it coming.

I had been praying for a sign of what I should do next to help improve these areas of my life and keeping my eyes and ears open for a response from the highest powers of the universe. Now that it was staring at me in black and white so simply spelled out I couldn’t deny it.

Isn’t Ramadan coming up

I had dismissed the thought in my mind. After all, Ramadan was something Muslims did, and I’m not Muslim. There could be no benefit of me starving myself for something I didn’t believe in. And I’d have to keep it up for weeks! “No,” I told myself, “you’d offend you Muslim friends. I’m sure of it.”

The thing about the voice in your head telling you that you aren’t good enough or that you shouldn’t pursue something is that its not you. So I decided to do what I always do to silence the voice. Prove it wrong.

I messaged my friend my plan to participate in Ramadan this year and my worries. She instantly replied with two words.

“Do it”

Resilience

Wait. I can’t even drink water?

As I researched what was expected of the fast I became overwhelmed with the thought of it. I was supposed to be training for a triathlon in a few months and I suffer from iron deficiency anemia. It would be a challenge to keep my iron level from dipping below my danger lines with just daily tasks. I wouldn’t be able to include my training.

Participating in this could possibly blow up my triathlon training plan.

“Do it”

The words played over in my head like a broken record at every excuse and logical reason I could think of not to participate. Then I did the only logical thing left.

I did it.

Challenges

I thought the most challenging part of fasting would be hunger. The most challenging part for me was thirst. I drink so much water on a daily basis (about 2L minimum) and so to go the whole day without drinking was the most difficult. I work where I talk all day and so my throat would be dry and I would have no relief.

I would stand at the back door just watching the sun go down. I’ve always enjoyed watching the sunset, but sunsets never felt like this.

What I’ve learned

I’ve learned so much about myself and food during this fast that I don’t even know where to begin.

Everyone always says that fast food is empty calories and not good for you, but I ate junk food for Iftar once, ONCE and that was the only time. It gave me zero energy. I was sluggish, tired, I had head aches. I learned very quickly that I need to be consuming not just high calorie foods, but foods that are rich in macro and micro nutrients. I will continue to eat this way after seeing the effects that junk food has on my body. Which leads me to my next point.

I don’t crave junk food and sweets anymore. The amount of times I’ve had to push away food offered to me has built up my resistance for refusing all types of food in general. During Ramadan I’ve cooked, baked cupcakes and even made pizza for family for Easter celebration in my home. Fighting off pizza and chocolate… I can do anything!

I also don’t feel like I was ever truly thankful for food. Growing up we’d always say our prayers that we were thankful, but that was more of a ritual then actually feeling thankful. Everyday as the sunset and I took a bite of food, the only thing I could think of were the people living in poverty who don’t have the relief of sunset. This is a spiritual journey for me, but for other this is their life. They don’t get to open their fridge and feast. They don’t have access to clean drinking water to satisfy their thirst.

At the beginning of the fast when my body was getting used to such a large cut in daily caloric intake, I found myself making small mistakes that I don’t normally make. I don’t think I’m perfect and I know that I make mistakes, but I’d do things like send emails to myself, lose track of time, forget to brush my teeth etc. It made me realize just how much harder it is for people who aren’t eating to escape poverty. That doesn’t even include and financial hardships or other stresses that they have to deal with. It’s painful to think about.

While I wasn’t able to train for my triathlon, I still wanted to stay relatively active. I didn’t want to just lie around all evening since I work at a desk during the day. So I started doing some yoga, and stretches in its place. I learned just how strong my body truly is and with that… my confidence skyrocketed.

It’s as if my eyes opened and I see what I truly have. I have healthy strong willed daughters. A supportive husband who not only ate hidden away in the kitchen as to not tempt me, but prepared my meals every night. I have access to shelter, clean drinking water, healthy, nutritious and clean food. I could list this forever. In seeing this I was able to look at myself not with eyes of criticism and judgement, but of acceptance and grace. Which is ironic since I named my daughter Grace so I would never forget this, and yet I still did.

I’d say Ramadan 2022 was a success and I look forward to learning more about what other religions and cultures do as a means of purifying their spirits and body.

Conclusion and Ramadhan 2023?

Yes! I already have plans to do Ramadan next year. This year I focused on the fasting aspect of it, but next year I plan to get a daily devotional and read some texts in the evenings after my meals. I understand that fasting for this long is intimidating to most (including myself), but I would encourage anyone to try a fast of any variety. There are 30 hours fasts, 16 hours, some where you can drink water and have tea/coffee. Anyone can work their way up to a longer fast like Ramadan or stick with one that is less than a day.

It’s scientifically proven that fasts can have positive effects on your body and mind! It can lower high blood pressure, increase effectiveness of chemotherapy and help in cancer prevention. It can aid in weight loss and even speed up your metabolism. While I didn’t fast for weight loss, I did lose weight!

Thank you for reading through my experience and I hope it was helpful to you in some way. If it was let me know in the comments. I’d also love to hear about your experiences with fasting!