In January, I started a series called Dispatches from a Daniel Fast which details what I am learning during this season of prayer and fasting. If you missed any of the articles, here is a roundup.
A Daniel Fast For Overcoming Childhood Trauma
A Daniel fast takes its name from Daniel 1:12 in the Bible, who, along with his three friends, refused to eat meat dedicated to idols. Instead, they ate vegetables. Borrowing loosely from the story in the Bible, the Daniel fast consists of eating only plant-based foods.
The website, A Couple Cooks defines the Daniel fast as “a short-term partial fast with the goal of improving spiritual health.” Daniel fast recipes are plant-based and whole-food, according to the site. The length of a Daniel fast is usually 21 days which references a passage in Daniel 10:12-13.
Convincing Myself That I Am Safe
Since my teen years, I have periodically experienced times of Intense anxiety with overwhelming fear. I now know why and what is going on. Something triggers me and my amygdala, the brain’s smoke detector, responds by going into hyper-vigilance mode. I like to describe it as an amygdala hijack, a term I read in a book about overcoming anxiety.
I experienced an amygdala hijack recently. A book I recently read triggered intense feelings of fear. I realized what was going on and used tapping, emotional freedom technique, to calm my brain. I also used deep breathing and meditation. For two nights in a row, I slept for only three or four hours. But I slept.
In the past, when I experienced an amygdala hijack I would be sleepless for a few nights. Tapping, deep breathing, and meditation not only allowed me to get some sleep but took me out of the hijack much quicker. After two nights of not much sleep, I slept for six hours straight and woke up without intense anxiety and fear.
I know it is not a coincidence that an amygdala hijack occurred right before I entered this time of prayer and fasting. My spirit knows that changes are about to come inside of me which will lead to external changes. As humans, we gravitate to what is familiar even if the familiar is negative. The only reason that I could keep going during that time of intense healing is that I have a morning routine of journaling, tapping, meditation, prayer, devotional reading, and Bible study. Doing all of those things every morning prepares me for healing.
The Race We Call Deliverance and Healing
Deliverance and healing is a process and the word process implies that something will not happen at once. While I want deliverance from the effects of childhood sexual abuse all at once, that is not how God works. My ability for receiving deliverance affects the timing of it.
Slow and steady wins the race, as the old saying goes. A race is not a sprint. A race takes time. It takes endurance. It is not about fast bursts of speed that allow you to quickly cross over a finish line. Healing from childhood trauma and deliverance from its effects is a race and not a sprint. It takes time to heal. As much as I want my healing and deliverance all at once, it just will not happen.
Loving Ourselves Because God Loves Us
Every day since May 2020, since lockdown, I practice tapping (emotional freedom technique) through The Tapping Solution app. In November, I did the eight-day You Are Enough challenge. It stirred up those feelings of inadequacy, of not being enough. This week, I started the challenge again. I decided to love myself even though I have spent a lifetime not loving myself, and even hating myself at times.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made, as Psalm 139 tells me. I am one who God came down in the form of a man and died on a cross to redeem me. I am dearly loved by God. I am not someone worthy of self-hatred or self-dislike. I am more than enough in God.
And so are you. If you feel like you are not enough, if you do not love yourself, consider writing down every day that you choose to like and love yourself. Consider taking up the practice of tapping and doing the eight-day challenge.
You are loved and you are more than enough!
The Risks and Rewards of Vulnerabilty
Vulnerability is for suckers, I would tell myself. One of the meanings of vulnerability is “willingness to show emotion or to allow one’s weaknesses to be seen or known; willingness to risk being emotionally hurt.” In other words, being vulnerable means risking revealing yourself.
By refusing to be vulnerable, I keep myself behind an emotional wall. When I wall others out, I wall myself in. If this Daniel fast has taught me anything, it is that the risk of vulnerability is worth it. I took small steps a few weeks ago by revealing my struggles with depression and anxiety to a group at church. They prayed for me and the discouragement that plagued me vanished. Through their prayers, I realized that I will recover from ALL of the effects of child sexual abuse, depression and anxiety included.