Gevurah

As I previously explained, we are currently in the middle of counting the Omer, an opportunity for self-refinement that is simply too good to pass up. Since this is the second week of the Omer period, I am going to begin this blog series by focusing on the sefirah (Divine attribute) of Week Two: Gevurah.

I've seen gevurah translated as both "discipline" and "restraint," and either way, it is a concept with which I'm intimately familiar. Anorexia was gevurah run amok: the positive discipline associated with healthy eating and regular exercise snowballed into a painfully restrictive diet and grueling daily workout sessions; the wisdom of establishing boundaries in relationships gave way to the impenetrable wall I erected between myself and anyone who tried to come near; the prudence of not allowing myself to buy everything I wanted evolved into denying myself even the smallest purchases, such as a cup of coffee or a movie ticket. My eating disorder was all about gevurah in its most punishing form. Recovery has become an exercise in taking my affinity for gevurah and turning it into an tool for positive growth.

What does mean for me? Well, for one thing, it means being less of a people-pleaser and being more honest with my praise and criticism. It means understanding that I do not need to earn people's friendship by giving them whatever they want. At various times, it has meant adhering to a meal plan and treating food as medicine in order to get my body to a place where it is healthy. It means being honest about when I make mistakes and doing whatever clean-up is necessary, without letting that turn into an excuse to punish myself mercilessly.

I would imagine that all of us in recovery can relate to needing to figure out how to keep gevurah in balance. Whether our eating disorders were about having too much restraint or too little, recovery is about discovering how to set limits in a way that is self-protective but not self-stifling. As we work our way through this week of the Omer, I hope we can all find ways of experiencing the positive power of gevurah in our relationships with ourselves, and with others.