In grade nine my class went on a week-long retreat to a camp near Vancouver. One night, our teachers had us participate in a personality assessment. It was presented to us as a fun activity of self discovery, and I honestly believe they naively meant it as nothing more than that.

Each of us filled out the multiple choice questionnaire. After tallying our results we were physically separated in four quadrants representing combinations of introverted vs. extroverted and global vs. analytical traits. In our segregated groups we stared or shouted at each other (this varied considerably between the introverted and extroverted groups) and studied our newly branded identity.

For the remainder of the trip, the teachers were left to clean up the carnage of a hormone induced group emotional breakdown. Although this was my first memorable lesson in the process of self-identification, the pressure to define our individuality began sooner than grade nine, and can persist long after our teenage years.

Many metaphors have beautifully described humanity’s quest for personal identification. In Pink Floyd’s concept album “The Wall”, the antihero struggles with the barricade separating his shriveling inner self and the outside world. The bricks were laid by himself and others, forming a superficial but effective external identity – an activity condoned to a less dramatic degree in most of our lives.

But there is a concept that I feel is under-represented. Every posture has a counterpose, and personal identity is no exception. I’ll call it the anti-identity.

Eating Disorders and Anti-Identity

I believe that individuals suffering from eating disorders are attempting to dissolve any visceral and psychological sense of identity that society pressures them to have. Others may argue anorexia, bulimia and other disorders are just another external identity statement – but I believe this condition is defined not by what you are, but by what you are not.

I am not perfect. I am not logical. I am not smart. I am not beautiful. I am not strong. I am not what you think. I am not here. In the end, I am really not here.

The further the condition progresses, the closer to those ends the person suffering becomes. The side-effect is a feeling of success, which feeds the anti-identity and perpetuates the illness.

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. It’s potent stuff, and it’s no surprise to me that the incidence of eating disorders is escalating, especially in individual-centric cultures. It’s not a pressure to be thin, but a pressure to harden ourselves against malleability; to build a external manifestation of who we are.

Yoga and Eating Disorders

When an individual is recovering from an eating disorder, one of the most terrifying questions is “When I recover, who will I be?”. The misunderstanding is that the fear is not rooted in weight-gain itself; weight brings emotions, laughter and energy. The apprehension results from the perceived pressure to form an identity, and have other people assess and judge that identity.

For those suffering with eating disorders, the need to find balance is imperative, it’s a matter of survival. Yoga has a lot to say about the Self, and many tools to help a person achieve balance. I was delighted to read that in Vancouver, the leading eating disorder treatment program now incorporates yoga into their recovery program.

Yoga can aid in eating disorder recovery on a number of levels. Benefits like increased presence of body and mind, lowered stress and increased strength are well known. But ultimately, yoga is a powerful recovery tool because it trains a person to lighten their grip of the importance of their “lower self”. By this I mean the formation of traits, physical and psychological, that we internalize and project: the external testimony of who we are.

Between identity and anti-identity, there lies a balance that is rooted in impermanence. We are different every day, and it’s simply not important to waste energy forming or dissolving an external identity. Osho said many beautiful things, and one sticks in my head right now

At the end only that remains which you had brought in the beginning.

It’s been a long journey, and I am only starting to internalize this idea. Now I wake with it. I sit with it on my yoga mat. And I fall asleep with it when my consciousness dissolves into the inky sky blistering with pure starlight.