This is very hard to do.  Close to the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  How I have gone nearly 60 days, I don’t know.

Every day I want candy or ice cream or a chocolate chip cookie dough.

Yesterday evening was rough and I got in the car. . . [ominous sound]. I drove by the Kwik-Trip (candy, chocolate chip muffins) and Culvers (hot fudge sundae, chocolate custard in a waffle cone), the Piggly Wiggly (well, grocery store everything!) and Walgreens (double-wide aisle of chocolate abundance), but I didn’t stop at any. As I drove I felt the gnawing feeling in my chest:

The feelings of emptiness; missing a limb; frustration; identity-less-ness (who am I if I’m not what I eat?); anger at my own lack of understanding; and the frightening feeling of powerlessness.

Experiencing these feelings takes me to where I am on this “experiment” now: The realization that I was probably about seven years old when I set the identity and belief that when I can buy and eat what I want, then I am a grown-up, a [powerful] adult. I am not an adult if I control what I eat – I am an adult when I buy and eat what I want. Sort of Mary Tyler Moore hat-throwing on the corner, but with a Toblerone candy bar. Candy is my power totem.

I see now the next level (oh, I am so not there yet). I am not seeking the illusion of power by controlling what I eat, nor am I seeking the power of doing whatever I want. I seek the middle-way: to be neutral in my response. At this moment, though, I just don’t want to feel “this” feeling and want some chocolate ice cream to make it stop.

So, very, very hard to do.