I’ve lived my life by the to-do list and the schedule and although it’s gotten me a little bit of outward success, my relationship with myself feels terrible. My most prominent feelings are pressure, dread and shame which create the action of buffering. I’m glad to finally see so clearly the reason for why I can’t stop eating. I’ve always had the thought that the only escape from the burden of having to do the next task is to just give up and eat. Now I’m seeing a third alternative. Don’t force myself to do the next task and don’t eat and feel my feelings. Giving up the pressure and the schedule feels very scary, especially when this program is so much about setting goals and time management and getting a lot done. As I’m typing this, tears are coming into my eyes. I’m afraid that if I just let myself BE, with no goals and no plans, I will amount to nothing. Yet, I can’t keep living the way I’ve been living. My achievements feel empty and I’m exhausted all the time from forcing myself to go through the motions. I don’t know what my true desires are so all my activity comes from a place of shoulds. What do you think about how to reconcile this seeming duality between having goals and letting myself live without pressure and dread? It seems that the only time I can follow a food protocol is when I scale back my whole life to just being gentle and slow and paying very close attention to myself and not making myself do anything I don’t want to do.