You were right about my birthday! It wasn’t boring at all. It just was my birthday, and I got to experience it (probably for the first time in my life) without buffering. It was awesome! I enjoyed the people around me and the time I got to myself and I didn’t experience the moody highs and lows from overeating and overdrinking. Thank you for that insight!

But then … the next day, the day I was leaving, I started eating everything in sight. That presented a lot of opportunities for me to learn and observe what the heck happened. I wonder if I was white-knuckling it more than I thought, instead of experiencing the urges. I also found that when I’m experiencing extreme joy (and things are just going right, and almost effortless — i.e., I was worried about not making it through the weekend without going off protocol, but then I succeeded) is when I either maybe self-sabotage or think I “should” be able to eat everything in sight? It’s like all of a sudden I wanted the donuts again instead of being the person who sat among the donuts but did not desire them, which is what I truly want to be. Any thoughts on how else to learn from this? Thank you!