If you’re new to the Bright Line community—Welcome! We’ve got hundreds of new people joining us, thanks largely to the Food Revolution Network and my friend Ocean Robbins. We just did an event about how to get weight loss drug results without the drugs, and hundreds of people are starting the Bright Line Eating Boot Camp right now. I’m thinking of you!

I also want to tell our long-time Bright Lifers that I know we have some loose threads to address. I need to give you an update on the International Food Addiction Consensus Conference in London, and also a recap of on On This Bright Day. Stay tuned for those in the coming weeks!

One more housekeeping detail: Bright Line Eating turns ten this summer. We’re going to host a gathering here in Rochester, NY, on Sunday, August 4. Details to come, but just save that date for now!

Today, I want to talk about something I’m going through right now, that may be similar to what others’ internal experiences are as they undertake their Bright journeys.

My daughter Zoe commented recently that she knows it’s time to get up when she hears me scraping my breakfast bowl—to death, loudly. I laughed when she said that, but I was also a little embarrassed. After my breakfast or a salad, I’ll have a spoon handy to scrape all the flavor out of the bowl. It’s Bright food, so it’s not a break, but I don’t feel free when I do it. I feel powerless over it.

This is all about the addiction to quantities, which seems to kick in and grip me at the end of each meal. I felt this way—but even worse—twenty years ago when I started eating Bright. Those last few bites felt like a death, and I was horrified to know that it would be hours before I could eat again.

If you’re new and feel this way, know that the intensity of that experience does pass. Now I don’t care so much when the meal ends, but I do seem to get pretty intense about getting those last licks and morsels. It made me start thinking about power and powerlessness over food, though. I’ve regained my power over food by weighing and measuring it. But I still feel powerless in the last few moments of the meal.

Then I thought about a few years ago when I let go of gaming the system in restaurants and just accepted the Brightest, cleanest meal there. What changed was that I suddenly wanted the freedom, so badly.

So now, I sat where I usually eat my breakfast, looking out at our backyard. And I thought about whether I could find the part of myself that wants to be free of incessantly scraping the bowl. That was hard at first. After a while, though, I found it.

And when I found the part of myself that truly, truly wants to be free of that intense scraping, I invited my higher power in to help. I opened up to grace.

I use the word God, but I’m really speaking about an unknowable essence that I do not understand. An awe-inspiring energy that helps me with my addiction.

It makes me feel like I’m an electric plug that needs power. In my addiction, I don’t have that power. But when I just plug into the outlet, it gives me the power I need. I open myself up to extra power with a plea for help.

And suddenly, I found myself able to put the bowl down without scraping. I felt free and light. The next meal, it happened again. I remembered to say please before each meal and to open myself up to that power. I kept tapping into the part of me that wants that freedom and is willing to coast on that feeling of grace.

I offer this to you if you’re starting your Bright journey, because it is possible to activate a power source that will enable you to have a Bright meal and be satisfied. A mini-awakening or mini-awareness. A spiritual happening. You can do it for the next meal, and the next. The meals turn into days. The days turn into weeks. And suddenly you realize you’re receiving your Bright Transformation.