*Simple P.A.M. Exercise  -  Pause a Minute

Situation

• You are overeating:
• You are eating more than you need during a meal.
• Your snack is out of control.
• Food is going from hand to mouth with no sense of feeling.
• Your late bedtime snack has moved from a little yogurt to peanut butter and crackers with no end in sight.

 Exercise:

1. Pause.
2. Take a deep breath and close your eyes.
3. Breathe normally and pay attention to your breath.
4. Feel the oxygen enter your lungs and nourish your body.
5. Tell yourself there is plenty of food in the world. You can have more at your next meal.
6. Imagine your next meal.
7. Commit to what time you will eat a nourishing meal again.
8. Tell yourself you will be kind to yourself during the time between meals, and you will give yourself a good next meal.

As you practice P.A.M. on a regular basis you develop the ability to break your overeating pattern.  You learn to trust that you can bear your feelings.

You earn your trust by supplying yourself with nourishing and tasty meals on a regular basis.

When you trust that you will care for yourself and tend to your needs, you don't need to overeat because you want to ward off deprivation.  You know that you will provide yourself with enough.

1. Do you trust yourself to give yourself the nourishment you need?
2. How can you develop even more trust in yourself?

*PAM is based on an exercise in Healing Your Hungry Heart: recovering from your eating disorder.

Joanna Poppink, MFT, Los Angeles eating disorder recovery psychotherapist.