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Junk Emotions -- Organic Spa Magazine

You know junk food when you see it: high in calories, low in nutritional benefit. A diet of junk food ends up in lethargy, being overweight, medical issues such as diabetes, heart disease, and lowers your energy.

But did you know there are junk emotions too?

As clinical psychologists we wondered what would happen if we started to consider our emotions from the perspective that they are ingredients that you feed yourself? We developed the concept of psychological nutrition; not about food, but about how to assess and monitor the emotions that you consume.

Because we don’t think to monitor our consumption of emotions as we might food, we unthinkingly consume a diet so high in negative emotions (high fat), that there’s no room left for positive emotions (low fat).

What should we do? In order to get rid of junk emotions, we have to be mindful of the emotions we are consuming; we have to deliberately restrict our diet of high fat emotions.

Here are 5 ways to get rid of junk emotions.

1. Lower your consumption of high-fat emotions. High-fat emotions are negative and energy draining; they suck the fun and creativity out of your life and are bad for you. Examples: guilt, resentment, anger, envy, jealousy, frustration. High fat (or negative) emotions create and maintain a cycle of pessimism and low-energy. They are fatiguing and close the door to creativity and joy.

2. Increase your consumption of low-fat emotions. Low-fat emotions are positive and increase your energy. Examples: joy, optimism, love, patience. Low-fat emotions should dominate your psychological intake. Low-fat (or positive) emotions energize you. They open up your world, both in terms of your inner self and the doors to opportunity.

3. Keep a count of your junk emotional calories. Just as with junk food, a diet of junk emotions (like anger, resentment, worry) leads to psychological malnourishment. How many junk emotions are you consuming in a day?

4. Look at relationships as products. Relationships are products made up feelings. Some are nutritious, others are not. Think of how you examine the packaging of a product for its nutritional content. How many calories? Is it high fat or low fat? Some products may look good, but it turns out they’re not good for you. Relationships are exactly the same: some are good for you; others are not.

5. Make Psychological Nutritional Labels. Just like food products have labels that describe their nutritional content, there should be “psychological nutritional labels” for reactions, relationships, and situations. In this way, you will know (or at least have a good idea) whether a situation has a “high fat” or “low fat” content before you enter it. Are there people or situations that should have warning labels?

The Pay off

Time is a finite quantity and none of us know how much of it we have left. Start each day making life as fulfilled and joyful as it can be, and build on that. Stop filling it with junk emotions!

Dr. Shoba Sreenivasan and Dr. Linda E. Weinberger are the authors of Psychological Nutrition. Learn more at www.psychologicalnutrition.com.

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