Pamela Levin, R.N., 1/14/11

The consequences of neglecting our food diet—of bad eating habits and poor nutrition - are well known to most of us. That's why we pay attention to when we eat, how much we eat, and the quality of our food.

But another kind of diet is at least or even more important: our emotional diet. Ignoring, neglecting or abusing our emotional diet can lead to all kinds of dire consequences. Here are five of the many such examples, followed by what to do to avoid them:

1. increasing stress

2. relationships going sour

3. greater number and intensity of physical illnesses

4. increasing failure to achieve goals

5. rising feelings of frustration, bad moods, increased anxiety, anger and even depression.

The good news is that not only can we avoid these miserable consequences, we can also create massive positive changes for ourselves by paying attention to, and then improving the quality of what we take in emotionally. Since our emotional diet is made up of the emotional 'food messages' we ingest, we escape these negative outcomes by taking in messages that support our emotional health and eliminating the ones that are toxic to our emotional well being.

To start, we first need to become aware of the two sources of these messages. One is supplied from within ourselves. In other words, these are self-generated: we 'feed' them to ourselves internally. The other source is composed of messages we take in from others.  Once becoming aware of what we're currently consuming, we can decide how and what to slowly change about what we ingest.

Why make these changes gradually? A food analogy answers this question well.  If we've been starving for food for a long time, no doubt we have developed a nutritional backlog from starving.  Still, to suddenly stuff ourselves would only produce more illness. Our bodies are not capable of taking in everything we need all at once. A starving person absolutely can return to a peak nutritional state -by taking in very slowly - especially in the beginning.

Or suppose we've been eating junk food, or even toxic food and now we want to improve that diet. Our bodies would probably go into shock if we tried to change too quickly, even though the change would definitely be for the better.

If our emotional state is like either of those examples, we will need small and frequent 'feedings' at first.

To review: we start by becoming aware of our current emotional diet status. ( I've heard people who started to do this remark that, "I didn't realize I was starving emotionally." Or, "I can't believe how much emotional junk food I've been living on. No wonder I feel so emotionally weak." Or, "I'm stunned to realize I've been consuming emotional toxins my whole life long. In fact I'm so accustomed to them, I'm not sure I would even know what to do with some real emotional food!" )

Then we need to allow ourselves to take in some yummy, messages that nourish our emotional self.

And now I'd like to invite you to sample some of these very messages. Go to http://www.youremotionalnutrients.com and click on the audio sample. And don't worry, you can make profound changes in all aspects of your life by improving your emotional diet. I've seen it happen again and again.

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Pamela Levin, R.N., T.S.T.A. for The Nourishing Company: Resources to Feed Your Body, Mind and Spirit
http://www.nourishingcompany.com

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