Emotional Waste Management

In order to make the most of the rest of our lives whether that means the next 24 hours or the next 50 years, we have to engage in waste management of our stuff. Waste management makes me think of New Jersey where I grew up, it also makes me think of the Mafia, which makes me think of Tony Soprano which makes me think of therapy. When I started to think about negative emotions in terms of garbage, I began to focus on not only not letting garbage sit around till it smells but concepts such as recycling, composting and the most recent trend with respect to garbage which is to create less of it.

When we die, someone has to go through our stuff and get rid of it, hopefully that person performs that task lovingly and can see the story your accumulation of belongings weaves, however, I can tell you from having just gone through my boyfriend’s belongings, you will leave things behind that you don’t want others to see. As I was going through this process, people would ask “What is the strangest thing you found?” My response was that he had no porn, what man who saves everything has no porn?

That said, it is important to remember that when you die, someone will be going through your stuff, be it online accounts, closets, drawers or address book. If there are things that will embarrass you (not that there are emotions on the otherside) or more importantly hurt people, wouldn’t it be better to deal with those things now? Chances are if you are embarrassed about items in your possession, they probably shouldn’t be in your life-just sayin

The same can be said of our emotional garbage, if you don’t go through it now, you will just carry it around with you, it will start to smell, it will get in your way, it will prevent you from seeing what else you have. Just like getting rid of garbage and taking the trash out, there are several things we can do with emotional garbage we accumulate in our lives.

Let’s take a look…..

Litter. Every once and a while I will still see someone just throw trash out the window of a car or just leave some big useless piece of furniture laying out front knowing the garbage people will not take it.
We can also be emotional litterbugs. This happens when we just throw our emotional garbage wherever we feel like with no regards for its impact on ourselves or others. Basically, we make it someone else’s problem. It is certainly important not to be a litterbug of our emotional garbage, in this day and age-you might get arrested for public dumping.

Dumpsters. Sometimes when people have a lot of garbage to get rid of, they rent a dumpster. Dumpsters are expensive and the main problem with using a dumpster to get rid of trash is sometimes we throw things out that we still needed, or merely dispose of things that could have been reused, recycled or placed in the compost pile just to get our money’s worth out of the dumpster. The same holds true with our emotional garbage, we want to be careful of what we discard and how we dispose of it as to not get rid of core aspects of ourselves that we will need down the road. Also we want to put some thought into what we get rid of. If we don’t often times we just go out and replace items we have just thrown out.

Recycling. Recycling doesn’t end when you put your glass bottle in the recycle bin. Another thing about recycling is that it takes a great deal of energy to recycle not only in terms of the recycling process but the transportation of the waste to and from the recycling center and the added cost or energy associated with reusing the recycled materials. The same holds true with recycling emotions, the process begins when you place the thought in the bin for recycling. From there, it must be processed.

Composting. Composting is messy, smelly and requires a compost pile. It takes a while for garbage to evolve into usable compost and until it does you have to deal with it, but the value is that you have transformed something bad into something good.
Each of us needs a compost pile where we take the negative experiences in our past and transform them into what nourishes our future.

Eliminating
Garbage.
Any steps you make that reduce or eliminate the use of items you would normally recycle or throw away will have a significant positive impact on the environment. Choosing products that are reusable and long lasting instead of single-use disposable products will save a lot of waste. The same can be said of our emotional garbage, while having tools to recycle or compost our emotional baggage is helpful, the best approach is to evolve into a lifestyle where emotional garbage is limited. This is not to say that there will not be conflict and difficult times in your life, it is just that we develop internal laws of selection that places limits on the thoughts, ideas or even people we let into our lives. When we do this, there is no garbage to be disposed of.

Eliminating garbage is the goal going forward and that can start today-before we even finish recycling and composting the garbage we have accumulated.

Here are some waste management tools from people smarter than I:

The Seven Day Plan

Robert Holden, author of “Happiness Now!” suggests that you say the following each morning for 7 consecutive days:

“Oh, God, help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is. Amen.”

Sit quietly and listen for inner guidance and then jot down your thoughts in a journal for later reflection. This allows us to take inventory-all obstacles to the truth are emotional garbage that need to be recycled or transformed into nutrition.

Negative Core Beliefs

Dennis Greenberger and Christine A. Padesky, authors of “Mind Over Mood.” Suggest creating a Negative Core Belief Worksheet. Examples of negative core beliefs include: I am not lovable, I must please everyone to be liked, or I am inadequate unless I do everything perfectly.

• Write your negative core belief at the top of an 8.5-x-11-inch sheet of paper.
  
• Under the statement, write evidence or experiences that suggest the core belief is not 100 percent true all the time.
  
  • During the first week, try to find one piece of evidence each day.
    
  • For the following week, try to find two or three bits of evidence every day.
    
  • After several weeks, there should be 20 to 25 items listed on the worksheet.
    
• Review the items and draw an overall conclusion about whether the original negative core belief actually describes your real-life experience.
  

    Remove Havoc from Relationships

Janet G. Woititz and Alan Garner, authors of “Life-Skills for Adult Children,” suggest an effective format for venting emotions in a relationship.

 

• Discuss one problem at a time
  
• Focus on the present rather than lumping a number of past events together in an imaginary gunnysack that is dumped on the other person.
  
• State the issue in specific terms of what was said, where and when
  
• Express your feelings this way: “When…(what the other person did)…then (what you felt).”
  
• Allow the other person to express himself fully without interruption
  
• Find a middle ground between what you and the other person can live with while moving forward.