Emotions. What are they good for? Today we're going to talk about what

functions emotions serve and how to use them as tools in our everyday lives.

Welcome back to savvy psychologist.

I'm your host Dr. Monica Johnson.

Every week on this show, I'll help you face life's challenges with

evidence-based approaches, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment. As a

psychologist, I receive lots of questions about emotions and how to deal with them.

Today I thought I'd take the opportunity to educate you on the three main functions of emotions.

There are many times when it appears emotions arise in us

only to derail our mood and day,

but that's not necessarily the case. Even the worst emotions

can be tools that we can use in our everyday lives, as long as you understand what they're trying to tell you.

There are some emotions that are enjoyable to experience and others that feel awful.

At times, and others that feel awful.

At times, that leads us to think of some emotions as quote unquote good

and others as quote unquote bad.

Let's take that train of thought and see how it can play out if applied in a different scenario. I was rewatching Spike Lee's film Crooklyn the other week. It's about a family living in Brooklyn in the 70s.

One of the children, Nate, has a broken arm, and his mother insists that he eats the black eye peas she made him for dinner because they are full of calcium.

This child hates these peas. Well in walks dad with cake for everyone and the

family is overjoyed but poor Nate can't have any cake until he eats those peas.

If you were to ask Nate which was good or which was bad,

he would tell you that cake is good and peas are bad.

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