We’re here on Green Girls Global, so it’s a fair assumption that we’re into being green and doing our bit for the planet. We’re probably keen, enthusiastic to varying degrees, and generally interested in making a difference to the environment.

But sometimes things can go a little bit too far.

When you’re passionate about something, it’s easy to get carried away with your enthusiasm. And, from the other person’s perspective, our behaviour can end up being downright strange!

Going green is one of those risky areas where rational behaviour easily pops out of the window for a cup of organic herbal tea with the fairies.

Going green is supposed to be about caring for the planet, reconnecting with the seasons and generally being what used to be called a “good egg”. For some of us, though, our desire to nurture the environment can be a fast track to losing friends and alienating people.

It’s all too easy, when we care deeply, to become an evangelistic activist, critical of “non-believers” and changing our personality, along with our behaviour. It’s as though our “greenness” has taken on the form of an extremist religious faction. Though, of course, we’re happy as a pig in the proverbial brown stuff, munching on our home-grown veggies and Fair Trade chocolate. Or are we?

From a psychological point of view, there’s a fine line between being committed to a cause and becoming obsessive about it.

So how do we stop ourselves from accidentally leaping over that precipice?

My top advice is to laugh at yourself.

Catch yourself out when you’re preaching. Have a giggle about any extreme habits you’re in the process of developing. Give yourself a break and accept that 99% is more than good enough. Planet Earth isn’t asking us for perfection.

Those of us who already run self-critical, semi-perfectionist patterns (hands up, everyone – I’m in there with you!) are most at risk of taking going green too seriously.

Yes, the planet needs our help. Yes, we need to make radical changes to the way we live. Yes, it’s vital that we all do our bit. But it’s also essential that we never, ever take life so seriously that we stop enjoying it. Or that we allow ourselves to waste time feeling angry about those who don’t feel the same way we do.

Mother Earth needs our love, not our anger. She needs our hope, not our despair. She needs our laughter, not our tears.

So, just in case you fancy a bit of a giggle, how about sharing some of the early warning signs in your life, that might show you things are going too far?

Here are some to get you started. You know things have gone too far when:

• Your major food source becomes nettle soup.
  A German friend of mine was telling me about a French family she stayed with last summer, who ate super-bland nettle soup with a compulsive frequency – from their own, organic nettles, of course.
• You give up washing.
  Another friend was telling me last week about a guy who hasn’t showered for 10 years, to save water. Unfortunately his thrice-weekly wet flannel affair means no one wants to sit next to him any more.
• Your Twitter / Facebook status have been about nothing but green issues for the last 3 months.
• You refuse invitations to go to friends for a meal because the food might not be organic.
• You can’t even chit chat about the sunny weather without commenting on the impending global warming doom.

Mine?

What are your early-warning signs that things might be going too far?

It’s not too late to take action!