GUILTY!

Guilt is a peculiar emotion. Often there’s no good reason for it and, if you think about it, it’s those who love and care the most that tend to feel the most guilty. After all, if you don’t care about hurting people or doing the wrong thing, then you’re not going to feel guilty are you?

The interesting thing about guilt is that it’s created by our own imaginations. It’s based on what we inwardly believe is right or wrong, which depends on many factors about our personalities. Fundamentally it’s a nagging in your head that you have let someone down, or let yourself down and failed in some way. We then punish ourselves for our perceived wrongdoing and end up feeling sad, depressed or angry. In severe cases it leads people on a path to self-destruction. What do we feel guilty about? Typically it’s things like saying ‘no’ to helping a friend, not spending enough time with an elderly relative or the kids, shopping for ourselves and seeing ourselves as selfish, forgetting something important to someone else, eating the wrong foods because we’re supposed to be on a diet, not walking the dog, not pulling your weight at work, etc. etc.

Sometimes there are deeper reasons we feel guilty, after a divorce or bereavement, for example, but the emotions have the same quality about them: The guilt is illogical, created by your internal dialogue. You’re being your own judge and jury and it’s your own perception of the situation that makes you feel bad. Other people would see it entirely differently.

I should also mention the type of guilt that’s induced in us by others. There are some people who manipulate situations, trying to shift responsibility to others, in order to control them, or make them do what they want them to do. If someone does this to you, then step back and look at it objectively. Refuse to take on the responsibility. If someone does this to you a lot, then it’s time to think about distancing yourself from the relationship.

What can you do about feeling guilty? Firstly, acknowledge that it’s healthy to have a little guilt and learn to tolerate the minor guilt pangs you may have. However, if your guilty feelings are making you feel really down or angry, then you need to work on them. In either case these tips should help:

1. Write down what you think you did wrong. Then write down the emotions you were feeling when it happened. It helps you see more clearly why you did what you did. It’s then much easier to correct the problem so that it doesn’t happen again.
   
2. Remember that you’ve usually argued yourself illogically into feeling guilty, so use those same internal dialogues consciously and logically to argue the guilt away.
   
3. Imagine you’re talking to a friend in the same situation. What would you say to them? How would you advise them? Be your own friend.
   
4. Learn to forgive yourself. It doesn’t mean you’re excusing what you did or what happened, but it’s pointless to go on punishing yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. Make a note of what you’ve learned from the experience and then stop attacking yourself.
   
5. Take responsibility for what made you feel guilty. That doesn’t mean blaming yourself. It means accepting that something happened for a reason. Try saying: ‘I did the best I could in the situation with the time and skills I had.’
   
6. Don’t feel guilty if you look after your needs as well as looking after those of your partner or children. Work out specifically what you need and then negotiate with your nearest and dearest to fit it into your life. Then stop feeling guilty about it. If you’re happier the family will be happier.

There are times in life when it’s inevitable we’ll hurt people. For example, if we leave a relationship because we’re miserable. Sometimes one person’s gain is another’s loss, but you shouldn’t do something that’s bad for you just because you don’t want to upset someone else. It will lead you to being angry, resentful and depressed, which will make the whole situation worse in the long run and cause unhappiness all round. Accept that there are dilemmas like this in life, and don’t let the guilt paralyse you.

I’m not saying that we should go round doing whatever we want and not care about hurting other people, but in many cases the people who feel laden with guilt have no reason to do so. Guilt is caused by our experiences and self-beliefs. Sometimes it’s good, because it reminds us of how we should be behaving, but more often it’s bad, because it isn’t based in reality. Learn to identify the difference. Forgive yourself, make amends, release yourself and move on.