Someone asked me this question a while ago: ‘How do I get rid of the guilt?’
When amongst friends and family, I normally chirp ‘Don’t do guilt. Go on any trip except a guilt trip.’ This is not the sort of thing you want to hear when guilt is weighing you down and you are feeling paralyzed, numb and worthless.
So I went in search of answers. Here’s the best of what I found.
Decide To Let It Go. In his book Friendship with God, God tells Neale Donald Walsch ‘If you release guilt, guilt will release you.’ When Neale asks God how do you do that, God replies ‘By deciding to.’ So when you feel guilty ask ‘Is this who I want to be? What would be the most loving thing to do now?’ Then take it from there.
Question Your Beliefs. Beliefs are simply rules we live our lives by. Some of these we make up for ourselves, such as ‘I am a person of integrity, I never tell lies’. Other rules and norms of behaviour we acquire along the way, typically from our parents, friends, religion, school, society and a host of other external influences. For example, you may have grown up and every Sunday, there would be a roast for lunch. It did not matter whether you went to your grandmother’s, aunt or uncle’s place, Sunday roast was sacred in your family, it was the done thing. And those that did not do Sunday roast were frowned upon. We seldom stop and question the validity of these rules or norms. Mostly we are not even aware of them – they are so deeply buried in our subconscious – they seeped in unawares.
Lori Radun, a certified life coach and founder of the Momnificent! Mom Club, differentiates between VALID guilt and INVALID guilt.
VALID guilt is when you feel bad because you broke one of your own rules, for example telling a lie when you live by the rule ‘never tell lies’.
INVALID guilt is when you feel bad because you broke a rule that you do not value or embrace, for instance when we allow others to impose rules upon us. These include those rules that seeped into our subconscious as we were growing up. For instance, you’re finally grown up, have your own place and you want to show it off to your family. A Sunday lunch suits everyone. Only thing is you’re lousy at cooking roasts and have discovered you’d be happy never to cook a roast. But the rule demands you should produce a Sunday roast. So you feel guilty because you don’t want to. You feel guilty because you haven’t mastered the art. You feel guilty because you keep putting off having them round because then they’d discover your guilty secret.
To let go of the guilt, we need to understand what is important to us and we must be willing to stop the patterns that allow others to impose guilt on us.
You can read Lori’s tips for dealing with guilt here.
Thoroughly Examine The Situation: In their book The Twelve Week Miracle, Anna & Philip Bradbury describes a 5-step process for examining and learning from the situation that’s causing the guilt. You will need a journal for this process. I suspect you can use this process for any strong emotion.
1. Admit it. Be honest and clear about where you’re at with the situation.
2. Get Grieving. Talk to someone who will be impartial and give honest advice. Alternatively, pour it all out into your journal.
3. Get underneath the Guilt. Explore the reasons why you feel sad and/or mad.
4. Recall the breakthrough. Identify what is missing that, if you had it, will make the sad and/or mad disappear. This could be a long list, e.g., health, friendship, job opportunities…
5. Bringing the past back. This is about visualising what you had intended before the guilt happened. Refer to the list created in step 4. Decide which ones you want to create in your life and start doing just that.
The Twelve Week Miracle is also available from Amazon.
To sum up. Guilt is an emotion that let’s you know there is something in your life that requires your attention. Give it your attention. Use the strategies mentioned here to explore, enquire, question. Determine what you need to do next, then do it.
Then let the guilt go.
You’ve done the work, you’ve got the message, you’re making changes. There is no reason to keep beating yourself up with it.
Stay aware and notice what happens the next time you feel guilty. Take a reading on the guilt. Is it more or less than before? Do the process again, then let the guilt go. It will get easier over time and depending on the situation, you may not ever feel guilty again, or just a small tinge. However it shows up, just question it as before and let it go.
Guilt is an opportunity to practice forgiveness. Forgive yourself for whatever you have done. Forgive the other person(s), your parents, society, the situation, the unspoken rules that bring you face to face with guilt.
From A Course of Miracles perspective, guilt is the ego’s way of keeping you in darkness – keeping you from who you really are and your own magnificence.
Use some of the methods here, journaling, prayer, apology, forgiveness – whatever works for you. Finally, I stand by ‘Don’t do guilt. Go on any trip except a guilt trip’.
