Get rid of your guilt. I know…easy for me to say. I feel I need to emphasize this particular suggestion because guilt has such a powerful, negative effect on people. After working for many years as a psychologist and coach, I have decided that guilt is the single least useful “feeling” that we can have. Anger, in comparison, can be a wholly useful emotion, as it reminds us we have opinions, that we have standards, that we can feel hurt and mistreated by others. Anger is a “live” feeling, with texture and complexity. We tend to experience and to express anger in varied and interesting ways; guilt — not so much.
When we talk about our guilt, we express how burdened we feel. Some examples of situations we might feel troubled about are:
- messing up
- making a mess
- being a mess
- thinking about wanting to create a mess
- not cleaning up the mess
- missing appointments or connections with others
- relying on someone heavily
- feeling like we've failed to meet expectations
- not being like everyone else
When we allow too much of our time to be spent feeling guilty, time slips away. We lose our sense of how we are in the present moment. When we develop a habit of feeling guilty about our actions (even minor everyday matters), we lose sense of our potential. And the potential in each of us is huge — even when there's been a minor infraction or two, or three…. Certainly take responsibility for your own actions. Then understand you can reduce and even eliminate the limitations you feel are upon you.
Here's a brief list of suggestions for how to unburden yourself from guilt:
- Determine whether your guilt about one thing is really a more generalized sense of being guilty
- Take an honest look to see if there may be other feelings you are not in touch with because you've been covering them up with your guilt
- Ask forgiveness if that's what's called for and then accept it
- Evaluate whether your guilt is serving a meaningful, helpful purpose in your life as it is today. If it's not, toss and repeat.
- Nip guilt in the bud. Challenge your own reasons for feeling guilty when the urge to feel guilty strikes.
- Be as big as you need to be. Let people react to you as you are. (It's way better than spending your valuable time figuring out how to hide your imperfections.)
Prevent guilt from dragging you down and out. Get back in.
What's on your guilt list? Take a complete inventory and see if you can release some of your got-to-keep-reminding-myself-I-feel-bad-about-this items.
