I remember with crystal clear clarity (not to mention joy and gratitude) the year I quit guilt. I gave it up cold turkey. And my life changed drastically. Years of beating myself up for my shortcomings, mistakes, and failures were erased in the moment I fully understood just how useless guilt is.
What IS Guilt?
Guilt is an emotion that occurs when a person believes that they have violated a moral standard.”
To understand where your guilt comes from, you must first revisit your personal values and core beliefs. You may be holding on to outdated programs that no longer serve you as an adult. You may be giving your power away to a belief system that no longer applies to your life. You need to identify who and what defined the moral standards you believe apply to you, as well as what constitutes a violation.
Even more important, is to understand – within the framework of your belief system – how you ought to be making amends for these perceived violations. Is there room for Recovery? Repentance? Redemption? And if there is, then why are you still beating yourself up over something you can remedy?
[divider]
What if guilt isn’t real?
I have a crazy outlandish question for you. What if guilt isn’t even real? What if you continually punish yourself emotionally for these crimes you’ve committed via human nature, and there was no use at all for the self loathing? Interesting, isn’t it?
I want you to consider something for a moment. If you are incarnated on this planet right now, what is the point? Do you have a purpose, a mission? Or are you wandering aimlessly? Do you believe you can mess up your own life to the point that you can never get it back on track? What does that even mean? What if the purpose to living in these human bodies is to gain experience?
Follow me on this one… if you are simply here to gain experience, then wouldn’t it also be safe to say that you can’t do it wrong?
Did you hear that – you can’t do life wrong!
Life – it’s yours for the taking. Your choices are yours for the making. You can’t do it wrong – and I want to show you how you can eliminate guilt from your life for good.
Guilt is overrated, outdated, and useless
With every choice you’ve made and action you’ve taken that you believe has been ‘wrong’, you have subjected yourself to an onslaught of self-loathing, self-judgment, self-punishment.
Guilt eats at you, sometimes for years, equating to the heaviest of burdens. No matter what you believe, if you are religious or not, there is absolutely no way any form of Divinity would set humanity up for such long-term punishment. Guilt serves no purpose but to make the individual miserable. It does not promote any kind of health or well-being, doesn’t help you progress closer to your goals – it simply keeps you feeling down in the dumps for a very, very long time.
From my perspective, this is counter-intuitive and counter-productive to our mission of gaining wisdom and experience.
Four Steps to Conquer Guilt for Good
1. Every time you have a choice to make or an action to take, look at what the consequences are. You are intelligent and capable of making your own decisions, with the key here being that you pay careful attention to the consequences. Understand that you have free will and you get to choose… it’s helpful to be aware of the cause and effect involved with your decision. In fact, some choices seem less appealing to use when we recognize what they may cost.
2. Next, pay the consequence for the choice you made, the action you took…. ONE time. This is essential for you to understand. You do not beat yourself up repeatedly, you face the consequence, that you already knew would be applicable, and that is that. There is no room for long-term self-punishing pity parties.
3. Learn the inherent lesson in this experience. In every situation, we are gifted with the opportunity to learn. Look back on the guilt you currently carry, and see if you can release it by acknowledging how much wisdom you’ve gained from that particular choice and subsequent consequence.
4. Move on with your life. If you ever have the opportunity to make this same choice again, you are better equipped to make a decision. Follow the same process. Continually.
Key Points:
- You can’t do this wrong, you are here to learn, to grow, to gain experience and wisdom.
- Understand consequences of your choices and be willing to pay them before you take action.
- Pay the consequences for your choice ONE time.
- Learn the lesson inherent in the experience.
- Move on.
- Answer each of the questions – you may want to start a journal or a blog to reflect on your journey.
- Share your thoughts with us! (Leave a comment, make a post in the Facebook Group, or even shout out on Twitter!)
- Deeply contemplate how you can apply these four steps to your life. Can you give up guilt?
I look forward to a discussion on the topic of guilt!
With mucho a latte of love and respect,
You can overcome your guilt. 
We have to get you and Sinnary together. Her post was all about being motivated by guilt. I guess it’s all about balance.
Thanks for the heads up, Greta. I read her article, and it is very interesting to see how we both viewed the topic of guilt. I think she was talking about the ‘should be doing this’ voices in the head, and I’m talking about the kind of guilt that consumes people with self-loathing. There’s just no room for the second kind.
You make some very good points here, guilt can eat at you and there is a time to move on, but it’s about finding the right balance. I wouldn’t disregard guilt entirely, it has its uses. It can motivate you to fix what you did wrong, without the feeling of guilt there may be little reason to try. The existence of the emotion can help motivate you to do better in the first place, as often part of wanting to get things right is knowing of the consequences of getting things wrong. Knowing that guilt would be waiting for you can play a part in spurring you not only to work harder, but also to work in the right way.
Here’s an article which says that feeling guilty can actually help to make you a better boss. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20257373
Thanks for your comments, Komar. I respect your opinion, but I daresay that a desire to learn from a ‘mistake’ can be fuel enough for some to attempt to remedy the situation. Guilt, in my opinion, should never be the motivator… though, I do agree with you that when you are aware of consequences and you know that guilt is a potentiality for you, you might not make that particular choice.
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