We and our feelings are inseparable-they follow us through life, making us happy or suffering. Some of them are especially persistent – they can eat us alive right from the inside, without caring about the consequences.
Such experiences include guilt, one of the strongest of all emotions and feelings. Today we will talk about what it is and the methods of getting rid of this unpleasant emotion.
What is the apparent cause?
Guilt can have different apparent causes of appearance. A schoolboy feels guilt for not having learned his lesson, and a murderer feels guilt for innocent victims. The reason is not so significant when it comes to the immense power of the experience. It eats away at the inside, scratching and tearing at the soul. Sharing your anguish and talking about it is difficult and very scary.
Over time, guilt becomes a heavy burden that just needs to be gotten rid of. As we scroll through the memories of the moment that made us feel guilty, we feel the same unbearable shame every time. And that emotion doesn’t go away-it can only hide for a while.
This clinging feeling of guilt occurs when one tries to close oneself off from the situation. By refusing to accept responsibility and see wrong, we plant a seed of guilt in our own souls. Even if we try to convince ourselves and those around us of good intentions – what we’ve done doesn’t go away. You just try to fool yourself, to justify, but it doesn’t work. It is important to accept the situation. It is important to admit mistakes.
Guilt as a tool
With this feeling can be manipulated, and very many people are happy to use it. More often than not, guilt becomes a powerful instrument of social or parental control.
This feeling is manipulated over parents by children and vice versa, spouses in marriage, teachers in school, and so on. Remember how the girl who doesn’t smoke looked at you when you first lit a cigarette? Were you comfortable under her gaze? Or when the grandmother on the bench, scrutinizing your outfit, looked you in the eye?
When someone often manipulates our guilt and uses it as a tool of control, the guilt becomes toxic and spreads even deeper. Over time, it poisons the body-and that taste of guilt accompanies us all the time. We begin to be tormented by the feeling that we are “wrong,” “different,” inferior. This feeling of guilt goes into an advanced stage.
Chronic stage
When this feeling stagnates, it goes into the chronic stage.
This condition can be defined by a nagging unpleasant feeling of wrongness and inferiority, which seems to be unrelated to anything in particular, but nevertheless gives you no peace.
There is a feeling that life as a whole does not work out, that you are doing something wrong. This is a difficult stage in which it is difficult to overcome guilt. By the chronic stage, guilt is usually firmly embedded in your subconscious mind and is not going anywhere.
During this period, it’s hard to know what to do. After all, how can you redeem yourself if it’s already difficult to even say exactly what the guilt is? This emotion becomes the background. The background of your whole life. To some extent, this stage refers to the doctrine of original sin: the inheritance of the sinful nature from Adam and Eve.
Two developmental scenarios
There are two scenarios for the development of chronic feelings of guilt. Firstly, it can be provoked by external circumstances – if there is a stone hanging on the soul, then one oblique look will be enough to shake things up. Secondly, the feeling of self-blame for everything may just sleep, occasionally waking up and attacking our brain. However, its presence constantly gives an unpleasant aftertaste.
In the most severe cases, a person suffering from feelings of guilt is constantly afraid of doing something that may show everyone his inferiority and wrongness. That is why we should be careful not to let the habit of considering ourselves chronically guilty settle inside us and not go into a chronic stage.
How did it all begin?
If we parse the cases of chronic stages of guilt, we can trace one pattern – in most cases the roots of this of this feeling go back to childhood.
It could be almost anything – a teacher who constantly pointed out your mistakes, parents who punished you for the slightest fault and did not appreciate your achievements. Sense of guilt often develops in children from religious families.
As we can see, all of the above feelings of guilt have no basis. However, they are stable and strong and can accompany a person throughout his or her life.
It is almost impossible to draw a connecting line between the act committed and the all-consuming feeling of guilt – guilt exists as if without a reason. This is why it has tremendous power.
Guilt as a cover.
This feeling can be used as a cover from reality. A person talks about his or her wrongness and dysfunctionality in order not to do something, not to solve something. Very often such people are pitied. It is this pity that he uses as an excuse for himself.
If we imagine our inner world as a universe, the biggest and most all-consuming black hole is guilt. In its abyss disappear our joyful feelings and thoughts, the desire to develop and live, love and happiness.
It is easier for a guilty person to lie idle than to begin to change his or her own life. The feeling of hopelessness feeds this negative feeling, and we are constantly trying to make amends.
So what can we do?
Of course, it is important to get rid of feelings of guilt. To begin with, admit to yourself that it exists and analyze the situation. It is necessary to find out what is the consequence of this feeling, at what moments it appears, and at what not. Answer yourself the basic question: what moral benefit accrues to you because of this feeling?
After that, you need to fix the situation. Honestly ask yourself what to do. If nothing can be changed, then this state of affairs must simply be accepted. If something can be changed, stop looking for excuses and start looking for a way out.
- Ask for forgiveness from the person to whom you are guilty. This can be really difficult. It is important to apologize sincerely. Falsity will not help you breathe easy.
- Do not shift responsibility. No need to blame anyone, otherwise it will be impossible to break this vicious circle. If you hurt your child, you don’t have to tell him that he provoked you. Apologize and answer for your mistake.
- There is no need to compare yourself with others and try to conform to someone else’s ideals. Believe me, it’s impossible to keep up with all the advice and guidance. Be yourself (more about that). If your neighbor plays three sports and you don’t, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.
Feelings of guilt develop feelings of inferiority, which in turn shut out so many wonderful things for us! Breathe deep and look at the world
with open eyes!
With love and faith in you, Maria Shakti.
