Guilt and how to appease it

 Few emotions can be as toxic and destructive as guilt. 

It consists of feeling that one has not acted correctly or that one has not met the expectations one had generated, thus disappointing other people —or oneself!—.

Guilt and how to appease it

The origin of guilt can have different origins or causes: the level of demand —or self-demand—, the education of the parents, the required taboos, the school, the relationship with classmates, poorly formed or instructed sexual issues in childhood- adolescence or incorrect or extreme interpretations of religion. In fact, the fault has several foci:

— It can originate within you. In this case you always bring to mind a failure or disappointment. Your point of view is on you, on your limitations or on your mistakes. You treat yourself with contempt, with a terrible hardness that prevents you from moving forward and seeing the positive.

— It can come from outside. When your environment reminds you or points an "accusing finger" at you: in childhood, "you should be ashamed...", "if you do that, you make dad sad..."; or in adulthood, “you should have studied Economics”, “you shouldn't have married…”, “you shouldn't have gone into that business”, “you should have seen it coming…”.

Careful! Both inner and outer voices can be equally damaging to the mind and body.

Guilt sinks; does not allow progress. Some feelings of guilt can lead to severe moods. It is relatively common to treat very neurotic, depressed personalities in consultation, who have settled in a process of guilt that they cannot heal. When the guilt has a real basis -sometimes we do make serious mistakes!- try to make that past mistake an impetus to improve, to learn and overcome that fall.

THE CASE OF CATALINE

Catherine married at the age of thirty-one. She has worked all her life in a multinational company, traveling throughout Spain and Europe. She enjoys her work and has never felt a maternal instinct.

At thirty-three she became a mother for the first time. After her delivery, during her maternity leave, she began to feel a great attachment to her son, her Eduardo. She found herself reading endlessly about babies, breastfeeding, and motherhood. She signed up to various web pages to learn and be more informed. She attended postpartum groups with other mothers, took her son to massages and dedicated herself to talking with other women about the daily evolution and development of little Eduardo.

Four months passed and the day came when it was time to go back to work. She, who had always been a person with great professional drive, began with feelings of anguish days before her incorporation. Upon returning to work she was unable to disconnect from her house, she activated a system on her mobile to see how her baby was throughout the day.

When she left home, she would have a "terrible feeling of guilt" for abandoning her son. That thought led to a state of alertness and anguish due to which she was unable to perform at work. In her mind thoughts of guilt crowded and her only desire was to get home, hug her son and be with him. She realized that she was forging an unhealthy mother-son relationship. A couple of months later she applied for anxiety leave.

When I see her in the office for the first time, I realize that she has developed an anxious depressive state derived from guilt. She never imagined that she could feel that instinct —natural on the other hand, but nullified in her for so many years…!— and right now, every time the idea of ​​working arises, thousands of toxic thoughts rush through her head, judging and criticizing the fact of abandoning his son.

We started a therapy to see exactly the level of anguish that he presents. On the other hand, we enter to shred his interior, his blockage and anxiety derived from guilt. We realize that he comes from a family where her mother always worked—they were separated from her and her father lived far from her—and he has never been overly close to her. She explains:

—My mother spent the day working outside, she would drop us off at a neighbor's house with whom we would do our homework and play with her children. She has rarely given me a kiss or she has told me that she loves me. She is very cold, overly practical, and she judges me very harshly when I do something that is not right.

The therapy lasted several months, until she began to accept the feelings of attachment that were inhibited in her. She learned to understand her mother, the circumstances surrounding her childhood, and to love her the way she is hers. Today she works, with reduced hours, and she is excited about expecting her second child.

HOW TO APPEASE THE FEELING OF GUILT

— Notice and take note of the main faults that assail your mind throughout the day. Observe which events in your life affect you the most. Accept that you may judge yourself too harshly on some issues.

— Make a list of failures, faults or faults that you have been able to commit throughout your life and that have marked you in some way. Without exaggeration, don't be overly harsh or overly lenient, a middle ground. Rate them from zero to five. Thanks to your notes, you will realize that you can precisely delimit your perception of guilt.

— Observe that event from your past that haunts you as if you were sitting on the train, watching that scene of your life pass before you. Realize that there is no way to influence her anymore. Guilt doesn't help, it doesn't make you grow. It doesn't take away your grief, anguish or hopelessness. It is not constructive. It's just a toxic emotion that prevents you from moving forward and that needs to be processed and destroyed.

— Go back to your present with this risky question: what am I missing from my present by living hooked on guilt? You will be surprised, good things are happening in your environment, sure!, that you are not able to perceive.

- Learn to love yourself. To be well in life, the most necessary thing is to know how to be well with yourself. People who settle in guilt fail to visualize their strengths and talents. They perceive that everything constantly falls on them due to their limitations or defects (their perception is distorted!).

— Beware of victimhood. Guilt is a sliding ramp that often ends in victimhood, neurotic and toxic behavior that hinders your vision of life and your way of relating to others.

— Look for things in yourself that you like. They exist, but sometimes your state of mind, your anchors in the past, prevent you from seeing it. Surely within you there are skills that can be an impulse to grow positively, even if they dislike others! There is your biggest challenge: detach yourself from the opinion and judgment of others.

— Set your values. Guilt entails that the entire value system is shaken. You don't know what you believe or why you believe. What rules your life? Think about whether you are not being very hard on yourself because of something imposed from outside or because of demands that you have been carrying throughout your life.