Turning Guilt Into Your Guide
I used to struggle with guilt. I felt guilty when I shouldn’t, and really felt guilty when I had good reason. So if you struggle with feelings like regret or guilt, believe me when I say I understand how you feel. But what if we could take those feelings of guilt and turn them into something positive? Make them work for us rather than destroy us inside? Actually we can. Let’s say you’re a parent and you yell at your young son for something, and 5 minutes later you realize you completely over-reacted and start to feel guilty. This is the moment you must decide to let that guilt help you. After all, a valid feeling of guilt is just your subconscious way of trying to correct your behavior. So this time we’re gonna let it correct us.
When that feeling of guilt creeps into you, you start to think to yourself that you overreacted and you hurt your son emotionally for something unwarranted. We can’t go back and erase what happened, but we CAN vow not to do it again. At this moment you need to stop and tell yourself you will NEVER yell at your son again, or at least that you’ll never yell at him again unless you have a good reason. And then you’ll repeat it to yourself. So after you go apologize to your son, and maybe spend a few quality minutes with him, you’ll repeat it to yourself again. For the rest of the day, keep reminding yourself of your mistake and your promise not to make that mistake again. Think of how hurt your son looked and how bad you felt. See, this is where people make the mistake of just forgetting about it or sweeping it under the rug. Some people don’t even want to admit they were wrong - so they don’t appear to be weak. But it’s a strong person who can admit they are wrong. You need to keep that mistake in the forefront of your mind, because you know you were wrong. And here’s the important part - while you’re reminding yourself, DON’T feel guilty! The point here is not to beat yourself up about it. The point is to remind yourself WHY you felt guilty so you can avoid those feelings again. You felt guilty because you did something wrong. If you just forget about it, you’ll forget to adjust your behavior. If you remind yourself of what you did wrong, you’ll have a better chance of stopping yourself the next time you feel the urge to yell.
When you start to feel guilty about something - something you have a GOOD reason to feel guilty about - stop and make a mental note of what you did, how you felt, and promise yourself you won’t do that again. And keep reminding yourself of these things. Of course you might slip up, and that’s OK. Just let the feelings of guilt be your guide to behavior modification. You will feel stronger in the knowledge that you can and will avoid that behavior in the future.
One final note… If you’ve been made to feel guilty your entire life, or if you feel guilty about everything, then you need to sit down and think of why you’re feeling guilty and if it’s even a valid feeling of guilt - or just a conditioned reaction you were raised with. Those are deeper issues than I’m touching on here. But chances are you know the difference between valid and invalid feelings of guilt, and the valid ones can still guide you.
Tags: guilt, Self Help, self improvement