A quick guide to managing guilt

Or how to use guilt instead of being used by it

A quick show of hands to all of you out there who think that guilt is the most annoying, useless, dragging feeling out there. 

It creeps into you, making your head spin and your thoughts ruminate about what you’ve done. 

The usual tactics to control guilt are:

#Self-criticism: “I cannot believe I did that! What kind of a person am I?”

Focus on the #positive: “Well, at least I can still have X”

#Blame the other person:  “Of course, I did that, I told them thousands of times not to..x..”

Replace it with #anger: “I cannot believe that I had to do that. It was the right thing to do to show them who’s in charge.”

Feel free to think and input your own tactics for dealing with guilt. 

The thing is, guilt is one of the most useful emotions out there. Strongly linked to our values and what makes us human. 

Guilt usually signals that you’ve done something wrong, something that is against your values.

So, getting rid of the guilt is pointless and potentially counterproductive - as it takes you farther from what matters. 

Picture this - you come home after a long day, Your kid’s Legos are all over the place. You get angry and scream at them. Of course, you feel guilty afterward. 

Now, you can rationalize the guilt, telling yourself that “Well, I told them a million times to pick that up.” In this case, you completely bypass the meaning of guilt and accomplish nothing other than a messed-up relationship and a tension-fueled evening. 

Or, you can lean a bit into the guilt and ask yourself why is it there - because it signals that you value your relationship with your kid, and yelling is not a behavior that enforces that. 

So you can talk to your kid, apologize and explain what got you so worked up. Maybe draw up a plan for next time.

That’s strengthening the relationship. 

This is the first way to deal with guilt - leaning into it, acknowledging its signal, and acting in a meaningful way. 

Ah, but there’s a trick. Sometimes guilt appears in a not-so-functional manner. 

Picture this: You are always a pleaser person - you are available for others and people are counting on you to be there. That’s fine, but it has started to impact your life. You don’t take time for yourself, and you don’t like this. 

So let’s say to do something for yourself. For example, go to the gym twice a week and shut down your phone during the workout. Of course, people still expect you to be there, maybe implying that you should still be there for them and you feel guilty. 

Now, the guilt is telling you that being there for others is important. Should you lean into that and don’t ever do stuff for yourself?

Not exactly. 

In this particular case, what you want to focus on is the value of taking care of yourself AND learning how to make room for that guilt. 

It is only there because it was how you behaved until now, and it won’t go away just because you decide to focus on another important aspect of your life. But in this case, leaning into the guilt won’t help you go toward what matters to you. 

So what you do is make room for the guilt AND for the pleasure/ curiosity/ whatever feeling arises while doing something for yourself. 

We can feel multiple feelings at the same time, and that only makes us more human and helps us move toward what matters. 

Good luck!