Skip the Guilt Trip Next Time.
As life’s resident do-gooder and people-pleaser, guilt is an emotion that I am so very well acquainted with.
I battle with the guilt of not being there for all my friends, the guilt of not being the best daughter to my parents, the guilt of not always giving my daughter my full attention, the guilt of not being where I think I should be in life, the guilt of there still being suffering in the world, and the guilt of some people grieving during the holidays instead of celebrating. But the biggest guilt of all is the guilt I feel when I make mistakes.
The biggest guilt of all?
Guilt when I trip. A friend calls for a favour and I do not give them everything because I need to save some for me too. Trip because I lied about something to save my hide. Trip when I am rude to someone because I don’t like them. Trip when I scoff at someone that got hugged by karma. You know- trip that comes with fucking up. That kind of trip.
READ: 9 Life Lessons That I Forgot And How They Led Me To Fall Into Abuse.
But, have you ever considered how debilitating guilt as an emotion can be? We get down on ourselves. We get depressed. We look up to heaven, beat our chests and mourn for days. How could we? How could this be?
As someone who grew up in the church, guilt was magnified by the concept of ‘sin’. Guilt for me was a reminder of all the ways I fell short. But have you ever thought about how debilitating guilt as an emotion can be? It can bring us down and make us depressed. After years of dealing with guilt, I began a journey to remove negative emotions from my life. I realized that going on guilt trips does not lead to meaningful change. In fact, it can just make us more self-righteous. Going on guilt trips is not changing the behaviour for which I was guilty of- a penance without a changed behaviour.
After years of dealing with guilt, I started on a journey where I started to remove negative emotions from myself. It was time for the guilt trip to GO.
I have a different perspective: skip the guilt trip and get on with living.
Read: 4 Types of Anger After Abuse
How do you do this?
- Take a moment to sit with myself and reflect on why I made the mistake. Was it a momentary lapse in judgment or something deeper that I need to work on?
- If it was a lapse in judgment, I try to let it go and not dwell on it.
- If I realize it is a pattern, I make a firm decision to take a moment to act better every time I find myself on the verge of falling into that pattern. For example, if I am about to speak rudely, I give myself a ten-second delay and remind myself to speak kindly.
- Every time the situation crosses my mind, I try to counter it with something positive, such as “I am happy” or “I am done with you.”
By doing these things, I hope to improve daily and skip the guilt trips more quickly. The goal is to build myself up positively, rather than dwelling on negative emotions like guilt.
Thank you for reading.
My name is Adaobi Okwy. Please turn on Email Notification for my next post. Also, Buy me coffee?
You can also read: My Love-Letter To My Broken Pieces, Here.
