Guilt -what to do when you feel guilty?

One Way Road Podcast
Nov 2 · 3 min read

Guilt is the feeling that you have done something wrong and there is a constant dwelling of the idea in your brain. This is made from your judgement and it is an interesting emotion, it’s uncomfortable. Guilt makes you feel a strong urge to apologize or make things right, but sometimes it’s hard to make things right. If you feel guilty and don’t do anything you are only causing harm to yourself. Taking action is the only way out.

It is good we feel guilty. It shows us that we have empathy and it shows that we care, not feeling guilty give you some psychopathic traits. If you were truly an awful person, would you even worry about it in the first place? But there is always a limit, when you feel powerless and upset due to your situation it means you have to change something.

There are 4 main ways to deal with guilt:

  • you can forgive yourself
  • you can understand your situation
  • you can take ownership
  • or you can let it go ( you cannot change the past, what’s the point of dwelling over it now?)

1. The Confirmation Bias

A type of guilt we all go through is when we feel as if we have done something wrong even though there is no evidence if it. This is called the confirmation bias and it’s really hard to escape. For example, there are a group of people at school who I don’t think like me, every time I talk to them they give me a judgemental look and I always feel like I’ve done something wrong. What I recently realised is that a look is not evidence because that look could have many interpretations, that don’t have to do with me. It’s pointless because it isn’t based on anything, its all made up in your brain.

2. A lack of justification

Another reason we may feel guilty is due to another possibility that is present in our heads. In other words, another outcome. There was this one time I broke my friend’s TV stand and I felt really guilty for about 6 months because I had no idea how to deal with it and because I kept picturing another outcome of what could have happened, the incident was not even my fault but I took responsibility for it anyway. That other voice in my head telling me that things could have ended differently kept me uneasy. The only thing to do in that situation is to learn the fact that the other outcome is fictional and in your head and that you have to learn to accept what you got in the end.

3. Overresponsibility

This is a classic type of guilt typically felt when in a broken home. E.g. When the kid blames themselves for their parents fighting. This is also based on a lack of information about what is going on in your surroundings, or maybe there is something someones is not telling you that drives you to feel guilty. This applies to me as in the story above I took responsibility for something that was not my fault without considering that there is no way I could have avoided it. There are so many factors the human mind could not possibly take into consideration when blaming themselves. There is no specific fix to this problem except knowing this information.

The next time you feel guilty, identify why and use that to come up with a solution that is suited to you, oh and…good luck!

For more information be sure to check out my podcast episode on guilt:

https://anchor.fm/one-way-road/episodes/Guilt---Why-do-we-feel-it-and-what-to-do-e5j37f

One Way Road Podcast

Written by

Ig — @onewayroadpodcast Life is a one way road of twists, turns and obstacles.

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