How Undeserved Guilt Can Paralyze Us

We all experience guilt from time to time. But many of us have a hard time letting go of it and find it difficult to forgive ourselves, even though we may readily forgive others. First of all, it’s important to recognize whether our guilt is true or false. Just because we feel guilty, that doesn’t mean we are. Feelings aren’t facts. And even if our guilt is “true”–that we’ve morally transgressed, we’re still worthy and capable of forgiveness.

Many of us have underlying internalized shame we don’t know about. It fosters a guilty conscience. They’re especially hard on themselves and may suffer from frequent bouts of unrelenting, false guilt.

False Guilt

If we are victims of abuse in the past, the role of victim is familiar and more comfortable than standing up for ourselves. In our mind, doing so might risk the other person’s anger or worse, the end of a relationship. We rather take the blame and feel guilty. Thus, we’re always saying “I’m sorry” to keep the peace, but don’t really mean it. Moreover, we’ve learned to abuse ourselves with guilt and negative self-talk. (To overcome this, see 10 Steps to Self-Esteem-The Ultimate Guide to Stop Self-Criticism.

Codependency and Guilt

Codependents, in particular, are easy targets of manipulation and projection of…