How to Never Feel Guilty
Guilt is a weaponized form of cognitive dissonance. When we feel guilty, we are in the paradox of “do or not do” and it’s weaponized when we attempt to use this feeling to manipulate our own behavior or other people’s behaviors.
Guilt can be divided into two main groups: We feel we should do something but we don’t want to do it or we feel we shouldn’t do something but we want to do it.
And within those two groups, we can separate them into two smaller groups where guilt is used as a form of punishment for both.
For example, we feel that we should go to work but we don’t feel like going. If we don’t go, we punish ourselves with guilt for not going. And on the other side, we use guilt to force ourselves to eventually go.
Or, we’re currently on a diet but we want to eat some cake. If we end up eating it, we punish ourselves with guilt for doing it. And on the other side, we use guilt to prevent ourselves from eating it.
Guilt is the weaponized form of the feeling when we’re stuck between “do or not do” because we use it to manipulate our own behavior or other’s people’s behavior. But we go throughout the day confronted by the choices to “do or not do”. What outfit we should wear, what to eat for lunch, and all the other choices we make to do or not do, we normally don’t feel guilty for. And the reason is that we own and take full responsibility for those choices.
We don’t judge ourselves on whether it was the right or wrong choice, we’ve made the choice and we’re willing to own it and any consequences that follow. It was the choice we wanted to make so we choose it.
We also don’t dwell on the choices, second-guessing ourselves on whether we should have made different ones. If the choice wasn’t the best one to take, we trust ourselves enough to learn from it.
Whether we’re making ourselves feel guilty or it’s someone else making us feel guilty, we can stop those feeling by taking responsibility for those choices. And when those feelings of guilt finally disappear, it means we’ve silenced the internal debate on whether to “do or not do” and have accepted the fact that it’s our responsibility to decide.
