The Agility of Guilt: The Power of Regret-free Choices
“I defined my career success as being one of the hardest workers. I always brought projects home during the weekends or vacations. It was not possible to separate myself from my job. I constantly felt guilt when I would overwork or not work. During our coaching sessions, I learned to balance work and recovery. I finally had my guilt-free rest. Also, all my performance numbers increased, and I feel healthier and happier.” Account Director, Financial Services
Often we feel guilty about taking a break from work, delegating, giving negative feedback, or saying “no.” The guilt stops us from moving forward and growing. We become torn between choices and stuck in chronic pain regardless of what we do.
- How does the feeling of guilt show up?
- What is the weight carrying the guilt?
- What are the ways to have regret-free choices?
We invite you to join live talks with Olympians and Performance Coaches to explore topics that help us break our limits.
HOSTS
Inga Stasiulionyte, Olympian in javelin throwing, performance coach at Valor Performance, and founder of ofounders.com
Joe Jacobi, Olympic Gold medalist at whitewater slalom, author of “Slalom: 6 River Classes About How To Confront Obstacles, Advance Amid Uncertainty, & Bring Focus To What Matters Most,” performance coach at Valor Performance, and founder of joejacobi.com
LIVE TALKS: The Agility of Guilt: The Power of Regret-free Choices
Watch the recording here:
TIMESTAMPS
01:16 — Should we talk about negative feelings when we talk about the performance mindset?
- Why is it important not to ignore rocks in the river
- Awareness of the feelings that make it harder to navigate helps to manage ourselves
- Not falling into the chronic guilt pain
06:00 — How does guilt show up in our lives?
- Feeling guilty for not being, or doing enough, not being there for family members when they need us, not letting go of some expectations, fear of disappointing others, and not meeting society’s set cultural expectations
- The practice of guilt tripping
- Guilt is related to shame and regret
- Guilt walks us to the door, where we stop to think about our next choice. Is society really right?
- Guilt forces us to revise our values. It steers us in a more meaningful direction.
17:20 — If we do not address feelings of guilt, what effects do they have on us?
- If we do not find time to address the feelings of guilt and suppress them, it becomes a burden for us and others. Not addressing deep feelings gets us stuck. It becomes so much harder to move.
- We submit ourselves to constant internal conflict, feeling misaligned, and can’t fully commit and perform our best. We cannot be the best leader we can be if we constantly feel guilty delegating, giving critical feedback, and saying no.
24:20 — Why is it so hard to confront our feelings?
- We get easily distracted from giving space and time to manage our complicated feelings. When we have too many intense feelings, it is hard not to act on them.
- When we feel guilty, it means we are doing something against our values. To address these deep feelings, we will need to revise our values. It takes patience to reexamine our values and rediscover ourselves. It requires a lot of awareness and discipline.
- We talked about the guilt of pleasure and doing nothing.
39:38 — How to address a feeling of guilt?
- What choices led me to feel guilty?
- What values are clashing?
- Being specific, what is the most meaningful problem for us to solve here?
- Exploring our assumptions, most times, it is unclear what the right thing is to do in life.
- Committing to our choices but being flexible with our convictions
- Instead of getting sucked into short-term solutions and achieving immediate happiness, we should explore the gains of the long game and look for more meaning and growth.
- Defining what feelings are the opposite of guilt to have a better direction where we should lean in more
- Understanding where in our body we feel guilt and learning how it affects us
- Bringing normality to the painful feelings because those feelings are a guide to our expansion
- Guilt is a flavor of life, a bridge that allows us to expand and understand our authentic selves better
53:00 — What would be self-care to prepare for the feelings of guilt?
- Quarterly recalling situations that affected us more than we expected, circumstances that brought results that we didn’t expect
- What is our place in the situation?
- What is enough and meaningful in this situation, considering all its limitations?
- What would be a regret-free choice here?
Excerpt about the feeling of guilt from the book “The Erotic Mind” by Jack Morin, Ph.D. Psychotherapist and Sex Therapist
Whether guilt first came over you in response to a wordless look of disapproval on your mother’s face or a spoken criticism, it evolved into a form of self-policing, the purpose of which was to forestall the withdrawal of love and avoid abandonment — life-or-death objectives to a child. If you were lucky enough to grow up in a reasonably healthy environment, you eventually learned to experience guilt as an emotional component of conscience. Now, as an adult, when you stray too far from the values and principles you live by, guilt nudges you back on track. A certain amount of guilt benefits you as an individual and as a member of the groups with which you affiliate. In this way, healthy guilt is a social emotion that keeps you attuned to the rules and expectations you have absorbed from your community and culture and is neither debilitating nor demeaning. Be thankful for this kind of guilt. Truly guiltless people are sociopaths — those who commit monstrous acts without a shred of discomfort.
Unfortunately, most guilt is neurotic guilt in which impossible, superhuman standards produce a harsh, merciless conscience and, in the most extreme cases, a lifetime of unrelenting self-condemnation. Neurotic guilt demands that its victims suffer for all kinds of imaginary crimes of omission or commission. The most extreme form is shame, a conviction held by many people that they are fundamentally and irreparably flawed. Shame is a common result of severe emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Whereas guilt comes from the sense of doing, thinking, or feeling bad things, shame reflects an inner certainty of being a bad person.
Excerpt about the different types of guilt from the Study.com website:
It is believed that there are three different types of guilt that humans experience:
Reactive guilt occurs when a person commits an act that, after the fact, strikes them as unkind or as having had a negative impact. The guilt that they then feel is a reaction to what they have done.
Anticipatory guilt occurs when an individual knows that an act that they are going to commit, or are considering committing, might have negative outcomes. Perceiving this in advance of the action’s occurrence, the guilt that is felt is anticipatory.
Existential guilt occurs when a person struggles with who they are, what they are, and their place in the world. For example, an adult man may feel guilty about being a man because statistics show that many women are physically harmed by men every year. Though this man has never physically harmed another person, let alone a woman, he feels existential guilt because he is part of the guilty group.
Other resources on the feeling of guilt:
