Guilt Is a Friend Who Protects Us, by Making Us Hurt.
‘I just want the earth to swallow me right now.’
Guilt 'trips' are the only trips we do not want to take. They are scary journeys to cross.
It isn’t like a fun little vacation you get to take with people you love and care about. It’s more like the world is staring at you as you walk by, and you have no clue when they will look away.
Guilt brings to our awareness negative memories and emotions that we crave to avoid and push off because the feeling is, for some reason, so overwhelming.
Like a person pointing a judgy finger at you.
“Look at what you have done. How could you!”
Guilt has a bad rap.
In recent times, I’ve gotten to see that guilt isn’t so much of a judgemental thing. Neither is it a thing to be scared of.
It appears to be so because that’s how the feeling came about in early childhood. The feeling that you’ve done something wrong and will get punished for it.
Nobody punishes us now (well not to the degree at which it might have happened in our childhood), but we feel the burden of guilt. So we may do the punishing by ourselves, to fulfil that gap.
Guilt is not supposed to be that way. It’s a compass. A compass that shows that you still have the greater good in you; you still have morals.
It can also be a compass that you have acted based on how you have been conditioned, even if there’s nothing entirely wrong with what you have done. You just feel guilty because you were made to feel guilty about it in your childhood. Like feeling guilty that you spent your money to buy a piece of item you wanted. Or that you told someone a ‘NO.’
Guilt protects us from slipping off our morals.
Showing us that something is going on that we need to be aware of like the lights on our dashboard showing us what is working well and what we need to check.
We have our values, and these values guide us, whether we are conscious of it or not. We act based on different beliefs, mindset and instincts. And sometimes they may be wrong.
They may go against our word, and they may put us in a different place, far from who we claim or wish to be.
Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. — Audre Lorde
Guilt lets us know where to check. It points out our faults and reminds us of our values.
It gives us the room to work and manage what we have going on.
Maybe you should listen to your friend.
Treat guilt as a friend. It’s there to protect you and remind you of how to live, and how not to live.
It only becomes a friend when you use it as a means to make change.
I’d love to hear from you, when was the last time you felt guilty? And how did it go?
Catch you in the next one!
🌳
