Guilt; a feeling that has no positive purpose

guilt

Guilt; a feeling that has no positive purpose

In order for you to feel guilty you must perceive that somebody else is suffering because of something you have done.

I feel guilty because I left my wife and now my children are unhappy.

I feel guilty because I moved my family away and now they are not settled and have no friends

I feel guilty because I lose my job and now we have no money.

It’s the responsibility of having done something that you consider wrong or bad that has affected another person.

If you don’t consider that the thing you did is wrong or that another’s suffering is because of your actions, then you won’t feel guilty.

Guilt is what good people feel when they have done something bad to make themselves feel better.

Imagine if you consider yourself to be a good person (which most people do) and you did something bad, if you didn’t feel guilty then that would make you a bad person.

In your eyes…

Bad action + Guilt feeling = Good person

Bad action + No guilt feeling = Bad person

People do not want to be responsible for the way they feel, they like to blame other people for how they feel.

It is this avoidance of taking responsibility that leads to your own feelings of guilt.

In order for you to feel guilt you must first have to blame someone else for how you feel because guilt requires someone else feeling bad because of something you did.

If you accept that if you feel bad, and your life is going how it’s going because of the choices that you make and for no other reason, if you stop blaming others for how you feel. Then you will also stop feeling guilty.

Because as you take responsibility for your own life and how you feel you will automatically liberate others to do the same, which will in turn free you up form any feelings of guilt you may be experiencing.

You may also notice that guilt only occurs on something that has already happened, it is and can never be by nature about something you can do something about.

It is, other than the fact it allows you to blame other people for the quality of your life, like a victim mentality, a pointless self indulgence.

It does not make the thing you did any better, it does not stop you from doing something “bad” in the future, it just exist to make you feel bad now.

A man leaves his wife because he is unhappy and he wants a better life, the children feel sad and struggle to adjust to this new living arrangement. So the man begins to feel guilty about what he has done. As time goes on he may feel guiltier and indulge deeper. Who knows it may lead to despair. Now not only do his children have a parents who have separated they have a father who is ridden with guilt.

It will never drive him back to the relationship and even if it does he will live in a relationship he hates that is fuelled by his own guilt. Not a great environment for his children or his wife.

In any case where you can think that guilt exists in your life you will not be able to find any positive purpose for it.

At best you may feel like it is a deterrent to stop you doing the action again, in truth however it will actually not be the thing that stops you, and a simple commitment will do the job just as well.

Also if you stay somewhere or act out of guilt it will not create a happy, fulfilling environment.

You do not need to go out of your way to make others unhappy, just allow them to be responsible for there own decisions and choices and you do the same for yours.

  • Take responsibility for your own life and let others do the same.
  • Know yourself to be, and be a good person, that does not intentionally hurt others.
  • Take responsibility for the way you feel, and know that no person other than you can make you feel anyway.
  • Know that you’re a human being and that despite your best intentions life can get the better of you and human beings make mistakes.
  • Good people can do bad things; it does not make them bad people.
  • Release yourself from the painful burden of guilt, you and all those around you will feel better for it.

As with all emotions guilt is a feeling that you can understand logically and can let go of logically yet it does not fully release until you allow yourself to experience the emotion that is attached to the events surrounding the guilt.

It’s a little like the grieving process, allow yourself some space to experience the emotion you have been holding onto around the guilt. That may not be the most comfortable experience but if you do it properly it will set you free forever.

Make sure you don’t dwell on the feeling for too long, as that will become self-pity and that is a whole other topic. And some people like to run the two together. For now just deal with the guilt, we will look at the self-pity another day.

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