Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. We all do things we are a bit ashamed of. And a normal reaction is to feel guilty about our behaviour. But how much guilt is enough? Too little and we run the danger of becoming almost amoral in our dealings with people. Too much and you are stuck in a rut, beating yourself up, and probably depressed as well.
Early life experience has a big influence on how you feel about yourself when things that you had a part in go wrong. People who have endured constant criticism are prone to think badly of themselves and to strive for perfection to escape criticism. Their efforts to be perfect are bound to fail thus perpetuating the negative feelings they have about themselves. Some people get blamed by other people for how they feel – ‘it is your fault that I am feeling like this … you are doing this to me etc’ - and as a result may end up always trying to make others happy and enduring guilt when they don’t or cannot keep others happy, which is most of the time.
Religion is often at the root of guilty feelings about oneself, and usually that may be no bad thing. But as religious belief changes some of its strictures may still have a grip. The person who intellectually feels that it is fine to have sex outside marriage may still be tortured by guilt if they have had a strong family history of being told how to think and feel about sexual matters.
If you are stuck in a guilt trip the first thing to do is to re-examine the situation that is troubling you and hopefully you can gain a better perspective on your behaviour. People are inclined to blame themselves for things that other people, or situational factors beyond their control, had a big role in bringing about. So take a situation you feel bad about and put it to a simple test. You may have lost your cool with someone at work and regret it. Or you may have snogged one of your spouses friends at a party and are mortified, embarrassed, terrified someone will find out and wanting to turn the clock back. You may just be feeling bad about not making time to visit someone in hospital. Or about the white lie you told to avoid going to a boring party. Perhaps it is the scratch you put on some other shoppers car at the supermarket.
First of all go back to your intentions before the event happened. Did you fully intend things to turn out as they did? Did you see it as a possibility? Or maybe it never even entered your head. Pick a figure between one and ten to signify how much you fully knew what you were doing and how it would end up.
If another person is upset, who is responsible? Is it one hundred per cent your fault? Maybe the other person should take some of the blame. Again pick a number and build up the perspective picture.
Think about what other factors may have contributed to the situation. Maybe they were badly parked. Again try and identify and evaluate those other factors and ask do they lessen the responsibility and guilt you are placing on yourself.
When people feel guilty they may only see the negative factors of the situation. But it is very unusual for a situation to be all bad. There are usually pluses and minuses. Try to step outside your circumstances and assess what percentage of the situation is good and what percentage is bad. You may be surprised at what you find.
I am not for one moment suggesting that all guilt is bad and that a guilt free world would be a wonderful place. It is important that we keep a connection between our behaviour and our emotions. We spend a great deal of time teaching children the difference between right and wrong and it is vital for all of our well being that most people agree in general about how to behave in society. But values change, life is not black and white, or simple, and throughout life people find themselves with dilemmas for which there is no easy answer. And doing things that do not sit easily with their moral code. But that does not make them bad people. Recognising the full complexity of human life may help you get out from under the burden of guilt, while still going through life making a good attempt at separating right from wrong and taking the better road.
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