I feel guilt

How to Stop Feeling Guilty: 10 Tips

Sometimes we feel guilty for setting boundaries or relaxing. Or, we don’t know how to move forward after we do something wrong.

Over the course of your life thus far, you’ve probably done a thing or two you regret.

Most people have, since mistakes are a natural part of human growth. Still, the guilt that creeps in and stakes out space in your consciousness can cause plenty of emotional and physical turmoil.

You might know guilt best as the nauseating twist in your stomach that accompanies the knowledge you’ve hurt someone else. Perhaps you also deal with recurring self-judgment and criticism related to your memories of what happened and your fear of others finding out.

As an emotion, guilt has a lot of power.

Guilt can help you acknowledge your actions and fuel your motivation to improve your behavior. It might also lead you to fixate on what you could have done differently.

If you’ve never felt able to come clean about a mess-up, your guilt might feel magnified to an almost unbearable degree.

Though guilt can sometimes promote positive growth, it can also linger and hold you back — long after others have forgotten or forgiven what happened.

Grappling with the weight? These 10 tips can help lighten your load.

In the moment, ignoring your guilt or trying to push it away might seem like a helpful strategy. If you don’t think about it, you might reason, it will eventually dwindle and disappear. Right?

This is actually not the case.

Like other emotions, unaddressed guilt can stick around, making you feel worse over time.

Refusing to acknowledge your guilt might temporarily keep it from spilling into your everyday life, but masking your emotions generally doesn’t work as a permanent strategy. Truly addressing guilt requires you to first accept those feelings, however unpleasant they are.

Give this exercise a try:

Set aside some quiet time for yourself.
You can bring along a journal to keep track of your thoughts.
Say to yourself, or write down, what happened: “I feel guilty because I shouted at my kids.” “I broke a promise.” “I cheated on a test.”
Mentally open the door to guilt, frustration, regret, anger, and any other emotions that might come up. Writing down what you feel can help.
Sit with those feelings and explore them with curiosity instead of judgment. Many situations are more complex than they first appear. Picking apart the knot of distress can help you get a better handle on what you’re really feeling.

If you have a hard time acknowledging guilt, regular mindfulness meditation or guided journals may make a difference. These practices can help you become more familiar with emotions, making it easier to accept and work through even the most uncomfortable ones.

Guilt can happen on an individual or collective level. Some people shift in and out of each type throughout their lifetime. Others may feel one or more type of guilt at the same time:

Natural guilt: Natural guilt, simply put, is what you feel after you think you did something wrong. For example, if you break a promise to a friend, you might convince yourself you’re a bad friend. You chastise and think about what you should have done. You made a promise, and naturally, you feel guilty, prompting you to want to apologize. Natural guilt is often temporary and goes away after resolution.
Chronic guilt: This type happens from prolonged exposure to stress. Chronic guilt affects a person’s ability to regulate their emotions. A teacher, for example, may feel overworked and emotionally drained, which can affect relationships with students. The resulting guilt becomes a symptom of chronic-work related stress, or burnout. Some researchers argue for the inclusion of guilt in clinical evaluations of burnout. Chronic guilt can also occur with episodes of major depression.
Collective guilt: This type involves a sense of group or shared responsibility. Residents of a city may experience collective guilt about people experiencing homelessness in their neighborhood. In this scenario, the residents feel personal responsibility and guilt about not taking action to help. Collective guilt is harder to resolve since it’s embedded within systemic problems.
Survivor guilt: Traumatic events, such as witnessing a large-scale tragedy, may cause feelings of remorse and sadness. This could look like someone surviving an accident and then feeling guilty for the people who did not. Conversely, you may also feel guilty for being happy to be alive. Survivor guilt is characterized by conflicting emotional states.

Before you can successfully navigate guilt, you need to recognize where it comes from.

It’s natural to feel guilty when you know you’ve done something wrong. But guilt can also take root in response to events you didn’t have much, or anything, to do with.

Owning up to mistakes is important, even if you only admit them to yourself. It’s equally important to take note when you unnecessarily blame yourself for things you can’t control.

People often experience guilt over things they can’t be faulted for. You might feel guilty about breaking up with someone who still cares about you, or because you have a good job and your best friend can’t seem to find work.

Guilt can also stem from the belief that you’ve failed to fulfill expectations you or others have set. Of course, this guilt doesn’t reflect the effort you’ve put in to overcome the challenges keeping you from achieving those goals.

Some common causes of guilt include:

surviving trauma or disaster
conflict between personal values and choices you’ve made
mental or physical health concerns
thoughts or desires you believe you shouldn’t have
taking care of your own needs when you believe you should focus on others

Is someone else constantly making you feel guilty? Check out our article on how to address guilt-tripping.

Guilt manifests in different ways. You may experience guilt when you feel responsible for a mistake. Or, you may feel guilty if you feel responsible for something that happened to someone else.

Guilt is not the same as shame, which implies feelings of inadequacy for not meeting self-imposed expectations. For example, you might feel shame for posting a selfie and later regret how you look in the picture, but this doesn’t necessarily make you a “bad” person or morally irresponsible.

Although shame and guilt share overlapping characteristics, signs of guilt tend to imply a moral wrongdoing. This can include:

feelings of responsibility for one’s actions
desire to “fix” situations
self-esteem issues
negative self-criticism

Signs of unacknowledged guilt may include:

downplaying
defensiveness
lying
negative beliefs about yourself and your character

Physical signs of guilt often overlap with symptoms of mood disorders, like anxiety and depression:

muscle tension
fatigue
insomnia
digestive issues
crying

A 2020 study further explains that frowning and neck touching may be associated with non-verbal patterns of guilt—at least when someone else observes a guilty individual.

Taking responsibility for guilt is one of the first steps to finding resolve.

A sincere apology can help you begin repairing damage after a wrongdoing. By apologizing, you convey remorse and regret to the person who was hurt, and let them know how you plan to avoid making the same mistake in the future.

You may not receive forgiveness immediately — or ever — since apologies don’t always mend broken trust.

Sincerely apologizing still helps you heal, though, since it offers you the chance to express your feelings and hold yourself accountable after messing up.

To make an effective apology, you’ll want to:

acknowledge your role
show remorse
avoid making excuses
ask for forgiveness

Follow through by showing regret in your actions.

The most heartfelt apology means nothing if you never do things differently going forward.

Making amends means committing to change.

Maybe you feel guilty for not spending enough time with your loved ones or failing to check in when they needed support. After apologizing, you might demonstrate your desire to change by asking “What can I do to help?” or “How can I be there for you?”

You may not always have the ability to apologize directly. If you can’t get in touch with the person you hurt, try writing a letter instead. Getting your apology out on paper can still be beneficial, even if they never see it.

You might owe yourself an apology, too. Instead of clinging to guilt and punishing yourself after an honest mistake, remember: No one does everything right all the time.

To make amends, commit to self-kindness instead of self-blame going forward.

You can’t mend every situation, and some mistakes might cost you a treasured relationship or a close friend. Guilt combined with sadness over someone or something you’ve lost often feels impossible to escape.

Before you can leave the past behind, you need to accept it. Looking back and ruminating on your memories won’t fix what happened.

You can’t rewrite events by replaying scenarios with different outcomes, but you can always consider what you’ve learned:

What led to the mistake? Explore triggers that prompted your action and any feelings that tipped you over the edge.
What would you do differently now?
What did your actions tell you about yourself? Do they point to any specific behaviors you can work on?

It’s pretty common to feel guilty over needing help when you’re coping with challenges, emotional distress, or health concerns. Remember: People form relationships with others to build a community that can offer support.

Imagine the situation in reverse. You’d probably want to show up for your loved ones if they needed help and emotional support. Most likely, you wouldn’t want them to feel guilty about their struggles either.

There’s nothing wrong with needing help. Life isn’t meant to be faced alone.

Instead of feeling guilty when you need support, cultivate gratitude by:

thanking loved ones for their kindness
making your appreciation clear
acknowledging any opportunities you’ve gained as a result of their support
committing to paying this support forward once you’re on more solid ground

A mistake doesn’t make you a bad person — everyone messes up from time to time.

Guilt can provoke some pretty harsh self-criticism, but lecturing yourself on how catastrophically you messed up won’t improve things. Sure, you might have to face some external consequences, but self-punishment often takes the heaviest emotional toll.

Instead of shaming yourself, ask yourself what you might say to a friend in a similar situation. Perhaps you’d point out good things they’ve done, remind them of their strengths, and let them know how much you value them.

You deserve the same kindness.

People, and the circumstances they find themselves in, are complex. You may have some culpability for your mistake, but so might the others involved.

Reminding yourself of your worth can boost confidence, making it easier to consider situations objectively and avoid being swayed by emotional distress.

Guilt can serve as an alarm that lets you know when you’ve made a choice that conflicts with your personal values. Instead of letting it overwhelm you, try putting it to work.

When used as a tool, guilt can cast light on areas of yourself you feel dissatisfied with.

Maybe you find it difficult to be honest, and someone finally caught you in a lie. Perhaps you want to spend more time with your family, but something always gets in the way.

Taking action to address those circumstances can set you on a path that’s more in line with your goals.

If you feel guilty for not spending enough time with friends, you might make more of an effort to connect. When stress distracts you from your relationship, you might improve the situation by devoting one night a week to your partner.

It’s also worth paying attention to what guilt tells you about yourself.

Regret over hurting someone else suggests you have empathy and didn’t intend to cause harm. Creating change in your life might involve focusing on ways to avoid making that mistake again.

If you tend to feel bad about things you can’t control, it may be beneficial to explore the reasons behind your guilt with the help of a professional.

Self-forgiveness is a key component of self-compassion. When you forgive yourself, you acknowledge that you made a mistake, like all other humans do. Then, you can look to the future without letting that mistake define you. You grant yourself love and kindness by accepting your imperfect self.

Self-forgiveness involves four key steps:

Take responsibility for your actions.
Express remorse and regret without letting it transform into shame.
Commit to making amends for any harm you caused.
Practice self-acceptance and trust yourself to do better in the future.

People often have a hard time discussing guilt, which is understandable. After all, it’s not easy to talk about a mistake you regret. This means guilt can isolate you, and loneliness and isolation can complicate the healing process.

You might worry others will judge you for what happened, but you’ll often find that isn’t the case. In fact, you may find loved ones offer a lot of support.

The people who care for you will generally offer kindness and compassion. And sharing unpleasant or difficult feelings often relieves tension.

Friends and family can also help you feel less alone by sharing their experiences. Nearly everyone has done something they regret, so most people know what it’s like to feel guilty.

An outside perspective can also make a big difference, especially if you’re dealing with survivor guilt or guilt about something you had no control over.

Severe or persistent guilt doesn’t always lift easily. Some people find it difficult to work through feelings of guilt that relate to:

intrusive thoughts
depression
trauma or abuse

It’s tough to open up about guilt if you fear judgment. However, avoiding these feelings will usually worsen the situation.

Over time, guilt can affect relationships and add stress to daily life. It can also play a part in sleep difficulty and mental health conditions. Or it can lead to negative coping methods, like substance use.

When an undercurrent of misery, rumination, and regret threads through your daily interactions, keeping you from staying present with yourself and others, professional support might be a good next step.

Finding a therapist or mental health professional can help. They can offer guidance by helping you identify and address the causes of guilt, explore effective coping skills, and develop greater self-compassion.

Guilt belongs in the past. You can begin letting it go by strengthening your resilience and building confidence to make better choices in the future.

If you’re struggling to resolve feelings of guilt, know you don’t need to do it alone. Therapy can offer a safe space to learn how to forgive yourself and move forward.

Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.

How to Stop Feeling Guilty: 10 Tips

Sometimes we feel guilty for setting boundaries or relaxing. Or, we don’t know how to move forward after we do something wrong.

Over the course of your life thus far, you’ve probably done a thing or two you regret.

Most people have, since mistakes are a natural part of human growth. Still, the guilt that creeps in and stakes out space in your consciousness can cause plenty of emotional and physical turmoil.

As an emotion, guilt has a lot of power.

Guilt can help you acknowledge your actions and fuel your motivation to improve your behavior. It might also lead you to fixate on what you could have done differently.

If you’ve never felt able to come clean about a mess-up, your guilt might feel magnified to an almost unbearable degree.

Though guilt can sometimes promote positive growth, it can also linger and hold you back — long after others have forgotten or forgiven what happened.

Grappling with the weight? These 10 tips can help lighten your load.

In the moment, ignoring your guilt or trying to push it away might seem like a helpful strategy. If you don’t think about it, you might reason, it will eventually dwindle and disappear. Right?

This is actually not the case.

Like other emotions, unaddressed guilt can stick around, making you feel worse over time.

Give this exercise a try:

Set aside some quiet time for yourself.
You can bring along a journal to keep track of your thoughts.
Say to yourself, or write down, what happened: “I feel guilty because I shouted at my kids.” “I broke a promise.” “I cheated on a test.”
Mentally open the door to guilt, frustration, regret, anger, and any other emotions that might come up. Writing down what you feel can help.
Sit with those feelings and explore them with curiosity instead of judgment. Many situations are more complex than they first appear. Picking apart the knot of distress can help you get a better handle on what you’re really feeling.

Guilt can happen on an individual or collective level. Some people shift in and out of each type throughout their lifetime. Others may feel one or more type of guilt at the same time:

Natural guilt: Natural guilt, simply put, is what you feel after you think you did something wrong. For example, if you break a promise to a friend, you might convince yourself you’re a bad friend. You chastise and think about what you should have done. You made a promise, and naturally, you feel guilty, prompting you to want to apologize. Natural guilt is often temporary and goes away after resolution.
Chronic guilt: This type happens from prolonged exposure to stress. Chronic guilt affects a person’s ability to regulate their emotions. A teacher, for example, may feel overworked and emotionally drained, which can affect relationships with students. The resulting guilt becomes a symptom of chronic-work related stress, or burnout. Some researchers argue for the inclusion of guilt in clinical evaluations of burnout. Chronic guilt can also occur with episodes of major depression.
Collective guilt: This type involves a sense of group or shared responsibility. Residents of a city may experience collective guilt about people experiencing homelessness in their neighborhood. In this scenario, the residents feel personal responsibility and guilt about not taking action to help. Collective guilt is harder to resolve since it’s embedded within systemic problems.
Survivor guilt: Traumatic events, such as witnessing a large-scale tragedy, may cause feelings of remorse and sadness. This could look like someone surviving an accident and then feeling guilty for the people who did not. Conversely, you may also feel guilty for being happy to be alive. Survivor guilt is characterized by conflicting emotional states.

Before you can successfully navigate guilt, you need to recognize where it comes from.

It’s natural to feel guilty when you know you’ve done something wrong. But guilt can also take root in response to events you didn’t have much, or anything, to do with.

Owning up to mistakes is important, even if you only admit them to yourself. It’s equally important to take note when you unnecessarily blame yourself for things you can’t control.

Some common causes of guilt include:

surviving trauma or disaster
conflict between personal values and choices you’ve made
mental or physical health concerns
thoughts or desires you believe you shouldn’t have
taking care of your own needs when you believe you should focus on others

Is someone else constantly making you feel guilty? Check out our article on how to address guilt-tripping.

Guilt manifests in different ways. You may experience guilt when you feel responsible for a mistake. Or, you may feel guilty if you feel responsible for something that happened to someone else.

Although shame and guilt share overlapping characteristics, signs of guilt tend to imply a moral wrongdoing. This can include:

feelings of responsibility for one’s actions
desire to “fix” situations
self-esteem issues
negative self-criticism

Signs of unacknowledged guilt may include:

downplaying
defensiveness
lying
negative beliefs about yourself and your character

Physical signs of guilt often overlap with symptoms of mood disorders, like anxiety and depression:

muscle tension
fatigue
insomnia
digestive issues
crying

A 2020 study further explains that frowning and neck touching may be associated with non-verbal patterns of guilt—at least when someone else observes a guilty individual.

Taking responsibility for guilt is one of the first steps to finding resolve.

You may not receive forgiveness immediately — or ever — since apologies don’t always mend broken trust.

Sincerely apologizing still helps you heal, though, since it offers you the chance to express your feelings and hold yourself accountable after messing up.

To make an effective apology, you’ll want to:

acknowledge your role
show remorse
avoid making excuses
ask for forgiveness

Follow through by showing regret in your actions.

The most heartfelt apology means nothing if you never do things differently going forward.

Making amends means committing to change.

You might owe yourself an apology, too. Instead of clinging to guilt and punishing yourself after an honest mistake, remember: No one does everything right all the time.

To make amends, commit to self-kindness instead of self-blame going forward.

Before you can leave the past behind, you need to accept it. Looking back and ruminating on your memories won’t fix what happened.

You can’t rewrite events by replaying scenarios with different outcomes, but you can always consider what you’ve learned:

What led to the mistake? Explore triggers that prompted your action and any feelings that tipped you over the edge.
What would you do differently now?
What did your actions tell you about yourself? Do they point to any specific behaviors you can work on?

There’s nothing wrong with needing help. Life isn’t meant to be faced alone.

Instead of feeling guilty when you need support, cultivate gratitude by:

thanking loved ones for their kindness
making your appreciation clear
acknowledging any opportunities you’ve gained as a result of their support
committing to paying this support forward once you’re on more solid ground

A mistake doesn’t make you a bad person — everyone messes up from time to time.

You deserve the same kindness.

People, and the circumstances they find themselves in, are complex. You may have some culpability for your mistake, but so might the others involved.

Reminding yourself of your worth can boost confidence, making it easier to consider situations objectively and avoid being swayed by emotional distress.

Guilt can serve as an alarm that lets you know when you’ve made a choice that conflicts with your personal values. Instead of letting it overwhelm you, try putting it to work.

When used as a tool, guilt can cast light on areas of yourself you feel dissatisfied with.

Maybe you find it difficult to be honest, and someone finally caught you in a lie. Perhaps you want to spend more time with your family, but something always gets in the way.

Taking action to address those circumstances can set you on a path that’s more in line with your goals.

It’s also worth paying attention to what guilt tells you about yourself.

Regret over hurting someone else suggests you have empathy and didn’t intend to cause harm. Creating change in your life might involve focusing on ways to avoid making that mistake again.

If you tend to feel bad about things you can’t control, it may be beneficial to explore the reasons behind your guilt with the help of a professional.

Self-forgiveness involves four key steps:

Take responsibility for your actions.
Express remorse and regret without letting it transform into shame.
Commit to making amends for any harm you caused.
Practice self-acceptance and trust yourself to do better in the future.

You might worry others will judge you for what happened, but you’ll often find that isn’t the case. In fact, you may find loved ones offer a lot of support.

The people who care for you will generally offer kindness and compassion. And sharing unpleasant or difficult feelings often relieves tension.

Friends and family can also help you feel less alone by sharing their experiences. Nearly everyone has done something they regret, so most people know what it’s like to feel guilty.

An outside perspective can also make a big difference, especially if you’re dealing with survivor guilt or guilt about something you had no control over.

Severe or persistent guilt doesn’t always lift easily. Some people find it difficult to work through feelings of guilt that relate to:

intrusive thoughts
depression
trauma or abuse

It’s tough to open up about guilt if you fear judgment. However, avoiding these feelings will usually worsen the situation.

Guilt belongs in the past. You can begin letting it go by strengthening your resilience and building confidence to make better choices in the future.

If you’re struggling to resolve feelings of guilt, know you don’t need to do it alone. Therapy can offer a safe space to learn how to forgive yourself and move forward.

What to do with a constant feeling of guilt: a psychologist explains

Guilt haunts us all the time. We can experience it in every area that exists: work, food, relationships with others and a partner, political views. Even our own feelings can make us feel guilty. If you want to finally stop feeling guilty, read our material.

Where does guilt come from

Guilt is the feeling that you have somehow harmed others or yourself with your actions, thoughts, desires. Initially, guilt as a negative emotion is aimed at making a person want to improve. If you accidentally stepped on your neighbor’s foot on the subway or entered the conference room without knocking where an important meeting was taking place, most likely you will become uncomfortable. Guilt will make you ask for forgiveness and the incident will be over. Quite different - irrational guilt . It occurs when you, for example, eat a bag of fast food for dinner, although everyone around you only talks about how harmful it is. But you really want to eat it and are already eating it. Understanding "how to" struggles with the desire "how you want." What to choose?

A person can literally constantly feel guilty. Childhood memories are the strongest base for this. Earlier, as a child, you did not want to hug a relative when you met, and you were ashamed of it. So you have grown up and still do not burn with the desire to communicate with people who are not interesting to you - a feeling of guilt because of this always accompanies you. Since childhood, we are taught how important it is to be “good” and “correct”. Only we do not become more correct from this - we live as we want, but with a sense of guilt.

My “bad behavior” shows that I am a bad person.

I did something I shouldn't have done (or didn't do what I should have done) and it doesn't meet my moral standards.

The "symptoms" of feelings of guilt

include

sensitivity to the consequences of any action;
anxiety for fear of making the wrong decision;
low self-esteem or, conversely, very high;
avoidance of emotions.

Guilt is often confused with shame. Guilt comes from within - it is not for nothing that it is called in a different way "pangs of conscience." Shame is an emotion associated with society and its rules and culture. At the same time, shame is a rather fleeting emotion, since it is associated with other people. And the feeling of guilt is born inside and can accompany a person for a long time.

Depressed people tend to experience irrational guilt along with helplessness, lack of motivation, sadness and loss of energy.

Karine Avanesyan

practicing psychologist, family systems therapist, member of the Monstars People opinion leader team

— Guilt often serves as a regulator of boundaries in relationships with others. It happens that the feeling of guilt that comes helps us to realize that somewhere a mistake was made, somewhere you were wrong. Then the opportunity opens up to apologize, to admit one’s imperfection, to offer a solution how to fix everything. But there is also destructive guilt. It accompanies a person regardless of the offenses committed. This is an obsessive state in which a person stays permanently. Behind the constant feeling of guilt, there may be a fear of being rejected, a fear of loneliness, a desire to feel needed.

What to do if you constantly feel guilty

A person wants to be loved, respected and accepted. These are basic needs that are very important for mental well-being. However, what we blame ourselves for very often does not change us for the worse.

Guilt is often born from excessive severity towards oneself. How often do you allow yourself what you really love? And do you always love what you do? Excessive severity towards oneself not only injures the soul, but also leads to the accumulation of desires. Famous story: for a month to ban yourself chips, and then eat a whole bag for the evening. You should not blame yourself - it is better to figure out what exactly you are missing. Maybe not chips at all.

Try to identify situations or incidents in which you feel guilty. You didn't call your parents, you went on a frivolous date, you missed several workouts in a row, you work too hard, or, conversely, you decided to take a break from business.

Write down at least ten situations in which you feel guilty for no apparent reason. Think about what guilt is associated with in each situation, and write it down next to it. For example:

spent all day in bed on the weekend - I'm supposed to be productive, but I act like a lazy person;
hasn't spoken to his mother for a week now - good children should be interested in how their parents are doing;
went on a tinder date - the right relationship doesn't start with online chatting.

Try to analyze the beliefs that carry the feeling of guilt. Where did they come from? Do you really think so?

Imagine how you would feel without guilt. Will you get bored or relieved? Even this may be a clue.

Karine Avanesyan

practicing psychologist, family systems therapist, member of the Monstars People opinion leader team

- Ask yourself: did this happen because of me? Can I somehow influence this situation without harming myself? You must admit that your guilt is destructive. This is a neurotic condition that prevents you from feeling happiness and well-being.

Guilt often hides the fear of losing the love of others. Here the scheme works: I refused or made a mistake - that means I'm bad. I will be considered bad and will not be loved. I will stay alone.

Being alone is scary, therefore, in every convenient and inconvenient case, a feeling of guilt and a desire to apologize and be guilty before everyone turn on. A person is ready to bear any moral, temporary and material losses, just to remain good in the eyes of others. If only he was loved.

Instead of being afraid of losing the love of others, learn to give yourself this love yourself. Remind yourself often that guilt is actually a fear of losing the love of others. Tell yourself:

I choose myself, I choose my happy life;

the main thing for me is how I feel about myself, how much I respect myself. I can handle the rest.

Fear will gradually disappear, and with it the feeling of guilt.

How to accept and love yourself: advice from a psychologist

Subscribe to The Challenger!

Share

Get rid of guilt | PSYCHOLOGIES

53 854

To know oneself A man among people

To look for flaws in oneself, to worry about one's inferiority, perhaps imaginary, is the lot of many of us, and even psychotherapists. “I never completely got rid of the idea learned from childhood that I should please my neighbors,” admits family psychologist Elena Ulitova. When I don't live up to this idea, my inner critic attacks and blames me. This is a painful experience! Professional psychotherapy has taught me to understand what is happening and to recognize this “voice”, but it is not possible to silence it.”

And psychoanalyst Virginie Meggle recalls: “All my childhood I felt that I was wrong. Every second I had to think about how not to offend someone. I later discovered—to my deep relief—that this is not uncommon. And in my work, I notice that this feeling is one of the most common and at the same time difficult for those who experience it.

Psychology deals mostly with "illegitimate" guilt that torments us for no good reason, rather than the real, justified feeling that a swindler and murderer experiences.

By the way, some criminals feel they have the right to break the law. And some of the victims of aggression torment themselves with reproaches: they didn’t defend themselves well enough, they should have been more careful, dressed differently . .. when the "Super-I", the voice of conscience, requires him to be perfect. The more we want to become perfect, worthy of love, the more we are blamed by our inner judge. Because of him, we treat ourselves as worthless.

But from time to time to feel weak, unable to do anything is absolutely normal, because that's how we were in childhood.

Childhood legacy

But why are some people prone to feelings of guilt more than others? An authoritarian parenting based on emotional blackmail makes us vulnerable. But even someone who has not been subjected to psychological violence may suffer from feelings of guilt. We assimilate the ideal image that our parents broadcast to us. From them we learn what we need to be to be considered good. It is not uncommon for an outwardly calm father or mother to raise children tormented by feelings of guilt: children absorb the unconscious ideas of their parents.

“Every child knows how to “please” mom and dad so that they accept him and take care of him,” explains Elena Ulitova. “Parents don’t have to be emotional for a child to feel their disapproval.”

The habit of comparing oneself with others increases the feeling of guilt

The child may feel guilty not only for what he did or did not do, but also for what he thought. Or blame yourself for not feeling what is expected of him: for example, gratitude for gifts or love for family members. Often the appearance of guilt is associated with the birth of a younger brother or sister.

“A human being is designed in such a way that from a very young age he looks for the cause of every event,” explains Virginie Meggle. - The older child sometimes thinks that the parents decided to have a new baby, because he himself is not able to satisfy them or did something wrong. Subsequently, we are compared with brothers and sisters, and not always in our favor. Especially if parents themselves create competitive relationships: “Look, your sister is always smiling…”

The habit of comparing oneself with others (at school, at work) increases the feeling of guilt. Constantly evaluating ourselves - "I'm better than him", "I'm not so good" - we forget to be ourselves.

“I separated myself from family shame”

Evgenia, 47 years old

I always had the feeling that I was superfluous, that I interfered: guilt for the fact that I exist. The worst was on the weekends, when I saw how my mother was in a hurry and had a lot of time, and I seemed to be useless.

I grew up feeling I didn't deserve to be happy, surprised when shiny boys were interested in me. When I started working, I hesitated to ask for an adequate salary or a raise. And at the same time, she was angry with herself for her passivity, her lack of ambition. Somewhere deep inside I knew that something was wrong in my head.

Short-term behavioral therapy has taught me to recognize pejorative and “guilty” thoughts and not to let them take over. I no longer fall into this trap. Then I wanted to understand where these thoughts came from. I realized that my upbringing played a huge role in my tendency to sink into feelings of guilt. But I suspected there was another reason.

I turned to psychoanalysis, and then a family secret surfaced: my paternal grandfather, who was talked about as a hero, did not behave heroically at all. A carefully hidden shame for him, I unconsciously internalized. It took me several years to separate myself from this poisoned legacy. But now I have made peace with myself.

Looking for a way out

Tormented from within, we are looking for a way out. How to get rid of eternal guilt? We try to act like a saint who has no desires of his own, but we don't succeed very well. The more we ignore our desires, push out unworthy thoughts, the more sacrifices the "Super-I" requires. When we have a real reason to be angry with ourselves, it paradoxically calms us, albeit for a little while.

38-year-old Larisa, tired of denying accusations of infidelity, started an affair. “The fortune teller told my husband that I would betray him. He was always jealous, and then he began to follow me. So several months passed, I began to feel dirty. And something happened that should have happened ... But I believe that not only I am to blame - he too!

Shifting blame is one of the most popular strategies for avoiding guilt. "I'm not late, but you set the wrong time." “I broke your favorite vase, but you yourself put it on the edge of the table!” Alas, it is not very good to get rid of one's suffering at the expense of others. Moreover, there is a risk that our guilt will be doubled: we will be guilty of both a mistake and a refusal to admit it.

We are responsible for our actions if we do not avoid their consequences and do not assume that we will definitely do bad things

There is another trick that is not so cruel to others: hiding from guilt behind the idea of omnipotence. This is what the hero of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty does: a modest little man, crushed by his environment, comes up with scenarios in which he becomes a hero. But the feeling of insignificance returns, and we soon have to reproach ourselves for ridiculous dreams.

To free yourself from the burden of guilt, you need to find or regain the pleasure of being yourself. The philosopher Benedict Spinoza noticed that many of our mistakes come from comparison. A blind person looks worse only against the background of a sighted one - especially if we take as a basis that being human means seeing well, he says. But if you stop comparing, then a blind man can be "perfect" in himself. The first step to coming to terms with yourself is to stop thinking in terms of “I am more than someone else” and “I am less than someone else.” "I am, I exist" - that's all.

Accept responsibility

To use emotional energy more creatively, Virginie Meggle suggests moving from "I must" to "I can."

“We often forget the distinction between guilt and responsibility,” she warns, “as if, in admitting ourselves responsible for something, we inevitably had to declare ourselves unworthy. But responsibility means something else: we are aware of our actions, do not avoid their consequences, and do not assume that we are necessarily doing bad things. Moreover, responsibility, that is, my conscious recognition of my role in what is happening to me, is the opposite of guilt.

For example, I didn't call my grandmother for weeks. Instead of making excuses (“I don’t have time, I’m working”), beating myself up (“I’m ungrateful”), or downplaying (“It’s okay”), I will think about how I feel about her, about my desire to be or not to be. next to her. This is the responsibility: to reject lies and recognize the motives underlying actions.

Take care of yourself

No one can get rid of guilt on their own. “This requires self-care, but most of us do not even have it at the level of an idea,” emphasizes Elena Ulitova. In one experiment, participants were asked to name those they care about. And few people named themselves among the objects of care.

Not so long ago everyone kept repeating that “I” is the last letter of the alphabet. Only recently have young progressive parents begun to instill in their children the idea "I can be the object of my own care." And adults should help someone else. Most often it is a psychotherapist, a coach, a book on psychology.

You can work on yourself at any age - it is enough to have desire, curiosity and self-knowledge

A confidential conversation with a sensitive and intelligent interlocutor who accepts us without judgment or judgment can help us meet ourselves.

“Feeling that we are being listened to, we can strengthen ourselves in life and feel in our place,” says Virginie Meggle. “At the same time, we learn to show goodwill and sincerity towards ourselves. We stop striving to please everyone, and when the time comes and we meet someone who really wants to please, we will feel it. We will learn to forgive ourselves. And do what you can."

For a sustainable result, we should also reconsider our relationships with others: we will get rid of guilt when we stop seeing them as rivals and witnesses of our mediocrity.
Learn more

What's considered cheating in a marriage

Psychology questions to ask your friends

How to recognise a narcissist

Taking yourself seriously

Best books about adhd parenting

Cat breed personality types

Why family scapegoats become lifelong victims

Periods mood swings boyfriend

Serial monogamist definition

Building my confidence

Treatment borderline personality