What is the feeling of guilt, how can it shape your life, and how to cope with these emotions?
Guilt is a feeling incorporated into human nature. It expresses your frustration about failing to meet up an expectation, crossing a boundary, or making a mistake. It also describes your learned patterns since childhood and your personal perception of what’s right and wrong.
Although it is seen as a sign of empathy and consideration, for some individuals, guilt could be guided by irrational thoughts, like self-shaming or negative reflections. This will not only take a toll on your daily life decisions and reactions, but will negatively impact your mental health as well.
If you find yourself consumed by the feeling of guilt, here’s how you can cope with this immense emotion.
First of all, how could guilt drain your life?
Guilt does not only revolve around your feeling of being “sad”, but it combines frustration, shame, anxiety, and refusal. It could be driven by your core values, child development, perfectionism, and most importantly, traumas. For some, guilt could be the result of abusive relationships, manipulation, or low self-worth.
Ultimately, if you provide a space for guilt to grow into your mind, this normal response will turn into a toxic thinking pattern. These thoughts pile up and lead to:
- Denial
- Isolation
- Insomnia
- Depression
- Self-criticism
- Increase anxiety
- Loss of appetite
- Low concentration
These symptoms create a daily burden and could affect the quality of your life, so how to deal with them?
How to cope with the feeling of guilt?
- Identify the origin of this guilt
In order to better understand your emotions, you must first identify where they came from. Guilt could originate from specific past situations or a collection of traumatic memories.
Take the time to reflect on your life and identify the source of your emotions. Ask yourself: “Where did I learn this feeling from?”, “Is this incident worth being this harsh on myself?”. Write these answers down, and explain how this made you feel.
Take charge of your experiences, and acknowledge them in order to better look into yourself.
- Take responsibility for YOUR actions
The secret here is facing your own actions, but not dwelling on the feeling of guilt. Remind yourself that you are not responsible for situations where you had no control. For example, you might be feeling guilty for being healthy while your friend has COVID-19, or feeling guilty when your partner is mad. In such cases, you were not able to control what happened, so make sure to identify and filter them out.
On the other hand, during times when you made a mistake, take responsibility with an open mind, and remind yourself that mistakes are part of any human existence.
- Forgive yourself even when it’s hard
Practicing self-compassion will help you view your actions from a different perspective. Instead of being extra critical about everything you did, you will instead understand your reactions, learn from your experience, and progress as you go. Additionally, lookout for ways to make you feel better about the situation, like proposing solutions or working on mitigating the damage.
- Use affirmations
Introduce the positive thinking pattern into your life by talking gently with yourself. Affirmations are one method to remind yourself of your capabilities, aspirations, and needs. Shift your inner speech from: “I made a mistake, I’m a failure, nothing could get better”, into “I’m learning, I will do better next time, and I am worthy of love”. This will help you in accepting your mistakes and making the best out of the situation.
Guess what? Mistakes are pretty, they shaped you into what you are today!
Be gentle with yourself, and seek help once things get overwhelming.