Guilt - It Does A Body Good
February 12, 2008 | In Mindset |
I’m guilty. I did it. There’s no one to blame but myself. However, unlike many other authors, I don’t believe this is a bad thing.
Photo by Ayala Moriel
We act as if guilt is a cancer, eating us away from within. We push it down, work to purge it, and talk about it flippantly. We hear about guilty pleasures, guilt free snacks, and guilt trips. But do we understand what guilt really is?
1. Guilt is a basic emotion. There a few core emotions that all others can be narrowed down to. Many of the words that we have to describe how we feel are really combinations of emotions. Take frustrated for instance. If I’m frustrated that someone isn’t listening to me, that would be a mixture of anger and sadness. If I’m frustrated at myself, it’s a mixture of anger and fear. Guilt on the other hand, can’t be broken down into other emotions. It has different facets, but it’s not a mixture of emotions.
2. Guilt points out where we have made mistakes. If humans were perfect, we wouldn’t feel guilt. If we didn’t make mistakes, there would be no reason to feel bad. But, we aren’t perfect, we do make mistakes, and when we realize that we did make a mistake, we feel guilt. Without the guilt, would we still be able to recognize our faults?
3. Guilt allows us to address our contribution to a situation. No matter what we do in life, we affect the world around us. When we feel that is in a positive way, then we feel pride. However, if that effect was negative, we feel guilty. The guilt allows us to honestly face up to our part in the process.
4. Guilt allows us to feel remorse for something we did wrong. When we realize we made a mistake, and we know it was our doing, we feel guilt. However, the guilt doesn’t stop it’s effect there. It allows us to feel remorse. Sometimes, we may make a mistake and we don’t feel guilt, say if we knock over a glass of water. Sometimes, we may have had a negative effect upon a situation, but we don’t feel guilt. Like if we tried our best, but we weren’t the right person for the job. In that case, how can we feel guilty for messing up? However, when we have made a mistake, we have negatively contributed to a situation, and it is our fault, then guilt enables us to be remorseful and say “I’m sorry.”
So, what have I been guilty of? Many little things, and some big things. The little things I can apologize for as I go along - say I bump into someone at the grocery store. The bigger things take more effort to make amends for, but it’s possible.
One big thing I have been guilty of is relying too much on others to help me, instead of helping myself. Especially when it comes to my health. There is a part of me that would like someone else to come forward and “fix” me. This person would be a life coach, personal trainer, personal chef, and personal cheerleader all in one. Oh, and it would help if they also had an M.D. after their name. I don’t know anyone who can be all these things (if you do, please let me know!) Since there isn’t any one other person who can be all these things, I have to look to the one person who can be all those things: me.
Guilt vs. Shame
My guilt with respects to my health has been both balanced guilt and out of balance guilt, otherwise known as shame. For years I have been inconsistent with my diet, exercise, and medical treatment. I’ve also been very good at pushing down the feelings of guilt and letting them go unresolved. Over time, slight feelings of guilt for that day combine with the feelings of guilt from many other days and become shame.
Shame is not good, because shame distorts our thinking and our other emotions. The shame pulls me out of balance with other emotions as well, leading to a toxic soup of anger, sadness, and fear, along with the guilt. This toxic soup leads to feelings of helplessness and being very alone. This is not a place where one can the cleansing effects of the guilt and make amends.
Fortunately, the shame and other out of balance emotions don’t last forever. Even if only for a few minutes, you have to come out of these place and I’ve have done so. During one of those moments, I sought out a new doctor. During another of those moments, I compiled a group of exercises from which to pick and choose to design a custom routine. During yet another of those moments, I searched for a calorie tracking program for my Palm Pilot. I’ve made these changes little by little over the past several weeks. As the weeks continue, I will make more little changes and put into effect all the parts of a comprehensive health program. The shame isn’t holding me back from starting, making me think and feel that I am incapable. Rather, a balanced guilt is leading me to make amends to my body for all the neglect I’ve shown it over the years.
I hope it is clearer to you that guilt is not an emotion to be discounted, feared, or eliminated. Rather, guilt is an emotion that has a valid place in our lives, allowing us to honor our values and beliefs while enabling us to be better people.
Do you think this sounds oversimplified? Do you agree, disagree? Please leave me your answers or any other comments below. I look forward to hearing from you.
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I can’t say you are wrong because these beliefs obviously assist you. But I do think there are many more people that experience guilt in an insidious manner. It is not nearly as simple and clean cut in those instances as what you have presented.
Nor do I think it is an emotion, I think it is a reaction to many emotions, including such opposites of happiness and sadness. One can feel equally guilty reveling in their own happiness at the sight of someone clearly hurt or saddened that they are not participating in your expression of joy. Or maybe I feel anger, then regret I’ve been unkind or hasty, then my guilt reacts to what has happened and sometimes causes me to act in other ways. And a myriad of ways, at that. I could blame, myself or others, I could choose to make ammends/corrections as you said, I could also choose to ignore, walk away. Then possibly activating guilt once again in the doing or not.
My initial thought was what a can of worms this is! I think I could talk for days about guilt and never be right or wrong. I also think it has an unlimited scope and reach. Nothing starting or ending, for it can be useful and useless and everything in between. There is no doubt about one thing it has, intensity, it forges paths one way or another, as demonstrated in your own descriptions.
Then of course there are those who experience no guilt. An entirely different facet of this discussion.
I guess that’s what Pandora’s box provides, this questioning. Did you mean to open it?
Barbara,
My ideas about what guilt is originated with the Solution Method. I don’t want to say that I swallowed that particular theory of the mind without thinking about it however. There were many aspects of the theory that I had to test out for myself. And what I found was that I agree with the idea that guilt is in fact an emotion, and a basic core emotion. Under this way of looking at emotions anger, sadness, fear, and guilt are balanced by gratefulness, happiness, security and pride.
The important distinction, that I pointed out, although perhaps not very clearly, is between guilt and shame. When a person is in a state of emotional balance, guilt is what is felt. When we go out of emotional balance, which can happen in a microsecond, that guilt goes out of balance as well and becomes shame.
You mentioned that one could feel guilt for being happy when someone else is suffering. However, when one is solidly in emotional balance (which I admit is not easy by any means), then one is able to separate their state of mind from others. For instance, when my husband is angry at something that happened at work, but I am happy that I wrote a great blog post, I don’t have to feel guilty for being happy while he is angry. I realize, from a place of emotional balance, that my emotions are acceptable, as are his. I feel sad that he is angry, sad, and possibly afraid because of what happened at work, but I don’t feel guilty. Why should I feel guilty when I had no say in what happened?
On the other hand, if I walked away without providing support, then I would feel guilty. Because then I know that I made a choice not provide support when I could have. However, if I was confronted by someone out on the street that decided to call me names when I explained that I did not have any spare change for him, then I wouldn’t feel guilty for walking away. Even if I had originally lied about having the change, and could have given it to him, that doesn’t mean that I have to feel guilty after being abused, even if verbally. What I’m trying to get at is that guilt is a useful emotion, even if not an easy one to feel.
As long as the guilt is balanced guilt, it fits the criteria I outlined. When one is out of emotional balance, than the guilt is shame or blame, and therefore not useful.
As for Pandora’s box, I did know this would be a controversial subject; however, I believe that too often difficult feelings, like guilt, are automatically labeled as harmful. I believe that there is tremendous value in looking at these difficult emotions directly and learning from them.
Thanks Cathy,
I look forward to hearing more about your getting healthier.
Guilt and Shame. I think one of the differences is that guilt is directed toward ourselves (falling short of our own principles or sense of rightness) and guilt is a response to others (shame is isolating). This may be my way of saying what you do when you speak of guilt as balanced.
I certainly think that even if we see guilt as a problem then it is surely possible to respond healthily.
Hoping to hear lots more discussion. I think there are lots of issues and interesting stuff in this post. Thanks, Cathy.
Evan,
I agree that shame is isolating, while guilt can be responded to healthily. I did expect to garner some comments on this post, because I do think it is a fascinating topic. I’ll have to put my thinking cap on and see what I can come up with for a follow up.