That Gremlin called Guilt

“We are sorry to announce the further delay of flight CA 4404 bound to Kathmandu”

Crap! The flight was delayed...again!

?I was getting frantic with every passing minute. It had been a gruelling 15 day trek and I was itching to get home. Snowstorm and landsides had already delayed us by a day and I had promised my daughter that I would be home by midnight, in time for her birthday tomorrow…We had made such plans to ensure that it would be a wonderful day!

And here I was a mere 15 hours from my deadline, stuck in Lhasa, 12000 feet above msl amidst poor weather conditions. And home was 3500Ks and 3 flights away!

“What sort of a mom misses her daughter’s birthday?” I asked myself repeatedly. “And that too for a stupid trek!!” I said, angrily wiping away my tears.

That day -with my emotional melt-down in Gonggar airport- was one of the absolute low-points of my life as a parent…

We’ve all been there trying to deal with and overcome guilt, be it at work or in relationships.

Taking that long-planned vacation during a crucial workweek, having to let a team member go or not finding time to call your grieving friend are all classic examples of guilt we deal with on a daily basis. And if you are a working parent – what with dropping your toddler off to the day care, missing PTMs and forgetting about school projects due tomorrow - you probably have such a close relationship with guilt that you’re on a first-name basis with it!

In fact irrespective of the roles we play in life, we are all such experts at guilt, that if it were a course taught in college, we’d all easily earn our PhDs!

The Upside of Guilt

Like most ‘negative’ emotions though, guilt can be helpful. Used wisely as a trigger, it can act as an inner ‘red flag’ that alerts us to something feeling off. It makes us self-aware, gets us to reflect on our choices and signals an opportunity to course-correct.

Social psychology theories also view guilt as an important tool for understanding the pain of others and helping us develop empathy. From an evolutionary standpoint too, guilt is our species’ way of ensuring that our needs of connection and belongingness to the tribe are not being self-sabotaged.

What makes guilt dangerous though, is that it is insidious – it’s so subtle and slow to start, that you don’t realise how harmful, all-encompassing and ‘life-depleting’ it can get over time.

Types of Guilt

There are different forms of guilt. Psychologists talk about persecutory or reparative guilt, philosophers about existential guilt and sociologists about collective guilt. Frankly the nomenclature doesn’t matter and often these theories and models can get so complex, that it’s hard sometimes to fully understand, let alone apply them.

In a real-life context, it may make more sense to categorise guilt based on intensity – pretty much like the heaviness of your travel luggage. The ‘light-weight’ variety that we experience (like telling a white lie or eating one scoop too many at the dessert table) doesn’t harm us too much, especially if it is an one-off incident. Guilt of this variety is like a light duffle bag on super-powered wheels, something that you just have to keep an eye on, to make sure it doesn’t run away with you.

And then, there’s the heavy-weight boxing championship kind of guilt–one that comes from living a life that may be distanced from one’s values, of not being true to who you are or being in a relationship that doesn’t feel right. This kind is more complex and harder to resolve, because guilt here may share some threads of similarity with its close cousin Shame.

Difference between guilt and shame

Brene Brown in her book ‘Dare to Lead’ makes a very interesting distinction between guilt and shame. Both of these emotions are closely related and very similar, in that they are the most difficult emotions to deal with. They are hard to work through and harder still to acknowledge- even to ourselves, let alone others!

The difference though is that guilt relates to a behaviour, something that we do or don’t do. Shame on the other hand, goes directly to the core of who we are, our very identity.

Feeling bad that I was missing my daughter’s birthday would have been guilt. But that day in Lhasa I officially crossed the line from guilt to full-blown shame, because my inner gremlins were judging me, not what I did. I was judged and found completely wanting…as a person and as a parent.

Battling the Gremlin

That incident got me interested in guilt and what can be done to mitigate it’s emotional grip it had on me. I went through various resources, understood the literature and compiled a list of tips to help me build a healthier relationship with guilt.

1.     Compassionate Self-talk

One effective way to change emotions is through our self-talk. Being aware of our attacks on identity, then gently shifting them away to behaviour and then moving to compassionate self-talk is a good practice. From “I am a horrible parent” to “What I did was horrible” to “I did the best I could under those circumstances. I deserve to be kind to myself now” is a good example of what I could have told myself that day.

2.     Self-forgiveness

The next, harder step is self-forgiveness. Somehow we are always more generous with others than we are with ourselves when it comes to forgiveness. I would have asked myself “How easily am I able to empathise and forgive my friend who might have done the same thing? If someone else is worthy of forgiveness, what makes me any less worthy?”

3.     Reframing

Exploring alternative perspectives is always helpful in calming down unhelpful emotions. I’d like to think of ways how guilt is serving me. “What is this guilt trying to tell me?” “Could this be the trigger to set something right? “What’s the positive intention for this guilt for me?”

4.     Perfect is the enemy of good!

Perfectionists and sticklers find it harder to deal with guilt because the benchmarks are set very high “I have to be a perfect role model” “This should be done perfectly” Instead ask yourself “What’s the worst that could happen if its not done perfectly?” and then taking a call on what is good enough.

5.     Staying true to what’s important for you.

Most of us have voices inside our heads that include a lot of ‘shoulds’. How many of these ‘shoulds’ reflect our true inner voice and how many are picked up from others in our environment? I’d like to ask myself “When I tell myself that I should do....", whose voice am I hearing?” or “What are my values here? or Whats important for me in this situation?”

6.     Seeking support

Every time we speak about our guilt in a safe space, it’s emotional grip on us loosens a little. So it makes sense to reach out to friends or colleagues who may be in similar situations. Because communities offer us a strong sense of ‘being in it together’ and also ideas on what might work for us.

Speaking about guilt and shame has also taught me that the thing that we are most guilty or most ashamed of is the one thing that people can most resonate with. It’s what makes us human and the vulnerability to speak about it and share one’s experience teaches us true courage.

I often wonder how the ‘Take 2’ of that scene in Lhasa would go, if I were given an opportunity to re-enact it. Would I be still be hijacked by my inner shame gremlin? Or would I have the presence of mind to apply what I’ve since learned?

I don’t know for sure, but I’d like to think so…

And to finish the story that I started…

Our flight finally took off, but the weather conditions were so terrible, that it caused turbulence like nothing I’ve experienced. At one point we lost altitude sharply and it seemed as though the pilot had lost control of the aircraft. Amidst alarmed cries of the passengers, I remember thinking “Is this how my story is going to end…trying to make it home for my daughter’s birthday?” And when we landed in Kathmandu, it was almost anticlimactic, and the relief was tinged with a certain numbness.

I have vague recollections of frantically running through Immigrations at Kathmandu and re-booking my flights to New Delhi. And when I was finally onboard the last flight back to Bangalore, sheer exhaustion took over and I crashed. I had been up for nearly 24 hours what with the time difference and the emotional rollercoaster that had been my day.

It was a little past midnight when the flight landed in Kempegowda airport and the stewardess gently nudged me awake. I had overslept and looking around groggily, realised that I was the last to deplane.

I don’t remember much of my ride home that night. But I know that it was after 2 am when I reached home, just two hours after my promised deadline. I went to my daughters room, looked at her sleeping form and felt tears well again. “Happy birthday sweetie” I said and kissed her goodnight.

Tomorrow would be a wonderful day!