Is the guilt trip worth the ride?

Is the guilt trip worth the ride?

By: Diane Lang

What is guilt- an emotion. It usually gets put in the negative side of emotions with anger. It’s an emotion we have when we feel we have done harm, done wrong or hurt others. It comes from your thoughts, you think you have done something wrong that has hurt someone else and you feel guilty.

Guilt can also be felt when you have done something wrong to yourself- you didn’t stick to your values or ethics. You become angry and guilt ridden because you ate chocolate while on diet, you smoked after quitting 10 years ago, etc.

It’s appropriate and normal to feel guilt when you have done something to hurt others or yourself. It’s remorse.

The problem with guilt is when we hold on to it, it ruminates in our head and we can’t move forward.

With guilt, we need to accept what we have done by taking responsibility, owning our actions/behaviors and apologizing for them. Learn from the behavior and make changes.

The positive side of guilt:

Guilt can help you be self aware when you have done wrong to others, to yourself and have caused harm. This self awareness can help you to learn.

Guilt helps you see what you did wrong and the feelings of guilt make you want to change so you don’t need to feel the guilt again.

Having the thoughts/feelings of hurting someone else can motivate us to make changes and to break patterns.

Guilt can make us aware of our own issues we need to work on that we have internalized.

Guilt is a red flag going off, telling yourself something needs to be fixed.

Remember just like stress, we can’t live a completely guilt free life but we can manage it, use it and learn from it.

Believe it or not, we can even feel guilty for thinking about doing something that we know is wrong or not good for ourselves but haven’t done the act. Just contemplating an act can bring up lots of guilt. Maybe, your thinking of another person but your in a relationship. Morally, you haven’t touched the other person so no act has been committed but just thinking about it brings up the guilt.

When you have this situation, don’t internalize the thoughts, deny them or push them away. For many, that makes us obsess even more and eventually commit the act. Instead accept your thoughts. Know that these thoughts are here at this moment but you have the ability to work through them, not act on them and make changes. Realize why your having these thoughts? Are you thinking of another person because your feeling neglected in your current situation? Work through the situation that is causing your thoughts. Look at the root of the problem

Going from guilt to shame:

Shame goes deeper then guilt. Shame is when we feel bad about the situation and the behavior we had but also about ourselves.

We condemn not just the behavior but ourselves. Shame can be very damaging to our self worth. Shame lasts a lot longer. With guilt, we feel better when we apologize or make a change. Shame can last for years. With guilt, we judge our behaviors. With shame, we judge ourselves and usually very harshly.

Shame makes us feel unworthy or justify our feelings of unworthiness

Shame reminds us of our flaws and not being perfect.

We need to acknowledge the shame, empathize with ourselves as well as get empathy from others.

Really work through it- should you be feeling shame? thinking your a bad person, not worthy of love? Or is guilt the right feeling instead? Don’t mistake shame for guilt. Guilt is productive, shame is damaging.

Our insecurities can be our biggest triggers. If your feeling insecure in an area of your life and someone brings it up, it can make you feel shameful and you can hear the voice in your head go down that path with such comments as I’m bad, I’m a loser, No-one loves me but whey would they, I’m not deserving of love, etc.

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About Diane Lang...

Therapist, Educator and Life Coach

As a Therapist, Educator and Positive Living Expert, Diane has dedicated her career to helping people turn their lives around and is now on a mission to help them develop a sustainable positive attitude that can actually turn one into an optimist, literally.

Through her three books, “Creating Balance & Finding Happiness”, “Baby Steps: the Path from Motherhood to Career” and “ Mindfully Happy- waking up to life.”  Diane has been speaking and empowering people nationwide. She is also an Adjunct in Psychology at Montclair State University, where her college work includes mentoring students for personal issue advisement.

As an expert in her fields of therapy, Lang has been featured in the Daily Record, Family Circle, Family Magazine, Working Mother Magazine and Cookie Magazine, seen on NJ 12 TV, Good day CT, Style CT, The Veira Network, CBS TV and “Fox & Friends”.  She has also participated in a reality based Internet show, ourprisoner.com, hosted Generation X-tinet.

For more information please visit www.dlcounseling.com or emailDiane at [email protected]