Guilt - what is it good for?
Guilt, a familiar feeling for many, certainly many of my coachees, is it familiar to you too, *|FNAME|*? But what is it good for… much like war*, pretty much absolutely nothing. And I make zero apologies and feel no guilt if you now have a particular Edwin Starr (?) song in your head…. OK maybe a little bit.
So what is guilt? Well let’s start with the definitions:
the fact of having committed a specified or implied offence or crime
a feeling of having committed wrong or failed in an obligation:
There’s a few things I think it’s worth picking up here; namely it can be a fact of having committed a crime (not really the type of guilt we’re talking about here), or a FEELING of having done wrong or failed somehow. I think the words “wrong” and “obligation” are important here too. How are you determining these *|FNAME|*?
Is guilt a good thing?
Guilt is described as a moral emotion - it ensures we have our morals in check and that we know what is right and wrong. We can also feel anticipatory guilt, which might stop us from behaving in a way that harms others or goes against our moral code.
Guilt is also described as an energising emotion, it can push us to act, to amend, to make contact, to improve.
BUT it can be tricky too…..
Guilt is a tricky emotion, because if felt excessively and left unchecked it can lead to physical and psychological problems. Perhaps your guilt has you feeling low in self confidence or lacking sleep, perhaps it actually shows in physiological ways too; headaches, upset stomach, aches and pains.
I think it’s particularly tricky when I hear friends and clients talking about their guilt when, as an outsider, it feels unwarranted, almost unfair. And when you look at research exploring guilt definitions you will find “person believes - accurately or not….” Because at times, and I have certainly done this myself, we feel bad about upsetting people and letting others down when actually the other person involved has no ill feeling, they may not even consider it at all. I also felt a lot of “should’ve, could’ve” but as we know “should” very rarely encourages us to do anything productive. What it does encourage is shame…….and shame is what guilt can turn into if we allow it to take control.
Emma Reed Turrell is a psychotherapist and host of the podcast Best Friend Therapy. In the episode with her best friend author Elizabeth Day Turrell says “Guilt is the gap between our ideal self and our real self” and that can easily turn into a feeling of shame. We absolutely want to avoid this. Shame is not an enjoyable place to live, and it can impact us in so many ways.
So how can we use guilt for good?
And I want you to understand that I do not say this dismissively, this is not a “magic wand” situation. This will be pretty tough, but what’s the alternative? What is the cost of not taking some control here?
Here are some tips I would love for you to give a try, and please do let me know how you get on:
Make a guilt list. This is something Elizabeth Day shared in that podcast I mentioned earlier. She made a list of everything she felt guilty of at a particular moment in time. The list, as you can imagine, was pretty extensive and ranged from interpersonal guilt (feeling she had caused pain to others), parental guilt (this one is heavy and not one I can personally comment on) and lots of existential guilt (guilt for not living up to potential, not being true to who you are, not contributing meaningfully - wow I feel seen!). A guilt list is helpful because:
It helps to see the words, and often simply seeing the thoughts helps us to challenge them, and realise that these thoughts are optional - we don’t have to accept them.
Just getting the thoughts out of our heads can feel like a relief. We do not have capacity to hold all of that in our minds.
It can helps us to categorise and explore the guilts further. Is there a common theme? If so what might this mean? And what actions is it pushing you to take? When Elizabeth Day did this she found a common thread of letting people down, and not feeling good enough.
Define your priorities. We cannot be everything to everyone. It is just simply not possible, and if we are truly honest with ourselves, it’s not really desirable either. This is where the gap between ideal self and real self plays a role too. If we can increase our understanding of what is really important to us and take steps towards that it can help us to ignore the other existential guilt noise, and help us to be more compassionate with our real self.
Stop judging and this goes for judging others and judging self. I truly believe that most of us are doing the best we can at any given time. How can we start turning our judgement to kindness instead? And this is not an opportunity to feel more guilt, but to accept that my real self is doing OK.
Action it. One of the definitions mentioned earlier is that guilt is energising, it promotes action. Turrell says when we feel guilt we either need to action it or delete it.
Maybe the guilt is valid, and if so what can you do to correct that behaviour? Perhaps give an apology, perhaps make a phone call, what does that look like for you? I often feel guilt about food waste, currently about a huge bag of spinach in my fridge, an action I can take now is to make use of the spinach (pesto and pie are on the list) but I can also anticipate this guilt next time I am shopping and only buy what I will use or batch cook and freeze (granted this is a simple one!)
But maybe the guilt is existential, or invalid. Maybe the guilt is linked to your ideal (perhaps unrealistic) self, or linked to an obligation which is not possible or even warranted. What is behind this guilt? and how can you show kindness to yourself to delete it?
Finally and absolutely worth mentioning - talk to someone. If guilt is impacting you every day and has psychological and physical effects, if you feel you are suffering with a guilt complex please do seek professional help
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I’d love to hear what you thought of this edition of my newsletter, if anything is hitting home do drop me a reply, it would be great to hear from you.
