DEALING WITH GUILT

Guilt is perhaps the most difficult feeling to refute in our battle for self-esteem.

Sit quietly for a moment and make a list of all the things that you feel guilty about.

You will notice that in the best therapeutic tradition I do not say "Things that MAKE you feel guilty.

Only you can MAKE yourself feel anything. It is your choice.

That may sound very glib, but it is not as simple as it sounds. You make your choices for a number of complex reasons, not all of which are accessible to pure reason.

Choose one of the things you feel guilty about.

Wallow in it.

Let it get to you.

Then have a good look at the way you feel.

What is this thing called guilt?

There is probably a large helping of anger in the feeling you call guilt. Perhaps you can most easily identify feelings of resentment or frustration. You have either done something that someone thinks you ought not to have done, or, to paraphrase the general confession, you have left undone something that someone thinks you ought to have done.

The reason you have behaved in this way is either because you could not, or you did not want to behave as directed. The first reason, inability, engenders helplessness: resentment that you were prevented, together with self-doubt, that you could have tried harder, with perhaps a suspicion that you failed wilfully, because you did not really want to do what was expected.

The feelings are uncomfortable. You are justifiably annoyed at the circumstance that prevented you; at the feelings of self-doubt that conflict with a desire to believe you did your best, and at the feelings of shame you do not deserve. You are at war with yourself.......more