Feeling Guilty? Stuck in Guilt?  Would You Like to Live a Guilt-Free Life?

Feeling Guilty, Feeling Bad Question

What is guilt and how do I get rid of it? K. M.

The Defintion of Guilt and How to Deal with Guilt Answer

Guilt is the worst experience known to humans. Guilt ties you up in knots and makes you feel unworthy and miserable. Contraary to what you may think, guilt is not a real, authenic human emotion. Instead, it is a "feeling" that you have committed a sin, therefore, you are bad and wrong.

Therefore, guilt is a conditioned response, not an authentic emotion. You learned to feel guilty when someone in your past told you that you were bad or wrong.

A child does not "feel guilty" until someone punishes her and makes her experience guilt.  When an authority, teacher or parent tells a child that she has offended someone or hurt someone's "feelings," she feels guilt.

When someone is offended by your behavior, they accuse you of doing something wrong or bad. You may or may not have done anything wrong or bad. As a matter of fact, most of the time, you have not done anything that would be considered to be bad or wrong.

As an adult, guilt is caused by thinking that you have done something wrong.  You think you have done something wrong because you judge yourself based on a judgment that you learned in your past.

When you feel guilt it could be your own judgment against yourself or someone else's judment against you. For example, if your mother wants you to come home for the hoidays she may judge you as a bad daughter if you do not come home to see her. The fact that you do not go home to see your mother does not mean that you are a bad daughter.

In other words, you are taught to feel guilt when someone judges you--about anything-- how you dress, how you move, how you think, what you do. Guilt is a form of manipulation.

In reality there is no right way to dress, move, think or do! The more creative you are, the more ways there are to dress, move, think and do!

When you "feel guilty," you think that you have done something wrong and are judging yourself. The result is your energy becomes totally tied up in knots and pulls you in different directions at the same time, with no resolution possible.

You have committed a "sin" and you need to be punished. Pretty awful stuff. So of course being the "good person" that you are, you punish yourself for being so bad by making yourself miserable.

You are stuck; no matter what you do, you feel bad. Guilt is a losing battle, an inner conflict where you lose no matter what you do!

It is easy to see this no win situation is crazy and guilt need not guide any decision you make in your life. Never, yes, never trust guilt!

If you have done something you really regret, apologize and stop doing it, otherwise dispense with guilt. Do not let guilt rule your life.

When I hurt someone's feelings, I usually sense it because I feel bad, not guilty. I take a deep breath, feel my feelings and go back and apologize to the person.

The last time I did this was in Sweden with one of the students. I told him what I was feeling so he could understood what was happening inside of me that made me be abrupt and insensitive to him. At first he said it was all right, so I had to apologized three different times before he accepted my apology. I felt better as soon as I talked to him, but I didn't feel complete until he accepted my apology.

Taking responsibility for yourself is very different from guilt.

Here is a secret to the emotional dynamics that are doing on when someone guilt trips you. 

When a person judges you as wrong, they are defending against their own authentic emotions. They choose to judge you and think bad thoughts about you because that is what they do to themselves to to control themselves and avoid feeling their authenic emotions.

Your behavior puts them in touch with feelings inside of themselves that they are blocking, denying and repressing. Therefore they do not want to feel them and will do anything to avoid feeling them.

It is the ego that is offended and it is the ego that wants control. The ego wants you to do what it wants you to do, so it uses guilt trips to accomplish this. The real self is never offended because being offended is a defense behavior.

People, cultures and societies over the centuries have used guilt, shame and blame to control their children. The Jewish culture is famous for their guilt and indeed they have developed it to a high art. I was full of guilt myself so the southern families have obviously used it very successfully as well! Guilt is used to condition children to behave as expected.

So how do you get rid of guilt?

Become conscious of your judgments of yourself, so you have the means to stop judging yourself. Once you stop making yourself wrong, it will be easier to deal with other people's judgments of you.

Start attending to your own needs and honor them, rather than making them wrong. Open your heart so you feel your real emotions and feelings. Then you will know what is best for you rather than what you have been conditioned to think you should do.

You will find you have been conditioned to think badly of yourself for many, many healthy things. The only way to resolve guilt is to cease the judgments, then you will be able to relax and love again.

Be aware that making someone else wrong is the same thing as making yourself wrong. Forgiveness is really nothing more than giving up your judgments about something.

There is no right or wrong, only experiences to learn from. So get out there and enjoy learning and living and growing. Toss guilt out. Trust yourself and love yourself.

Create the life you want and the relationships you want. Try a guiltless way to start the New Year. Hope this helps.

Learn the skill set you need to eliminate guilt and judgment from your life so you can enjoy guilt free living.

Options to Help You Cope With Guilt: Choose one or both of these options to help you overcome guilt.

Option 1.

Order "Find Peace Beyond Judgment and Guilt" a one hour educational audio. This is a recording of a live teleseminar. Learn the guilt busting tools you need to put guilt in the trash by listening to Dr. Doris Jeanette teach others how to to it. Cost $29.97

Order the one hour audio "Find Peace Beyond Judgment and Guilt" as CD or mp3.

Order "Find Peace Beyond Judgment and Guilt" as a CD, shipping cost ($4.00 USA, $8.00 non USA)

Or order "Find Peace Beyond Judgment and Guilt" as a mp3.

For more information about "Find Peace Beyond Judgment and Guilt" audio click here.

Option 2.

Set up a private phone consultation. Dr. Jeanette can usually get to the bottom of your guilt in one session. If you have done something that you regret, you can learn from it and correct the problem. Otherwise, learn to rise above guilt when it is a manipulation. $200.00. Read recommendations and order here.

Guilt free living workshops are taught by Dr. Doris Jeanette. Heal Your Guilt Workshops are experiential. Say no to guilt. Don't teach your children guilt and shame. Help them say no to guilt and shame.