Guilt

Food, sex, mothers and money.

These are universally life’s four major GUILT groups.

Until I learnt the major difference between GUILT and remorse nothing could change.

If you’re struggling with a truckload of GUILT like I was, there is a way out of a life stuck in fear.

Yes I had stuffed up big time, and the GUILT was almost unbearable to continue to carry.

I lived in fear of just being me.

And, clean and sober the GUILT was worse, once all my emotional anaesthetics had been removed!

Fear lives within our ego, thought (head) and action (body).

When we’ve learned only how to process emotion through our ego, we keep our heart closed and protected, so we don’t heal, grow or emotionally mature.

Love is the language of our hearts. Laughter and tears help us process emotion.

Once we learn how to remain open hearted and compassionate when we’ve made mistakes or stuffed up we learn, grow, heal and become emotionally mature and reliable adults.

Let me explain a little more …

One of the key differences between GUILT and remorse is that guilt feeds on fear and keeps us stuck leading us to self-destructive tendencies.

Remorse on the other hand feeds on love, genuine compassion and helps us heal and move on leading us to constructive action.

If we feel GUILT rather than remorse, we’re choosing to only see the pain of others (that we’ve wronged) as judgement, condemnation, and feel bad for only ourselves. What we feel for the person in pain is fear and anger, anger for showing our fragile ego what we don’t want to see (the consequences of our actions).

If we instead choose to let go of our fear and anger and focus on loving compassion our GUILT transforms into genuine remorse. As our heart opens, we’re actually able to cease being heartless and care more about the one we’ve wounded. We don’t care about others holding us accountable because we’re already ok about emotional responsibility and will hold ourselves accountable.

Remorse is our head heart and body working together to take loving action, actively doing something about the harm we’ve caused and we becoming willing to make amends.

GUILT is about feeling self pity remaining stuck in our ego (head and body) refusing to learn, grow and change addressing the harm we’ve caused.

GUILT worries more about how the wounded one makes us appear in the eyes of others as we feel our self-image (ego state) is being attacked. The GUILTY worry about others holding us accountable because we shirk self-accountability.

These day if I stuff up and I do frequently (just not as much), as I am still clean and sober so emotional anesthetic is not an available option anymore. So I if I stuff up, I’ve then gotta choose to “woman up” and own my mistakes, taking them to heart so I can learn, grow and heal.

I refuse to allow my ego to get drunk on GUILT anymore.

Replacing GUILT (fearful ego) with remorse (open and courageous heart) is not easy emotional homework to master. I am still a work in progress myself.

However I choose to remember when I have stuffed up that GUILT will stunt my emotional growth whereas remorse will accelerate it.

So I’ll finish off with this simple reminder …

GUILT leads to us to just more self-hatred. Remorse gifts us with the ability to wake up, grow up and compassionately forgive ourselves.

Lotsa love Cynthia xxx