Wind of the Soul

Out of all the emotions that lend themselves to self-sabotage, perhaps none are as potent as guilt. When we carry a heavy heart, burdened by something we’ve done that’s deemed wrong or improper, we constrict the expansion of our being. Guilt has the potential to shut us down in so many ways.

Often times, I have looked to my past and thought, “Why on earth did I do that?” Usually this thought is laced with heavy doses of gut wrenching judgment. The more I dwell on condemning my past actions (actions which cannot be physically changed anyway), the more I can feel myself undermining my potential.

Somewhere along the way, many of us have adopted the illogical attitude we aren’t a good person if we don’t carry around regrets from our past. We grow up believing we should be disgusted with ourselves for making certain choices. After all, no person of good moral standings would dare do something like that (insert any unfavorable action here) and not feel bad about it until the day they die, right?

I don’t mean to suggest we should not learn from our past experiences, nor am I saying we shouldn’t make choices that are more advantageous for ourselves and those around us. I just don’t feel we should ball up all of our supposed misdeeds and hold onto them as a means for re-iterating our unworthiness. The more we dwell on our past actions, the more we continue to lose sight of the present. By doing so, we act out our own inner beliefs concerning our lack of self worth.

Even if we feel being mindful of our past will guarantee we won’t repeat those same actions; we overlook the understanding that the guilt we carry around prevents us from having peak experiences and interactions. If we stay vigilant in remembering our past “mistakes” as mistakes, then there’s no way we are completely free of feeling guilty for what we did.

And it’s impossible to be laden with a guilt ridden conscience and simultaneously be present, aware, joyful and connected to everything we do. The very things we are trying to avoid repeating are continuing to influence us in a negative way because we’re keeping them active in our thought processes.

We also believe that others should feel guilty for their wrong doings. We seem to think guilt is the correct response because it eventually leads to a confession, an apology or a mending of ways. However, endorsing and trying to foster guilt in others via blame, serves to diminish us as well. We don’t feel guilt because we need to make something right for someone else. And we don’t feel the need to endorse its expansion in others so we can feel better. We feel these things because internal mechanisms are letting us know it’s time to make amends within ourselves.

Feeling this way is a sure sign we are ripping ourselves apart internally. While apologies can be beneficial; they often serve to make the person that’s being apologized to feel vindicated and slightly superior. The apologist then walks away feeling diminished in who they are for having to act a certain way to appease someone else.

I want to reiterate, I’m not advocating that we live a life of treating others in a harmful way and then feel good about doing so. I’m advocating releasing the need to measure up to anyone’s standards. And I’m advocating we find a form of inner unconditional love which will always guide us in the direction of knowing the best way to treat ourselves and others.

Feeling prolonged guilt highlights a lack of unconditional love of self. Likewise, any time we demand an apology from others it highlights another form of placing conditions on our loving emotions. We won’t ever find that place of loving unconditionally by harshly judging our actions or expecting others to do the same concerning their own.

When I look back on certain situations from my past and I feel a twinge of judgment or condemnation regarding my behavior or the behavior of other people, I try and remind myself of this: our past can sometimes be akin to walking around in an unfamiliar room in the dark. We are all bound to trip over many things until we can hone in on our surroundings. We stumble often because we are trying many different means for finding our way. If we would allow ours eyes to adjust to the environment first, things would go much smoother.

This adjustment comes from the desire to see more clearly, while consistently slowing down in the midst of our experiences. I believe when we develop an understanding of the true motivation of our past actions and the emotionally motivated actions of others, our eyes begin to bring things into a clearer focus. We are then capable of forgiving both ourselves and other people without having to give (or expecting to receive) any form of emotional reparations. This provides us with an opportunity to free ourselves of guilt.

Related Posts

Forgiving Our Past: Key to Unlocking a Joyful Present
Q & A: Why do we feel Negative Emotion?
Stepping Into the Awareness of Now
Shaking off Social Pressure to Achieve Self Actualization

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Releasing Fear, Self-Help, Spiritual Empowerment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.