Good morning everyone and welcome to my forty fourth blog.

Guilt, that five letter word that evokes so many feelings

I continually feel guilty about something and really struggle with all of the negative stuff surrounding it.

I wake up and feel guilty because I have slept past 5am. I feel guilty after this because I choose to exercise on the treadmill and choose not to take the dogs for a walk. I feel guilty because I do a little work upstairs and nor downstairs on the couch with the dogs.  I feel guilty that Pops phones me before I contact him. I feel guilty because Covid has wreaked havoc on the lives of my boys and are we managing the fallout adequately? I feel guilty with my new practice when I go away. I feel guilty that my friend had to work over the weekend for my physio patients. I feel guilty that I am away for another weekend and should be home with my boys. I feel guilty because I have eaten sweets, chocs, ice-cream and loads of bread on my weekend away. I feel guilty because I have not contacted a friend in need or seen my Mum or Pops. I feel guilty that I am embarking on a new venture and leaving the other behind, with friends who are still in it. I feel guilty for not making the most delicious food for my family all the time. I feel guilty that I still enjoy diet coke. I feel guilty because I still love bubbles. I feel guilty because my blog is way from ready to publish. Wow – quite a lot of guilt. A lot of it may seem silly or not serious, but everything builds up and takes from my energy and lie force.

Guilt is rather a complicated emotion. It has huge ramifications for how we interact with others and how we interpret moral codes and that has led to competing ideas about how it was developed and what purpose it serves in psychology. Remember, I am just a blogger, a girl trying to figure things out. I am not a therapist, philosopher, or social worker.

When defining guilt, we need to talk about shame too. While the feeling of shame indicates the presence of other people, guilt can come and remain, without other people. So, guilt can be a private emotion about doing something wrong, while shame is about our concern at the opinion and disapproval of others when we have done something wrong.

Some say that guilt developed many years ago as an internal emotion to inhibit and restrain us against aggressive self-assertion within a family or clan.

Another thought is that guilt and co-operation are highly linked in the brain, that when we are tempted to do something that would make us hurt others, our sense of bonding and loyalty to them, kicks in. As a result, we do not stuff up our relationship with others.

Another angle is that guilt’s purpose is to keep us in line and guilt helps us to not break rules and we maintain our self-respect and moral values.

Guilt is relative, depending on the culture or society that you find yourself in. Our inner critic (a concept referring to a subpersonality that judges and demeans us) is also connected with this. Initially, this inner critic is a way of protecting ourselves, to help us survive. However, sometimes these voices become integrated into our personality and may be negative as we become adults.

Women experience more guilt than men, created by a wide variety of cultural pressures and expectations. It is a way of recognizing that we have not lived up to our own values and standards. It definitely can be positive as it is an opportunity to acknowledge and rectify our mistakes.

Guilt can lead to huge physical issues, insomnia, an upset stomach, nausea, or other digestive issues, stomach pain, muscle tension, head pain, tearfulness.

It is a very complicated emotion and can impact our lives in so many ways. What we need to do is to make sure we know what guilt is and this will allow us to develop some ways of managing guilt and processing it in a healthy way.

As part of my research, I came across some interesting facts about guilt which I thought I would share with you!

1. Guilt protects our relationships. it is considered a pro-social emotion because it helps you maintain good relations with others. It is a signal that keeps going off in your heads until you take appropriate action to take care of those near and dear to us., each signal must be brief but together they add up e.g. I must visit my mum this week.
2. Studies have shown that we experience up to five hours, that is 300 minutes, of guilty feelings a week, that is me and that does seem too much time to spend on this – so very not healthy.
3. Unresolved guilt is like a snooze button that keeps going off in your head. This makes it hard to concentrate, as your attention is diverted by these bursts of guilt, and this can persist. When I am travelling from patient to patient, that snooze button gets activated. Guess it is that I have the time to think. Another detrimental effect on your mental and emotional health.
4. Guilty feelings make it difficult to think straight and then this may affect your productivity, creativity, and efficiency which may become a big issue in the optimal functioning of your life. Wasted time.
5. Guilt may affect your ability to make the most of every day and to enjoy life. More and more we really do need to make the most of every day that we have, don’t we?
6. Guilt may make you self-punish; you may deprive yourself unnecessarily of something because you feel bad about having done or not done something. This can often be counterproductive.
7. Guilt may make you avoid the person you have wronged. This has been by me, often, and by the time I do address them, it is often too late, and I have caused unnecessary hurt and pain. Remember the “Think before you speak” blog.
8. Guilt-prone people assume they have harmed others when they actually have not. Recalling the “not having ever walked a step in another’s shoes”. It is silly and wrong and mostly inaccurate to assume the thoughts of others. Oh dear, another, yet another work in progress.
9. Guilt may make you feel resentful, like “she has not contacted me, why must I call her?” Guilt turns into resentment. Yip, that is so moi !
10. Guilty feelings may honestly make you feel heavier, physically. It is as though the weight of the guilt becomes physical. This is based on research. (Guy Winch – The Squeaky Wheel. Psychology today)

So, what should we do to pro-actively organize ourselves with regard to this crazy little thing called guilt?

• Focus your attention on your own needs. It really is about you, ultimately.
• Look for the evidence, of why you should be feeling guilty. So, if you feel that you are not doing enough for those close to you, write down what you are actually doing. That will definitely make you feel better, truly,
• As you feel yourself starting on that pathetic guilt, start to appreciate yourself and all you do, write down (again) in your self-gratitude dairy, the three things in your day or days, that were good.
• Try to imagine yourself in another person’s shoes, in spite of not actually being able to do this, and think about whether your guilt is that necessary. It may not be.
• Look for your emotions beneath the guilt, guilt may be masking your resentment or anger. Try to establish what the chief emotion is that is causing you all this stress.
• Decide how much you are willing or able to do to rectify the situation. Take action and then park the guilt.
• You are not your actions: You’re responsible for your actions but they do not make you a bad person. Shoo, this is written for me. I have so often felt that my actions will define me forever, and that is so not true. We all make mistakes.
• Self-compassion: Forgiving yourself makes you behave better. Thinking you are a bad person makes you act worse. This is so true; wish I could have learned this way back when.
• Apologize: Say you are sorry for what they think you did wrong, not what you think you did wrong. Flip I just love this sentence. For me, it speaks volumes.
• Ask “What can I learn from this?”. I can not change the past, but I can aim to do things differently in the future.

I know I will mess up again. up again. This is part of life. What I am realizing, slowly but surely is that I do not have to be tortured by my mistakes. I am trying to learn to forgive myself, repair the damage, and move on.

So, friends, let us ditch that unnecessary guilt, embrace every aspect of our beautiful selves, be kind to ourselves and to one another, and live our best lives!

Tip number forty-three.

Try to spend ten minutes each day loving yourself, nurturing yourself and telling yourself what an amazing and magnificent person you are., because we all are truly this.