Let go of guilt and live a free life

Guilt will play a part in most peoples life at some point, it is natural personality trait to question if we have done something against our morals and feel regret if we have. The challenge a person will have is when the guilt begins to consume their world to the point where they will feel self conscious about acceptance by significant others

Guilt is very easy trait to pick up in life and it will sit in the mind and work itself into our belief systems many times without the person’s awareness, except for the occasional heavy feeling inside when they are reminded of the trigger or original situation which caused the guilt.

Guilt is created when a person believes they are doing something against their moral code or doing something which they wanted to do but believe there will be painful repercussions after. Guilt can be created from many different sources but if left unchecked can have devastating effect upon the self esteem. Guilt is usually created when we are young, too young to be aware of what is going on, hence we look for other people to verify our opinions as back up, if the other person then criticises or insults us for what we have done, this can then be stored as a belief in the sub-conscious mind and used as a reference point for future. If however though the person we turned to for verification had lied to us to gain control (by tricking us into feeling guilty) then we have stored a wrong belief inside, but this will still be followed as we do not know any different.

Many of my clients can live with guilt for years about a parent they never said good bye to or an argument they had with a partner, but all this has the effect of doing is releasing adrenal hormones into the body wearing them out or causing stress. Guilt in this nature can also be classed as shame

One very powerful technique I use with my clients is the flowing

1. Write out the situation you feel guilty about in full form from begin to end. When the guilt is flowing round the mind it is easy to misread or misinterpret parts of the situation.
2.  Read it through five time, this has the impact of engaging the analytical mind which then looks for flaws or how true something is, many time doing this a person can start to question their guilt
3. Write down how many years you haven lived this way
4. Ask yourself if it is valuable to hold this guilt and why you are holding onto it. In reality there is no reason to hold on to the past as it is unhealthy, if you made a mistake accept it and move on.
5. Write down the new way you will choose to act from now on
6. Practice regularly until it becomes habit

Guilt is a choice, no matter what has happened feeling guilty about the past will not help. Sometimes in life others who feel pain will try to instil guilt as they think it makes them feel better if the other is suffering but then it is a lose-lose situation. Learn to let go!