Is Guilt Useless?

Maybe you have heard about how guilt is a useless emotion or a wasted emotion. While it can become a trap for self-judgement and self-punishment, it serves as a guide towards making positive changes and relationship repair. Like all emotions, the point is to move on from it lest it become toxic and drain your energy. 

Let’s briefly explore how you can avoid the guilt trap and explore the emotion with compassionate inquiry. 

Firstly, you feel guilt because you are a loving being at your core. On a spiritual level, the connection we have with others lends itself to the concept of: first, do no harm. When you reflect back on what you did or didn’t do, you feel that energy shift of wondering if you inflicted any amount of harm on another. Did I hurt their feelings? 

Secondly, we develop our moral compass in conjunction with societal norms and values. If you break one of these rules, you feel bad, or you feel embarrassed. You may also enter into a personal battle of justifying your actions and judging the other party to assuage some of that guilt. 

For example, you yell at your kids and the internal dialogue may sound like this: well they were misbehaving, I have tried everything, I have had such a long day, but I know all of these strategies, why didn’t I use them? Well I’m not perfect, I wonder if Stacey yells at her kids like that… The list goes on from big or small incidents from saying no, forgetting someone’s birthday, not bringing a dish to a potluck, or hitting someone’s car and driving away.

Regardless, the guilt can become toxic to your health when you can’t move beyond it based on unreasonable expectations. Do you deserve to be punished? Is the guilt going to make it better? Stress takes its toll on your mental and physical well being not to mention continuing to affect your relationships with others. If guilt begins to define who you are, and your choices, then it truly becomes unhealthy, unproductive and quite ‘useless.’

The event has passed, so perseverating over the event is an attachment to self-judgement. You deserve positive change to break free of that negative loop to be more present. 

1. Positive Self Talk: Speak to yourself as you would a dear friend or loved one. 

2. Investigate the Root Cause: With compassion, why do you feel guilty? What are the facts? What are your standards? Are they reasonable? 

3. Repair if Necessary: Take ownership with a gesture or an apology to gain closure.

4. Reflect on the Positive: What did you do well? Within the day or within the relationship. Believe me, there are many more positive moments, we just don’t tend to overthink them! 

5. Your Needs Matter: You are allowed to say no, you are allowed to set boundaries and you are not responsible for others emotions, simply your actions. If you say no and someone is mad at you, let them. 

6. Let Go of Control: Take some relaxing breaths and visualize the guilt, the incident or the thoughts leaving your body. It’s time to move forward with grace. 

7. Human Perfection is an Illusion: Face it, you will make mistakes, and not everyone will like you. 

8. Feeling gratitude for the experience itself is helpful in seeing it as a learning opportunity. 

9. Love: Tapping into the loving consciousness that you are as often as you can so you can feel joy and peace. This naturally and effortlessly affects others in a positive way. 

Simply put, guilt is important like any emotion to unravel the story of what you want in your life. In the contrast of negativity, you can find positivity. If saying no makes you feel guilty, perhaps you need to evaluate why your own needs take a backseat and make some positive changes. 

Use guilt FOR your highest good to grow. It doesn’t define you and it’s not supposed to linger, it’s a teacher meant to flow through your experience. 

Break Free with Love,