113. I found that guilt is nothing but a bad habit. Have you considered giving it up?

Guilt. It’s something we’ve all learned. It’s something we’ve all suffered with. It’s something we’ve all been guilty of (pun intended). And for what? Is there any winner?

Guilt and regret can cause immense suffering, especially in our dating and romantic lives. The person we most want not to hurt is sometimes the person we’re the meanest to. Then what happens? We may apologize, we may make amends. But we probably feel guilt, sometimes intense guilt. We may feel it for years as we look back on marriage, divorce, death of our spouse. We could have done it so much better we often think. I remember after my wife died that I regretted all kinds of events I remembered where I could have been kinder to her, could have been more attentive, more loving. Fortunately I realized that had to stop, and found some new ways to look at life.

Maybe these will help you, as they helped me. There are a couple of ways to look at guilt and its cousin, regret. One way is to ask: Does it help? Somehow the mind seems to think that if we’re guilty enough that’ll propel us to be good in the future. If we can feel terribly guilty it’ll be a strong enough impulse to stop us from doing the bad thing that deserves our guilt.

But wait just a minute! Whatever that terrible thing is that we feel guilty about, is it true we did a terrible thing? Maybe it’s more true, when we look honestly, that at the moment of our action we were really doing the best we knew how to do. I’m not saying that intellectually, a moment later, we might not have known another way that could have been better. I’m saying that in the exact moment of the action, in our direct experience, if we could have done something we thought was better we’d have done it wouldn’t we? Don’t just pass this by. Stop for just a moment and really consider this. Didn’t we do the best we knew how at the moment? Do we really need to hold onto an idea that we did this bad thing? And if the bad thing is gone where’s the need for guilt?

Another way to look at guilt is to consider what it does. Does it help the people you feel guilty about hurting? Maybe the person you offended gets some momentary pleasure from hearing you say you feel guilty, if you say it at all. But beyond that do they profit from your guilt? Probably not. That leaves you. Do you feel any better for having this guilt? Have you felt guilt in the past and has it really motivated you to not do what you consider “bad things”? Look and you’ll probably notice it hasn’t worked. If it had why would you continue to feel guilty over and over?

A third way to examine guilt is to just see reality as it is. You did something; you took some action or said some words. Do you really know you shouldn’t have done that? Yes, society may say so, the church may say so, your mother may say so but can you really know how the Universe should be functioning, including how it should function through a person you call “me”?

Maybe the hurt you think you caused someone is the hurt they needed to feel. Do you know? Is it possible that if they feel hurt they may see life differently in a way that will improve it for them immensely. Do you really know? What we can know is that there are no mistakes in life. Life is running itself just fine without our opinion or approval, even when it looks like we should feel bad and have tremendous regret and guilt. Is it possible our little, niggly opinions, regret and guilt are just silly ideas and not really worth a damn? Maybe we should just give up guilt as a bad habit! I found that life was a lot more peaceful when I did that.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer