Letting Go of the Guilt Machine

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.             Woody Allen

To err is human but it feels divine.                                             Mae West

There is this thing about guilt. It's contradictory. It's very necessary, and very unnecessary, very heavy, and very essential to our  humanness. The biggest trouble with guilt is it's repetitiveness, it has the capability to be unrelenting and unproductive. This can change! [Doesn't this almost sound like I'm in the advertising business: Get Productive and Guilt Free in only Five Easy Lessons!]  I believe when we feel an excessive amount of guilt it can be used effectively and ultimately lessened.

Here are the ten easy steps to lessening the guilt you feel:

1. Sit down [or pace the floor] and come up with what you feel  most guilty about. Be clever, be witty, be depressed, but by all means be honest.
2. Write down what you are guilty about.
3. Sit still [or pace again] and let yourself contemplate your missteps, carelessness, inadvertent sins or purposeful egregious acts.
4. Stay with these wretched thoughts for at least five minutes.
5. As you are thinking write down possible solutions to resolving or absolving the guilt.
6. Make an action plan to ease the burden and make amends when necessary.
7. Be prepared to do the above each day for a week.
8. Put the notebook with the guilt list and solutions away.
9. When your brain tells you that you are guilty, acknowledge it and then concentrate on the actions you've come up with to rectify the situation.
10. Take the action and actively invite the feelings of  release, letting go, as Mae West it can even feel divine.

I'll give you an example of this. Recently, the wife of an old client of mine died a sad and prolonged death. He was at her side and her behest constantly. He is the epitome of the good husband. Yet when I visited him he confessed that he felt wretched for all of the times when he was angry or impatient with her. I'm telling you -he couldn't be more saintly but his thoughts all raced to his imperfections while attending her. I tried to reassure him that for good people like him, with sincerely deep consciences, it's natural to feel guilty. "The brain and body know something is terribly wrong and so in spare moments they will go on a search for things that you feel terrible about and those moments of anger or inattention are bound to pop up." "Well, I did get angry at her sometimes and frustrated about all of the extra work I had to do." "Yes, but she couldn't have had a more caring or devoted husband, remember that." I'm not sure if this lessened his guilt but the explanation about the brain is valid and he did shake his head in recognition and agreement.

He has more of a conscious than Mr. Cheney

The opposite of this is the poor unfortunates who rarely ever have a guilty feeling. Our own Dick Cheney comes immediately to mind. This is a man who not only justified an unnecessary war but also made billions of dollars in profit from this war. He not only does not feel guilty for all that should be on his conscience, but he justifies his actions in a book, thereby profiting again for his sins. This is the height of self serving and is reprehensible. My cat has more of a conscience than Cheney. People like Dick Cheney are the people who tend to be narcissistic, "if it's good for me it must be good." They go on their merry way hurting others in their path [and some are unfortunately children] and never feel the slightest twinge of guilt. Most of us have encountered this in our lives, these people do not make good friends, lovers, neighbors or citizens. In my humble opinion he should be charged with his crimes against humanity and have to pay back all of the profits or at least give the money to the ones who have been harmed by that war. To my count there are hundreds of thousands.

Give me the good men and women with a conscience, the ones who are caring and loving and good citizens to boot, they are going to have moments when they feel guilty. My wish is that they put the guilt to good use and change the situation into something meaningful.

I hope that there is karma, or an after life or some other form of justice that will hold the warmongers, the rapists, the abusers accountable. To focus on all of the injustice and not do anything about it, well, it makes me feel guilty. Hence I write these blogs, I write letters in protest, I vote against the selfish and the greedy. I hope that you do too.

The world needs more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left. Oscar Levant

If I were Queen, I say humbly, I would order all of the actually guilty people to do penance, in public. I would order public works like care taking wounded soldiers, rehabilitation paid for by the abusers, have the monies restored by the bankers who stole from us all and then gave themselves bonuses, etc. See, if you follow logical consequences it could all go so well. The Queen has spoken, long live the Queen.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2011 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved.