Feelings of guilt - 20 real tips to help you cope with it

Useful tips

Guilt is a powerful, destructive feeling that can poison your entire life

, spoil your health, make a normal existence in this world simply unbearable.

Do you rarely call your parents? Not paying enough attention to your children? Missing gym sessions
? Can't go on a diet? It doesn't matter what you feel guilty about.

It is important to make sure that this unconstructive feeling leaves you. Spend just a little time

Read this article to learn how to get rid of guilt.

Stop looking for a scapegoat

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When something in our life goes wrong, we completely involuntarily (and sometimes purposefully!) begin to look for a person in our environment who could be held responsible

for your troubles. Alas, as practice shows, most often such a person is ourselves. Awareness of this fact adds fuel to the fire, inflating the feeling of guilt to unimaginable proportions.

At the same time, many are well aware that the feeling of guilt in itself has no effect on correcting the situation. But it is important not only to realize that it is essentially meaningless. It is important to understand that the world around us is multifaceted

, not linear; a situation that didn’t go the way you would like is influenced not only by you - there are a lot of external factors for which you cannot be responsible.

Analyze the reasons for your feelings of guilt

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Alas, this is a very unpleasant, but inevitable procedure, since it will require from you not only deep introspection, but also, possibly, a reassessment of the situation that has occurred. But only revaluation will allow us to understand

, why exactly do you feel guilty? Understanding why you oppress yourself or simply feeling guilty is not the same thing.

For example, if you realize that you are not paying enough attention to your parents, ask yourself a question - for what reason are you not doing this?

What gave you
such an idea ?
Perhaps your brother or your sister reproaches you for this, or your parents themselves? And now a very important thought - are you really devoting little time to them and what can be done in this situation?

It is clear that you are an adult who knows better what is more important for your family (if you have a family). It is clear that you have passed the age when it made sense, say, every five minutes
, devoting her in detail to the circumstances of your life. It is clear that you are not ready, as before, to bring your personal life up for discussion at family councils. But you don't have to do this at all!

It is enough to at least sometimes call your family, inquire about their health, drop by for tea, and be more interested in THEIR problems than talking about your own. Believe and verify

- it works and does not require much effort from you (and it relieves guilt very effectively). So it is extremely important to understand what exactly causes you to feel guilty.

How to get rid of guilt. What to do?

Guilt has important characteristics.

It is not innate, we learn it as we grow up. We buy it thanks to our parents and people around us.
If it has already been developed, but appears by itself in response to your behavior, even if no one around you was a witness. That is, for guilt to appear, it is not at all necessary that someone look at you with contempt; you yourself will feel guilty. Moreover, you may feel guilty, even if those around you say: “You did everything right, well done!”
The feeling of guilt directly depends on a person’s self-esteem. A self-confident person reacts to feelings of guilt by reflection, searching for objective reasons for behavior and accepting the consequences of his actions. A person with low self-esteem considers himself bad and by default takes the blame for many things, simply because he is bad, and bad people do everything badly and therefore are obliged to feel guilty. That is, people with normal self-esteem experience a feeling of guilt, but it is worked through and becomes part of the experience, and not a scourge.

Keep a Guilt Journal

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If you feel that your life is becoming unbearable due to guilt, start a journal immediately. Every time the sneaky worms called remorse

(and the feeling of guilt presupposes that you have this very conscience!), begin to undermine your thoughts and your soul, record the day, time and, most importantly, the reason for their activity (possibly circumstances).

Re-read your notes a couple of times a week. This is not self-examination at all: it is very important to identify the circumstances that cause a surge of such emotions, and then draw the appropriate conclusions

that will allow such circumstances to be avoided. Perhaps a feeling of guilt consumes you at the moment of communication with a certain person? Draw conclusions, stop meeting with such people (or, if this is not possible, organize a meeting under other circumstances and on your terms).

Guilt and shame

Guilt is similar to shame, they are often identified, but there are some differences: shame arises under the condition that an unpleasant event occurred in front of witnesses, and a person experiences guilt even when alone with himself. Thus, the feeling of guilt is a more personal concept, and the feeling of shame is social. The following points can be highlighted from a comparative analysis of the concepts of “shame” and “guilt”:

Guilt is always related to a specific event, driven by a feeling of harm or discomfort to someone. The feeling of shame is more powerful and broader, it is not necessarily associated with a specific event and causing harm to someone.
Shame is the recognition and awareness of the general defectiveness of oneself as an individual, a person. Guilt is a state that accompanies actions or thoughts that contradict the norms of society or the attitudes of the individual, that is, remorse.
With guilt, the emphasis is on action, thoughts (“How could I have done this?”). When feeling shame, attention is focused on one’s “I” (“How exactly could I do this?”). In this regard, shame is undoubtedly more dangerous. The person wants to disappear, and not just correct the action or receive forgiveness.
It is not only immoral acts, actions and thoughts that make one feel ashamed. Some feel ashamed of their freckles, others of their height or weight. Shame is a vision of one’s worthlessness and insolvency. Guilt is a component of shame in some cases.
Shame arises against the background of failure in life (unattainability of goals and awareness of insolvency), a feeling of guilt - when there is failure in activity or violation of norms and values.
Shame makes a person feel inadequate, imperfect, worthless, disgusting, worthless. Guilt is accompanied by anger and remorse.
Shame can be triggered by an unexpected or even minor event or something mundane. Guilt is the consequence of a violation by word or deed.
At the moment of shame, the somatic function is the first to come into play: blushing, averting the eyes, tilting the head, strong emotions and affective states. Guilt stimulates mental and behavioral activity: comprehension of what happened, concentration on action, “resuscitation” measures.
Shame makes you feel the fear of loneliness, expulsion, renunciation. Guilt makes you fear punishment and condemnation.
Shame includes mental defenses such as denial, withdrawal, perfectionism, arrogance, exhibitionism and rage. Guilt hides behind rationalization, self-forgetfulness, rumination, paranoia, obsessive-compulsive behavior, intellectualization, and the need for punishment.
Among the positive functions of shame are humanity, modesty, autonomy, independence, and a sense of competence. Among the positive influences of guilt are initiative and activity, reverse restorative actions, and moral behavior.
Guilt is associated with an individual’s self-esteem, and shame is associated with society’s assessments.

The differentiation of guilt and shame is characteristic of psychology as a science. In everyday understanding, these feelings are usually identified.

Learn to rest properly

It is extremely important to be able to rest properly. That's right - it's not about what exactly you do. That's right - it's about how much you can distract yourself from extraneous thoughts by immersing yourself in an atmosphere of relaxation

. Agree, the best vacation ceases to be such if you are constantly thinking about how productively you could spend your time instead of this vacation.

Christian Negroni

Yes, indeed, you cannot run away from yourself, just like from your thoughts. But the secret is to give yourself a proper break. In other words, whenever you start having guilt-ridden thoughts, remind yourself that you are not running away from the problem.

. You just took a time out, a break. Believe me, proper rest will not only relieve accumulated fatigue, but may also suggest a solution to the problem that led to feelings of guilt.

How to deal with shame?

To deal with shame, you need to understand where shame comes from, why you sometimes feel shame, and the difference between shame and guilt.

While guilt is an emotion you feel when you violate your own values, shame is a feeling experienced when you feel shameful or disgraced.

Guilt is the message that notifies you that you are straying from your values, but shame is the feeling that tells you that you cannot be adequate or worthy!

Shame is strongly tied to self-worth because the more shame you carry, the less worthy you will feel. In this article, I will give you all the tips you need to deal with shame.

The Nature of Shame

Shame is the feeling that there is something wrong with you, and it is usually related to your self-esteem. Typically, survivors of child abuse carry a sense of shame as a result of the feeling that something inappropriate happened to them.

The abuser usually feels guilty after abusing a child, but the child feels shameful, inadequate, and helpless. You may think I'm talking about physical or sexual abuse, but the truth is that mistreating, neglecting, or criticizing a child in front of others are all types of abuse that can make him feel ashamed when he grows up.

Shame is closely related to the inferiority complex because sometimes the main reason a person feels inferior is because they are ashamed of themselves. After all, if shame makes a person feel that there is something inadequate about them, then as soon as they compare themselves to others, they will feel less worthy.

How did we learn to feel shame?

Many of us learned to feel ashamed of our emotions, actions, or mistakes when we were children. Some parents scold children in front of others when they make mistakes, others tell them that crying (showing their emotions) is inappropriate, and in both cases, the adult is ashamed of himself.

Article “Praise or scold a child?” .

If guilt arises from the knowledge that you have made a mistake, then shame arises from the fact that you made a mistake!

How do some people make us feel ashamed?

Some of our friends and family were raised by overly critical parents who made them feel ashamed. These people will usually criticize us when we make mistakes and try to make us feel ashamed of our wrong doings, without having cruel intentions as they are simply programmed to think that way.

Sometimes these people manage to make us feel shame because they remind us of an old wound of shame that we already have.

Put your interests above other people's interests

You are the only person in the whole world who can take care of yourself better and more sincerely than everyone else. And if this line of behavior makes you feel guilty

, draw the following analogy: you are rescuing people who are stuck in water, somewhere at a depth. You have only one oxygen mask. What will you do?

You can, of course, give the opportunity to breathe first to those who need salvation. But who will feel better if you go down on your own, depriving yourself of a saving breath of air

? You will not save others, and you will destroy yourself. This advice looks very selfish, but... However, there is no “but” - it is what it is.

Change your priorities and stop putting your interests above all else

Foxy Dolphin

This advice is exactly the opposite of the previous one. But this does not mean that you should suffer from contradictions. The purpose of these tips is to relieve YOU of guilt. We do not undertake to discuss the moral side.
And if the feeling of guilt leaves you when you put your interests above the interests of others, then this method is more acceptable for you. If altruism saves you, go for it. It's up to you to decide.

Nobody is saying that looking out for your own interests is bad. There is nothing shameful in this, unless this line of behavior turns into your only position in life

. And this is a completely justified position if, in fact, you have no one else to care about. But what to do if things are different?

What to do if your feeling of guilt is caused precisely by the fact that you devote too much time to yourself, while such behavior turns into trouble for your loved ones?

Then you face a difficult, but necessary (and, most importantly, not impossible!) task - you need to change your life priorities. We will not now analyze the reasons why you did not do this earlier
. But the sooner you understand and feel that taking care of other people (especially if we are talking about your loved ones) is not only necessary, but also capable of bringing satisfaction, the better for you.

Acknowledge your feelings

To deal with these emotions, they need to be brought out of the shadows and acknowledged. Find someone you trust who has empathy and understands that no one is perfect, but that everyone is trying their best. In a confidential conversation, you can release your feelings, look at them in a new way and think about ways to cope with them.

Be honest. Say what you have been silent about for so long - this is necessary for liberation. The bravest thing you can do is to be open and sincere... with yourself.

If we remain silent about something, we remain hostage forever. If we stop hiding, we have the power to correct the situation.

Brené Brown

Work on bugs

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Self-flagellation is not only an extremely unpleasant and useless task, but also an activity that takes up a lot of valuable time. Stop wasting your energy wallowing in your remorse and feeling sorry for yourself. Your time will become much more productive

, if you start working on mistakes. However, this requires a very serious action (if you have not already done it!). It involves admitting your own mistakes.

There can be many examples of such behavior. For example, you planned to spend time with your child, but instead got bogged down in work, forgetting about your promise. Work is of course very important.

. But it is important to set your priorities correctly and learn to keep your promises. Admit your mistake, draw the right conclusions and create a “window” in your work in order to fulfill your promise. The feeling of guilt will go away.

Guilt complex in psychology

A child’s guilt complex is expressed in his inability to live normally and feel happy. This feeling is constantly present in his life, bringing negativity into it. It is very important to recognize the complex and begin to eliminate it.

In psychology, strict upbringing is often recognized as the cause of guilt in men and women. Parents use a reward system, instill in the child that he is obliged to meet their expectations. Such individuals do not live their own lives: the complex pushes them to constantly try to please their parents’ will. Children do not go where they want, but where their parents say. Guilt haunts them throughout life. They always feel like they are not good enough at what they do.

Another reason for a guilt complex lies in insecurity. A person becomes withdrawn and takes personally all the mistakes and failures that happen to him in life.

How is pathological feeling expressed?

Here are some signs that a person has developed this complex.

excessive touchiness;
tendency to self-flagellation;
lack of self-confidence;
giving up prospects and aspirations;
desire to punish oneself, a person does not love himself;
the desire to be led;

These signs indicate that the complex is fundamentally embedded in the individual. In most cases, this happens in childhood.

It is worth noting that the feeling of guilt is closely related to psychosomatics. Sometimes a person experiences a number of unpleasant symptoms:

frequent colds;
disturbances in the functioning of the heart and blood vessels;
problems with the musculoskeletal system;
frequent injuries.

In especially severe cases, self-harm and auto-aggression (conscious or unconscious self-harm) occur.

Become your own friend and learn to forgive yourself

Learn to look at yourself from the outside, as if abstracting from your own personality. This is very useful so that when you see your mistakes, you learn to forgive yourself. Imagine that you are not you, but your very good friend

(it is not necessary to represent a specific existing friend) who wishes only the best for you. Will your imaginary friend judge you for your mistakes?

Another good way is to imagine that the mistakes you made were made by a real friend whom you value and respect.

. Would you like to experience the same pangs of guilt that he experiences? Are you ready to take on his experiences, or is this too much for you?

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The truth is that when it comes to guilt, we treat ourselves harsher than we would expect from those around us. In other words, we give the other person more room to make a mistake.

than to yourself. Perhaps the time has come to become your own friend, forgiving some of the weaknesses that you are ready to forgive your friends?

After all, situations often arise when we have done everything possible and impossible, but have not achieved success. And the feeling of guilt does not go away... This means that it is time to forgive yourself, as if you had forgiven your friend

. Of course, it will be much easier to do this if you begin to take positive steps towards correcting the situation - asking for forgiveness from those you offended; pay more attention to loved ones; start setting your priorities correctly.

Has it ever happened that you felt guilty without even doing anything wrong? Or has this feeling haunted you all your life and you don’t know how to get rid of it?

A chronic feeling of guilt that weighs on a person can poison one’s existence. Where did this painful feeling come from, for which there seems to be no particular reason? Why do some people constantly feel guilty? Are there methods to reduce guilt and live in peace?

Healthy wine

There are several types of feelings of guilt, some are rather normal, it is even useful to experience them, while others bring nothing except mental exhaustion.

The experience of guilt can be natural and natural. For example, you let a person down, hit a child, showed indifference to a friend. And a feeling of guilt arises as a RESULT of a real offense that hurt others and which, in general, was in your power NOT to commit. Or it was not even in your power not to do the act, but you did so under the influence of insurmountable circumstances. Or you were unaware of the harm that accompanied your actions. For example, you let someone down at work due to a misunderstanding. Or you used parenting tactics on the advice of a psychologist, but they turned out to be inadequate. Many, for example, worry that they did not know something about the psychology of a child when the children were small and did a lot of upbringing out of ignorance. In many cases, people were hurt because of you, but your actions were unintentional. Despite the fact that you did not cause harm out of malice, a feeling of guilt may arise, which is quite appropriate and adequate to the situation.

Not every feeling of guilt is toxic and must be destroyed! A normal feeling of guilt is necessary; it regulates our relationships with others. And there is no need to fight it; on the contrary, it needs to be recognized, conclusions drawn and concrete steps taken. As a result of a normally lived feeling of guilt, people try to compensate for the damage that they, voluntarily or unwittingly, caused to other people. They strive to make amends, and this is a completely normal and useful practice of life. You want to do something useful for a friend who has been offended; try to be a better parent if you feel guilty towards your child; Apologize or make some kind of financial investment in the event of harm caused. All these actions are regulated precisely by the feeling of guilt, which is part of human morality. Trying to completely get rid of this feeling is the edge of neurotic behavior; completely getting rid of the feeling of guilt is impossible and, most importantly, completely unnecessary.

Trying to completely get rid of guilt is doomed to failure if you are a healthy person. People need guilt to prevent them from harming other people. A person who is unable to feel his guilt is a psychopath.

However, many, having suffered with neurotic guilt, which will be discussed below, strive to completely get rid of this unpleasant feeling and thus “heal” their nature, cleanse it of toxic layers.

Neurotic guilt

The second type of guilt is neurotic guilt, a feeling that you have towards other people, even when you have not committed any crimes against them. Often this takes the form of guilt for thoughts or for not doing something with enough involvement . This is the same chronic guilt with which many are accustomed to coexist.

Neurotic guilt is aggression redirected from others to oneself.

The feeling of neurotic guilt is always secondary, it covers up aggression that you cannot afford, for which you condemn yourself, punishing yourself with just this feeling of guilt. A person who often suffers from a neurotic feeling of guilt most likely recognizes only part of his inner world; he, as a rule, does not recognize anger, which precedes guilt, or recognizes it, but does not associate it with guilt in any way.

For example, your elderly relative has fallen ill and now requires attention. It doesn’t demand out loud, but its very condition requires you to turn it on. But you have your own affairs, plans that will have to be disrupted. Besides? this elderly relative, for example, your grandmother, is not entirely pleasant to you. For example, she is grumpy, demanding and prone to edification towards you. But whether you like it or not, you have to go, call, carry groceries. And inside you a feeling of protest, frustration and anger rises. But who? A helpless, sick (albeit grouchy) old woman? Your inner censor pulls you back and interrupts your awareness of anger (or awareness of its strength). It doesn’t allow you to fully experience anger in this situation; anger is a taboo, since you don’t have any decent reasons to be angry! It’s not your grandmother’s fault that she got sick and unwittingly disrupted your plans. The same internal censor begins to shame you - how bad you are, that you think so badly about your grandmother, are angry with her, do not want to help her with all your heart, but help only formally, without a soul, and in general, you could do this more often and more. And guilt arises as a reaction to your own feelings of anger. And it turns out to be a seemingly paradoxical situation when you do a lot for a person, but are constantly tormented that you didn’t finish it...

In this example, you suppressed anger, but you did not suppress guilt; this is a decent, even partly prescribed feeling. There is no shame in admitting guilt, it can even elevate you in the eyes of others, they say, what a decent person he is, he always feels guilty about something in front of others (without real guilt, note!). Here, of course, one recalls the chronic and often fruitless feeling of guilt of the Russian intelligentsia. Their feelings of guilt probably had a real basis, although it was not dependent on them. However, guilt itself, as an accessory to high spiritual culture and pure moral ideals, has become entrenched in our consciousness. Guilt is painful, but it is a “decent” feeling, unlike animal selfishness and anger at one’s own grandmother. No one is ashamed of guilt, but they are ashamed of anger.

It is typical that a healthy feeling of guilt, for example, because you have caused harm to someone (let them down, hit you), may not have such a background in the form of anger. But there is always a neurotic feeling of guilt. If there is a person in your environment towards whom you constantly feel guilty (without actually causing damage), try to discover why you are angry with this person. In this case, anger is primary, and guilt already retouches it.

It is also characteristic that a healthy feeling of guilt decreases from your investments in a person, while a neurotic feeling almost does not decrease. Anger doesn't go away, so guilt doesn't go away either. Healthy guilt can be expiated, but neurotic guilt cannot!

Everyone likes the attempt.

Trying to please everyone and be liked by everyone creates a chronic state of guilt. Any dissatisfaction of others will be a sign for you that you are bad, because if they are dissatisfied with you, then you are to blame for something...

In this case, we are not talking about a feeling of guilt in its pure form, but about a feeling of one’s own inadequacy and badness. Strictly speaking, this is a DIFFERENT feeling, but in terms of the nature of the experience it is VERY similar to guilt, they are often confused and mixed up.

Guilt refers specifically to feelings, that is, complex multi-layered phenomena within the human psyche. Let me remind you about the hierarchy of the emotional sphere. The primary, simplest phenomena are SENSATIONS. Next come EMOTIONS (they consist of sensations and thoughts), and a more complex level is FEELINGS (which in turn consist of sensations, emotions, thoughts, etc.). This is how you get a matryoshka doll. Here on this page https://vk.com/mamapapahelp there is a video where this “matryoshka” is discussed in more detail.

So, guilt is precisely a feeling, that is, a complex phenomenon. And in its composition, the feeling of guilt is close to the feeling of one’s own inadequacy and badness. That's why they are confused.

Guilt before oneself

Another type of feeling that is experienced as guilt is very similar to it - the experience of inner emptiness and dissatisfaction with one’s life. Melancholy, regret, the experience of some unknown mistake (something vague, a person cannot accurately describe it) - all these are components of the feeling of internal dissatisfaction. This feeling can most accurately be described as GUILTY ABOUT YOURSELF. We experience an unpleasant feeling not because we have done something bad to someone, but because we have done something bad to ourselves. We don’t do what we should do: we put off something important, we allow ourselves to be treated poorly, we treat ourselves badly... And we feel guilty, but not before others, but before ourselves!

“... The existence of man is not only given to him, but demands from him. He is responsible for it; in the most literal sense he must answer, if asked, what he has made of himself. The one who asks him is his judge, and it is none other than himself..."
P. Tillich

This facet of guilt is experienced by a person very dramatically, but is often not recognized at the level of thinking. It’s bad for a person, something and everything is crushing him. Often he begins to eat or wash this feeling down with alcohol, because he simply cannot understand the essence of this discomfort.

It is precisely this heavy and restless feeling—guilt before oneself, which brings a person so much anxiety and discomfort—that cannot be stifled within oneself, and cannot be “removed” with the help of psychologists. Often people come to psychotherapy precisely to get rid of anxious feelings without changing their lives. Although anxious feelings are created precisely for this purpose, so that you can change your life using their energy. The feeling of guilt before yourself is very valuable, it is the pearl of your inner world. His voice, sometimes so unwanted, must be heard while you can, before it’s too late.

Banishing Guilt

As we see, what people call guilt has many facets. Some varieties of this experience should be tried to be reduced, while others are valuable for one reason or another.

First of all, you need to ask yourself the question - what kind of feeling am I experiencing? What is my fault? What does she want from me?

From what I described above, four directions of answers can be distinguished.

And based on an accurate understanding of the inner world, you can choose the right line of behavior or internal work.

- If my guilt is real. Of course, you don’t need to remove it, but you need to try to compensate.

Some exaggerate their influence on the situation; for them there is a magic formula:

“I can be responsible for what I have enough influence over. I cannot be responsible for something that I cannot directly influence.”

Many people stubbornly feel responsible for something over which they have little or no influence. This is not an outdated childhood grandiosity (“I am the whole world and the whole world obeys me”), one must turn one’s gaze to reality and recognize one’s modest role in the world.

- If my guilt is neurotic , that is, it is anger turned from others to myself.

You can safely survive such guilt from your territory.

Allow yourself to get angry. There is no need to SHOW everyone that you are angry, but internally acknowledge this feeling, allow it to yourself. It is important that you yourself see that you are angry; others do not always need to see this.

Some, unfortunately, do not have this barrier between “inside” and “outside”. It seems to them that if they recognize the feeling of anger inside, then those around them will immediately have to know about it so that everything is fair. This belief can cause a lot of trouble, and people feel it intuitively. For example, based on this logic, our grandma from the example would have to be told directly by her grandson that he is angry, that she is sick and now he needs to disrupt his plans for the sake of help. Is this normal? Of course not, in this case no such “sincerity” is needed, it hurts an innocent person. Those who do not feel the barrier between “inside” and “outside” cannot lead this internal conflict to a peaceful solution. And they repress the feeling of anger because they don’t understand how it can exist without destroying everything around them.

— If my guilt is more like a feeling of inadequacy.

Work on the desire to please everyone, to please everyone, to gain everyone's approval. That is, work on understanding how this tendency prevents you from living a happy life.

In LIVING LETTERS about our emotions, you can learn how to handle negative experiences so that you can benefit from them.

- If I feel guilty towards myself . There is one direction here - to hear what your guilt is telling you and act today, despite the mistakes you made yesterday. The feeling of guilt towards yourself will intensify if you remain inactive. Do for yourself what you have to do

“Every day presents an opportunity to change what we hate, and every day we pretend not to notice it.”
Coelho P.

Here you can read ABOUT THE FEELING OF RESULT.

Here you will find out WHY A PERSON NEEDS NEGATIVE EMOTIONS.

Don't leave the situation that caused you to feel guilty unresolved.

Unfortunately, this advice is not always easy to implement. However, it is better to try to do this than to put off solving the problem indefinitely. And a way can almost always be found if you analyze

current situation. Otherwise, you will constantly live in an atmosphere of understatement, incompleteness, which is very fertile ground for cultivating feelings of guilt.

yacobchuk/Getty Images Pro

But let's give a concrete example.

Let's say you feel guilty because you behaved wrongly towards a certain person (or even a group of people). It could be your friends, parents or someone from a more distant environment - it doesn’t matter at all

. It is important not to keep your feelings to yourself. If you want to apologize, apologize, it won’t hurt you. Your goal is not to save face in this situation, but to get rid of the destructive feeling of guilt.

Overcoming loneliness

Everyone feels shame! It is important to find outside support and share your shame. It's difficult, but try to see the eyes of another

Are your fears or fantasies about the opinions of others accurate? Turn to a person who will not judge, but will listen, even when you come to complain about it for the hundredth time.

Find your circle of people who will allow you to experience a sense of belonging to a group, which will allow you to experience loyalty and acceptance of this group without fear of rejection. It’s good when a family becomes such a group, but interest clubs, a group of friends, support groups (including online), and therapeutic groups can be suitable.

Try to stop proving something over and over again to those who are not going to recognize you. It is interesting that most often these are not close friends, not loving and unconditionally accepting relatives, but people who are unable to accept. It could be a traumatic experience with a demanding parent or a social circle that rejected you.

Look forward, stop looking back

Usually the feeling of guilt appears for some action that we did (or did not do) in the past. It’s hard to imagine a situation where you would be tormented by a feeling of guilt for something you should do in the future (although it happens!)

. A necessary and effective way to overcome such feelings is to focus on what you want from your life in the future.

It is useful to do the following: set your priorities correctly, focus on short-term and long-term goals. Then make a strategic plan

achieving these goals that will help you achieve what is truly important to you, based on your priorities. Move only forward - this is the only way that allows you not to get bogged down in the past.

Important!
In order to move forward, you need to stop feeling guilty about past
. That is why it is important to follow the previous advice - not to leave unresolved the situation that led to feelings of guilt.

Jacob Lund

But what to do if you really committed an unseemly act for which you are ashamed, but which cannot be corrected? Yes, and apologizing will not help anything - perhaps there is no one to apologize to

!
In this case, even more so, you should stop telling yourself something like “If only I had acted / acted differently
,” and you should focus on what you are doing now so that something similar does not happen in the future.

Effective techniques

Psychology books describe various techniques that allow a person to cope with the destructive feeling of guilt. I have chosen the most effective ones for you.

Forgiveness

The most effective way to overcome feelings of guilt is to ask for forgiveness from the person you have harmed, sincerely apologize, repent of what you have done, and confess. Confession in Orthodoxy helps to cleanse the soul of sins. It happens that even a simple mental dialogue with the person towards whom you feel guilty helps you realize what needs to be done to compensate for the damage.

Public repentance

Often a person is ashamed to talk about an event that makes him feel guilty. He begins to consider himself unworthy of good treatment. In order for a person to accept himself again, he needs to speak out to someone.

Close people or a psychological support group will help with this, with whom you can share your “terrible secret.” In response, the “culprit” will receive feedback. Most often, he receives sympathy and respect instead of the expected condemnation. The person has a more positive view of himself. Gradually, he can get rid of the painful feeling of guilt and begin to perceive himself from a positive point of view.

Moral court

Imagine that you are in the dock, and your inner voice acts as a prosecutor, reprimanding you for the act you committed. I can't hear your lawyer. Think back in time to the events after which you began to feel guilty.

Try to justify yourself with the same force with which you blamed yourself. Very often people forget that they could not at that moment predict the consequences of their actions and actions. They also forget to clarify whether they actually caused irreparable damage.

Provocations of the manipulator

Manipulators deliberately induce feelings of guilt in their victims. For example, during a breakup, one of the partners will blame the other, not allowing him to leave calmly. It is necessary to learn to recognize manipulation and not succumb to such provocations.

In order not to feel guilty before your relatives and in particular before your mother, remind yourself that you love them and show care of your own free will, and not because they force you. You are not obligated to comply with all their whims.

Positive approach

Even if you really committed a bad act, feeling guilty is not an entirely correct reaction to the act. The correct reaction is to find a way that will help correct what was done, as well as compensate for the harm caused. When, alas, nothing can be corrected, then you learn a lesson for the future.

You feel guilty not because of a bad deed, but because you begin to consider yourself unworthy. However, we are all not without sin. And life is constant development, rethinking of values and one’s past experiences.

On a blank piece of paper, draw a vertical line. On the left, describe your offense, and on the right, write all the good things you have done, including today. Look at what happened. Most likely you will turn out to be a completely worthy and good person. Accept your past and use it as a source of motivation to become a better person.

Don't let guilt devalue your achievements

You are gnawing at a feeling of guilt - this means that you are an emotional person who can be influenced by external circumstances. But circumstances are just a background in your life, and guilt arises in your brain

. Simply put, you formulated it, nurtured it and now nurture it day by day. In this case, it is in your power to formulate postulates that will destroy this hateful feeling of guilt.

It looks like self-hypnosis, auto-training. Essentially, it's him and the network. If, for example, you have achieved success, but you feel like you don’t deserve it, formulate the opposite thought and repeat it like a mantra

:
“I deserve it!”
. If feelings of guilt devalue your success, your achievements (even if they are small), repeat these words even more often, not forgetting the difficulties that you have overcome along the way. Don't let guilt devalue your achievements!

How to get rid of shame

Solving a problem always begins with its acceptance and analysis.

First, remember in what situations you feel shame? What is this connected with, what are the main triggers? What hurts the most?
What exactly do you feel at such moments? Try to describe your condition in more detail.
What attitudes and values tell you that these situations are shameful for you? Where did you get them from? Describe your “I-concept”, your ideal image of yourself as honestly as possible and think about whether it is adequate? Should the situations being analyzed really cause shame?

Next are the basic practices and tips on how to get rid of shame.

Increase your self-esteem

We are more strict and critical of ourselves than of other people. Remember how you felt the first time you heard your voice recorded or when you judged your appearance. We need to understand that the mirror in which we look at ourselves is crooked due to our perception. Some people manage to come to an agreement with themselves in the process of life and evaluate themselves as objectively as possible. But it often happens that the brain, although it understands everything, resists and sends negative depressing signals.

There is a non-trivial exercise that can help “persuade” your brain to stop lying to itself. Imagine that there is another person in your place and you are looking at him from the outside. You see that something may not work out for him, but will you constantly point out some shortcoming to him and apply constant pressure? Probably not, because this will not give a positive result. Most likely, you would encourage this person, encourage him to relax, and remind him of his strengths. If we would do this to another person, then why should we belittle ourselves? Talk to yourself, understand the problems and try to be fair.

Learn to appreciate your abilities

The simple answer to the question of how to stop being ashamed is to start being proud. We all have things that make us proud. Some current failures simply need a powerful counterbalance. Don't forget about them, even if these moments were in the past. It could be winning a tournament 20 years ago, getting an A in math, or maybe you once managed to take the most beautiful girl in town on a date. Collect such moments in your memory, because they clearly prove that you have merits, talents and successes. Remember, learn from successful examples, develop strong qualities.

Change Social Limiting Beliefs

First, it is necessary to discard unnecessary comparisons with others. We may experience envy or shame because for some reason we strive to be no worse than those around us in some way. This also applies to attempts to prove something to someone. The discrepancy between someone else's ideas and your life is the root of shame. Live for yourself and for your goals. Build your world according to your plan and answer only to yourself.

Treat your failures and shortcomings correctly

To understand how to get rid of shame, it is important to realize three basic things:

all people make mistakes and find themselves in awkward situations;
There are no irreparable mistakes;
You cannot correct a mistake and become happier with a feeling of shame.

Calmly analyze every failure and perceive it as a starting point for growth. Treat criticism not as accusations, but as food for thought. And remember that any failure is temporary.

Form a new attitude towards yourself and the world around you

Forgive yourself and everyone who made mistakes in your relationship. This will make your life much easier; you will stop focusing on many unpleasant moments. Focus on the best in people, try to relive happy moments in your head with them.

And it is very important - do not chase imaginary ideals. Do what you love and build your life according to your plan

Form your values and your opinions on key topics in your life so as not to allow anyone to manipulate you. Listen only to yourself. Try it with a clean slate.

Don't keep everything to yourself

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We are rather strange creatures, often expecting from our environment certain actions and actions that seem most appropriate to us. We don't give other people a chance to do differently.

. This is why many of us look at this or that situation rather one-sidedly, not noticing all the facets, all the nuances (or, conversely, exaggerating them).

Let's imagine the following picture: you, while in a company, did something that personally causes you a feeling of strong and deep guilt. Try talking to someone from this company; with someone you trust

, if there is such a person or just with an outside observer. And you may be very surprised when you find out that no one but you thinks about your action!

Perhaps you misunderstood the situation, imagining who knows what. Perhaps you simply incorrectly interpreted someone’s accidentally dropped phrase, someone’s gesture, or look. Discuss it with someone who could see more

. Perhaps it will turn out that all your worries and pangs of conscience are not worth a damn! This is why it is very important not to keep everything to yourself.

I just want to help!

But why doesn't your mind realize that you are trying to help someone you have never hurt?

This happens because your mind thinks that people who are similar to each other are the same, and therefore helping someone who is similar to your mother is similar to helping your own mother.

The same goes for love, you may fall in love with someone just because they look like your old lover or because they look like someone who was very supportive of you in your past.

This can also come in another form, if you knew someone who was going through a hard time and that person was your friend, then you may feel empathy when dating someone who is similar to them.

Your guilt may be unconscious

In some cases, carried-over guilt from certain past situations can backfire if you don't understand what's going on. Certain situations can cause guilt to accumulate in your subconscious.

If, for example, you think that not giving up your seat to your grandmother on the subway is a bad thing, and for some reason you didn’t do it, then guilt will accumulate in your subconscious, especially if you try to escape from her or distract yourself.

Now this unconscious guilt can resurface at any time in the form of unexplained bad feelings. In other words, there is always a reason for guilt, but the reason may be buried in your subconscious and that is why you sometimes think that you feel guilty without a reason.

Don't let others make you feel guilty

The only person who can control you in this life is yourself. Unfortunately, we often forget about this, allowing ourselves to fall under the manipulative actions of the people around us.

. We are manipulated by friends, our life and business partners, parents, bosses, children. The hardest thing is when you find yourself in the center of such a manipulative web that surrounds you from all sides at once.

Recognizing such manipulation can sometimes be very difficult. But even if you managed to figure out your opponent, it is even more difficult to get out of his influence. The main thing in this matter is not to make a mistake

who exactly is manipulating you. Don't rush to ruin your relationship with your boss or partner by deliberately aggravating the situation. Take a break, give yourself a break, think about everything in a calm environment; If necessary, apologize.

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It's not about whether you're right or wrong! Of course, we often make mistakes, and therefore accusations from those around us can be absolutely justified. But our task is to save you from feeling guilty.
. So try to become the only person who has the right to blame himself for his own mistakes.

Make a list of your positive qualities

By nurturing feelings of guilt, we lower our own self-esteem. Of course, there is no point in attributing to yourself positive qualities that you do not possess. However, it is extremely important to realize that the world is not divided only into black and white

. And even if you have committed some unseemly act (or continue to do it constantly), this does not make you a truly bad person.

Believe me, by mercilessly criticizing yourself day after day, you artificially ignore your positive traits and qualities, focusing on the negative ones. A person who is completely satisfied with himself

(if you want, a person who feels happy) is unlikely to cultivate feelings of guilt. And if it does arise, then a happy person copes with it without making much effort.

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Even if you are far from feeling inner happiness, it is recommended to resort to the old proven method: take a piece of paper and write down all the positive aspects that are characteristic of your nature

. Moreover: every time you feel another attack of guilt, take a piece of paper and write down those features of yourself that you personally like. You can repeat yourself and not be modest!

Know your strengths and weaknesses

This point quite logically follows the previous one, since only after realizing your positive qualities can you realize your strengths and weaknesses. Why is this necessary?

No matter how hard we try to ensure that no one declares us guilty, in real life conditions this is difficult to achieve. Moreover: these accusations may be completely justified, which is fertile ground for the emergence of feelings of guilt.

In order not to give feelings of guilt a single chance, you need to clearly understand which things you can do better, and which ones you are not so good at or can’t do at all. Perhaps there won’t be many qualities

that evoke positive emotions in you personally. But they certainly exist. Perhaps not everything you do can be called right, which is why, in fact, the feeling of guilt arises. But you can't do everything badly!

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For example, you blame yourself for not following healthy eating rules for yourself. But you probably prepare healthy and tasty food for your child! You're not romantic enough

and therefore do not give your partner the gestures of attention that he/she expects? But you provide her/him with maximum support in housekeeping, which is difficult to overestimate.

There are many such examples. It is important to be clearly aware of your strengths and weaknesses, if only so that every time you feel guilty about doing something wrong

, you could give yourself even more evidence from a list of things you regularly do right.

Case Study

Certification session. A young girl works with a client, a 35-year-old man. His request is that he feels anxious and guilty: he recently got married and loves his wife very much, but from the moment of his marriage he began to stare at beautiful women on the street. The therapist focused not on revealing the essence of guilt: how he blames himself and what exactly he is guilty of, why this is important to him, what bothers him about it, but on how he knows that “you can’t look at beautiful women” ( one of the techniques for working with introject).

Of course, this led to some absurdity. The grown man couldn't help but agree that this was a stupid rule. He felt relief—temporary, since the emotional figures of worry and guilt were gone. But he was talking about something important to himself, and not stupid. What was behind his concern? Why did marriage provoke his additional interest in women? Maybe there is an internal feeling of lack of freedom and a protest against it? Maybe he was afraid of not resisting and losing his wife? Maybe there are some difficulties with his wife, something he doesn’t get in this relationship? At the end of the session the man said: “Thank you very much! I feel better, I now understand that looking at women is good, and I won’t blame myself anymore.”

M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time":

“I sometimes despise myself... isn’t that why I despise others?.. I have become incapable of noble impulses; I'm afraid to seem funny to myself. Someone else in my place would have offered the princess: son coeur et sa fortune (hand and heart); but the word marry has some kind of magical power over me: no matter how passionately I love a woman, if she only makes me feel that I should marry her, forgive love! my heart turns to stone, and nothing will warm it up again. I am ready for all sacrifices except this one; Twenty times I will put my life, even my honor, on the line... but I will not sell my freedom. Why do I value her so much? What's in it for me? Where am I preparing myself? What do I expect from the future?.. Really, absolutely nothing. This is some kind of innate fear, an inexplicable premonition... After all, there are people who are unconsciously afraid of spiders, cockroaches, mice... Should I admit it?... When I was still a child, one old woman wondered about me to my mother; she predicted my death from an evil wife; this struck me deeply then; An insurmountable aversion to marriage was born in my soul... Meanwhile, something tells me that her prediction will come true; at least I will try to make it come true as late as possible.”

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Don't deny yourself little weaknesses

The constant daily struggle with guilt is a battle for life and death. This means that life in such a regime is damn exhausting even for the healthiest organism.

. Often we ourselves become opponents of our own personality, fighting with our own “I”, punishing ourselves for our actions, which plays into the hands of our feelings of guilt.

We forget that we are just people, prone to making certain mistakes, having our own little weaknesses. So don't be too hard on yourself. War is war

, and you can afford a glass of red wine during this period (especially since it will relieve stress and improve your heart rate). You can eat a bar of chocolate, which will make you feel a little happier.

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You can just buy popcorn, lock yourself in your apartment and watch some good movie. Don't deny yourself these little pleasures! Even if you are self-flagellating because you are obese

, you can sometimes please yourself with small excesses without worrying at least at this moment about excess weight. Understand: there is only one life, it flows quickly, so there is less and less time for small joys.

Do good deeds

If there is no room for good deeds in your life, then is it worth complaining that you are being eaten up by your own feelings of guilt? But once you think about the fact that you need to do something further with this destructive feeling

, then you are ready to take action, right? And the only way to act in this case is to start doing plausible actions.

You shouldn’t think too much about motivation, compare your bad and good deeds, or count the number of both. Just do good deeds and remember them when you feel guilty

. Believe me, there are a huge number of people in this world who need your good deeds. And they don't care about your motives - they just need help and will be grateful for it.

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The easiest way is to engage in charity. And even if you are not a rich person at all, there are probably few things at home that can be donated to a nursing home or orphanage; yes, just help a lonely neighbor of retirement age

! Start helping, realizing the fact that there are people who will find it extremely difficult to survive in this world without you personally; people who struggle not with guilt, but with hunger, cold, and disease.

Impact on the human psyche

People with mental illness are often unfamiliar with feelings of guilt. They simply cannot experience this emotion. Therefore, its presence is characteristic of individuals with a healthy psyche.

When shame and guilt occur, a person usually experiences:

fear;
irritation towards oneself;
cardiopalmus;
muscle tension;
desire to hide.

From a constant feeling of guilt, a person develops a negative attitude towards himself, and the following happens:

A person believes that he is to blame for everything, and therefore allows others to freely invade his personal space.
The individual unconsciously strives for punishment. The consequence of this may be the loss of money or expensive things, he may “accidentally” get into an accident or be seriously injured. Such a person subconsciously plays the role of a victim and easily succumbs to the manipulation of others. Manipulators can easily control it.
The person is completely inactive, not trying to defend his point of view. He believes that he is worthy only of negative attitude.
A person constantly compares himself with the people around him.
He cannot build meaningful relationships and become happy.
A person loses self-confidence and becomes apathetic.

All this devastates a person, takes away his strength and energy. In addition to negative emotions and self-deprecation, a constant feeling of guilt is harmful to health, provoking the development of cancer, chronic fatigue, and back pain.

Nevertheless, the feeling of guilt teaches a person to distinguish bad from good and to empathize with others. Having committed an offense, he understands that he has neglected moral values. The feeling of guilt helps him not to repeat such bad actions in the future and apologize to people for what he has done, offering them help.

Realize there are things you can't control

Do you know how some experts assess the desire to keep everything and everyone under control? As a sign of severe neurosis caused by a variety of reasons. And unless you are a dictator in power

in some country, then controlling everything is just an obsessive thought, a utopia that feeds your feeling of guilt, perhaps caused precisely by the fact that it is simply impossible to control everything.

It is very important to realize as quickly as possible that you are just one person in a huge world who is not able to cope with all its difficulties and problems. It's not bad and it's not good - it's a given

. This does not mean at all that you should give up and stop fighting and resolving issues. Just do what you have to do, be yourself, while realizing that you physically cannot be responsible for every little problem and situation you encounter in your life.

Guilt:

beginning, reason, source, occasion, pretext;
offense, offense, crime, transgression, sin;
any unlawful reprehensible act.

Guilty - having committed some offense; due, obligated to whom payment;

Blame - admit guilt, admit it, ask for forgiveness; to be accused.

As can be seen from Dahl's interpretation, guilt is a rather complex and ambivalent experience. On the one hand, guilt is a feeling generated by conscience. And at the same time, a driving force, a source of thoughts, a pretext for understanding life. We do inner spiritual work, comparing an action or action with what we consider worthy and true in a given situation, and evaluating ourselves. We can feel confidence, peace, satisfaction, pride in ourselves if we HAVE NOT CHANGED ourselves. And guilt - if you have lost your way.

Often we do not notice how our personality carries out this spiritual work, and only the sensations of discomfort, inconvenience, heaviness in the soul, pulling and sucking, oppressive, tossing, our thoughts again and again turning to the situation, i.e. guilt, force us to turn to ourselves for additional work.