2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
This topic is as eternal as it is serious. Feelings of guilt destroy us from the inside. It makes us puppets, weak-willed pawns in other people's games. It is on him, like on a hook, that manipulators catch us. But you hardly thought about the fact that the feeling of guilt experienced by a person is the flip side of another, not destructive, but quite constructive personality trait - a sense of responsibility.
Today I want to discuss exactly this topic, and do it by my own example. From the situation that I had to go through, I was able to find the shortest, easiest and safest way out. I am sure that sooner or later my lesson will be useful to you in your life, because you will be able to act according to the scheme that I have already tested and proved your efficiency.
My background
I devote my entire adult life to helping all living things. And this is not only a matter of my chosen profession of a psychologist. Ever since childhood, I picked up stray animals on the street, as well as birds that, due to some injuries, temporarily could not fly. Somehow I once picked up a wounded little crow.
I settled the chick on the landing and, of course, provided him with all-round care - I fed him, processed the wing, taught him to fly. And soon that important day for both of us came when my feathered ward had almost completely recovered and was ready to fly free. But then the unexpected happened …
Going out in the morning to the entrance to feed the little crow, I did not hear his greeting cry, which had already become so familiar to me. When I looked into the box, which became for him a temporary "nest", I was seized by a sticky horror. My chick lay there. Lifeless. His head twisted unnaturally, his thin neck was clearly broken.
To say that I was in shock is to say nothing. Voronenok has really become for me something more than just another patient from the animal world. I associated this bird with something very close, dear, evoking a pleasant warmth in my soul. Therefore, the pain of the loss I felt then the most real, real.
Where does guilt come from?
I did not understand how you can take and kill a living being. Who can even raise a hand on a defenseless bird? All kinds of feelings arose in me. In the beginning, I hated the person who did it. I did not know him and did not even suspect who it could be, but I hated him with all my heart. Then I began to feel wild guilt.
I reproached myself for not being able to save the bird, that I was able to take care and cure, and I did not take care of the safety of the little crow. Due to certain circumstances, I then did not have the opportunity to take him to the apartment. But at the same time I understood that I could and had to overcome these very obstacles, because I took responsibility for the chick.
I cried, blamed myself, thought that if the little crow had passed by then, he might have been able to recover himself and now he would have been alive. The arguments of my relatives who tried to calm me down, I did not want to listen to. The feeling of guilt consumed me so much that the words of those around me irritated and angered me.
Then the realization came to me that it was necessary to get out of this problem. I realized that this feeling of guilt does not bring anything constructive into my life. And what happened cannot be changed in any way. Time cannot be turned back. I began to independently disassemble the situation literally on the shelves. And here's what I realized as a result of this analysis.
Are guilt and responsibility identical feelings?
At first, when I felt hatred for an unknown killer, I unknowingly shifted the responsibility for the tragedy to this person. It was because of this that such a negative feeling towards him arose in me. When I began to feel guilty, I took responsibility for the situation on myself.
And in this case, I lived a feeling of guilt not only for myself, but also for that person, because I could not know whether he really felt it or not, but I wanted to feel it. In order to get out of this situation that engulfed me, I realized that it was necessary to share our responsibilities. And it helped me. The feeling of guilt eased.
I told myself that I was ready to answer for what happened, but only for myself. What was my responsibility? To keep the bird safe. And the responsibility of that man was for the death of the little crow and for the fact that by his act he not only took the life of the unfortunate creature, but also did me badly.
In almost every situation that happens to us, all members of the group are always responsible, who took part in the process - active or passive. After all, not only action, but also inaction is someone's choice, someone's decision. In accordance with this, each has its own responsibility - for what they did, what they did not do, what they wanted to do, but changed their minds, did not have time, etc.
And if we carry out the division of responsibility, then each person will feel only healthy, real, not hypertrophied guilt for what happened. And it will no longer be such a painfully sucking swamp, as it was in my case. In this case, the feeling of guilt will turn into a background that will not control us, our mood, our relationships with loved ones. But it will allow you to learn the necessary lesson for the future.
Why do people start to live with guilt?
Now I would like to talk about the systemic sense of guilt - the kind with which a person lives constantly, which has already managed to turn into an integral "piece" of his personal reality. In my practice, as a systemic therapist, I have to constantly deal with frequently recurring symptoms and situations.
Often people turn to me who feel guilt literally out of the blue, that is, where they shouldn't feel it at all. And these are already games of the unconscious (individual or collective). It is where we do not see, but feel, that the scenarios are hidden, which are "broadcast" to the outside world and are repeated regardless of whether we want it or not, whether it makes us happy or sad.
For a deeper understanding of the issue by the reader, I will try to explain what the collective and individual (personal) unconscious is. The first is what is in us, at an unconscious level. This is what we feel, live, feel, but not only "thanks" to ourselves and our own life, but also due to our ancestors, parents - their experience, influence, generic programs.
As for the personal unconscious, these are the scenarios and feelings that we ourselves have generated and at certain moments of our life's path forced them out into our inner world. And a lot of this comes from childhood. Why does this or that appear in our unconscious? This is a completely different story, to which I will devote a separate article.
Diagram of self-guilt work
- Admit the feeling of guilt, do not deny that it is in you at this period of your life. Try to find where it is concentrated in your body. This can be the head, heart, solar plexus, etc.
- Objectively assess the situation that, in your opinion, gave rise to the feeling of guilt. See all the participants in the event and the degree of each of them in the development of the situation. Share responsibility. Imagine each person in your mind and tell him what responsibility lies with him, that you are giving it to him. Or sit down and write a list of what each participant did / did not do.
- Having understood what you are responsible for, and what others should be responsible for, you will be able to calm yourself down, adequately assess what happened and, possibly, “sort out” the situation in reality, try to prevent its repetition in the future, understand what you could / can do you personally, in order to really change something in the right direction.
- Responsibility, which during the mental separation you defined as your own, accept and be ready to answer for that part of the situation (your actions, actions, inaction) that depended on you. This will release the feeling of guilt.
Well, if in your case there is a systematic feeling, constantly repeating, and even virtually unreasonable, and guilt absorbs you, not giving you the opportunity to cope on your own, I recommend contacting a specialist. There is a long-term therapy to work on this problem, there is a short-term one. Personally, I prefer to work with the latter option.
Finally, I want to wish you lightness and peace of mind, so that an inadequate sense of guilt bypasses your life. Love and be loved!
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