Guilt: How to Stop Feeling It and Take Control of Your Life

Guilt is an emotion that can have a debilitating effect on the human mind. It can prevent us from achieving our goals, pursuing our dreams, and becoming the masters of our own destiny. However, guilt is also one of the most misunderstood emotions. To dispel some of the misconceptions surrounding guilt, psychologists Claire Adams and Mark Leary devised an experiment focused on women striving to lose weight. The results of the experiment described in this article provide some insight into the nature of guilt and offer five ways to stop feeling guilty.

1. Remember that the Brain Exists Separately from the Mind

When we feel guilty, we empower the limbic system in the brain, which is driven by short-term cravings and indulging specific impulses. We need to manage our emotional responses to prevent ourselves from giving in to sudden impulses and feelings. Mind-mapping can be useful, as it provides a visual representation of your thought processes, which helps to map your personal thoughts into a structured form and identify specific responses to emotional triggers.

2. Consult Yourself Like Your Best Friend

When struggling to accomplish a goal, it’s easy to become consumed with guilt, remorse, and emotional responses to failure. Visualize the situation as if it were a close friend or beloved family member who is struggling to remain focused. You would instead focus on rationalizing the situation and empowering them to rebound from short-term setbacks. This technique allows you to become your own counselor and negate the emotional impact of guilt.

3. Learn from Your Mistakes and Embrace the Lessons of Failure

We grow older and become inhibited, which makes us fear failure, thereby becoming consumed with guilt when we do not achieve our goals. Instead, focus on the core lessons of each specific failure and use these to inspire future efforts. Doing this eliminates guilt as an influential emotion.

4. Learn to Say No Instead of Acting Out of Obligation

There are necessary tasks and activities in life that we do in spite of ourselves. It is important to make the distinction between them and voluntary activities which we have no obligation to participate in, as otherwise, we can be made to spend the vast majority of our time feeling guilty or acting out of obligation. If you can learn to make this distinction and simply say no to invitations that do not appeal to you, you live a more enriched life without becoming burdened by excess guilt.

5. Learn to Forgive Yourself by Righting Specific Wrongs

Ultimately, to stop feeling guilty and manage our emotional response to failure or adversity, we must learn to forgive ourselves. While this may be easier in instances where we have only let ourselves down, we must strive to forgive the mistakes that have negatively impacted those we hold dear. Forgiving ourselves is the first step toward fostering the belief and desire to accomplish something, and this mindset drives willpower.

In conclusion, guilt is a misunderstood emotion that has the potential to negatively influence our thoughts, feelings and prevent us from achieving our goals. However, by understanding the nature of guilt and following the five steps outlined in this article, we can overcome our guilt, learn to forgive ourselves, and become the masters of our own destiny.