GREENER PASTURES: How to Handle Guilt

We would rather avoid than accept guilt. It is much easier to talk about the faults and foibles of another than our own. Perhaps we think that if we can deny personal responsibility, we can get away guilt-free. Yet our guilt remains, for we are smarter than we realize, and deep within us dwells the vexing knowledge of what we have done, of our true state. But we will keep that knowledge hidden until and unless we are willing to face our guilt. Until we’re ready to do the time, we’d rather avoid knowing about the crime.

We generally prefer to call guilt something else, such as unforgiveness, grief, sadness, resentment, depression, disappointment, anger, fear, or restlessness. However we name it, guilt remains a dis­ease of the soul which alienates us from ourselves and others. It lives as much between us as within us. So when we see the one about whom we feel guilty, the guilt cries out in silence. And in silent response, we might turn away from them. Then the other might misconstrue it as disinterest, or worse, rejection.

As an intense, painful emotion, we seek to get past guilt quickly. Yet once it opens in us, it is difficult to close off. Thus guilt has been called “the gift that keeps on giving!” If we do not deal with it, guilt may go underground, there to subtly harass us through covert operations, especially those of self-­ punishment. If we are not on the alert when we feel guilty, we are liable to take it out on ourselves, as in self-destructive, “I don’t deserve to be happy.” We can be our own judge, jury and jailer. We can hurt ourselves because we secretly believe we have it coming.

When we feel guilty, we are also prone to take it out on our loved ones. We translate our guilt into anger; and instead of confessing our guilt, we lash out at the one toward whom we feel guilty, only furthering the distance between us. This of course only makes us feel guiltier, therefore more defensive – therefore more offensive. The alienation worsens.

Where there is grief, there is often hidden guilt. We feel guilty about our anger toward the one who abandoned us by dying. Such guilt blocks us from working through our grief.

There is good as well as bad guilt. Good guilt leads us to make amends with the one we have wronged; it moves us toward reconciliation and restoration. Bad guilt moves us away from that person and our prior relationship. Good guilt is a form of sensitivity to how we are impacting another. Bad guilt is a learned negative attitude toward oneself, which blinds us to our own or another’s good. Good guilt works for, bad guilt against, love.

When people tell me they are sorry for something they have done, I’ll often say I am glad. When they register shock that I seem positive about their discomfort, I tell them that in these immoral times, it is good to see evidence of a conscience. At this, they smile in agreement.

To get free of guilt, don’t deny but face it. Unaddressed guilt will not go away. It is like a stain on the cloth of the soul, which unless it is washed with the detergent of forgiveness, simply remains. Without forgiveness we feel somehow unclean, outside of or not quite ourselves. Where possible we should seek the forgiveness of whomever we have hurt. And we simply must learn to forgive ourselves.