It is a collective belief within our society that if we don't punish the bad, it will prevail over good.
Guilt is a socialized system of self regulation. Guilt is basically an internalized punishment, a tool that our parents used on us in order to turn us into ideal human beings that have a conscience and therefore cannot do harm onto anyone, because doing bad means being denied love and connection. We learn that the only way to be good is to be punished.... In this scenario we grow up scared. We grow up being afraid of being bad because being bad meant not receiving love, which is the worst thing in the world for a human.
As a way to avoid being refused love, as children we hide away anything that can be socially unacceptable about us. We cram into a corner of our subconscious our flaws. So we grow up not truly seen, not truly felt, not truly heard, not truly touched. We grow up believing that conditional love is the only way we can and deserve to be loved. And you know what the sad part is? Most of us will arrive at their death bed not having a clue about what living actually means. Not having a clue about what love actually feels like... We don't even see it. We think this is normality. We are convinced in such a way that only the good aspects in us are lovable that we'd do anything for those undesirable parts in us to remain hidden from the person that loves us. And so we live half lives, half loves. We only exist to the degree that we feel it is acceptable to exist... We only live and we only feel with half of our heart, we only see and hear and laugh and cry and be with half of our being because we know deep down inside that anything else in us doesn't deserve to be loved.
This is what teaching guilt to children does on the long run.
However, guilt was not meant to maim your mind and soul and scar you for life. It was actually intended to show you right from wrong... but as a child, upon seeing that you were frequently scolded and punished for certain deeds, you decided that something must be wrong with you if adults treat you this way. So you swallow this guilt and make it your own, turning it against yourself every time you stray from the right path.
Growing up, you have this so well naturalized, so well ingrained, that it is a part of your subconscious now . As an adult, if you have done something that contradicts the values you were raised in, guilt stays with you for years, like a faithful companion, everytime you remember a certain action you took that you weren't supposed to take. So even though guilt's purpose and role is to keep you a good person and therefore receiving love, in this case it's like willingly drinking poison every day in order to be healthy.
It slowly, but surely becomes a mental abuse. But we hold onto it because underneath it are layers of beliefs that support it vigorously and are even more toxic ( like „I am not lovable the way I am”) . And that is because - as I said - we grew up afraid we won't be good enough for love if we do a bad thing.
If you are riddled with guilt for a past event, what you don't see is that you're making yourself feel guilty for not seeing solutions that either weren't there at the time or you could not have access to.
It's easy to make judgements upon ourseleves from the higher and wiser perspective that we are in right now. But it is not fair. It is not fair to hold oursleves accountable for decisions we could not make at the time (because otherwise we would have) and not knowing back then what we know now...
Releasing a life-long guilt starts with acknowledging this guilt and deciding it is time to let it go. It starts with having compassion towards yourself and understanding that we can look at mistakes in 2 different ways: as teachers that show us how to have a better life or keep us stuck in the past. The choice is ours. Always.
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