The guilt in feeling guilty
I am a huge fan of meditation, it’s been a life-changer for me, it’s made me aware of my feelings, help me make decisions about them, and not creating a story when a thought arises.
I meditate every day using a mobile app. After each session, this app would ask me what my feelings are; and more often than I like to recognize, my answer is not positive; when this happens, the app would tell me “It’s okay to not be okay” and then recommend a few meditation sessions to help me alleviate my feelings.
What happens in our minds when it’s easy for us to be hard on precisely the person we should care for the most? — ourselves
Why is it normal for us to speak in these terms and still feel relatable?
We live in an era of guilt. You just need to look around, in social networks, in news, blogs, etc, and you will find tons of people that, like me, are dealing with tough fights against what I prefer to call “our demons”.
Our demons are those thoughts and feelings you don’t enjoy hanging out with, and yet, they insist to come back without your approval. It’s like when you were a kid and you didn’t want to go to bed, because you were scared of potentially receiving an unwanted visit by some horned creature with crazy eyes; with the difference that now I do receive that visit in the form of thoughts, every day, and I don’t even have to wait until bedtime to meet them.
Analogies aside, what’s these thoughts really about? Most of them can be memories of things you did bad and deeply regret, or perhaps something you did well and still feel like you could have done better, or even things you didn’t do and feel bad for your inaction.
These feelings of regret do not go away even if you get to “fix” what you eventually did bad though. And your regret doesn’t even need to be related to a really bad thing you did.
To illustrate my point, let me share a silly story with you.
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My hungry friend:
When I was 15, I finished classes at school and invited my best friend to my house so we could finish homework together. We arrived at my house, and my mom was there, getting ready to go to work. I was hungry, so I went to the kitchen, served my meal and started eating.
At that moment, I was telling to myself “Maybe my friend is hungry as well, but I am ashamed to offer food to him because my mom is here, and I don’t know what’s she going to say”; I decided not to invite my friend to eat.
I finished eating and went to help my friend with our homework. He told me: “Hey buddy, I’ll be right back”, and left my home. I thought he was going to make a call or something; perhaps he was going to call his mom about being late because we were finishing something important.
15 minutes passed and my friend didn’t come back, I went out to look for him; I found him around the corner, eating some juice with cookies because he was very hungry and couldn’t stand it anymore. He yelled at me: “Hey buddy, I’ll be there in 5 minutes!!”, he was not angry, he was not upset, he was completely fine with me, and yet, I felt really bad about this.
Life did a complete turnaround and 10yrs later I found myself being my friend’s bigger support. He was in a serious financial crisis, not even having money for food while having to provide for his wife and two kids.
I decided to support him for as long as it would take him to learn a new skill and find a better and stable job. I remember I was giving him a “monthly salary” so he could pay rent, buy food, pay utilities, etc. I did that for several months.
As of today, my friend is still extremely grateful for everything I did for him during that time.
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You would think I did amazing and the little event that happened when I was 15 is nothing in comparison to what I did for him 10yrs later. Heck, not even my friend remembers that day when he had to head out to eat some cookies and juice.
Unfortunately, that demon is still here. It comes to have tea with me from time to time. And it wouldn’t leave forever even though I’ve clearly stated that it’s not welcome here anymore (it actually never was). This is a silly example, but it is true. Now, imagine a case where you’ve done things that are far worse than just not giving food to anyone at a certain moment.
Some people can go around their lives completely ignoring their demons, or even realizing what the source of their suffering is. The reality is that you can’t just fight your demons and ask them to go away, instead, you can try finding what their birthplace is, and burn the nest. And here’s where things become really hard.
Guilt can have so many triggers, most of them you won’t notice until you do a serious introspection of your habits, track your feelings through the day, and pause a moment to think about what’s happening. With practice, you may learn to identify those feelings when they come, but not let your mind create a story with them.
Perhaps it would be easier if I threw these bits of advice while also being able to eliminate my hungry friend demon? That’s the contradictory part of living with pain. You want the other to do better than you actually are. The truth is: I’m not a therapist, I’m just one more person with mental pain and with hundreds of regrets. Heck, I feel guilt at even writing these words, and sharing them with the world triggers some extra levels of anxiety, but I learned to embrace that.
You can learn how to embrace and befriend your anxiety. In the end, everything is impermanent, and the unexpected visit you are receiving now, will leave soon; don’t get used to the visit, instead, be mindful that it’s going to go away any moment.
Don’t let your mind create a story out of the visit you’re receiving. It’s easy for people to be swallowed by rumination like traveling back in time and do the right thing. That’s not only unhealthy but also makes you feel even worse when you are back to your reality. Instead, when your mind is falling in the trap, notice what’s happening and label it: “ahh, here’s my old friend visiting again”.
We all travel in time. Either to the future or the past. That actually used to be my favorite hobby when I was having a hard time getting back to sleep in the middle of the night. I would have countless fantasies about places I wanted to visit, people I wanted to speak to, apologies I wanted to make, good things I wanted to do and obviously past events I wanted to eliminate or do better.
In my busy and guilt mind, I am the best person ever, and all my personal problems went away a long time ago, and I’m just full of happiness. When I am back to reality, I feel guilt at having spent time in unrealistic fantasies.
Don’t be harsh on yourself. Be kind to yourself. Value yourself, speak to yourself in the mirror and say: “You are awesome!”.
The reader would notice that I’m using a lot of analogies, and perhaps you might think I don’t want to call things by their name. The reality is that I just prefer to name things differently as this helps me befriend the feeling and make it smaller.
Ultimately, when I’m meditating, during those important minutes of silence, I am, almost always, completely guilt-free. And that’s when I find that I love myself the most. During those important minutes of silence, I am accepting myself as I am. This new reality has slowly started to become a part of my daily life as well, helping be less harsh on myself, helping stop hating the person I used to be or the person I am now, understand that change as part of our lives.
Perhaps it’s time I call things by their name. We all suffer from our demons, most of us have to deal with Anxiety and Depression at least for a tiny period of our lives. And this has been my struggle since I am 13. To the point of giving more value to external matters than my own life; to the point of feeling like I will never change, or feeling stressed because I did something that was not perfect (a speech, an interview, a discussion, a donation, a phone call …) and feeling like I want to get back in time to do it right this time.
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It’s time for some time traveling:
I had a happy childhood, some problems here and there, but happy overall. Things turned into a completely different story when I turned 10 and I was told that my dad was actually my stepdad.
As a teenager, I started having a very difficult relationship with my parents; I found myself in the middle of a broken relationship and having to understand life from an early age, while also having to respect my new dad and my stepmother. I actually loved my stepfather, but as a teenager, I was the worst with him. Also, I was not able to do well with my stepmother. There were oh-so-many-things I did wrong and could’ve done better to have a good relationship with them! I just didn’t think that was going to be important for me. I’d like to travel in time and tell my teenager self: “You should try to be kind to your parents, your future adult self will thank you a lot”
Therapy has shown me that this is the biggest source of my pain. My teens were the worst! But also, at the same time, I realize that the adults I was surrounded with when I was a child didn’t have the best attitude towards this situation, and their actions — most of them — were just full of ego and arrogance. Ego and arrogance towards each other, without thinking or realizing that there was a child in the middle of that stupid fight. And yet, I think about this, and I don’t see any sign of guilt on either of them, except, perhaps, my stepfather, who passed away a couple of years ago, leaving me with the biggest pain I’ve suffered in my life; I miss him, and I still cry when I remember him.
My biggest source of guilt right now is, precisely, my stepdad; because he’s not here anymore, and anything I didn’t do for him when I had the chance, I won’t be able to do any time in my life. To be fair, I was able to do a lot for him, but the demon still haunts me. Why did I let my stepdad go back to his hometown where people were not taking good care of his health? He could’ve stayed in my home as much as he wanted, but he was stubborn, and I never insisted. Why didn’t I insist? We could’ve found a better doctor for him, deep inside my heart I feel like he would still be alive if I insisted, but I didn’t. Why can’t I just travel back in time?
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I can keep telling stories about my past life forever; I would never stop! Sharing stories is therapeutic! Writing and letting out your feelings can help you deviate your energies and avoid your mind from going deep and deep into time travel and rumination.
But I think this is enough for a single post.
When I have trouble getting back to sleep, I try to do a body scan meditation to get into a relaxed state that would help me drift back to sleep; but I need to be honest and accept that this doesn’t always work and sometimes I find myself spending hours and hours (sometimes until down) thinking about work, relationships, time travels, or even sounds I can’t stop hearing inside my head. It’s very often one of my demons that comes to visit, and yes, sometimes I’m very welcoming with them, I probably shouldn’t.
I still need to find what their birthplace is, and these words are my ways to make progress on that. Eventually, I’ll be able to burn their nest, and then, that day… only that day… I’ll be completely free.