Living a Guilt-Free Life

Guilt is one of the most powerful emotions a human being can feel. In its true form, guilt helps to turn people away from doing bad things that hurt other people. When you do something bad to someone else or hurt someone in some way, your conscience ensures you feel terrible as well. Guilt can help people to turn to God or to change their behavior in the future. However, many people feel the burden of unnecessary guilt that is in reality unconnected to their own actions. This type of guilt can be debilitating and devastating in your life.

Many clinically depressed people may have misdirected feelings of guilt. Others can subconsciously transform that feeling of guilt into other emotions, such as anger. Some people become physically ill due to feelings of overwhelming guilt and others will compensate for the overwhelming feelings by giving in to addictions, such as drinking alcohol, gambling, overeating, or taking drugs.

The trouble with guilt is that it is such a powerful emotion and because it is so easy to focus on your feeling of guilt, you can forget to think logically about why you are feeling that emotion. Some people even feel guilty about feeling guilty. Very few people genuinely need to feel guilty and not for long periods.

Survivors of terrible accidents where others die can take on "survivor's guilt," and act as if they caused the accident instead of simply surviving the disaster. Bullied children will feel guilty even though they are the victims. Other victims will often take on unnecessary guilt too, as if whoever abused them did so because of something the victim did or didn't do, instead of because the abuser made that choice.

Even if you have not lived through a disaster or have not been in an abusive situation in your life, you can easily take on unnecessary guilt. People who have high standards for themselves may shoulder unnecessary guilt when they do not live up to those standards. An example could be a mother who always puts the needs of children first, so much so that she feels unnecessary guilt for taking 20 minutes to relax and enjoy a bath.

Some parents become experts in training their children to feel unnecessary guilt. A mother who throws up her hands and exclaims, "How could you do this to me after all the hours I spent in labor to have you?" to her teenager is making her child feel unnecessary guilt. It is a natural fact that a mother gives birth to her child, but that does not mean the child should live in eternal guilt for any pain that mother may have endured as part of that process.

Children, in particular, often internalize outside situations as being their fault. A child may believe that her parents had a fight because she did something wrong, even if the parents were fighting about something entirely unrelated to the child. Many children will blame themselves for their parents' divorce. If not dealt with properly, this unnecessary and misdirected guilt can cause problems in an adult's relationship with others in later life.

So, how do you go about shedding those unnecessary feelings of guilt? How can you lead a guilt-free life? The following tips will help you to avoid feeling guilty unnecessarily.

Tip 1 – Ask Yourself Is It Really Your Fault?

This is probably the most important question to ask yourself whenever you recognize the feeling of guilt descending on you. Is it really your fault? Is it really your fault that the cat threw up a hairball on the rug or is it just one of those unavoidable bad things that happen to everyone at some time during a life? Is it your fault that your mother endured a 24-hour labor to give you birth? Of course, it was NOT your fault. You could not have done anything to help that situation. You were a baby.

Divorce is never a child's fault. Whatever the cause of the relationship breakdown, it is between the parents and is not the child's fault. If you are harboring guilt over past events like this in your life, you definitely need to rethink the situation as a logical adult.

If you suffer from survivor guilt, think about the accident. What could you have possibly done to stop the airplane from crashing? How could you prevent a tidal wave, earthquake, storm, or avalanche?

When you decide that whatever you are feeling guilty about it is not really your fault, you are on the way to living a guilt-free life.

Tip 2 – Ask Are Your Expectations Unrealistic?

When you have unrealistic expectations about what you can achieve, you can give yourself unnecessary guilt when you do not achieve your goals. Most people who feel unnecessary guilt have extremely high standards for themselves.

A woman will often feel she has to be perfect all of the time and meet multiple roles. She has to be the perfect mother, the perfect housekeeper, the perfect wife, and the perfect executive who is in control of every circumstance. No one is perfect and at some point, something will happen that will show that you cannot meet all of these unrealistic expectations.

If you can start with realistic and achievable expectations or standards, you will not need to feel guilty by not meeting higher expectations. Even if you do not achieve your expectations, think about your effort. If you did your best, you have absolutely no reason to feel guilty if you do not succeed perfectly. Sometimes finishing a race can be as much as an achievement to celebrate as winning the race.

Tip 3 – Remember You Are Entitled to Take Time for Yourself

Everyone needs some time out to relax and reflect. Without relaxation, stress can rule your life. Without time to reflect, you can end up with a mind that seems to race at a hundred miles an hour, without going anywhere. You do not need to feel guilty for taking time out for yourself. If your children are in a safe environment or with another adult, you can take a relaxing bath in peace without feeling a vestige of guilt.

Living a guilt-free life means that you feel free to enjoy life, whatever happens. It means you can be free not to be perfect, but can celebrate what you do achieve. A guilt-free life means you will have balance in your life by not taking on the burdens of unnecessary guilt.