How to get rid of guilt: 4 tips

Throughout my professional life, both as a psychologist and in Talent management, I have not stopped meeting people who, with different profiles, personality characteristics and education, coincide in being affected by a feeling that causes them great discomfort, which becomes very limiting, to the point that it affects their decisions, relationships and experiences.

This discomfort is called "feeling of guilt" In addition, on many occasions it comes through a tendency to be cruel to oneself.

• Related article: "Self-concept: what is it and how is it formed?"

Did you know that we are born free of guilt?

It is important to note that guilt is a learned feeling. It is something that we learn by imitation, and also by learning through comparisons, demands and failures that we live. It begins to develop from childhood to fully establish itself in adulthood.

Guilt, like other feelings and emotions, is an adaptive psychological mechanism. Their role is to recognize our mistakes and act accordingly., through adaptation and repair behaviors in order to avoid damage. In this case, guilt helps us comply with the ethical standards and codes necessary for our society. Therefore, it prevents us from making mistakes that could have serious consequences.

The problem arises when guilt becomes maladaptive.

What is maladaptive guilt?

We can say that guilt becomes maladaptive when it becomes a frequent and intense emotion, limiting our thinking (becoming a recurring thought) and distorting our self-concept.

This guilt is born and enlarges before the "moral" norms that we create with our children, partner, friends, work... In such a way that it can greatly affect all areas of our life, while joining the herself, a feeling of frustration at seeing how things affect us that others do not, or at least do not. It seems.

Do you want to learn to manage guilt and free yourself from it?

In the feeling of guilt, it is key to be aware that the leading role is ours. Thoughts and value judgments are ideas, they are not absolute truths.

The degree of flexibility and tolerance towards mistakes we make or could make, our ability to accept and learn from them, our empathy towards ourselves and towards others, are factors that affect our interpretations and evaluations, and that can help us to free ourselves from that guilt in imbalance.

For this, it is very important that you analyze yourself and decide if you want free yourself from constant guilt as the engine of action in your life.

If you have reached this point, where guilt is the first feeling that comes to you every time you do not do something as you want (or that you have labeled as "Bad" done), here I provide you with a series of guidelines that will help you to work it out so that you can balance it, without the emotional exhaustion that generate:

1. Make annotations

Whenever you feel guilty about something, write it down along with what motivates it. Writing is a therapeutic action that will help you to make your way of thinking and speaking to yourself conscious.

2. Learn from your emotions

Take a good look at which events and / or aspects are the ones that most hurt and affect you. You will realize which are the events that most cause that constant feeling of guilt (personal relationships, your children, your work, etc).

3. Learn to take a fair point of view

Analyze if your judgment of yourself is balanced or if you are over-judging yourself. To do this, an exercise that helps a lot is to imagine that what you are blaming yourself for has happened to a person you love very much. Would you judge her just as harshly? What would you say?

4. Identify the origins of the problem

Analyze in depth the following: How have you come to blame yourself in this way? ¿Do you question some time? Understanding why our actions help free ourselves from unnecessary emotions and self-punishment.

Think about those things that you failed, or have felt you did wrong throughout your life, and how they affected you to the point of becoming the person you are. It is not about forgetting everything. But to be fair to yourself. Sure you could have done better, but surely there are also facts and events that you blame yourself excessively.

Understanding maladaptive guilt

Being fair and sensible in our value judgments helps us to be coherent and balanced people. It is not about avoiding responsibilities, but about taking responsibility to the exact extent, evaluating those aspects that are in our control zone, striving for what we can do, and forgiving ourselves when we do not achieve everything as we wanted.

Living "hooked" on this type of negative emotions only makes you lose the possibility of living your life enjoying each day with intensity. Have you ever wondered what you are missing while only living with guilt?

Maladaptive guilt is a direct attack on your self-esteem. Minimize your abilities and qualities, maximizing your weaknesses and generating negative automatic thoughts that only lead to your own self-abuse and the constant loss of being able to experience what you do with joy and tranquility.

The only reality is that not everything is your fault. And for this, Let's start by changing the concept, change guilt for responsibility. Responsibility is a powerful word. Take responsibility for your life, your problems and your happiness. Don't give that responsibility to others.

Also free yourself from the value judgments of others: what do you feel? Think if perhaps you are committing an injustice to yourself because of what you have been learning during your childhood, because of the rules and / or opinions of others or the self-demands that you carry.

Maladaptive guilt is generated on many occasions by those “backpacks” that we carry with biased ideas and perceptions. However, there are many psychological strategies that generate new habits that help us to reconcile with ourselves, to live fully and freely for the full enjoyment of our lifetime. Go ahead and follow the indicated guidelines, and contact me or another psychotherapy professional if you want to continue deepening or working on it.