How to stop feeing guilty for feeling guilty.

Here’s how it goes:

You feel guilty for eating a cookie, yelling at your partner, skipping your workout, saying something stupid in a meeting or talking mad smack to yourself (again!).  It overtakes you like a flash flood and suddenly you are in a guilt spiral, wondering how the hell you got here and looking for the quickest exit.

Just as you spot the door to take you out of this mess you are hit with another guilt wave that lays the smackdown HARD with, “You should know better than to feel guilty.  You know this guilt sh*t doesn’t do you any good.  Don’t you know this only hinders the personal development progress that you work SO hard on.  I can’t believe you are here again!”   And before you know it you are drowning again, soaked to the gills with guilt, which immediately makes you seek out another cookie, coconut milk ice cream or quick sprint around the block for comfort.

Feeling guilty for feeling guilty is an epidemic.  Though many of our mothers and grandmothers used guilt to get things done, we now know guilt is a very unhelpful tool.  We know it only slows us down and clogs our system with toxicity that keeps us from how we want to feel and what we want to create.  AND it’s incredibly tricky to find our way out.

We could spend the next 6 months getting under our guilt but for now here are two steps that get my clients from guilt-ridden to guilt-free.

Know that it is totally normal and let it happen.-  Often times we feel guilty for feeling guilty because we think guilt is wrong.  Guilt, as it turns out, is a completely normal emotion.  When it gets sticky is when we berate ourselves for having the feeling which then compounds the guilt even more.  Let yourself feel whatever you are feeling.  By letting yourself experience the first round of guilt with permission and compassion the second round, the guilty for feeling guilty round, doesn’t have a chance to show it’s ugly little head.

Imagine your life without it.-  Guilt is a very powerful emotion and you may feel like it’s necessary to keep you in check.  You believe If you feel guilty then your actions are somehow vindicated.  You also love to hide behind guilt and spend your time wrapped up in it rather than moving towards the experience you really want.  Next time you feel guilty ask, “What is my attachment to this?  What is my need to have this around?”  You may realize you think guilt makes you a better mother, a good employee, a selfless daughter.  Get under your attachment to guilt, begin to imagine your life without it and notice what comes up.

Big love and here’s to saying bye bye to the guilt blues,

Jamie