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How to manage guilt so it doesn’t paralyze you
Psychology
Above all, we must express guilt because if we repress it we are going to lock ourselves in solitude
Stefan Zweig says that no guilt is forgotten as long as the conscience remembers it, and it is that sometimes we try to eliminate from our head something that we did or did not do at a given moment but it is difficult to find it magic eraser stop making us feel guilty about it.
El guilty feeling it has an emotional nature and always depends on a stimulus that activates it. Guilt is defined as a feeling born of a sanction, as a condemnation produced by something, that we did or did not do, and that makes us feel with a Big responsibility to act before things that we are assuming and that are not real anyway.
And this feeling of guilt is almost always carried away by the feeling of sadness, a guilty conscience produces anguish and, above all, the feeling of helplessness and frustration. This occurs, according to Irene López Assor, psychologist and author of ‘ 10 obstacles that prevent you from being happy’, because what we are doing is breaking with some social norm that comes from our scale of values and from our family and intimate environment. «It is important to understand that the fault is cause and effect, that is, if you do not have a stimulus that has caused it, you cannot feel guilt “, says the expert.
That guilt does not paralyze you
But this feeling of guilt does not come for its own sake, but rather there is a culprit that it provokes us and that, as Irene López Assor says, is going to take care of making us believe and justify that it is our fault: «They continually seek a submission from the other. These culprits would be, for example, the people who are complaining all day so that you start to feel guilty as well, making you participate in their misfortunes so that you feel a certain responsibility or emotional weight from them. We have to be careful because, as a general rule, they are quite manipulative since with their words they will make make your wishes and if you don’t do them, you fall into guilt ».
Therefore, if we surround ourselves with guilty parties, we will generate self-blame, which is associated with very high levels of self-demand such as perfectionism, obsessive behaviors, sadness and low self-esteem. In our thoughts we will always have the same phrase: “I have not been able to …”.
Failure to manage guilt will interfere with our emotional stability, and for that reason the psychologist López Assor gives the keys to know how to handle it.
First of all you have to self-criticismTo examine the real responsibility for everything that has happened: «Examine how far you are really responsible, what part is yours? What part of the other person? Because, as a general rule, we always assume a part that is not ours, and this is neither fair nor healthy ”, advises the expert.
The second way to manage it is know that we are guilty and assume the presence of guilt. “You have to take this emotion in the form of remorse because perhaps you are feeling anguish about something we have done, that we should have done or have done something wrong. The physical part of guilt must be learned to recognize it, not only from the head and reason, but also from the emotion », he says.
Third you have to get rid of self-reproaches because all they do is raise the level of anxiety, enhancing negative thoughts. Finally, we must ask for forgiveness, we must not give it more thought. Call that person and ask for forgiveness. Apologize for what you feel guilty about, what you did and what you did not do, and find an alternative to repair the damage. If that person is not there, you cannot repair it with that person, but maybe you can with the people around you, “he concludes.
«Above all you have to express guilt because if we repress it, we are going to shut ourselves up in solitude, in silence. We have done it wrong and that is the reality, but we cannot isolate ourselves because it is not good to keep the blame for oneself. By releasing her, we also release her heaviness, ”recommends Irene López Assor.
For Irene López Assor, the best way to get rid of guilt is to look to the future. Since guilt makes us paralyze and remain stuck in the present, it is not useful and has no learning consequences for the future, if we do not analyze it we will always repeat the same mistakes and with the same guilt. “We all make mistakes, so we have to apologize to the other and ask ourselves for forgiveness.”