A short spoken presentation by Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes distinguishing healthy guilt from toxic/unhealthy guilt. Healthy guilt helps us learn, make amends, and act as conscience; toxic guilt arises from feeling responsible for events beyond our control or from others trying to manipulate us into feeling bad for setting boundaries or pursuing success.
Hey there, everybody. Doc Snipes here. Today we're going to talk about guilt. Guilt is anger at yourself for something that you did that you shouldn't or something that you didn't do that you shoulda. Well, shoulda, coulda, woulda, but didn't. You can't change the past. Holding on to anger at yourself, continuing to punish yourself for something that you can't change isn't a good use of your energy. Now there is healthy guilt. Sometimes there are things that we should have done or shouldn't have done that we did that we realized were a mistake and we need to make amends for it or learn from it. True. So that's healthy guilt. Healthy guilt is sort of like our conscience and it helps us be the person that we want to be. Toxic guilt is when we feel guilty for things that are out of our control. If I'm driving down a road, down the road and I see an animal was hit by a car and it's long past, it's not suffering anymore, and I feel guilty and I feel sad because that animal got killed, well, that's not healthy guilt. If I feel guilty because my best friend can't fly home to meet with her family for, for the holidays because she can't afford it, that's unhealthy guilt. I feel bad for her, but it's not my fault. There's nothing that I should have done or shouldn't have done that impacted that situation. So we need to pay attention to healthy and unhealthy guilt. And the final variation of guilt and toxic guilt in as it is is guilt that people try to put on you. They try to make you feel bad for, for taking care of yourself. They try to make you feel bad for setting boundaries. They try to make you feel bad for being successful. That's toxic guilt. They are trying to manipulate you and make you feel bad about yourself, to be angry with yourself for doing what you need to do for you. And that has to do more with their insecurities and their own anger and jealousy. And it's important to separate healthy guilt from toxic guilt so we can use our energy in the best way possible to continue moving toward our rich and meaningful life.
