Preventing Guilt from Ruining Your Mental Health

I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation. We're going to be talking about guilt and obviously interventions to help people deal with guilt. I am Dr. Donnelly Snipes, your host. We're going to define guilt, explore the impact of guilt, and identify activities to help people deal with guilt. Alright, what is guilt though? Guilt, as conceptualize it, is anger at yourself. And interestingly, it comes from an old English word that means delinquency. It can also be defined by Merriam Webster as feelings of culpability, especially for imagined offenses, or from a sense of inadequacy or self reproach. Think about the clients that we work with and maybe ourselves. If you're one of those people who tends to have a high guilt meter. How many times do we feel culpable? Do we feel responsible for something that is within, or maybe not even within our control and we feel guilty about it? The imagined offenses, Obviously guilt is not necessarily grounded in reality and we're going to talk about some of that and a sense of inadequacy. A lot of our clients have a sense of not being good enough. They have low self esteem, which perpetuates feelings of guilt. Nowhere does it say that guilt is related to things that you actually did wrong. Sometimes we feel guilty for things because we think we should have done something else or it is that imagined or perceived slight or fault. And it's important for everyone, I won't just say clients. It's important for everyone to really look at those things that we feel guilty for and identify. Did I even do anything wrong here? Do I feel guilty for setting boundaries with my friend? Do I feel guilty for sleeping in on Saturday? You know, neither one of those is necessarily a unhealthy or wrong thing to do. So we want to really examine why we feel guilty about it, why we're angry at ourselves. What can guilt do? Guilt can make you become over responsible. Trying to fix everything to atone for perceived sins. When we feel guilty, especially if we are guilt ridden, we may try to fix everything else. And because we feel guilty, we may be trying to even improve other things. We feel guilty about stuff from the past. So we're going to over commit ourselves to trying to fix things that are within, or maybe not even within our control in order to atone for our sins. And that can get really exhausting. Is it good to engage in random acts of kindness? Sure. A lot of times that makes us feel a little bit better. But the key is random, not consistent, persistent acts of kindness because we've all got to focus on our lives and there's only a certain amount of time in the day. Guilt can make us over conscientious. If we feel guilty because we didn't do something perfectly, if we feel guilty because we ran a little bit late, it happens. You're not necessarily going to get to work or get to your dinner with your friend or whatever exactly on time every single time. And yeah, it's frustrating sometimes, but if you feel guilty about it, you want to look at why and what you do with that guilt. Like I say a lot, every emotion serves a purpose. Every emotion is natural and right in the moment because it's telling us to look at the situation. It's like that smoke alarm that goes off that says, hey, you might want to check this out to see if there's something to it. When we feel guilty, that's our bodies and our mind's way of saying, you might want to check this out to see if you did something wrong and then you can address it from there. And every time you examine situations and you determine, you know what, no, this situation didn't warrant me feeling guilty, then it fine tunes that guilt sensor, if you will. So maybe the next time you sleep in on Saturday, you'll wake up and you won't feel guilty. Guilt can make you overly sensitive. If you feel guilty about something, you're already mad at yourself, you're already lashing yourself for something you feel like you did wrong. You are already in that fight or flight state. You may feel trapped, you may feel vulnerable because you feel like you let people down. Guilt can make you overly sensitive because when you're in that situation, if somebody is critical, then you're already kind of on that last nerve because you're already being critical to yourself. And that just piles it on. Guilt can immobilize you and interfere with decision making. You may feel guilty about not being able to go to your kids ball game tonight because you have work meeting or something. And that guilt may immobilize you. If you're trying to decide, well, do I, you know, call in sick today so I don't have to go to that meeting tonight? Or how do I handle this with my kid? Either way I'm going to feel guilty because I'm not holding up my commitments to both people at the same time. Helping people make decisions, sometimes it's a decision between the lesser of two evils. Guilt can create codependency. When we feel guilty about a lot of things, we can put ourselves in a position of trying to rescue somebody else in order to atone for our own perceived failures or whatever we feel guilty for. Guilt can overshadow other feelings. It's hard to feel guilty also feel elated at the same time, or curious or outgoing or whatever feeling you want to identify. Can you have them concurrently? Certainly. But guilt takes away. You only have so much energy and you can have 100% of it over here with this happy, euphoric emotion, or you can divide that energy and you have guilt and anger and whatever else over here taking, you know, 20, 40, 60% of the energy, then you only have a fraction left to feel happy. It can create a balance problem. Guilt can mislead you. When we feel guilty, or often shoulda, coulda woulda ing ourselves, we need to examine that internal voice that says you should have done this or you shouldn't have done this and ask it who says? Who the heck says that I should do this all the time if I should go to the gym every single day? Who says? Who is the one that says that I shouldn't take a day off? Who says? And it comes back to looking at are we putting pressure on ourselves unduly? Are we misinterpreting other people's expectations of us by trying to mind read? There's a lot of different things that are going on couldas come up because hindsight is almost always 2020. I could have done that differently in that situation. Well, maybe you could have, maybe you couldn't. However, you didn't therefore learn from it, you know, and move on. Holding on to that coulda and trying to figure out and being angry with yourself indefinitely for not doing something the way you think you could have doesn't do any good if you identify ways you could have handled it better. Learn from it so you don't make the mistake again. Motivate change is yet another thing that guilt can do. So we've talked about a lot of negative things, but guilt can also be a positive. Occasionally we're going to feel guilty and that may be necessary in order to help us exercise self control. If you have a fifth piece of pie, you may feel guilty for it. You also may be in a diabetic coma and sick as a dog. But that aside, you may feel guilty for having that fifth piece of pie. Guilt there tells you you might want to check this out. Maybe there's something you should have or could have done differently and is it accurate? Is this something that you need to be angry at yourself for, or is this something you can learn from? What do you need to do in this situation. Guilt is a form of anger. We want to help people use guilt to help it kind of guide their conscience. If they do something, if they lie to their best friend and they feel guilty about that, well, shoulda, coulda, woulda, you know, maybe you shouldn't have lied to your best friend. I don't know. I don't know this situation. Let's look at it and decide, you know, what to do with this. Remember, guilt is self anger. Hold holding onto anger doesn't do any good. Anger is that fight part of fight or flee. What we need to do is figure out what the threat is, figure out what we're angry about and how to improve the next moment. What do we do with this? Do we learn from it? Do we let it go? In the example of sleeping in late, that's not something necessarily to learn from. You wake up late and you're like, oh, I feel guilty that I slept until 9 or 10 o' clock or whatever it is. And that's not something you need to forgive yourself for. That's one of those things you need to go, it's not worth feeling guilty for this one. Where does guilt come from? Well, if you want to go back into Erickson's stages and y' all know I love Erickson, Autonomy versus shame and doubt is really where we can start looking for guilt to start to develop. And this is your toddler years, this is your potty training years. You remember, Freud was very interested in this period of time for anal retentiveness and other things. According to Erikson, we'll stick with Erickson, not Freud. The major question during this period is can I do things myself or am I reliant on the help of others? Can I dress? Can I pick out my own clothes and dress myself? Can I potty without having to wear diapers and having to have somebody change me? Can I do these things? And you know, little kids will explore and they're developing a sense of will and self efficacy. They're developing that sense that it's okay to do things, it's okay to try things, and they have the power to affect themselves in their environment when they're criticized. Overly controlled or not given the opportunity to assert themselves, people may begin to feel inadequate in their ability to survive and, and may then become overly dependent on others. You notice I say people here and not children because once we go through those stages, it doesn't necessarily mean we don't have some issues that, you know, occasionally we go back to. If you're in a relationship as an adult. Maybe you sailed through those developmental stages without a problem and you get into a relationship as an adult in which there's domestic violence, verbal emotional abuse, and you start feeling heavily criticized, overly controlled and not allowed to assert yourself, then you're kind of put in that position where you may feel inadequate in your ability to survive and become dependent on that person that is in your life. And it can create a sense of shame if you disappoint that person, if you start put you back in that infantile sort of place. Cognitively. Initiative versus guilt is the next one. And remember Erickson's stages. The major question is am I good or am I bad? Do I have a purpose in life and am I acceptable? And if I don't feel acceptable, then I feel guilty because I don't know what other feeling to have. Or I may feel shame when I try to do things and I get My efforts are squelched every time. When efforts to engage in activities are stifled by significant others, people begin to feel that their self initiated efforts are a source of embarrassment. They may. You know, my daughter is turning 16 tomorrow. Oh my gosh. And you know, she has gone through multiple phases, as all children do, trying to find herself. And not all of them have been my favorites. However, I felt it was important as long as she was safe to let her explore those phases and not be overly critical. She went through one phase where she was wearing all black and had the black nail polish and everything. It seems like lot of kids go through that, but is it my favorite? No, it wasn't. But you know, she went through that phase and you know, moved on. She went through a phase where she wanted to have purple hair and thankfully that one didn't last long. But I didn't criticize her and you know, it wasn't a source of embarrassment. Is it how I would want to do my hair? No. Is it how the nail nail polish color I would want to wear? No. But you know, that's okay. She's different than me and it was important for her to be able to take initiative and try to explore who she is and learn that she's acceptable and lovable for who she is regardless of how she dresses or whatever other phase she's in. If the person questions are treated like a nuisance or embarrassing, then the person may also feel like a nuisance. With little kids during this initiative versus guilt stage, they're in the why stage. Why is the sky blue? Why is the dog running? Why? Why? Why, why? Why? And that can get exhausting for parents and other people. So when that child's questions start being treated as a nuisance, they may feel guilty about it. They may feel guilty about being curious or inquisitive. I remember Sean, my son, my oldest, bless his heart, we would go to the museum and we would go on a tour somewhere and he was just so stinking inquisitive. Every time we would stop, he would have questions and lots of them. And they were on point. You know, I couldn't argue with what they were. But it was important for him to be able to ask them. But at a certain point, he had to learn how to, you know, temper himself. We went to a sanctuary, a lion sanctuary at one point, and you know, we had to have a talk with him ahead of time that, you know, only ask one or two questions each time. And then if you want to ask more questions at the end, that's okay. But the tour needs to be able to progress. Once he understood the why, you know, why can't I ask all the questions I want when I want? He was good with it and I mean, he was like six or something. Seven. So you know, obviously people gave him a little bit of latitude. It's important as that we treat other people, not just kids, but other people when they ask questions like their questions are important, whether it's your subordinates, your clients, your children, your friends, so they don't feel like they are a nuisance. People who are over directed by others may struggle to develop a sense of initiative and confidence in their own abilities. And again, in the right situation, and I use the term right, kind of weird, in adulthood we can get back into a scenario where we are over directed and over controlled in domineering relationships, we lose our sense of initiative and confidence. The following things can cause guilt in the person, in the actor, or their significant others. Addiction. If you develop addiction, you can feel guilty that you're using. And people around you may feel guilty because they don't know how to help you. They may feel guilty because they think that they caused it somehow. So guilt, there's plenty of guilt to go around. Abuse is the same way. Abusers generally feel guilty. Not always, but generally feel guilty after an abuse episode. Which is why you see in the power and control wheel, there's that honeymoon period where the person feels guilty and swears they won't do it again. But also the victim in the abuse situation may also feel guilty because they have been told that if you wouldn't, you made me do this. If you wouldn't have xyz, coulda, shoulda, woulda. Then I wouldn't have had to lose my temper. It's important that we help people examine the semantics when they are exploring their guilt and help them take responsibility for what they have responsibility for, but also help them put responsibility where responsibility is due. Relationship issues. When there's infidelity or divorce, both people can feel guilty about what happened and how things went down. In parenting, non supportive or absent parenting, the parent may feel guilty for not being able to be there or and that's whether they're not there physically or not there psychologically because they're clinically depressed or addicted to substances or whatever. And the child in that situation often also feels guilty because they think very personally and very dichotomously, so they figure they must have done something to make the parent not want to interact with them, so they feel guilty. Crime by the perpetrator and the victim in certain circumstances, there's a lot of crimes where the perpetrator does not experience guilt, but there are a lot of circumstances where they do. And the person who commits the offense, you know, maybe it's an assault and battery. The person who assaults the other person may feel guilty about it later and the victim may feel guilty because in some way they believe they brought it upon themselves. In trauma, there's also survivor guilt where the person who survives or the person who wasn't attacked or injured feels guilty because they are unscathed, they survived, or they weren't the one that was kidnapped, or they weren't the one that was raped, or they weren't the one that was, they feel guilty for not having gone through the same thing. And cultural expectations can also be sources of guilt. Where you're family or your church or your community says you should behave this way. Especially in tight knit communities where there are lots of rules for how we should behave. You may see that as a more prevalent problem. The cultural expectations and in cultures in which the family is a huge part and family cohesiveness and community is a big issue, then those sources of pressure are going to be much more powerful than in communities in which they're more independent and there's less focus on community and family harmony. Toxic guilt. See, I told you there's lots of guilt to go around. Toxic guilt is a nagging feeling of pervasive but nonspecific badness, as if your whole life has something wrong with it. Often it has its roots in early childhood mistakes that your parents or teachers treated as a big deal. For example, in religious training, if you did something wrong and maybe you swore and took the Lord's name in vain and it was a big, huge blow up deal, then you may have guilt for that. And you may hold on to guilt for that because you remember back then you did something that you know, at that point in time you thought was really, really bad. So you feel an inherent sense of badness for it. When we talk about different mores that different cultures teach, a lot of them. If you come down to the seven deadly sins, it's a continuum and there's gluttony versus abstinence. Well, ideally we settle somewhere in moderation. But what people's definition of moderation is maybe different than what ours is. It's important for us to look at what we're doing. Let's talk about alcohol use. You know, are we being gluttonous? Are we overusing alcohol? Are we abstaining from alcohol? But what is moderate use? Is it one beer with dinner? Is it three or four drinks a night? What is moderation for that person and encouraging them to individualize their self evaluations? Sloth versus diligence, that's another one. And balance is right in the middle. And this is one I struggle with because I have a hard time sitting still. I always feel like I should be up doing something, whether it's mopping the floors or wiping the baseboards or doing laundry or working or something else. I feel guilty. And I'll admit it's one of my issues. I feel guilty sitting down because somewhere in the back of my head, and I don't know where it came from exactly, I have this message of unless things are completely perfect, you shouldn't be resting on your laurels and watching TV or, you know, doing whatever, encouraging people to take a look at. What are those messages that you are telling yourself about? Sloth versus diligence. Let's look at what does balance look like? How can you balance that? So you're not going to burn out, but you're also not, you know, that growing mildew or whatever it is that sloths grow on them. And what does that look like for you? And then examining with them why they might feel guilty about balance. Why do they feel guilty if they're not at one extreme? Greed versus generosity. We want to help people figure out what benevolence looks like for them. Because, you know, too much generosity, you may give away too much and then you feel angry with yourself or frustrated being greedy, you may feel guilty. You see where we're going with these Lust versus chastity. Moderation. Again, I know I used that word twice. Anger versus passivity. We want to help people focus on assertiveness. Pride versus humility. We want to help them focus on authenticity. And remember, humility is not embarrassment. Humility is being humble. So we can be very prideful or very humble, but authenticity is somewhere in the middle where we are proud of the things that we are able to do. Envy versus rejection. Looking for contentment instead of using a lot of energy. Being angry and envious of other people or feeling guilty because we don't think we measure up. We want to figure out in what ways are we content in our life. Existential guilt is guilt that people feel for having a negative impact, like having too big of a carbon footprint. Guilt you feel for having more than somebody else if you, you know, you have a home and there are homeless people. Or guilt you feel for just surviving. When toxic guilt gets mixed up with existential guilt, people often suffer from a feeling that they're responsible for everyone else's pain. If you feel like, if you feel guilty for having a negative impact, let's go back and look at toxic guilt that develops into a nagging feeling of pervasive but nonspecific badness. Then you're going to kind of be stuck. And this is where people. You see a lot of people start over, committing themselves and volunteering and doing all kinds of things to try to right all the things they perceive that they've done wrong because they've been successful or they've been happy or they've, you know, they have basic needs. The shoulda, coulda, woulda game. I coulda, shoulda, woulda, but didn't go to the gym. Okay? And this kind of goes with acceptance and commitment therapy. We want to get back into that radical acceptance. Yeah, maybe I could have gone to the gym this morning, but I didn't. Is there a point in feeling guilty about that? And, you know, maybe I'm a little bit irritated with myself for not doing that. So what do I do? I figure out, was it important for me to go to the gym this morning or was it more important to take a day off and rest? Or. And. Or how can I prevent that from happening again so I don't miss another scheduled workout? I shoulda, coulda, woulda, but didn't call my friend. Okay? It happened again. How do we learn from this? What came up that kept me from calling my friend and, you know, do I feel guilty about it? Is that person any the worse for wear? Maybe they didn't even know you were going to call them. So they don't care because they were, they were oblivious. If you told them, I'll call you at 8 and you didn't call them, okay, that may be considered a little inconsiderate. So what do you do about it? You apologize and you know, figure out how to avoid breaking promises in the gin. I shouldn't have, but did have that second piece of cake or fifth piece of pie. Well, without unhealthy means, there's really no way to unring that bell. What are you going to do about it? Feeling guilty not going to get you too far. It may encourage you to learn from it and decide how to manage your eating habits a little bit better. However, you can't unring the bell. Guilt is just anger. Anger tells us to take a look at something and learn from it or let it go. I shouldn't have lied. I shouldn't have called in sick. I shouldn't have gone out drinking all night long. Each one of those reason things that happens, we want to look at the reasons we did them. Why was that more rewarding than the alternative? And if we feel guilty about it, should we? And if we decide that yeah, we should feel a little guilty about it, how do we make amends for it or learn from it? Sometimes calling in sick and I'll pick on that one. Maybe we feel like we shouldn't have called in sick because we weren't on death's doorstep. However, we really needed that mental health day. Is that something is something to feel guilty for? Questions? How does guilt impact your attitude, optimism and emotions? You know, when I feel guilty, I tend to be. A little bit more down in the dumps. How does guilt impact your self esteem? Well, for me it kind of not good. How does guilt impact your health? Well, if we feel guilty, that's anger. Anger ramps up that HPA axis which affects our sleep, our hormones, our pain levels and our serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine levels. So guilt isn't good for our health at all. How does it impact your energy? Again, with that HPA axis ramped up, we've got a lot of energy going through. That glutamate is running strong to try to prepare us to fight or flee. We we're going to run out of energy sooner. We're going to feel worn down. How does it impact other areas of your life like your relationships or your work? If you're feeling guilty, paying attention to what that guilt does and how insidious it can be in your actions and interactions. Psychological flexibility matrix, the radical acceptance is where you start. I did what I did and I feel guilty about it. Okie dokie. It is what it is. We can't unring the bell, so what do we do? And we can engage in behaviors that move us away from what's important to us, like, you know, your family and your career and whatever it is that's important to you over on this side. Sorry. Such as blaming and stupid doing those behaviors. If you just sit there and persistently think about it and you blame other people for what happened, well, if you wouldn't have blah blah, blah, then I would have been able to. Making excuses, all that stuff. Does that solve the situation? Does that help you feel better and does that help you move toward what's important to you most of the time? No. Thoughts and feelings that move you away from what's important to you. Well, holding on to that guilt, what does that do? What's the purpose of holding on to guilt? Think about. You know, I've used the analogy of a backpack before. Everything you feel guilty for is a rock in that backpack. What good does it do to carry around a backpack with 50 rocks in it? Not much. It doesn't solve the situation. It starts making you angry and tired and cranky and all kinds of stuff. Anger is another emotion that goes along with guilt. Guilt is self anger, but we can also be angry at other people. Blaming and self hatred is another thought or feeling we may have because we feel guilty. Does any of that help us live happier and healthier? No, generally not. So what can we do instead? Behaviors that move you toward what's important to you amends or apologize. If what you you did what you did and you look at it and go, you know what, you're right. Or you know, I quote, should feel guilty for this because I made a mistake, I didn't keep that promise, or whatever, then, okay, one of the things that you can do is make amends and apologize for it. None of this is perfect. And most people recognize that they're not perfect either. If you approach someone with genuineness and authenticity and apologize and then don't do it again, you can. That often moves you towards that place of feeling empowered, efficacious, happy and connected with others. You can forgive and it may be forgiving yourself, it may be forgiving other people, whatever it is, but forgiveness is another behavior that can help you let go of guilt, especially forgiving yourself. Sometimes it's not something that needs to be forgiven. But if it is holding on to that guilt and resentment and holding onto that thing that you did 15 years ago that you know was wrong. What good does that do? Why would we carry around that rock in our backpack for 15 years? It doesn't do any good. Thoughts and feelings that move you toward what is important to you include acceptance. Acceptance that nobody's perfect. Acceptance in the case of existential and toxic guilt, that, you know, it is what it is. I have a home and you know, I've worked hard to have a home and some people don't have homes and there are things that I can do to try to help them, you know, find housing and all that kind of stuff. But acceptance of the way things are as they are, it is what it is right now. Instead of judging and being compassionate with myself when I feel guilty, especially for things that really don't deserve guilt, being self compassionate and saying, you know what, it's okay. Some activities that you can do for guilt, guilt slips, they're kind of like permission slips. Identify what you feel guilty about and write each one on a piece of paper. Review the list and throw away the ones that are not in your control. So throw those away, compost them, whatever. Review what's left and identify what you have already atoned for. You know, you apologized and whatever. It's a memory, but holding on to the guilt surrounding it probably isn't doing you good. So throw away the ones that you've already atoned for and quit holding yourself hostage for those things. Quit holding that up as a certificate on your memory wall of the things you did wrong. We don't need to be reminded of the things we did wrong, especially once we've try to fix it as best as we can. What is left? Put in an envelope or jar and take out one each day to work on. Maybe you feel guilty because you don't call your parents enough. Okay, well, so when you pull that slip out, you're going to make a plan for how you can start calling your parents more regularly. Permission slips. Write yourself permission slips to engage in those things you feel guilty doing but are actually not wrong, like setting boundaries. I give myself permission. Remember when we were in, you know, grade school, we had to get permission slips in order to be in the hallway to go to the bathroom or whatever during class periods. These are permission slips you give yourself that give you permission to set boundaries. Say no to things. Oh my gosh. You don't have to say yes to everything and it gives you permission to ask for help. Some people feel guilty for Asking for help from others because they feel like a burden or an imposition. Give yourself permission. Give yourself permission to take time off. Maybe have one of those things scheduled in a permission slip for every Sunday from 2pm until 8pm it's your downtime, whatever works for you. Getting takeout. Give yourself permission to not have to cook every single night. If that's one of your guilt things. Give yourself permission. You know, working late kind of falls in that weird gray area. Occasionally it needs to be done. And giving yourself permission to work late instead of feeling guilty about it while you know your family's off, doing whatever will help you use your energy to focus and get that task done so that you can spend more time with them later. And give yourself permission to be true to yourself and follow your own heart. And that's, you know, that's a big one. Encouraging people to be mindful and true to themselves. And, you know, maybe this isn't what I want right now. Give yourself permission to explore the alternatives. Maybe it's you're not happy where you're at. I regularly see posts of people who say they're, you know, getting burned out in their job, but they feel guilty if they switch careers or they don't want to leave because they feel guilty and responsible for over responsible. Remember, that's where that guilt comes. They feel responsible for their clients. Well, generally when you leave, you're going to have a step out period. But being true to yourself and recognizing what things, what behaviors, what feelings, what actions, etc. Are going to help you move toward what's important in your life. Being true to you. Maybe it's not. Maybe you get offered a promotion and you decide not to take it and you feel guilty about it because it could mean, you know, another $30,000 or something a year for your family. But being true to yourself, the money wasn't important. What was important to you was being able to spend time with your family and stay in your current house and not have to move to the big city or whatever it is. Giving ourselves permission. Guilt cards on index cards. 30 or so things that people commonly feel guilty for. And this is one of those group activities. Put the cards in a box, have group members draw a card from the box and explain where the guilt originated, what can be learned from that experience, and how the person can address that guilt. So for example, you might have a card that says, Sally lied to Jane about being tired and wanting to go to bed early so she could go out with Susan. I don't know. Okay. And she Feels guilty then for lying to Jane. Where might that guilt have originated? Well, that one's pretty obvious, that we're not supposed to lie to our friends. What can we learn from that experience? Well, maybe when she went out with Susan, she felt guilty the whole time. And then afterwards there's this impending anxiety that Jane, I think, was the one she lied to. I can't remember now that her lie is going to be found out. And that, you know, kind of takes away from all the fun of going out anyway. How can the person address that guilt? A guilt pack, and I alluded to this earlier, Make a list of things you feel guilty for and get a bunch of stones or bricks. Count how many guilts are on your list, and add that many weights to your pack. And with kids, you're going to use smaller weights. You're not going to use bricks. But it can help kids start recognizing what is healthy and helpful in their life and what is not. And the fact that they don't want to carry around the guilt. Once a stone is put in their pack because they feel guilty, they need to figure out what they need to do to get that stone out of their pack. Put on the backpack and carry it around while you do housework or yard work or whatever. Think about how much guilt weighs you down and zaps your energy. How much harder is it just to get up off the sofa carrying all that weight? And if you've been pregnant, you remember when you're in that third trimester how hard it is to get off the couch anyway. And that's not a backpack. But remember how much harder it is when you have weight you're not used to carrying to get up off the couch. Next, identify which guilt that you can either forgive, fix, or let go and how you plan to do it. And then you can take those weights and out of the pack. There may be a couple left that you're not sure what to do with. But 99% of guilt can either be forgiven, fixed, or let go. Learning to forgive first, explore with people what forgiveness means. It's not saying whatever happened was okay necessarily. It is choosing not to allow energy to remain stuck in the past and to use that energy to move towards your goals. If I stay angry with myself, if I hold on to this guilt, that energy is just stuck in this carrying around this brick. And what else could I do with that energy besides carry around this brick? When I forgive, I say, you know what I learned from this brick? I know how not to have another one of these bricks. So I can set it down and I can use that energy for something positive. Encourage people to identify how they can forgive themselves, learn from it and move forward. And each guilt is going to be a little bit different. But we do want to encourage them to look at it and examine how they can let go of that self reproach. And that usually takes a while. This is not one of those, you know, easy peasy one day workshop things. Set a no guilt allowed rule for when you're relaxing or taking care of yourself. And if you start feeling guilty, ask yourself if what you're doing is wrong. If you're sitting on the sofa and you're binging on Netflix because, you know, you just are, you know, is what you're doing wrong and what is the worst that can happen? You know, I can sit on the sofa and I can binge on Netflix and I can be like, oh, I should be doing laundry or I should be doing this or that. And then I asked myself, in the big scheme of things, yeah, there's always laundry to be done and there's when I die, there's always going to be laundry to be done. Does it have to be done right now or is it more important for me to rest and recharge for this period in order to be able to be fully attentive to the things that are important to me later? Identify common guilts and develop positive back talk. Encouraging people to talk back to that heckler in their head that tells them they shouldn't be doing something or they should be doing something else. Who says that? You can have people either tell that heckler to shut up or to respond with who says or to respond with, you know, like I said with the laundry, there's always going to be laundry to be done. And it's more important for me to, to rest and recharge right now so I can be fully present for what's important in my life. Have people keep a guilt journal. Encourage them to keep a log of everything that makes them feel guilty and look for patterns. Maybe it's the critical voice of their father or overcompensating for something they did wrong in the past or think they did wrong in the past. Once they start identifying how much guilt, how many different things they feel guilty for and what triggers that guilt emotion, then they can start addressing it. The right and wrong game, obviously. Another group activity. Give everyone three pieces of paper. Have each person write three things they've done for which they feel guilty. Put all the pieces in a hat or a box. Draw one out at a time and have people vote on whether it was right or wrong to do and explain why. You know, is this something you should even. There's that should word. If we say I said should probably more times today than I have all year, is it something that you should feel guilty for? And if so, why? Like we've talked about already, sometimes guilt is good because it motivates us to have a conscience. Doesn't mean we don't make mistakes. What do you do about it? And encourage people to theorize other reasons it might be right to do whatever was done. For example, if you cancel a night out with your best friend, should you feel guilty about that? Well, maybe, maybe not. What are some other reasons that might make it okay to cancel a night out with your best friend? Maybe your kid sick. Maybe you are totally exhausted and you have something that you need to do, a promise that you made for tomorrow. So, you know, you need to get good sleep tonight. I don't know. But you can brainstorm. And that helps people get different perspectives on things they've done. They obviously haven't put their names on the things they did. And it also gives you a lot more stuff to work with that's germane to that particular group as opposed to just pulling generic guilts out of the air. The Bill of Rights, I love this one. Have people create a Bill of Rights. I have the right to the guilt that they feel. I feel guilty for sleeping in on Saturday. So on your Bill of Rights, what is your right? I work hard all week. There's plenty of food for the kids to make their own breakfast. I have the right to sleep in. Going to the gym when my inbox is full. I feel guilty for going to the gym instead of going straight to the office again. I have the right to take care of myself. My inbox is always full. And I will be more effective if I clear my head. Sometimes people feel guilty for not answering the phone. I know I'm big on that. I hate answering the phone. But I have the right to choose with whom and when. I chair any. Share my energy. I don't always have the energy or it's not always the right time to pick up the phone, you know, and we make those calls in. In the moment. And in retrospect, we may feel guilty. I know there was one time last year where my mother had fallen ill and I didn't answer the phone right away. When my stepfather called, I was like, I saw the call come through and I thought, I'll call him back in a Little while. Then I found out that he was calling from the hospital and I felt awful. I felt totally guilty. Looking at that guilt, is it something I should have felt guilty for? Well, there was no way I could have known that that's why he was calling. Did I call him back? Yes. You know, did I apologize for not picking up? Yes. We want to look at. Okay, I felt guilty. I need to examine it. Is this something I need to continue to lash myself for? How do I need to handle it? Positive affirmations and, you know, I don't need to explain these because guilt erodes our sense of self worth. A lot of times positive affirmations help people address guilt. And positive affirmations such as, I deserve to be happy, I deserve to have a house, I don't have to feel guilty, you know, that's not quite as positive of an affirmation for doing whatever. Positive affirmations a lot of times are punished when we're children because we're told not to be boastful. We're told not to be self important. We want to help people be compassionate with themselves. And that's the positive affirmation. Those are the positive, sorry positive affirmations that we're after, the compassionate affirmations that say, you are good enough, you are lovable even if you made a mistake, you are helpful even if you say no and set boundaries. Some of the time, those positive affirmations are good for people to keep reminding themselves. Self forgiveness. Well, having people look at things that they feel guilty for, and we already talked about forgiveness a little bit, but having them look at that thing that they feel guilty for and asking themselves, what if I didn't feel guilty about this? How different would my life be and what are the possibilities? Remember again, like we've talked about and some of you have pointed out in the chat room, there's a time and a place to feel guilty about things because sometimes we do do things that we shouldn't have or, you know, you know what I'm saying, And that's our conscience. That helps keep us in line with our personal values. Not everybody shares the same values. But holding on to and nurturing, or not even necessarily nurturing, just carrying around that brick, holding on to that guilt can be exhausting. If I chose to accept the guilt, radical acceptance and figure out how to fix it, let it go, make amends so I could put down that brick, how different would my life be? What are the possibilities if I let myself off the hook for that? You're not denying or ignoring Your feelings of guilt or the events that took place. What you're actually doing by self forgiveness is putting yourself into a solution focused frame of mind that will open your mind to the possibilities that may exist. I can't change what I did back then. However, what can I do now? People who are in recovery from addiction often have a lot of guilt that they're dealing with. And they can't change the past. They can't change the fact that they drained their kids college fund or they weren't emotionally available or maybe even physically available for the periods that they were using. Does holding on to that guilt do them any good? And how different would their life be if they use that energy instead of being mad at themselves, they use that energy to make a difference now. Okay, I feel guilty for not being there for my kids, you know, when I was in my addiction. All right, Instead of using my energy, continuing to be mad at myself about that, I can use that energy to be there for them now. How awesome is that? Help people reframe the situation. Help them ask themselves what's positive about this? Or how else could I view this situation? Such as setting boundaries? I said no when somebody asked me to do something, and I felt guilty about it. But what's positive about this situation? Well, it shows progress on my part for being assertive and authentic in my relationships. Okay, so that's a way you could reframe the situation. Some situations to look at them positively. Not all guilts can be sugarcoated. You know, it's just the way it is. But some of them can. If you feel guilty for binging on Netflix, what's positive about it? Well, you're giving yourself a chance to rest and relax, and you're taking a potentially well, needed timeout. Okay, so that's a positive way to view it. Other activities include writing a story about what happened. Sometimes it's easier to third person it, you know, put it out here because then you're not. You're distant, you're unhooking from those thoughts. What were the person's needs and motives in the situation? The main characters? Who or what motivated the main character to do what they did? And does this remind the main character of something from their past? Were they recreating or overcompensating for some kind of a trauma? You know, you want to give characters depth. You don't want to just have this character here. You can do when you're writing the story, you can have them do a little flashback where it reminds them of something that happened did their actions reflect their values? And if not, what motivated them to do it? Remember the old Hans thing for moral decision making? You know Hans wife is going to die if she doesn't get this medication. He can't afford the medication. He has two choices. He lets his wife die or he steals the medication. Neither one is reflective of his values. What motivated him to do whichever one he did is what you would look at there. How did your actions affect others and yourself? Whom did it hurt and include themselves? Looking back, what healthier beliefs, thoughts, feelings and actions would have led to a more desirable result? That is, how can you learn from it? How did the main character feel about themselves and others involved before, during and after the situation? And what did the main character learn from their experience? And how might they act differently today? Encouraging them to write this story and really examine what happened and then you can start talking about it from the you perspective. Other questions to ponder how were your feelings and mistakes handled growing up? Who was hard on you and how do you replay that scenario today? Some people may feel guilty for taking a break because they were pushed by their family or their coach or somebody that kept telling them they needed to try just a little bit harder. So now when they try to take a break, they hear that voice going, now is not the time to rest. You need to push harder. What do you tell your friends when they make mistakes or do what you did, which may not even be a mistake? If your friend sleeps in until 10 o' clock or breaks an appointment with you or whatever they do, what do you tell them? Evaluate the standards by which you're judging yourself. Are your values the standards that you're using? Are they your values? Your parents values, your friends values? Your spouse's values? Who says that these things should or shouldn't be done and whose approval do you need? Remember that others judgments have more to do with them than than you. They may never approve. So what's the benefit to being judgmental or making people feel guilty? This is one of those things you see and I am very thankful. I have got, you know, an awesome mother in law but some mother in laws are extremely judgmental and try to make, you know, their child's spouse feel guilty for things because it's they're just not good enough. And what's the benefit to that? What's the benefit to being judgmental in that way? And from a mother in law's perspective, you know that mother in law may be trying to make sure that their child still needs them and doesn't replace them by pointing out the inadequacies or perceived inadequacies of their spouse. You can look at all the dynamics but ultimately remembering that the. Benefit or that the person's comments often are more about them than about you. Also ask yourself if you expect perfection, would you forgive someone else for the same actions? Why would you treat yourself differently and how does it benefit you to continue to punish yourself? We've asked that those same questions multiple different times. Feel like kind of a politician in that ways to avoid feeling guilty. Set healthy boundaries. Don't over commit or over promise. Practice good time management and don't procrastinate. Focus on progress and say no to perfectionism. When we focus on the small steps we make, then it's easier to not feel guilty. If we focus on perfectionism then we're generally going to frequently fall short, which we may feel guilty about. But if we focus on how much farther we've come then we can feel empowered by that. Look at the big picture beyond yourself for all of the contributing factors, there may have been a bunch of reasons why you decided to call in sick and take a mental health day that day. What else was going on? Was it just purely self serving or or were there other things? Other things going on? Surround yourself with positive people who don't blame, shame or judge. It's always good to have that positive mojo around and be around people who don't model these behaviors. Be assertive. Don't use guilt as a way to manipulate yourself or others. Sometimes we use guilt to again try to manipulate ourself and that doesn't help. It just makes us feel bad about ourselves. Focus on what we can do instead of what we shouldn't have done. Set realistic standards. Live authentically in accordance with your own values and ask or communicate with other people. Don't assume you know how they feel about something. Maybe you know you didn't call somebody and you missed an appointment with them and you think you're they're just going to be so mad at you and you feel guilty about it because you are afraid you hurt their feelings and yada yada yada and you call them up and they're like yeah, no big deal. Things happen. Gosh, you didn't need to feel guilty for the past three days because that person understood and didn't care. So it's important to ask and communicate and not assume we know how others are feeling. Guilt comes in many forms. It's largely anger at ourselves and energy tied up in the past. Holding on to guilt weighs us down. Encourage people to identify their sources of guilt and begin addressing them. Are there any questions?