Guilt: what is it really telling us?

Drs. Kerri Ritchie & Caroline Gerin-Lajoie

Guilt is a common experience, at least for most of us. But did you know that guilt isn’t an emotion. It is the label we place on a combination of thoughts and feelings that make us feel bad. Ideally, guilt provides us with information about what is important to us, what and who we value, and how we want to interact with those around us. Depending on how we understand our feelings and experiences, and what we choose to tell ourselves and others about what is happening, we can spiral into feelings of fear and despair.

Broadly, how we work with guilt depends on the guilt “time zone”. If we are feeling guilty about something that happened in the past, we might be feeling regret. We feel regretful when we wish we would have done things differently. We recognize that we missed something. We are now experiencing the reality of our choices, and wonder whether a different path would have been better. This information is coming to us in the present, when we can look back with time, space, or with new information about the impact we had on someone else.

How to work with Regret:  It is a signal that can give us the opportunity to make amends, shift where we go next, to learn and to grow. It is also about giving that opportunity to others, even if we feel we could have prevented the sadness, stress, or pain that came with having the space to try things their own way. Choosing such opportunities may help to decrease the intensity of the regret we feel.

The other time zone is when we feel guilty in the present, it is a cue that we feel badly about something that is happening in the moment. We feel we are letting someone down. We can’t do something that someone wants us or needs us to do.

How to work with guilt: In some instances, it gives us feedback about how we are spending our time. It prompts us to ask ourselves if we are spending the time in the places that are the most important to us. Sometimes, there just is not enough of us to go around. No one likes that feeling. The goal isn’t to try to get rid of feelings we don’t like, but to be able to acknowledge and share these feelings with those around us. It gives us a chance to understand who and what we value, and it gives others a chance to hear us verbalize that they matter to us.

Guilt about the future is usually related to anticipatory anxiety. The anticipatory anxiety, is labeled as guilt in situations when we go away; leave those we take care of with others, take vacation from work, can’t make a volunteer meeting, sports game, etc…In this case, our mind wonders what could happen while we are away? We then fill in the blanks with the stories we tell ourselves. “Everything will explode”,  “people will be angry with me”, “people won’t be seen, “balls will be dropped”, “no one can or will do it, but me”, or “what if they realize they are fine, or even better off without me”. In this case, we are walking a balance of seeing ourselves as important, yet, replaceable.

How to work with anticipatory guilt: Seeing ourselves as important yet replaceable, these two apparently mutually exclusive ideas need to co-exist in the stories of our lives and the messages we give to ourselves and others. Sometimes we need to believe in the capacities of others and give them a chance to do things on their own, to provide ways to reach out for additional support and potential emergencies, to trust that even though things will be done differently, they can get through to the other side.  We may be surprised! We can prepare ourselves by making sure we have given the information that is needed over to the person who is taking care of what we see as the people, places, and things we care for.

The next time guilt comes your way, see if you can take a step back, ask yourself what it is signaling, and then leverage the opportunity to take acknowledge the feelings and take the action that best fits, even if it means sitting with the discomfort.