Lead a guilt-free life

It was Saturday evening, I had just finished dinner, and from my balcony, I was staring at the street light and a small tree below it. The rain had just stopped; it was enchanting to see water droplets forming on the leaves and a small gyration of trees, the water droplets falling down on the ground with a splash of water. I was in a kind of trance enjoying that moment of life.

Suddenly I heard a loud voice, it shook me up from my trance…..somebody calling me with a distressed tone. It's a familiar voice. I rushed to check out from my balcony and saw my close friend standing there. I asked him to come up, He said “I need to talk to you please come down”. I was a little surprised and thought maybe something important and went down. This guy was almost in tears and talking incoherently. I thought he still had not come out from the shock of his mother’s death; she passed away last week after prolonged suffering.

We sat down silently for some time. After a while, he started sobbing uncontrollably and confessed that he did not take care of his mother properly and neglected her. He was feeling guilty. He felt he has terribly wronged and did not know what to do, he was struggling, a feeling of remorse gripped him.

Middle of 2009, the second wave of the economic recession hit the market very hard and companies were in the process of retrenching the employees to cut the cost and save the company from shutting down. Literally, companies looked like a graveyard. The whole retrenching process was kept secret and only a few people were privy to the information. The rest of the employees were given to speculation and were scared of losing their jobs. 

The HR person in charge of the process had to retrench huge numbers of employees. The process required him to talk to each employee individually and issue the cheque (three months salary) and shake hands with them. It stressed him intensely and he was feeling guilty since he had to let go of many people who were genuinely in need of a job. Guilt haunted him for many years, though we reasoned out saying he just executed the orders, but somehow he preferred to own responsibility.

Most of the time we feel guilty of one or other acts, it may be a trivial cause. 

Some examples, where we feel a mild form of guilt.

We feel guilty about snacking on a piece of pizza or chocolate throwing a strict diet regimen to wind….

We feel guilty for wrongly gossiping about someone….

We feel guilty for not putting in the required effort to crack the competitive exams or score good marks in the academic…

The guilt of bunking the classes……

Guilty of unnecessarily arguing and hurting someone to prove our point…

The guilt of spanking the child.

Guilty of Traffic violation….

Some are very serious in nature…..below are a few examples.

People are guilty of adultery, leading to marital discord or divorce.

Some people indulge in physical intimacy just to satisfy the carnal desire and at a later point in time they regret and guilt haunts them.

Some people cheat financially and they get away with the crime, However, at some point in life realization dawns and guilt touches them. It makes them sad and by then life would have moved on and they could do nothing to repair the damage.

Guilt is an incredibly powerful emotion, I believe it is a positive emotion that often helps you to correct your mistakes and tread the right path. It is a wake-up call from your conscience, if you are sensitive you will recognize and rectify.

Nevertheless, some guys are thick-skinned and their conscience doesn’t prick. Such people continue on the wrong path and never realize the crimes they keep committing.

Guilt can play havoc on you, it can hurt your self-esteem and drain you emotionally. In many cases, people are so severely affected they carry the feeling long after the incident has lost its relevance and feel remorse throughout life, which can affect both their physical and mental health.

Guilt often creates a psychological barrier and stunts growth. Chronically guilt-ridden people become introverts, tend to lose interest in life and focus on work, and suffer from loneliness and melancholy. 

All of us carry the burden of guilt to some extent, it’s quite natural to err even consciously, after all, we are human beings with feelings and emotions. The study reveals that women are more prone to feeling guilt than men. This is our existential truth.

How do we come out or lessen the feeling of guilt?

1. Get clarity on the situation: Please think through the situation and analyze whether your guilt has a rational grounding in reality. If not it could be needless to go through the phase.

2. Speak out:  Talk to your close friend or mentor without hiding anything in your heart. Some people put on a happy facade but actually, they're being eaten from inside. Don’t stay tight-lipped fearing the society or for fear of shame or ill repute.

3. Forgive yourself: You must have done it consciously or otherwise. The first point is to accept it and try to forgive yourself. Take a vow not to repeat the act and tell to yourself “ Yes I have made a mistake, not intentionally, I am not a bad person, I will be extra careful next time”

4. Repentance: Nothing is bigger than repentance. Repentance will push you genuinely atone the act and you will attempt to undo the wrongdoings. You will unburden your heart.

5. Seek counseling and therapy: Seeking help from professionals will help alleviate the burden of guilt. Hypnotherapy is very effective in chronic cases. 

 

When you free yourself of guilt, you feel peace within

“Let us not search for the guilty ones only among others, let us speak the bitter truth: we are all guilty ... each and every one of us”. --- Maxim Gorkey