Guilt

There are several expressions of unhealthy guilt that a person may feel and i shall list the common ones and i'm sure some will ring a bell for you. Please be gentle with yourself in recognising these within yourself. It is not an invitation for you to criticise yourself and feel more guilt. Rather, it is an invitation for awareness and the connection that you must have with love and free chioce that it affords in you and in others as well. So it is in your best interest to take a look at yourselves a little bit less seriously and perhaps even with a little bit of characteristic humour.

1. One expression of unhealthy guilt is when you say, "I'm overcommitted." Taking on more than any human being can reasonalbly accomplish is a common characteristic of unhealthy guilt. We have too many projects and too much to do and not enough time. It is a cause of stress and is fed by the difficulty that we have in saying no perhaps to our own needs and to other people's expectation of us. Furthermore, over-commitment is an addiction that keeps us anaesthetised to the anxious and empty feelings that will inevitably surface if we are left alone without distractions. So over-commitment is a way for us to avoid our pain. It blocks the process of recovery for us.

2. Another expression is, "I really know how to worry." When you start worrying about even the most common of things, it is basically 'awfulising" a common event. This immediate escalation of any small event into a world class catastrophe is what we talked about when Albert Ellis called it "awfulising". the most amazing feature is that little or no objective evidence is required to come to conclusions of unprecented gloom and doom. This kind of worry is the outer projection of our innermost fear and that of our own distraction. Without the knowledge of love, fear is that remains. We can never feel safe.

3. I often wake up feeling anxious or have periods when i am anxious for days and for weeks. If we are lucky, the anxiety begins after a good night's sleep. If not, it happens in the middle of the night or wakes up early and the mental wheels start to spin. We are ruminating in the past and it starts to take on a life of its own. You start to have conversations with yourself, "If only i has done this." or "If only i didn't do that." Accompanied by worries of future uncertainties, "What if this happens? or "What if that happens?" Our anxiety often masks danger as well. After all the people that we are saving or helping or demonstrating our achievements to, begin to look like our persecutors.

4. "I'm a compulsive helper." The ranks of helping professionals, nurses and therapists and volunteers and committee chairpersons are bulging with the guilty people. In reaching out to toehrs we naturally try and give them the love that we so desperately need ourselves. So if we don't know how to love ourselves, any attempts to love others.