What Your Guilt Is Really Trying To Tell You - And Why It's Time to Let it Go



What is your guilt really trying to tell you?



Well, it has a message for sure but it can be a very skewed message. Find out to make friends with guilt and feel great so you can move forward in business and life and get on with doing good in the world.



Part of what keeps us playing small and has us hiding our lights under the bushel is GUILT. It is time to start talking about the taboo, the secret shame of guilt so that we can loosen its grip on us.



Why? Because your guilt is crippling you, it’s like a little poison that wafts around your life, touching every point, souring the food you consume, making you sick, smothering your joy, seeping into the molecular structure of your relationships.



But it has no real purpose, it is a societal construct, it is a throwback from childhood where you learn to feel guilty about things which make you seem less palatable or desirable or worthy to others, it is how we are controlled, and for good reason, if you are not liked and accepted you will be kicked out of the tribe, right?  And when you are a little kid, you need that tribe to take care of you.



But you are an adult now darling, you are your own damn tribe.



We gotta shake these shackles off because with guilt hanging around our necks, we can’t breathe, we are being smothered, our real soul truth messages are being strangulated and distorted. And the true message that wants to rip out of us and explode into the world, those are messages that need to be heard, those messages are the key to your business success, in fact, your whole damn happiness.



Take a look around you, no matter how much you (or another person) conforms, no one is truly accepted by everyone, and they are not supposed to be.  That is not the sole purpose of you being on this planet, to be accepted! NO!  You are here to change things. And every single person in history who affected change was definitely NOT accepted by everyone. You have heard the saying right? “If you are not polarizing people, if you are not pissing at least some people off, if you are not pushing buttons for people, then, you are not really downloading and sharing your true message”



So, guilt, what exactly ARE you helping us to do?



Now before we throw guilt out the window of a moving train and banish it for good, I want you to know that NO emotion or feeling is ever BAD. It is simply a message.



And the way past an emotion is to FEEL it, feel into it, don’t sweep it under the carpet it will just start screaming even louder.



So, what message does guilt have for you?



Take a moment right now to ask it what it wants to tell you, and then ask, “yes but beneath that, what is the highest good that you are trying to elicit and allow for in my life”. When you ask this second Q you will get a totally different answer, that is the soul-aligned answer and will lead you to your truth.



Once you have felt the feeling and obtained the true soul message behind it, it is time to release it. I mean you would not hang on to (and re-read over and over again) every damn email you get, would you? You would not record every phone call and replay it over and over? You would not keep every letter or correspondence just in case, would you?  OF course not, you would pretty soon be in an episode of HOARDERS. Well, sometimes I think we need a programme about emotional hoarders too.  All that hoarding will slow you down, it will hide the real gems that are present in your life right now.



So, what should you do with your feelings instead?



1. Feel them – like actually feel them in your body, the sensations.



2. Hear them – what is they are really trying to say to you?



3. Learn from them – take on board the deeper meaning.



4. Take appropriate and aligned action.



5. Release – let the feeling seep out of you, shake it out, dance it off, sweep the feeling clear.



6. Repeat.



Right now, see if you can pull up a memory that elicits guilt and FEEL where it rests in your body. Actually, close your eyes and scan your body right now. Did the feeling sit in your chest?  When you feel something in your chest area it signals that you are feeling a lost connection, for example, a lost connection with a person or even perhaps with your souls’ purpose or your tribe.



So, let’s say I feel guilty about not filing a report on time, or not helping my elderly mum. When I dive deeply into the feeling I release that what I am feeling is actually a longing for approval.  Approval from a boss, approval from my mum and society.



So, I have a few options here, either beat myself up; give in and do what I am feeling guilty over not doing, or give MYSELF the approval I seek and move on.



I vote for the last option. Give myself what I need (because clearly, I had a valid reason for not doing the things in the first place) and then get on with changing the world. I would not let the feeling colour my whole day.



Don’t let guilt seep in and colour the whole day. What happens when you feel guilt is your brain then gets to work on PROVING this theory of ‘not good enough’ to you, it will get busy with dragging up all sorts of stories that prove you are in fact not worthy of approval.  And ‘poof’ there goes your day.



Back to guilt, guilt is one of the stranger and more complex emotions to deal with because it is viewed and experienced through a societal filter. Just as when you put a spoon into a glass of water, it refracts the light and you get a distorted view of reality.



We are all so worried about being accepted by society that we choose to believe this distorted view and forget to go beyond the first appearance for the real meaning and learnings behind the emotion of guilt, instead we try to squash it down, sweep it under the carpet and move on as quickly as we can.



Well, we are missing valuable growth and new directions when we do this.



What would it take for you to bravely examine the guilt in your life? I promise you the exercise is well worth it.



Heres to rising together!



Michelle

Like this story?
Join World Pulse now to read more inspiring stories and connect with women speaking out across the globe!
Leave a supportive comment to encourage this author
Tell your own story
Explore more stories on topics you care about