Guilt is a worthless emotion and dysfunctional (in my opinion).
In my opinion, guilt is a worthless emotion. It serves only two purposes my therapist once told me. “It is either used as self punishment or to give us the illusion of control”.
Self Punishment
We use guilt as self punishment for wrong doing or doing nothing at all. Examples of wrong doing would be cheating on our spouse, stealing something, saying something behind someone’s back, or purposely saying something to someone to hurt them…etc. We intentionally do something and then we regret it. Usually we commit these acts during times of intense emotions without thinking about the consequences. When we calm down and see the damage we have caused we are full of guilt.
Other times we do nothing at all. We see someone in trouble and we walk right on by. We could have taken the time to make someone feel better who was hurting and we didn’t. We do not stick up for someone who deserves it, we didn’t do something we should have like stick to our diet or workout routine.
We all react to guilt differently but it usually consists of self judgments like we are worthless, no good, weak, and so on. Some of us get a burning sensation in our bellies when we recall the act or lack there of which made us feel guilty. Guilt can consume our thoughts and shape our lives.
Now for the million dollar question; how does guilt help you or the person you have wronged? Answer: It doesn’t!!! It is a worthless emotion. It does nothing for anyone. It makes you miserable and probably miserable to be around and though it may give the person you wronged a measure of solace knowing you feel guilty, it does nothing to correct the wrong doing. It steals your emotional energy that you should be putting into growing from the incident. If you cheated on your spouse and you spend much of your emotional energy feeling guilty, that is energy you’re not putting back into your marriage to make it stronger. That is emotional energy that you are not using to develop yourself and understand why you committed the act in the first place. Guilt drains you and cheats the person you wronged out of putting your whole heart into correcting the situation. So in essence, you are continuing to hurt the person you wronged by feeling guilty, because you are only giving part of your emotional energy to making the situation better. Does that make sense?
Perhaps you have made amends and fixed the situation and you still feel guilty. Why? Why would you want to do that to yourself? Again, it is not going to make you a better person. It is not going to get you into heaven. If you believe the Bible, then you are forgiven the minute you sincerely ask for forgiveness. If you continue to feel guilty, that is like saying that you don’t believe the sin is gone which means you doubt God’s promise which I’m sure makes him a bit angry for not believing him.
Perhaps you wronged a person with such a terrible act that you can never make it up to them. Guilt is still worthless. Find a way to use the experience to make you a better person to others and pour all your emotional energy into that. Maybe you killed someone in a drunk driving accident. Teach others about the pitfalls of alcohol so that you can possibly prevent that from happening to others.
The point is, unless guilt motivates you to do something about what you have done, then it serves no purpose. It is a waste of time to everyone involved. It accomplishes nothing and helps no one. If guilt motivates you to correct the wrong, then you need to let go of guilt so you can give 100% of your emotional energy to the solution, other wise you are hurting the person again because the heeling process will be slowed by the wasted energy you spend on guilt. Use it briefly to motivate you to correct the wrong you have done and grow from it, then cut it the hell loose, it serves no purpose after that.
Guilt gives us and illusion of control
We use guilt to give us a sense of control. We do not like the random chaos of this world that results in tragedy. We need and explanation for it so that we feel we can control it from happening to us or others in the future. The fact is much of what happens to us is beyond our control. But we can’t except that, so we invent a way to feel guilty about a situation so that we can invent control that doesn’t exist so that we can feel better about the situation. Yes, we use guilt to feel better. It is the lesser of two evils (guilt vs. control). An example is a friend who commits suicide. We say to ourselves that we should have seen the signs. We should have forced him to see a doctor. If we had only made him see a doctor, he would be alive today. You have no way of knowing that! Many people in the care of doctors still kill themselves. Perhaps you could have kept your friend from killing themselves that night, but they would have done it another night in the future when you least expected it. You don’t have any idea how the situation would have turned out in the long run if you had only done something different.
A loved one dies and you think, if only I had called the ambulance faster, they would be alive. Or only if I would have paid attention, I would have seen they needed a doctor and I could have prevented this from happening. Again, you have no way of knowing that. Any time your feeling guilty in the sense that you could have done something to prevent something bad from happening; you are really trying to gain control. You want to know that you can prevent it in the future. This kind of guilt is also worthless. The incident is done. Is guilt going to magically help you go back in time and help you produce a different outcome? Is guilt alone going to make you a better person for experiencing the situation? No. Guilt will do nothing for you, unless it motivates you to grow in some way. Perhaps because of an incident it prompts you to learn CPR, or learn some other skill that would help you in a similar situation, that is good. Again, once it has motivated you, then cut guilt loose so that you can put a 100% or your self into what you are doing.
Guilt is a form of stress
Guilt is a form of stress. I have articles on this site that speak about the mental and physical damages stress creates. Guilt can be a powerful form of stress actually. It can keep our bodies and minds in turmoil for extended periods of times. If you want to get rid of your guilt, then get busy doing something about the wrong you have done. I am not sure that admitting things to others is always the best policy for getting rid of guilt. Sometimes it is, but will have to think that through. My rule of thumb is; if by doing something to make yourself feel better ends up hurting someone else, then it should not be done. If you cheated on your spouse and honestly regret it and intend to never do it again, then what purpose does it serve to tell them? People will argue from the stand point of honesty and so on. I think that is a bunch of crap. You will crush your spouse, and possibly ruin your family….but you feel better because you don’t have to carry that pain anymore. That to me is being just as selfish as being an alcoholic or anything else that destroys a family. No, if you screwed up, take the pain and live with it until it motivates you to become a better man, and then cut it loose and never go down that path again.
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