As I drove away, I looked at my feelings, and the feeling was a species of guilt, but what was most noteworthy was anger at myself for screwing up, despite trying to be very careful. I made a mistake when I was trying to do it right. That made me angry, just a bit. Again: small dings are small things.
But I was watching this, and I think a lot of what people call “guilt” is really internally directed anger at failing to meet some standard. I think much religiosity springs both from this place, and from the shame others direct at your failings in a communal setting.
What came only belatedly was an empathetic relatedness to the person whose car it was. Now, as I think about it, I’m not sure what an optimal reaction would have been. Perhaps if I were a better person I would have found out whose car it was and offered to take it to a body shop if I couldn’t wipe the other part away. Maybe I could have resolved to do some good deed to resolve the karma, or at least reduce the guilt.
I’m thinking out loud here, and not quite sure where I leading. Here are a question or two, though:
1) What is the proper role of guilt?
2) What is the proper amount of guilt, and how do we know?
These feel like Self Help sorts of questions. Ah, they are needed too. Please put on a pastel sweater before answering, though. Crystals are optional. Answers will be on Dr. Phil on Thursday.
2 replies on “Guilt”
Haha! Guilt? Control, control, control.
One thing that has helped me is to catch when I'm talking to myself in that automatic parental second-person "You should/n't mode", switch it to first-person, and continue the inner dialogue from there. It becomes much kinder, and it integrates, not continues, the splitting. For those of us who had abusive parents, especially, this is critical.
Also: compassion. When I'm doing work on this (pretty much daily), I have to consciously recognize that this needs to include me as well as others.
Part of my issue is that it seems like it would be much easier to start from a set of givens, a behavioral and belief pattern that is helpful and which is bestowed by the parents, and which I then riff on; sort of like a base melody I can play in my own way.
In my own case, and perhaps yours as well, I have had to uproot substantially every habit, and every belief, and try to build a life from first principles, which is likely why I have written so much.
When you don't have a basis of comparison, a set of givens, it becomes hard to even know when and to what extent guilt is USEFUL, so you wind up beating yourself up all the time, just in case. I never know when I'm on track, when enough is enough.
I pray a lot, but I rarely feel like I get answers. Sometimes I do, and perhaps the rest of the time my guardian angels are silently telling me to just trust my intuition and mind.
Compassion, for me, is not beating myself up daily. I have not got to the point yet where I can be nice.