How to get rid of guilt - techniques and recommendations from a psychologist

Guilt is a powerful, destructive feeling that can poison your entire life

, spoil your health, make a normal existence in this world simply unbearable.

Do you rarely call your parents? Not paying enough attention to your children? Missing gym sessions

? Can't go on a diet? It doesn't matter what you feel guilty about.

It is important to make sure that this unconstructive feeling leaves you. Spend just a little time

Read this article to learn how to get rid of guilt.

Stop looking for a scapegoat

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When something in our life goes wrong, we completely involuntarily (and sometimes purposefully!) begin to look for a person in our environment who could be held responsible

for your troubles. Alas, as practice shows, most often such a person is ourselves. Awareness of this fact adds fuel to the fire, inflating the feeling of guilt to unimaginable proportions.

At the same time, many are well aware that the feeling of guilt in itself has no effect on correcting the situation. But it is important not only to realize that it is essentially meaningless. It is important to understand that the world around us is multifaceted

, not linear; a situation that didn’t go the way you would like is influenced not only by you - there are a lot of external factors for which you cannot be responsible.

Where does the feeling of guilt come from? How is it that we all – adults – have a feeling of guilt?

The feeling of guilt is usually taken from a set of oughts that we were awarded in our joyful childhood.

Let's move on to practice.

Write down one position of obligations that you currently have in each of these areas of life: family, friends, career, recreation, development, relationships, leisure, etc.

For example:

I must be a good daughter.

I have to be an attentive mother.

I must be a great wife, etc.

____________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

You need to understand that all these words: “I must..., I must...” actually deprive you of power. Notice how you feel as you speak them out. Even if you don't owe anyone anything, this overwhelming feeling is still present.

Therefore, the first thing you need to do now is, instead of the words “I must...”, write the word “I choose.” Do you feel your energy changing?

As soon as you replace just one word, your well-being and inner mood radically changes and the meaning of the action is completely different. You do things not because you have to, but because you choose to do them.

Analyze the reasons for your feelings of guilt

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Alas, this is a very unpleasant, but inevitable procedure, since it will require from you not only deep introspection, but also, possibly, a reassessment of the situation that has occurred. But only revaluation will allow us to understand

, why exactly do you feel guilty? Understanding why you oppress yourself or simply feeling guilty is not the same thing.

For example, if you realize that you are not paying enough attention to your parents, ask yourself a question - for what reason are you not doing this?

What gave you
such an idea ?
Perhaps your brother or your sister reproaches you for this, or your parents themselves? And now a very important thought - are you really devoting little time to them and what can be done in this situation?

• It is clear that you are an adult who knows better what is more important for your family (if you have a family). It is clear that you have passed the age when it made sense, say, every five minutes
  , devoting her in detail to the circumstances of your life. It is clear that you are not ready, as before, to bring your personal life up for discussion at family councils. But you don't have to do this at all!

It is enough to at least sometimes call your family, inquire about their health, drop by for tea, and be more interested in THEIR problems than talking about your own. Believe and verify

- it works and does not require much effort from you (and it relieves guilt very effectively). So it is extremely important to understand what exactly causes you to feel guilty.

Getting rid of guilt - an amazing technique!

How to get rid of guilt? So, get ready to interact. To do this, it would be good to arrive in a cloudless mood. After all, destructive emotions “weigh down” us. Making contact impossible - the high and low frequencies simply do not match, nothing can be done. Next, pay attention to your conscious breathing. To do this, inhale and exhale evenly and deeply several times, “tracing” the path of air through your body back and forth and feeling relaxation.

Let’s immediately make a reservation that you can interact at the Soul level anywhere. In any place comfortable for you. In case of transformation of feelings of guilt towards the deceased, first you should still find conditions where you will be guaranteed to be in solitude. And you will be able to express your emotions freely.

This could be solitude in nature or solitude in the bathroom under the shower. In the case of a flow of water in the shower, it is enough to imagine how the water absorbs and carries away the accumulated emotional struggle into the drain. Then it is absorbed into the ground, giving everything into fertilizer.

Next, simply imagine the departed person as if he were nearby. And he looked at you kindly. Keep in mind that he is now the All-Understanding Light Spirit. Free from the experience of incarnation, but remembering and loving you. And start talking, communicating with him as your essence tells you. Out loud, in a whisper or even to yourself - it doesn’t matter.

Liberation practice

The important thing is that you free yourself, through this communication you establish, first of all, contact with yourself. Restore your integrity in your own eyes. Do not be embarrassed by the bright emotions and tears that are possible at first. They are evidence of relief. But clearly monitor the moment when they become tears of self-flagellation and self-pity. Bearing in mind that these are destructive states that are not in tune with higher vibrations, and therefore with those with whom you communicate. Plus, such tears are absolutely useless and do not bring any benefit.

How to get rid of guilt? Talk about everything that is important to you. Talk about everything that, one way or another, worries and concerns you about this person. About how you feel. And what would you like to say if he were in living embodiment next to you? Communicate from a position of gratitude towards this person. For a valuable experience of interaction and a feeling of complete awareness. After all, this whole idea will seem strange if you launch into destructive accusations. Instead of being able to take responsibility for each and every event in your life.

Keep a Guilt Journal

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If you feel that your life is becoming unbearable due to guilt, start a journal immediately. Every time the sneaky worms called remorse

(and the feeling of guilt presupposes that you have this very conscience!), begin to undermine your thoughts and your soul, record the day, time and, most importantly, the reason for their activity (possibly circumstances).

Re-read your notes a couple of times a week. This is not self-examination at all: it is very important to identify the circumstances that cause a surge of such emotions, and then draw the appropriate conclusions

that will allow such circumstances to be avoided. Perhaps a feeling of guilt consumes you at the moment of communication with a certain person? Draw conclusions, stop meeting with such people (or, if this is not possible, organize a meeting under other circumstances and on your terms).

How to get rid of guilt after a breakup?

Feelings of guilt are a common companion during separation. It makes it difficult to let go of past relationships and move on.

Guilt is a way of holding on to failed relationships because letting go of them means admitting that you failed. You will have to build a relationship again with someone else, and the belief that everything will work out melts before your eyes. After admitting a failed relationship, disappointment sets in and the thoughts overcome: “Well, how can this be, bad luck again.” Admitting failure is painful and embarrassing, and guilt helps delay this moment.

Also in “dead” relationships are the following attitudes: “you have to get married once and for the rest of your life”, “separation or divorce is bad”, “good people don’t leave”, “since it didn’t work out with him, that means it won’t work out with anyone.” it will work out."

“I blame myself for the fact that we broke up, I probably didn’t do enough to save the relationship.”

If a person feels guilty because the relationship broke up, this means that he takes 100% responsibility for what happened. As if it depended only on his actions whether these relationships would exist or not. The partner's contribution is completely ignored. This is a mistake because there are always two people in a relationship.

In this case, guilt is an illusory hope that everything can still be corrected. A person can scroll through past relationships and look for that moment when they should have said something differently or done something differently. Perhaps ideas even arise: “I will change, learn to cook, love your friends, stop eating at night, just come back, let’s try again!”

This behavior is aimed at avoiding accepting reality: everything has already happened, he left, the relationship no longer exists.

Exit:

1. Return 50% of the responsibility for the relationship to the partner - he also contributed to the separation as well. Recognize that we have no power over the other person and they have the right to choose to leave. You can resist, set conditions, but it is impossible to force a person to stay.
2. Admit your powerlessness in this situation. The longer a person avoids this, the longer he suffers and torments himself. After admitting powerlessness, as a rule, it lets go and it becomes easier.

“I blame myself for leaving him, I’m probably a bad person.”

Feelings of guilt may arise if you left your partner, in which case the guilt is associated with shame: “I did something bad, good girls don’t do that.”

Guilt is a bad ally. You are doing the right thing if you leave a man because you don't love him anymore. By keeping yourself in a relationship where there is no love, you are doing harm to yourself and your partner.

Exit:

1. Hear your feelings clearly. Is this what you always wanted from a relationship? Well, what can you do if there is no more love? Feelings undergo changes, it is useless to deny it.
2. Recognize that you are no longer getting what you want from the relationship. When you decide to leave, you are doing what is best for you, and that is the right thing to do. By staying in a relationship, you are depriving yourself and your partner of the opportunity to be happy with someone else.

“I can’t forgive myself for choosing this man, and the choice was unsuccessful.”

Blaming oneself for the choice that was made in the past happens due to the presence of attitudes: “A girl must choose the right man once and for all her life” or “If a girl has had several men, then she is dishonest.”

Exit:

1. Think and formulate an attitude that limits. How does it sound in your thoughts? Who is the author of this installation (mom, dad, grandmother). What are its benefits and limitations?
2. Remember: a person always does the best he can do. This means that at that moment, the decision to choose this partner was the best for you. Time has passed, you have become different, and it is completely normal that a decision made several months or years ago no longer seems so right.
3. The one who does nothing makes no mistakes. You have gained invaluable experience. Now you know what you don't want. Draw conclusions and move forward.

Simple techniques for dealing with guilt on your own:

1. Writing technique “I forgive myself.” If you blame yourself for something and cannot forgive yourself, then write “I forgive myself for... (fill in as appropriate).” The sentence must be written on a new line seven times.
2. If guilt is your faithful companion in life, then start an “Emotion Diary”. Record “when” and “what” caused the feeling of guilt. This will help you understand what events or people you react to. Having seen this, it will be possible to control the process of guilt.
3. “Meet yourself” technique. Take a pen and paper. List all the reasons that make you feel guilty. Set the sheet aside for two days. Then take it and imagine that it was not you who wrote it, but a person who loves and understands you. Re-read the list. What do you think about what is written when you read it through the eyes of someone who loves you? Could a loved one forgive you? Can you forgive yourself?

It will take time to get rid of guilt. Even though the feeling of guilt is considered positive in our society, it poisons life, as it takes away energy, reduces activity, deprives confidence, and drives depression. Guided by a feeling of guilt, a person can achieve little in life.

Learn to rest properly

It is extremely important to be able to rest properly. That's right - it's not about what exactly you do. That's right - it's about how much you can distract yourself from extraneous thoughts by immersing yourself in an atmosphere of relaxation

. Agree, the best vacation ceases to be such if you are constantly thinking about how productively you could spend your time instead of this vacation.

Christian Negroni

Yes, indeed, you cannot run away from yourself, just like from your thoughts. But the secret is to give yourself a proper break. In other words, whenever you start having guilt-ridden thoughts, remind yourself that you are not running away from the problem.

. You just took a time out, a break. Believe me, proper rest will not only relieve accumulated fatigue, but may also suggest a solution to the problem that led to feelings of guilt.

Ways to deal with guilt

The general algorithm for dealing with rational guilt is as follows:

1. Accept the feeling of guilt. Along with the recognition of your feeling comes the energy to transform it.
2. Understand the reasons. If the cause-and-effect part is restored, that is, the feeling of guilt is rational, you find the reason why you feel guilty. And after acceptance, you have the energy to transform the situation. Example 1: you realize that you rashly offended a colleague at work during the nervous agitation at the end of the year. Or they showed disrespect for the feelings of a loved one without noticing that they were hurting them. First you need to ask yourself: what prompted me to do this? Example 2: Excessive workload. Or your own experiences about something.
3. Taking back responsibility. Then the following happens: yes, I really unfairly offended a colleague at work, and I understand why it turned out that way at that moment. I am ready to take responsibility for my actions and ask for forgiveness.

Important point! In which it is important to say “Sorry” not out of guilt, but to transform it into “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” in which there is no debilitating self-flagellation.

Working with irrational feelings of guilt takes place at a deeper, unconscious level. In psychotherapy, this happens through deep, trusting contact between the therapist and the client, in which the client, step by step, learns to make self-affirming choices instead of destructive, self-destructive ones.

Put your interests above other people's interests

You are the only person in the whole world who can take care of yourself better and more sincerely than everyone else. And if this line of behavior makes you feel guilty

, draw the following analogy: you are rescuing people who are stuck in water, somewhere at a depth. You have only one oxygen mask. What will you do?

You can, of course, give the opportunity to breathe first to those who need salvation. But who will feel better if you go down on your own, depriving yourself of a saving breath of air

? You will not save others, and you will destroy yourself. This advice looks very selfish, but... However, there is no “but” - it is what it is.

Make decisions.

When you make a quick, conscious decision, assessing your options, everything will stop. Make a choice and move on.

You must not allow yourself to develop a guilt complex.

By making a decision (even if it doesn't suit you), you reduce your feelings of guilt and become stronger.

Change your priorities and stop putting your interests above all else

Foxy Dolphin

• This advice is exactly the opposite of the previous one. But this does not mean that you should suffer from contradictions. The purpose of these tips is to relieve YOU of guilt. We do not undertake to discuss the moral side.
  And if the feeling of guilt leaves you when you put your interests above the interests of others, then this method is more acceptable for you. If altruism saves you, go for it. It's up to you to decide.

Nobody is saying that looking out for your own interests is bad. There is nothing shameful in this, unless this line of behavior turns into your only position in life

. And this is a completely justified position if, in fact, you have no one else to care about. But what to do if things are different?

What to do if your feeling of guilt is caused precisely by the fact that you devote too much time to yourself, while such behavior turns into trouble for your loved ones?

Then you face a difficult, but necessary (and, most importantly, not impossible!) task - you need to change your life priorities. We will not now analyze the reasons why you did not do this earlier
. But the sooner you understand and feel that taking care of other people (especially if we are talking about your loved ones) is not only necessary, but also capable of bringing satisfaction, the better for you.

Autotraining

The next way to force yourself to get rid of guilt is to resort to auto-training. This is a set of exercises where each stage is aimed at a person, sensations, emotions. As a result, skills are developed that help cope with anxiety and an obsessive sense of responsibility.

If you don’t want to give up and are ready to really, and not in words, fight for your full and happy life, you may be interested in this article .

Auto-training exercises are similar to meditation. The person relaxes and begins to listen to the body more.

Work on bugs

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Self-flagellation is not only an extremely unpleasant and useless task, but also an activity that takes up a lot of valuable time. Stop wasting your energy wallowing in your remorse and feeling sorry for yourself. Your time will become much more productive

, if you start working on mistakes. However, this requires a very serious action (if you have not already done it!). It involves admitting your own mistakes.

There can be many examples of such behavior. For example, you planned to spend time with your child, but instead got bogged down in work, forgetting about your promise. Work is of course very important.

. But it is important to set your priorities correctly and learn to keep your promises. Admit your mistake, draw the right conclusions and create a “window” in your work in order to fulfill your promise. The feeling of guilt will go away.

Become your own friend and learn to forgive yourself

Learn to look at yourself from the outside, as if abstracting from your own personality. This is very useful so that when you see your mistakes, you learn to forgive yourself. Imagine that you are not you, but your very good friend

(it is not necessary to represent a specific existing friend) who wishes only the best for you. Will your imaginary friend judge you for your mistakes?

Another good way is to imagine that the mistakes you made were made by a real friend whom you value and respect.

. Would you like to experience the same pangs of guilt that he experiences? Are you ready to take on his experiences, or is this too much for you?

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The truth is that when it comes to guilt, we treat ourselves harsher than we would expect from those around us. In other words, we give the other person more room to make a mistake.

than to yourself. Perhaps the time has come to become your own friend, forgiving some of the weaknesses that you are ready to forgive your friends?

After all, situations often arise when we have done everything possible and impossible, but have not achieved success. And the feeling of guilt does not go away... This means that it is time to forgive yourself, as if you had forgiven your friend

. Of course, it will be much easier to do this if you begin to take positive steps towards correcting the situation - asking for forgiveness from those you offended; pay more attention to loved ones; start setting your priorities correctly.

How pathological guilt is expressed: visible and hidden signs

The complex finds its expression not only in negatively colored emotional experiences in the form of regrets, the feeling of “I’m bad,” and self-deprecation. Chronic guilt is exhausting, harming a person’s physical condition: it provokes the development of chronic fatigue, pain in the middle part of the back, and cancer.

Guilt requires atonement and necessarily gives rise to a scenario of self-punishment. And often this does not happen at the level of the conscious mind. Unconscious processes come into force. You “fail” a job interview in another city, which forces you to continue living under the same roof with your parents, as they wanted. You "accidentally" get into an accident, get seriously injured, and are forced into bed rest after your wife accuses you of not spending enough time with your family.

Auto-aggression can take various forms: from such trifles as bruising your little finger on a chair leg or losing your favorite jewelry to taking alcohol and drugs, a sudden craving for dangerous and extreme situations, and suicide attempts.

A person with a guilt complex is always subconsciously ready to be punished. And often it doesn’t matter what its source is. Therefore, you become an easy victim of manipulators. It is easy to manage. Manipulators operate according to the scheme: “I am better than you because you are guilty, and therefore you must do what I say.”

Don't leave the situation that caused you to feel guilty unresolved.

Unfortunately, this advice is not always easy to implement. However, it is better to try to do this than to put off solving the problem indefinitely. And a way can almost always be found if you analyze

current situation. Otherwise, you will constantly live in an atmosphere of understatement, incompleteness, which is very fertile ground for cultivating feelings of guilt.

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But let's give a concrete example.

Let's say you feel guilty because you behaved wrongly towards a certain person (or even a group of people). It could be your friends, parents or someone from a more distant environment - it doesn’t matter at all

. It is important not to keep your feelings to yourself. If you want to apologize, apologize, it won’t hurt you. Your goal is not to save face in this situation, but to get rid of the destructive feeling of guilt.

Getting rid of guilt towards the deceased

Right away, without delaying it, let’s say that this situation is not completely insurmountable just because a person has left the physical body and changed dimensions. Moreover, the fact that the relationship with this person cannot be changed, that his physical death is the fatal result of everything - this is one hundred percent illusion. Imposed by the remnants of our existence in the three-dimensional world with its limitations in the perception of higher knowledge.

The truth is that there are no barriers to open consciousness interacting with other parts of consciousness, wherever they may be. In other words, if you open your mind so much that you accept as a given the possibility of interacting with the Soul of the deceased at will, literally “at a click,” this will begin to seem quite ordinary to you.

To do this, you just need to know that all of us - both those embodied physically and those who have moved to the subtle plane - represent one stream, as if branched by streams. The flow that flows from the limitless source of Light and Love called God, the Creator, the Creator, the Higher Power or whatever you like.

It is here in matter that we “overgrow” with illusions, beliefs, limitations, but that’s what makes the Game more interesting. And our essence is the Divine Light, from it we came, we manifest it even now, and we will each pour into its waters in due time. This worldview will give you freedom in the idea that there are essentially no barriers to communication between parts of the One Whole.

And if you, being in a physical body, need such communication, then there is no reason to deny yourself it. Moreover, the Universe is arranged in such a way that unmanifested light energy only craves blissful and loving communication with us, embodied in matter. And everyone who has passed into another dimension is already clearly a wise and kind Light.

Required condition!

Another thing is that in the pursuit of such communication you should not be mistaken about who you are actually doing this for. If you have the conviction that the departed needs this, then this is nothing more than an illusion. “Out there” you are loved and unconditionally accepted as an ideal in all your manifestations simply by the fact that you exist. You need to get rid of the feeling of guilt towards the deceased. But you are part of the universal flow and at the same time the flow itself. So it will be something like a dialogue with yourself. Which is the only truth, in fact.

Look forward, stop looking back

Usually the feeling of guilt appears for some action that we did (or did not do) in the past. It’s hard to imagine a situation where you would be tormented by a feeling of guilt for something you should do in the future (although it happens!)

. A necessary and effective way to overcome such feelings is to focus on what you want from your life in the future.

It is useful to do the following: set your priorities correctly, focus on short-term and long-term goals. Then make a strategic plan

achieving these goals that will help you achieve what is truly important to you, based on your priorities. Move only forward - this is the only way that allows you not to get bogged down in the past.

Important!

In order to move forward, you need to stop feeling guilty about past

. That is why it is important to follow the previous advice - not to leave unresolved the situation that led to feelings of guilt.

Jacob Lund

But what to do if you really committed an unseemly act for which you are ashamed, but which cannot be corrected? Yes, and apologizing will not help anything - perhaps there is no one to apologize to

!
In this case, even more so, you should stop telling yourself something like “If only I had acted / acted differently
,” and you should focus on what you are doing now so that something similar does not happen in the future.

Imaginary guilt

With a false sense of guilt, a person considers himself guilty, although he has not done anything shameful. This feeling can occur in different situations. Here are some examples:

1. The mother leaves her small child in the care of other people or sends her to kindergarten too early.
2. A person who survives an accident begins to feel guilty that other people died. It seems to him that he took away the chance of survival from another person.
3. The child blames himself for his parents' divorce.

Experiencing a false sense of guilt, a person feels helpless, loses self-esteem and ceases to value himself. He tries to live up to other people's expectations. He wants to get approval from his environment.

If a person cannot figure out why he feels guilty, then this prevents him from living a normal life. It is very important to learn to distinguish real guilt, when a person is truly guilty, from a false sense of guilt imposed on him by other people.

A person who constantly blames himself for everything and in front of everyone becomes an easy prey for skilled manipulators. Manipulative people can easily “put pressure on the conscience” of such a person and shift all responsibility onto him.

It is important not to confuse the concepts of guilt and responsibility. If these concepts are replaced, a person begins to act out of fear, and not because he admitted his mistake and repented. Guilt provokes inaction. Responsibility, on the contrary, helps to realize to whom and for what exactly a person is guilty. In this case, the “culprit” knows who to ask for forgiveness and what to do to correct the unpleasant situation.

It is the sense of responsibility that helps to get rid of the feeling of guilt, both imaginary and real, and also to protect yourself from manipulators. It helps a person to act rather than worry pointlessly. But first, you should figure out whether yours is false.

Here are the main signs of imaginary guilt:

• the feeling of guilt practically does not leave you;
• you often apologize and ask for forgiveness;
• you are ashamed of other people, and you feel guilty for their incorrect behavior (the salesman is rude, talks loudly on the phone in the theater, etc.);
• when someone criticizes your work, you take it personally and consider yourself bad;
• you worry about what other people thought of you and whether they understood you correctly;
• when you are criticized, you begin to make excuses.

Don't let guilt devalue your achievements

You are gnawing at a feeling of guilt - this means that you are an emotional person who can be influenced by external circumstances. But circumstances are just a background in your life, and guilt arises in your brain

. Simply put, you formulated it, nurtured it and now nurture it day by day. In this case, it is in your power to formulate postulates that will destroy this hateful feeling of guilt.

It looks like self-hypnosis, auto-training. Essentially, it's him and the network. If, for example, you have achieved success, but you feel like you don’t deserve it, formulate the opposite thought and repeat it like a mantra

:
“I deserve it!”
. If feelings of guilt devalue your success, your achievements (even if they are small), repeat these words even more often, not forgetting the difficulties that you have overcome along the way. Don't let guilt devalue your achievements!

Don't keep everything to yourself

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We are rather strange creatures, often expecting from our environment certain actions and actions that seem most appropriate to us. We don't give other people a chance to do differently.

. This is why many of us look at this or that situation rather one-sidedly, not noticing all the facets, all the nuances (or, conversely, exaggerating them).

Let's imagine the following picture: you, while in a company, did something that personally causes you a feeling of strong and deep guilt. Try talking to someone from this company; with someone you trust

, if there is such a person or just with an outside observer. And you may be very surprised when you find out that no one but you thinks about your action!

Perhaps you misunderstood the situation, imagining who knows what. Perhaps you simply incorrectly interpreted someone’s accidentally dropped phrase, someone’s gesture, or look. Discuss it with someone who could see more

. Perhaps it will turn out that all your worries and pangs of conscience are not worth a damn! This is why it is very important not to keep everything to yourself.

Don't let others make you feel guilty

The only person who can control you in this life is yourself. Unfortunately, we often forget about this, allowing ourselves to fall under the manipulative actions of the people around us.

. We are manipulated by friends, our life and business partners, parents, bosses, children. The hardest thing is when you find yourself in the center of such a manipulative web that surrounds you from all sides at once.

Recognizing such manipulation can sometimes be very difficult. But even if you managed to figure out your opponent, it is even more difficult to get out of his influence. The main thing in this matter is not to make a mistake

who exactly is manipulating you. Don't rush to ruin your relationship with your boss or partner by deliberately aggravating the situation. Take a break, give yourself a break, think about everything in a calm environment; If necessary, apologize.

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It's not about whether you're right or wrong! Of course, we often make mistakes, and therefore accusations from those around us can be absolutely justified. But our task is to save you from feeling guilty.

. So try to become the only person who has the right to blame himself for his own mistakes.

Affirmations

The practice of affirmations is gaining great popularity. Its essence lies in instilling in oneself certain positive attitudes. It is best to compose phrases for affirmations yourself.

This is a simple activity that has its own rules:

1. In the phrase, it is recommended to use the pronouns “I”, “mine” to indicate that the desires belong to oneself.
2. The present tense is always used in construction.
3. You should not use words with negative meanings or particles. Instead of “I am not tormented by guilt,” it is better to say “I forgive myself, I let go of the guilt.”

Affirmation is not a magic wand that will suppress shame and guilt and open the door to a successful life. This is regular work on yourself. Without faith in exercise and regularity, it is impossible to change the situation in such a way as to get rid of the feeling of guilt.

Make a list of your positive qualities

By nurturing feelings of guilt, we lower our own self-esteem. Of course, there is no point in attributing to yourself positive qualities that you do not possess. However, it is extremely important to realize that the world is not divided only into black and white

. And even if you have committed some unseemly act (or continue to do it constantly), this does not make you a truly bad person.

Believe me, by mercilessly criticizing yourself day after day, you artificially ignore your positive traits and qualities, focusing on the negative ones. A person who is completely satisfied with himself

(if you want, a person who feels happy) is unlikely to cultivate feelings of guilt. And if it does arise, then a happy person copes with it without making much effort.

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Even if you are far from feeling inner happiness, it is recommended to resort to the old proven method: take a piece of paper and write down all the positive aspects that are characteristic of your nature

. Moreover: every time you feel another attack of guilt, take a piece of paper and write down those features of yourself that you personally like. You can repeat yourself and not be modest!

Know your strengths and weaknesses

This point quite logically follows the previous one, since only after realizing your positive qualities can you realize your strengths and weaknesses. Why is this necessary?

No matter how hard we try to ensure that no one declares us guilty, in real life conditions this is difficult to achieve. Moreover: these accusations may be completely justified, which is fertile ground for the emergence of feelings of guilt.

In order not to give feelings of guilt a single chance, you need to clearly understand which things you can do better, and which ones you are not so good at or can’t do at all. Perhaps there won’t be many qualities

that evoke positive emotions in you personally. But they certainly exist. Perhaps not everything you do can be called right, which is why, in fact, the feeling of guilt arises. But you can't do everything badly!

SIphotography/Getty Images Pro

For example, you blame yourself for not following healthy eating rules for yourself. But you probably prepare healthy and tasty food for your child! You're not romantic enough

and therefore do not give your partner the gestures of attention that he/she expects? But you provide her/him with maximum support in housekeeping, which is difficult to overestimate.

There are many such examples. It is important to be clearly aware of your strengths and weaknesses, if only so that every time you feel guilty about doing something wrong

, you could give yourself even more evidence from a list of things you regularly do right.

How to get rid of guilt: why it appears

As has already been said, guilt is akin to resentment. A person who is capable of being often and strongly offended also experiences stronger guilt. Why is this happening? Guilt appears when we do not meet the expectations of others about us. And not just anyone around us, but only loved ones, friends, those who are dear to us. By the way, they are the only ones we can be offended by. Please note that it is impossible to be offended by a person whom we do not know or know superficially. If he does something we don't like, we are more likely to feel irritated or angry.

In the case of offense, we have very specific expectations regarding a person’s behavior. And when he doesn’t justify them, we begin to be offended by him. And, accordingly, if he understands that he has let us down, he may feel guilty. That's why these feelings are interconnected. One could say that guilt arises from a mismatch between our loved ones' expectations of our behavior and the actual actions we take, but is this true? Can we be sure that we know what others' expectations of us are? Of course not.

The role of thinking in the formation of guilt

Each of us has our own beliefs, rules and beliefs. And often we unconsciously project them onto others, assuming that they should think and feel the same way as we do. Accordingly, if we do something that we ourselves do not approve of, we may feel guilty before others. But it is not at all necessary that their assessment of this event will be exactly like this. In fact, they may not be offended by us at all, or they may be offended for something else. Thus, we can say that guilt is formed as a result of the fact that we think that our behavior does not meet the expectations of other people.

Accordingly, guilt occurs when the following elements are simultaneously present:

• actual behavior towards a loved one;
• knowing or imagining the thoughts of himself and those around him or interpreting these thoughts as grievances;
• an emotional reaction regarding such a discrepancy between another person's behavior and expectations.

With the combination of these three factors, a person develops a feeling of guilt. But if he does not notice the feelings of the other person, or simply does not experience discomfort because of this mismatch, then the feeling of guilt will not arise.

Parenting and guilt

Provoking feelings of guilt is a great way to manipulate a person. Many of us were raised by our parents unconsciously using this method. By demonstratively taking offense at the child for some misdeed, they made him feel discomfort and guilt. Thus teaching that in order not to experience these emotions, we must be obedient and comfortable.

Is this method effective? Yes. Children who strive to receive love and support adapt, adjust their behavior to the expectations of their parents. But we must not forget that they do this out of fear of being rejected. And habits of thinking in this way carry over into adulthood, causing many problems for grown children. They feel obliged to meet other people's expectations and try in every possible way to achieve the approval of others. By raising a child through a constant feeling of guilt, we create the foundation for the appearance of emotional problems in the future.

Don't deny yourself little weaknesses

The constant daily struggle with guilt is a battle for life and death. This means that life in such a regime is damn exhausting even for the healthiest organism.

. Often we ourselves become opponents of our own personality, fighting with our own “I”, punishing ourselves for our actions, which plays into the hands of our feelings of guilt.

We forget that we are just people, prone to making certain mistakes, having our own little weaknesses. So don't be too hard on yourself. War is war

, and you can afford a glass of red wine during this period (especially since it will relieve stress and improve your heart rate). You can eat a bar of chocolate, which will make you feel a little happier.

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You can just buy popcorn, lock yourself in your apartment and watch some good movie. Don't deny yourself these little pleasures! Even if you are self-flagellating because you are obese

, you can sometimes please yourself with small excesses without worrying at least at this moment about excess weight. Understand: there is only one life, it flows quickly, so there is less and less time for small joys.

Do good deeds

If there is no room for good deeds in your life, then is it worth complaining that you are being eaten up by your own feelings of guilt? But once you think about the fact that you need to do something further with this destructive feeling

, then you are ready to take action, right? And the only way to act in this case is to start doing plausible actions.

You shouldn’t think too much about motivation, compare your bad and good deeds, or count the number of both. Just do good deeds and remember them when you feel guilty

. Believe me, there are a huge number of people in this world who need your good deeds. And they don't care about your motives - they just need help and will be grateful for it.

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The easiest way is to engage in charity. And even if you are not a rich person at all, there are probably few things at home that can be donated to a nursing home or orphanage; yes, just help a lonely neighbor of retirement age

! Start helping, realizing the fact that there are people who will find it extremely difficult to survive in this world without you personally; people who struggle not with guilt, but with hunger, cold, and disease.

Feelings of guilt: psychology, reasons

Negative emotions of shame, fear, and guilt are considered in psychology as moral regulators of a person’s prosocial behavior. In any society there are norms of behavior based on ideas about good and evil, good and bad. They are acquired in the process of socialization and become internal ethical norms. If a person commits a socially unacceptable act, there is a high probability of activation of one of these emotions - shame, guilt, fear - or a combination of them.

If the consequences of an action cause damage only to the person himself, then a feeling of annoyance arises, not guilt. If the occurrence of guilt is associated with a negative assessment of one’s act and does not depend on the presence of witnesses, then shame is associated with a negative assessment of one’s own personality, and appears only if someone else may become aware of the committed act. Fear arises in response to thoughts about possible exposure and punishment (fear of parental anger in psychoanalysis).

In cognitive psychology, guilt is studied as the result of a particular way of interpreting events. It occurs only with an internal locus of control - the perception of events as a consequence of one’s own efforts, the presence of positive and negative qualities. With an external locus of control—the tendency to shift responsibility for what is happening to external factors independent of the person—guilt is not experienced.

Thus, the feeling of guilt in psychology is a negatively colored feeling that arises as a result of committing actions that are, or only seem to be, the cause of negative consequences for other people.

Realize there are things you can't control

Do you know how some experts assess the desire to keep everything and everyone under control? As a sign of severe neurosis caused by a variety of reasons. And unless you are a dictator in power

in some country, then controlling everything is just an obsessive thought, a utopia that feeds your feeling of guilt, perhaps caused precisely by the fact that it is simply impossible to control everything.

It is very important to realize as quickly as possible that you are just one person in a huge world who is not able to cope with all its difficulties and problems. It's not bad and it's not good - it's a given

. This does not mean at all that you should give up and stop fighting and resolving issues. Just do what you have to do, be yourself, while realizing that you physically cannot be responsible for every little problem and situation you encounter in your life.

Neurotic guilt

Let's take the same example. The child broke his mother's favorite cup. Most often, the mother’s reaction is indignation. And this is understandable. Few people will like the fact that their favorite thing was broken. At the same time, the adult forgets that it is important to teach the child to cope with such a situation. Instead, the mother begins to scold the baby and make claims against him. The main message: “You are bad, no good. You offended your mother."

Then comes the punishment, often too severe, and then the child is supposedly forgiven. But the next time he is reminded of his misdeed.

If this situation is repeated often, the child gets used to thinking that:

• he is bad (vile, terrible, worthless);
• he is to blame for everything, everything bad is only because of him;
• he is guilty, therefore, he must be punished;
• there can be no complete forgiveness;
• he will never succeed.

The child grows up with these attitudes. This means that he will constantly find himself in situations where he feels guilty in order to unconsciously confirm his ideas. Finding himself in unpleasant situations, he will spend time punishing himself rather than correcting mistakes. And in order to avoid self-flagellation, a person will try with all his might to avoid admitting guilt and try to shift responsibility for the offense onto others.

In addition, having mastered the parents' behavior model, the already grown child will behave incorrectly with others: blame, punish, and constantly recall past grievances. All this only aggravates the feeling of guilt, increasing the neurotic state.

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What to do

• Stop practicing self-hypnosis. As long as you convince yourself that you are not to blame for anything, or go to the other extreme: “I am to blame for everything,” you will experience neurotic guilt.
• Tell yourself the truth. Admit to yourself that you feel guilty. Answer honestly the questions: in what situations does this feeling come? What exactly was done wrong? For example, “I destroyed my relationship with my loved one. I didn’t tell him about my desires, I waited for him to guess, and then she made claims and screamed.”
• Separate concepts. Since childhood, you have become accustomed to the fact that the one who is to blame is bad. But these are different things. Recognizing the fact of guilt, learn to refrain from further conclusions about your personal characteristics.
• Stop self-flagellation. This only leads to loss of energy and time.
• Correct mistakes . Once you stop wasting time on self-punishment, you can begin to correct mistakes. To do this, answer the questions: “How can I fix this?”, “What do I need to learn so as not to repeat this?” For example, in the case of a broken cup, you can simply apologize and offer some compensation.
• Ask for help. Often the feeling of guilt is so strong that it is impossible to do without the help of a competent specialist.