Guilt is a useful human feeling. It guides us and teaches us what to do right. However, guilt can go to far, and end up hindering our growth. How then can we know when guilt has gone to far, and how to fix it?
You can decrease your guilt by observing your intentions with the actions, and realizing that the consequences may not have been the intentions of the actions.
That is the best advice I can give you. But the truth is this advice is not exactly extensive. So, I will break it down further, and explain the actionable steps you can take to reach these points.
How Does Guilt Affect Your Life?
Guilt can impact your physiology, resulting in depressive and anxious symptoms. This can lead to you being less productive and engaged with your life, and thus being more depressed.
I’d been thinking about some of the things I’ve done in my life. Some of the people I’ve hurt. I felt atrocious about it, and found that the more I think about them, the less I feel like working. I got some help on how to help alleviate those feelings.
This then made me realize that those techniques can also be used to alleviate some productivity guilt. This will help improve your productivity.
You need to overcome your guilt if you want to be a good writer. Guilt is a “bad” feeling. When building a routine, you want to associate “good” feelings with the routine, such as pride, excitement, curiosity and joy.
If you associate your bad feelings with the routine, then the thought of the routine will tire you, leaning to not wanting to do the routine. This is a topic I wrote more extensive about here, along with the solutions.
A study by science direct found that guilt can hinder your productivity, proving what I just said. It even goes as far as encouraging people to change their perception of leisure time so that they can learn to enjoy it, thus improving their productivity, and alleviating guilt. Specifically, productivity guilt in this case.
So, how can you forgive yourself? For the things you’ve done in the past. The things you’ve done to people, things you’ve done to yourself (procrastinating when you should have been working) and things you do that hurt yourself?
How Do You Forgive Yourself For Not Working Hard Enough?
1. Look at Your Intentions, Not Your Guilt
The first step to forgiving yourself, and learning to see your self as a human is to contextualize yourself in a more humane manner.
Society has a lot of boxes. Boxes are these massive simplified classifications for people. They are either creeps, monsters, or evil.
But we all know that’s not true.
It has become something of a meme now, but we all know that there is more to a villain than meets the eye. The things they do may be horrible, but when we contextualize the villain. When we learn why they did what they did. We start to see the human within, and then we see how we too would have ended up doing the same thing as them.
Guilt, and seeing yourself as a monster distances you from yourself and makes you feel shame for being you. In reality, your actions were shameful, not you.
You are a human.
Your actions came from a place of sense, and ration, even if that ration or sense is twisted. So the first step to forgiving yourself is learning to recognize that reason. You need to learn your intentions. What were you trying to do when you did what you did? What were you trying to gain?
It could be that you were trying to gain control. Or you were anxious, and scared, so you wanted to feel safe.
In some instances, you may discover that you forgive yourself simply because you realize the consequences of your actions were not your intentions. Maybe you were trying to help, and things went completely out of hand. So this is your way of fixing the problem.
For example, maybe you decided not to work at that time because you wanted to give yourself more time to prepare, only to end up never working.
2. Look At What Formed You
The second thing you could try is viewing how you grew to start thinking the way you think, since it could be the main reason that you ended up getting these results.
The reasoning here is fairly simple.
Sometimes people feel an impulse, and they act on that impulse or instinct. Only after it is all over do they realize how terrible what they did is.
This is the result of upbringing and formation.
The first step is to ask what your family background was like. It could be that you grew up in an familial situation where that behavior was conducive, and emotional expression only happened in that manner.
An example of this is someone who grows up in a family where yelling and aggression is the best way to communicate. Then it could end up being that this person meets someone who they like. Things go well, and the person suddenly finds they are slightly frightened by something. Rather than communicating properly, they start a fight and do things that they regret a lot later.
The second thing to look at is your childhood experiences. This is different from family because it focus on your general childhood outside of family dynamics. Meaning things like school. So what were your dynamics with your peers, or school mates like? Were you perhaps bullied by your friends and made to feel like you had to put up with it or you would forever be lonely?
An example of this is someone who laughs when being bullied, and accepts the cruel treatments. They may decide they are interested in writing at some point, but they never actually can get themselves to write. This is because they were called stupid, and they hesitate to write, because that could just prove it.
The third thing to do is compile these reasons into a long list. Put action, and a direct childhood dynamic/ familial dynamic that led to that action .e.g. “action=I am avoidant, and avoid writing; direct childhood/familial dynamic= I was told I would not amount to anything by my aunt’s and avoided fighting them, so I just keep on avoiding things”.
3. Look At You Now
The third step is to observe your feelings at this very moment, and any other moment after you successful do what you wanted to do that you are guilty about.
At the moment you are about to do what you will later feel guilty about, you usually feel a strong sense of relief, or release. You usually feel pleasure, and satisfaction.
When you look back at that moment, you realize you would not mind getting to feel that same pleasure again. This then makes you guiltier, and it makes you realize how terrible of a person you are.
So look at you now.
As you are reading this, how do you feel? How did you feel when you searched for this topic? You probably weren’t feeling pride. Also, you were not feeling a craving to do the thing again.
You were feeling bad.
This is who you really are. You need to start seeing that. You are a person who ended up doing something pretty bad, but that does not mean you are a bad person. So, you should not believe that. You are a person who does not feel good about the bad thing that you’ve done.
So you are a person who does not want to do it again.
It sounds so simplistic, but this idea is actually life changing. Upon realizing this, not only will you start having more trust in yourself, but you will have more fuel to make a change.
4. Look At What You’ve Done Since Then
The fourth step is to look at what you have done since the thing that you have done.
So, you’ve done what you’ve done. You have betrayed someone, disappointed someone, angered someone, or you have failed to do that thing that you said you were going to do.
Since that moment, what have you done?
For most people, they would spend each waking second languishing over that moment. Sometimes you may meet someone who says they do not care about what they’ve done. They may say they haven’t felt anything since then.
But they are drowning themselves.
Whether it be on food, substances, sex, TV/entertainment, or even work or school. You will find that ever since what they have done, the person has drowned themselves for hours in some sort of activities. This is suppression and avoidance. If you have to suppress something, that means it is there.
You do care.
And that is a good thing.
The caring, and the things you have been doing since your action are a prime indication of your humanity, and your good spirit.
You need to look at the thing that you have been doing since then, and upon seeing these suppressive measures, it will become even clearer to you. Your actions consequences were not exactly your intentions.
You may have been trying to scratch some deep subconscious thing, and ended up doing what you did. That is normal.
5. Take Responsibility For Your Guilt
The fifth thing that you must do is begin taking responsibility.
This is where it was all leading up too.
Now you know your childhood hiccups. You know that the conseqeuences of what you did were not your intentions (because of step 1), and you know what the intentions of you actions were (because of step 2 which should show you what it formed you to be).
Now, you need to do the opposite of the step 2.
This step is exceptionally hard.
The whole reason you ended up who you are was to protect you, and allow you to operate. if you became aggressive, it was an attempt to retain control. If you because avoidant, it was an attempt to protect yourself. In this step, you need to rewire yourself, and open yourself to all those things you built your walls to protect yourself.
You must relinquish control. You must drop your protection. In this step, you must take responsibility.
6. Apologize To Those Who Were Harmed By Your Actions
The sixth step is that you must apologize to all the people you have hurt.
So for a more concrete idea of what it means to take responsibility for your actions, you could start with apologizing.
You can take your phone, and call those you have hurt. Apologize for your actions. In most instances, they would advise you start with the apologizing, but I kept it last for one simple reason.
Why?
The person is going to ask you why did you do what you do. Most people are content with saying they do not know. Or that they made a mistake. They may even say because they are human. These reasons are too vague, detached, and almost unapologetic.
I think it is better that you start by figuring out your intentions, and how you were formed first, then you can apologize.
When the person asks you why you did what you did, you will tell them what your intentions were. You will then tell them how your childhood and familial dynamics formed you to have those intentions, even though they are twisted.
This the best form of apology. Not because it will convince them to forgive you, and take you back (I do not know if this will do that), but because it leaves you completely bare. You are beyond vulnerable to the person.
This will make you strong.
When you stop blocking your vital organs, and walk standing up straight, your body releases hormones that make you stronger. So, make sure that you do this more often. Even on a spiritual level.
This form of an apology, exposing your intentions, and childhood formations, is an apology that leaves you spiritually standing up straight.
For full transparency, I have not done it yet. It is just so scary for me. But I know that it will work. I just feel it. So if I can point someone else to the promised land that even I have not reached, then that is good. As long as one of us makes it to their best shape, then I am happy.
If I can’t beat it in me, then I can hopefully beat it in others.
7. Physically Visit The Locations Where Your Actions Happened
The seventh step is to physically visit the locations where this happened.
This step is a more psychological effect.
Sometimes, we want to avoid the truth of what we have done. So, we physically avoid the place where we did what we did.
You need to go there.
Go to the place where you avoided doing your work. This is most useful for productivity guilt. You may find you do not even go to the page where they have that tutorial. Go to that page.
Physically going there will allow you to reach a form of closure.
8. Leave Yourself Alone
The final thing that you need to do is leave yourself alone.
On my video, I gave the example of a child accidentally dropping ice cream on the floor. Then, the parent looks at the child and starts yelling them. They call they call the child stupid, useless, and a loser. What would you do? Most people would tell the guy to leave the child alone.
So, leave yourself alone.
Yes what you did was bad, irresponsible, and mean. But you have already punished yourself enough for it. You have paid multiple times over. Anymore suffering is too much.
Any more suffering that you expose yourself too will hinder you from mastering mastery.