Guilt is rooted in actions of the past, perpetuated in the lack of action in the present and delivered in the future as pain and suffering. The beauty of life is, while we cannot undo what has been done, we can understand it, learn from it and change ourselves so that every new moment is spent not in regret, guilt, fear or anger but in wisdom, understanding and love.
Guilt does not change our past. Guilt does not make our futures better. Guilt does not help others or ourselves. Guilt blinds us from the ability to change, grow and improve. Guilt, really serves no purpose, but to make us feel bad. It is time to let go of guilt. When thinking about life, remember that no amount of guilt can solve the past and no amount of anxiety can change the future.
You become stuck in guilt when you have disconnected from your innate ability to love yourself and forgive your mistakes. Feeling different degrees of shame or guilt after making a mistake is a good thing, but it is not good when those feelings do not go away after you recognize and learn from your mistakes. Lingering guilt robs you of your natural state of innocence and keeps you from feeling a healthy sense of worth and happiness.
Feelings of guilt come to us for many reasons. You could feel uncomfortable asking for or asserting your needs or wants, you are a good and nice person but you have a hard time saying no to others. You often care too much what others think about you. You forfeit your self-esteem each time you deny your needs to please others.Being stuck in guilt keeps us from loving ourselves. Either we turn off our feelings because it is too painful or the guilt just eats at us day by day. Guilt grips hold and does not let go sometimes.
Feeling guilty is the first step, if we are indeed guilty. But, we need to learn from this and forgive ourselves. Some carry guilty feelings an entire lifetime due to past circumstances. Little mistakes can haunt us for a lifetime if we don’t know how to get unstuck from the guilt. It can confine us, torture and destroy us. Guilt is like a thief in our life that keeps stealing from us. It robs us of happiness, joy, love and moving forward in life.
As we get older, we need to realize that we still deserve to be loved even though we make mistakes. To acknowledge a mistake and then correct ourselves, we do not need to hold on to guilt or shame. We just need to feel it, and then come back to a sincere desire to learn from and grow from our mistake.
When we recognize that we make a mistake, we naturally feel ashamed that we did not know better. Although we may think we should have known better, we did not. Ultimately, people always do what they think is the best thing to do. Nobody walks through life thinking “I want to make mistakes”.
Self-forgiveness recognizes that we are worthy and truly a good person inside. The place to come back to when we release shame or innocence. When we are able to forgive ourselves, once again we feel worthy of good things in life. When we feel stuck in guilt, we tend to sacrifice too much for the people we care about and do not think enough about ourselves. To achieve success in life, we must feel worthy, feel deserving of good things.
An exciting and inspiring future awaits you beyond the noise in your mind, beyond the guilt, fear, shame, insecurity and heaviness of the past you carry around. Forgive yourself, we all can learn from the past and live happily in our present and future. You are so deserving!
