Good morning! Do we know each other? My name is Sense of Guilt. Surely we have met … it is possible that you may have shunned me a few times, but most likely you carry me in your pocket with you every day, at work, with family, among friends.
I’m a little heavy aren’t I? I know you would gladly do without me … or maybe not, maybe you really don’t want to let me go
maybe I am useful to you and so ….so long as you think I can be useful to you I … I’m with you
Does this seem strange to you? Try to think about it ….why do you need me?
Because if you can blame someone or something for your state of malaise or unhappiness you feel, for a brief moment, you find peace. In truth it is a split second, that moment when you point your finger and say, “It’s his fault!”
Unfortunately, already the next split second is a harbinger of suffering, frustration and perhaps …dinuovo guilt …this time all yours …for saying, thinking, speaking in certain terms that … “don’t fit.”
What a trap!
And how many things don’t you do, don’t you say, don’t you allow yourself because they might risk feeding me? I am well pastured myself!
You would like to go on a trip ….but your husband doesn’t want to ..and then better give up
You would like to make time for yourself again …but you know children ….devoke giving up
You would like to tell your mother that you are grown up and want to live your life …but how would that make her feel?…it will be for another time, it takes patience
I’ll tell you a secret, against my better judgment: being responsible for one’s own happiness and/or unhappiness …sometimes it’s scary …that’s when having me with you is perfect!
I’ll take care of it to de-empower you, to comfort you for a moment by telling you that …you are a victim of the situation…that poor thing you have your hands tied, you can only stand by the way things are ….then you know, life is suffering mostly.
Ah yes, in those moments I’m really comforting…you’re right about not wanting to let go.
Of course, when this moment of “comfort” is succeeded by anger and frustration ….uh….then I would run for the hills! because I feel that it gets bad for me ….that I could be thrown out at any moment ….
But I have known you since you were little and I know how to keep you at bay …. Believe me, it’s a snap to make yourself feel guilty for feeling anger and frustration. Ah sorry, I didn’t introduce you to my cousin: her name is Manipulation. I often carry it with me.
But do you remember how you and I met? When did our story begin?
I think I came to you when you were quite young, I usually make my appearance in people’s lives at a very young age, sometimes I am called to accompany a person as early as when they are in the womb! Hard work!
It may have happened that you came into the world feeling unwanted, thinking that your arrival may have brought suffering to your parents. You know it’s what I enjoy calling “the original fault.” Or it may be that, in a completely unconscious way, your parents, not being able to give themselves the life they would have dreamed of, made you believe that they made sacrifices and actions at their expense, just for your sake … thus triggering a good deal of guilt in you that you will never again feel free in life to do anything that can make you happy.
Or you may have been welcomed in the best way, loved, pampered, protected … and every time you tried to manifest yourself for what you were, a child with his own character, his own tastes his own desires, and this was not perfectly in line with their idea of the perfect child….you felt guilty. You are not the perfect child! after all they did for you!
Yes I do believe that we met when you were little. And yes, I admit, that’s me, the guilt that grips the child who is afraid of hurting or disappointing those who love him, that still comes to visit you today …. while you would like to say something to your wife or husband, your mother or father, your employer or your children.
It is always me who …who today, as then, insinuates myself between what you desire and what you feel compelled to do in order not to feel guilty about disregarding others’ expectations.
And so you live in eternal dilemma….I see you you know? like a pendulum swinging from complete delegation (I do as my wife, my husband, my child wants) to a sense of exasperation rebellion (enough! now I’m going to tell everyone to go to hell and do as I say!).
And I am a little bit sorry, although not very much, because I know that by doing so you will not abandon me … However, I can see that as you “swing” from one side to the other you are always in my trap. How about you? do you see it?
If you agree to live the life you don’t want in order not to feel guilty ….you will be hurt …. if you decide to blow it all up, that is, you move on the impetus of a re-action …before long it is likely that I would be sick again
Why? because choosing in peace and (emotional) autonomy is another thing. Let me tell you. It means taking an action, going toward something you have chosen and not running away from something (as you do when you react)
You know what? I’m a little tired, too. All this work…all this always being called the cause…. except that I would risk disappearing …and I don’t want to disappear …sometimes I hear a part of you that …try to pronounce the word …RESPONSIBILITY …what a long word! complicated! and then what could it possibly mean! I am no friend of responsibility.
I have heard that to be responsible means to be skillful in responding. You? Able to respond? To the things of life?
Come on, do you really think you can do that? Do you really think you could go far without me?
Dear sense of guilt, thank you for this monologue. I listened to you, as I often do throughout the day. I also enjoyed reading how you see me … But now I have to tell you, I’m tired, I feel time slipping away, and I feel there’s too much worthwhile.
You are right, we met when I was little, you kept me company so much I was afraid to be alone.
Today I realized that what is preventing me from living the life I desire is not you, but my idea of myself that I have had until today by looking at myself through your eyes.
Today I realized that what is still holding me back is that child who is so afraid of not being loved and accepted for who he is.
And today, that I am grown up, I know that I can take that child with me into the wonderful world of responsibility and free will. I will accompany him step by step, give him courage, make him feel that he has nothing to fear, that my love will never lose him, and that together, whole and open to life, we can free husband, wife, mother, grandmother, father, employer and children from all the guilt I have attributed to them over the years to justify my unhappiness.
Thank you for accompanying me this far, you have been my traveling companion….but today I ask you to get off: train leaving, next station: happiness.
