What is guilt? Guilt is feeling responsible or regretful for perceived offense, real or imaginary. We have an innate ability to take guilt on as our own, whether we are actually guilty or not. Merriam-Webster says it's the fact of having committed a breach of conduct, especially violating law and involving a penalty, a punishment. When we do something wrong, we feel like we need to be punished. Guilt deserves punishment, right? When we do something wrong as a child, we get punished. Maybe you got spanked; maybe you got yelled at; maybe you got beat; maybe you got sent to your room; maybe you got grounded. We're taught as children that when you do something wrong, when you are bad, when you are naughty, you get punished; because you are guilty; because you are bad. We as children learn to take on the sins of the world. We learn to take on the guilt of things that are even not our fault. We learn to take on the guilt of the moods of our parents. Often because our parents will absentmindedly put that weight upon us. It's not because our parents are necessarily bad people. It's because they don't think, before they speak; because they don't understand; because they don't know any better; because they're living their own life and having a hard time; because they don't recognize how the things that they say affect us as children. For example: You run into the room and say ‘Mommy Mommy look what I made’ and Mommy drops the dinner or Mommy cuts herself or you make mommy jump and she spills her drink. Mommy says a simple sentence like ‘Look what you made me do, look what you made mommy do’ and gets mad. Now you're not happy anymore. You're not excited and Mommy's very mad. You take that blame on yourself. I made mommy mad. Now you feel that you have so much guilt and responsibility when it comes to Mommy's moods. Maybe you're supposed to clean your room, and you don't clean your room. Mommy gets mad at you and she punishes you and she says you go sit in your room until it's clean. That afternoon, you hear mommy and daddy having a big fight. Then, Daddy leaves. Mommy comes to you and tells you that daddy's not coming home. She didn't say it was your fault, but you look around your messy room, and as a child, you say to yourself ‘It's my fault that Daddy left because I didn't clean my room. It's my fault that he left cuz I'm a bad girl. I'm a bad girl who doesn't listen to her mommy and daddy. I made daddy leave because I was bad.’ Obviously this isn’t true, but as a child, we don’t know that, and it plants one of those roots, a root called Guilt. Fast-forward that guilt 10 years. Now you're 15 and you think you're a bad girl. You make people leave, because you're a bad girl. Why would you even try to be nice because you're just going to make people leave. So you lash out and you act out. You get into trouble. You curse out your mother. You yell at your teachers. You get suspended in school. You get bad grades, because it's all your fault that your life went to hell. It's all your fault that your dad left. It's all your fault that your mom cries at night. You don't deserve to have anyone be nice to you. You don't deserve to live in a nice room. You don't deserve to have any good things. It's your fault. Everything that's bad, everything that's happening is your fault. There's that vine that has grown from the root of your guilt... Let's fast forward another 10 years. You are 25. You moved out. You have a job. You're working. You're doing the things that normal people do, but you're still carrying that guilt, that root. You have a man in your life. He's very nice, but you're always looking for something to go wrong. You're always looking for that other shoe to drop. You're always looking for a reason to jet out the door. You don't deserve to have this nice guy, because you're bad. You're a bad girl and something bad is going to happen any minute. It's going to be your fault. He's going to leave because you're a bad girl. You made your dad leave, so why wouldn't this guy leave? So the first chance you get, you do something to screw the relationship up. He leaves and that's all the proof you need that you're a bad girl. It's all your fault. You don't deserve to have someone who loves you. You will do this over and over and over again in your life. You will sabotage every relationship that you are in, because you're a bad girl. It's your fault that people leave you. You don't deserve to have somebody good in your life. This is just one of many, many, many ways the guilt can affect us. These are a few of the ways guilt manifests. These are just a few examples of the way guilt’s vines crawl into our lives and wrap themselves around every piece of our lives. Guilt Vines can crawl in a different direction. This is part 15 of a series of excerpt from Simple Spirituality of Self e-book channeled by me during my Awakening If you would like to read the entire book NOW for $3 and support the continuous exploration of this Awakening we all share- Click this link
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