How to Let Guilt Work for You

Guilt is perhaps the most powerful teacher and motivator that you have to behave more wisely in the present than you did in the past. Every action we take offers us a lesson in life of what works. Guilt teaches us that what we did back then did not pay off as we had hoped. The instant that you find yourself feeling guilty about any action or choice, take the feeling of guilt as a very important and valuable wake up call.

The deeper your regret over the past (even over a choice you made one minute ago), the stronger your motivation to do better. The feeling of genuine inner peace is a symptom of making the choice that really works for you. Think about what you did that causes you to feel badly now, and consider what you can do to feel more satisfied with your choice from now on.

For instance, if you feel guilty over having an affair in your marriage, you can channel your guilt feelings into the ultimate desire, drive and commitment to be a better mate, to establish healthier boundaries for yourself, to more honestly consider the damage of giving into a temptation before you do so.

Guilt becomes destructive when you do not discipline yourself to consciously experience the full force of the pain, because you then go on an unconscious "bender", if you will, aimed at appearing to be the fine person that you yourself do not believe you are. You become increasingly insecure about others' opinions of you, and experience the paranoia of believing that others are in some way out to get you, because on an unconscious level you fear they sense your secret and you regard that as a threat. The longer you resist facing the pangs of guilt arising within you, the more you numb yourself to yourself, causing you to gradually feel like you are dying in some spiritual or emotional way, and losing the real you that you first became acquainted with in childhood. This brings on depression.

Although it can be frightening, certainly painful, and somewhat debilitating for a time, when you feel a pang of guilt, take some time to turn it into a very conscious experience. Just stop doing so much so you can focus on feeling more fully whatever it is that you feel. Keep your body relaxed so that you do not resist the feeling of guilt flowing through you. Resisting your guilty feelings does not resolve them; it drives them deeper. After just feeling how you feel for a while, try to clearly state exactly what it is you feel guilty about. Do this in writing, if you can, because that helps you to focus more clearly (the therapeutic value of "confession". The next step is to identify what you can do now to direct all of the power of your guilt feelings into doing so much good right now (the therapeutic value of "repentance") that you feel genuinely at peace. The pain of guilt lessens as you commit with deepening determination to do that good that brings you genuine peace.

Finally, it helps to understand that guilt is a natural, inevitable and healthy part of the human experience. Everything we do in life is an experiment. Every human being has the occasional opportunity to see how a choice led to regrettable consequences. Believing that you should always get it right the first time, and basing your self-worth on that, dooms you to continue repeating the same mistakes and to feeling worse and worse about yourself. Facing guilt is an essential means to learn and grow into better human beings. Regret is the dark side of enlightenment, the darkness that precedes the dawn of greater wisdom. As you recognize the action that led to your guilt feelings, think about the new and better way to live that this lesson points to.

If you do not follow that new way, now, the guilt turns into depression and leads to more destructive behavior. The key to harnessing the transformative power of guilt is to face the full brunt of it, to clearly see how you can do now something similar to what you wish you had done, and then to engage yourself so totally in the new, more wise way of living that you have no energy left to grieve over the past. Thus, guilt, lived through consciously, leads to a life of deepening meaning and fulfillment.