Merry Christmas! To celebrate, I want to take a break from talking about our crazy world to focus on something that hits a little closer to home this time of the year: how to get rid of unnecessary guilt.
Below is an excerpt from my 2019 book, “You Can Visit, but You Can’t Live There: Keys to Living Free.”
A woman walked into Sarah’s counseling office and proceeded to tell her about an event that happened when she was in her twenties. Beth (we’ll call her) was planning a birthday party for her mother, which happened to be the same day that her father was scheduled to run a leg of the city’s marathon with a team of co-workers. At his daughter’s request, the father switched his section of the relay to earlier in the day so that he could make the party.
Beth’s father had just completed a half-mile hill. As he approached his daughter, who was waiting for him at the relay point, he dropped dead from a heart attack.
Beth conveyed to Sarah that she believed her father would still be alive if she hadn’t asked him to change the leg of his relay. Now, over thirty years later, this woman was still holding on to guilt over her father’s death.
We all carry unnecessary guilt. I like to compare guilt to an accessory that we wear or take with us everywhere we go. For women, it’s like a purse or scarf; for men, it’s like a belt around their waist. We just can’t leave home without it. We wear that guilt like it’s our job and would feel naked without it.
Sometimes, we have our guilt under control and we’re able to hide it in the form of a small handbag or a tasteful belt buckle. There are other times when the guilt is so big and so loud that it overpowers us. We allow it to define us, as was the case with the woman mentioned above.
Unwarranted guilt can be a very destructive force in our lives because it steals our joy and diverts our attention from what is most important. If not properly understood and processed, guilt can make us feel helpless.
Not All Guilt Is Bad
Whether we realize it or not, guilt—like most emotions—serves a purpose in the human experience.
The pain that we experience when we “feel guilty” is a warning signal that something is off balance. In the same way that physical pain is an indication of a problem in our body, guilt can be an indication of a threat to our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
These feelings of guilt can be compared to one of those annoying alerts that we get on our cell phone warning us of potentially destructive weather in our area. Sometimes the threat is real and sometimes it’s not. For example, in January of 2018, an emergency alert was accidently sent out to over a million cell phones that a ballistic missile was headed toward one of the Hawaiian Islands. Obviously (thank God!), that was a false alarm. The point is that we shouldn’t ignore guilt; we just need to address it properly.
Guilt occurs when our actions don’t align with our belief system. This can work in both directions: we can believe that our actions are justified when they are not, or we can believe that—because of our insatiable desire to be perfect—our actions are inexcusable when they should be considered acceptable.
When to Change Your Behavior
As human beings we have a built-in, God-given sensor to alert us to trouble…also known as our conscience. The more we listen to our conscience, the stronger it becomes.
At times, feelings of guilt can even be very productive. They alert us that our behavior is not aligning with the goals that we’ve set for ourselves. If my goal is to run a marathon, the nagging feeling of guilt when I don’t complete the ten-mile run on my training schedule is going to help keep me on track. Or my guilty conscience for eating two pieces of cake at that party should motivate me to seriously limit my carb intake starting Monday morning.
The more determined I am to reach my objectives, the stronger the sense of guilt will be when I deviate from my plan. This is one of the reasons that high achievers very commonly struggle with performance anxiety. Their guilt reflex is on steroids.
When to Change Your Beliefs
There are other times, however, when our behavior is within acceptable limits, but our belief system is out of whack. Even when I follow the diet or exercise plan or reading schedule, I’m still haunted by the feeling that I’m not doing enough.
We have this nagging sense that there was more that we could have done, should have done, could have anticipated, must have known, and on and on. There can be a lot of different causes for this but the most common one is our deep-seated need to be perfect, all of the time.
This very common but very faulty belief that we should act, think, talk, walk, eat, sleep, work, play, perform, parent, etc. perfectly all the time is the primary culprit to many of our anxiety-related issues. We all know intellectually that perfection is impossible, and yet we think we need to hold ourselves to that standard anyway.
Back to the story at the beginning of the chapter…
My friend Sarah was able to wisely assess the situation. After taking some time to listen to her client’s story, Sarah stopped her to ask what share of the responsibility in his death belonged to her father. Wow, Beth was stunned because she had never considered that.
Sarah pointed out that her father must have run past half a dozen emergency responders on his way to the hand-off point. He had to have been in very serious pain—possibly even for days—leading up to a heart event of that magnitude. It’s possible that her father made a conscious decision to run the marathon anyway, even though he knew something wasn’t right.
And even if this wasn’t the case, his daughter’s request to change his schedule didn’t cause the heart attack—a blockage in his artery did.
The guilt that this poor woman had experienced for the last three decades (!) was the result of a faulty belief system that concluded that her event planning was somehow 100 percent responsible for her father’s death.
The Wrap-Up
Guilt specifically, and pain in general, is not the enemy. Emotional and physical pain are warning signs to alert us to a problem. God put mechanisms in place to protect us so that we don’t harm ourselves. In the same way that we maintain our vehicles and other complex systems, we need to pay careful attention to our conscience to prevent it from breaking down.
God has given you a sound mind to be able to discern what is true and what is false. You don’t have to internalize every impulse of guilt that comes your way. Take it out, look at it, then determine if this is a warning signal to change your behavior or your beliefs.
We don’t have to wear all this unhealthy guilt like it’s just another part of our wardrobe. Get rid of it. Don’t over-accessorize.
Thanks for much for reading and remember to always pursue the Truth.
If you liked this post, you’ll love “You Can Visit, but You Can’t Live There: Keys to Living Free.” Click here to view on Amazon.
This book makes a great last-minute gift for someone in your life who struggles occasionally with fear, anxiety, or guilt. (Hint: We ALL do!)