17 Tips for How You Get rid of Feelings of Guilt
How to deal with guilt
From time to time, we’ve all had that feeling, a sinking sensation in the pit of our stomach when we realize that we have done something wrong; forgotten someone’s birthday, spent too much money on a purchase, made an excuse to not socialize with a friend, usually harmless occurrences, but they leave us feeling guilty none the less. Guilt is a powerful emotion that we have in life that can overtake us at times.
That is not to say that guilt is a bad emotion to experience. There have been studies to show that guilt is a productive emotion to experience.
It makes us acknowledge when we are wrong, makes us work harder, and creates better leaders.
Without guilt, society wouldn’t run as smoothly and personal relationships would also suffer, we need feelings of guilt, the question is how much is too much? How much can be destructive to individuals?
If you find that you have unhealthy amounts of guilt, that affect your life and want to change this, then read on to discover seventeen tips to use to break this habit once and for all.
What are the emotional signs of guilt?
The feelings of guilt are always negative. It is often described as being a self-conscious emotion. People will often feel anxious, stressed, worried or regretful.
It can lead to people ruminating on past events replaying them over and over in their minds leading to more feelings of guilt.
Why do you feel guilty?
Guilt is an emotion that is produced by the brain, there can be no feelings of guilt without a thought preceding it.
Therefore to discover why you feel guilty, you have to examine your thoughts and to eradicate guilt from your life, you have to change the old thoughts that are creating the feelings of guilt and supplant them with new ones.
Guilt as an emotion isn’t totally negative, we generally tend to feel guilty when we have done something wrong, forgotten a birthday, for example, or broken rules, either societies or our ethics.
This emotion can be something that we can learn from and can end up being a positive force for good.
We so often in life want to eradicate all negative emotions from our lives, have no negative experiences, and spend all of our time feeling happy.
To live a full-rounded life though, we have to experience all emotions and feelings.
The trick is learning to control this emotion so that you don’t feel guilty all of the time, or so that you are not made to feel guilty as a way of control by other people. This has to be an emotion that is used for good not to create negatives.
17 Tips to erase the guilt you feel
If you find that you have unhealthy amounts of guilt, that affect your life and you want to change this, then read on to discover seventeen tips to use to break this habit once and for all.
Change what you tell yourself
What we think and feel can come through years of self-talk, often negative self-talk as well.
Changing your internal monologue can change the way that you think and feel. For years we can stick to the same narrative, and often without realizing what we think about is what we bring about.
If you consistently blame yourself for everything, put yourself down or talk negatively about yourself, this is what you need to change first.
Start supplanting negative thoughts with positive ones, and soon feelings of guilt will begin to subside. Start to see the good in yourself rather than look for the bad.
Get to understand your feelings
Getting to know why you think and behave in a certain way is crucial to understanding why you react the way that you do. Confusing emotions or masking your feelings can bring about feelings of guilt.
Thinking that you don’t deserve to be treated a certain way can make you feel guilty, and believing limiting beliefs about yourself can lead you to feel guilty when you shouldn’t. Learning to understand yourself and your true feelings will help you to overcome feelings of guilt that shouldn’t be there.
3. Take affirmative action
If you have done something to someone else that has made you feel guilty, then the best way to ease these feelings is to take some affirmative action towards them and apologize.
Making amends for wrongdoing is the first step to easing guilt.
An apology will convey remorse and regret to the person that you hurt and even if it doesn’t produce immediate forgiveness, it will help you to begin to heal.
If you are prone to feeling guilty because of all that you have in life, then start doing charity work, volunteering or donating money as a way to give back and ease your feelings of guilt.
4. Learn to forgive yourself
Learning to forgive yourself can be a powerful tool to have in life. We are all human and all make mistakes from time to time. Constantly beating yourself up and feeling guilty is not going to make it better.
Learning self-compassion and how to forgive yourself can move you away from constant feelings of guilt.
Learning forgiveness can prevent shame from developing in your mind. Shame is a destructive, negative emotion that will not serve you well.
5. Learn from past mistakes
If you have committed wrongdoing that has led to feelings of guilt, the only course of action once you have apologized is to learn from the mistakes that you have made.
Failing to learn from your mistakes will leave you stuck, instead ask yourself such questions as;
What led to the mistake that you made?
How would you do things differently again?
What has this taught you about yourself?
Accept mistakes that you have made and learn from them, don’t spend time thinking about what happened but why and how you can change things in the future. Find the lesson that you have learned and then don’t repeat it.
6. Recognise the guilt that is there
Do you even know that what you are suffering is guilt? You may be suffering from a myriad of physical and emotional symptoms but you are not associating it with feeling guilty.
Recognising that you are feeling guilty is one of the first steps to eradicating it from your life.
7. Understand what is actually causing the guilt
Do you have all of the feelings of guilt but are unsure as to what is actually causing it?
It could be a long-held memory that keeps resurfacing or a passing comment that somebody has said that is making you feel guilty.
You need to understand and identify why you are feeling guilty before you can remove the guilt from your life.
8. Remember that you are a good person
Everyone is going to make mistakes in life as no one is perfect. We can all be very judgemental of ourselves at times, especially when we believe that we have made mistakes or done something to hurt someone else.
You need to remember that you are a good person, who unfortunately at times is going to make mistakes, this is no reason to live a life full of guilt.
9. If possible apologize for your actions
If you know that you have done something to someone that is making you feel guilty, then if possible apologize to them. This is one of the quickest and easiest ways to remove the feeling of guilt that you may be having.
Even if it is difficult for you to apologize, you will find that once you have done so you will feel better.
10. Banish negative thinking and self-talk
Are you someone who constantly thinks negatively about yourself or who talks yourself down? These actions can bring about feelings of guilt.
You may not even have anything to feel guilty about but constant negative self-talk and negative feelings towards yourself can lead to you feeling guilty.
Start to talk positively to yourself, acknowledge what a good person you are, and your positive traits and speak to yourself only using positive, affirmative language.
11. Realize everybody makes mistakes
So you did something wrong, you are human it happens to everybody. There will not be a person anywhere in the world who at some time or another hasn’t made mistakes. The difference is that some people when they do make mistakes either get over them straight away or don’t even let them bother them, they just continue through life regardless.
Understanding that you are not alone will make it easier to remove feelings of guilt. You will no doubt make more mistakes as you go through life, this is to be expected and not something to feel constantly guilty over.
12. Speak to your support group
If you are lucky enough to have a network of people around you with whom you can speak then do.
A support group can help you to understand why it is that you are feeling the way that you are and can help you to replace negative thoughts with more positive helpful ones.
13. Keep a perspective on your guilt
Are you blowing your guilt completely out of proportion? Often when you ruminate on a problem, it can get bigger and bigger in your mind the more that you think about it. Try and keep a perspective on your guilt, it may not be as bad as you think it is.
14. Use the power of gratitude to ease feelings of guilt
Gratitude has an amazing ability to make us see everything more clearly. If you are feeling guilty about not being more grateful for your life, then you can change this by practising gratitude daily.
Having a lot in life can also make some people feel guilty. Being grateful for all that you have can put your feelings into perspective. Moving away from guilt to gratitude will help you to accept all that you have in life.
15. Practice self-kindness
Be kind to yourself to remove feelings of guilt. Instead of constantly knocking yourself, try building yourself up. People who have higher levels of self-esteem and self-confidence won’t be prone to as many feelings of guilt.
When you think better about yourself you won’t hold space for as many negative thoughts. Start practising self-kindness to see how your thoughts and feelings begin to change.
16. Put your thoughts into a journal
Journaling is a very simple yet effective way of analysing your thoughts. We all have so many thoughts each day that it is difficult to keep up with what thoughts are causing what emotions.
Writing down your thoughts and feelings in a journal is the best way to empty your mind and enable you to examine your thoughts more objectively. A journal can help you to establish the thinking that is causing your feelings of guilt and can help you to work through ways to banish these thoughts.
17. Work with a life coach
A life coach can help you when you are finding it difficult to help yourself. A coach can give you the time, tools and understanding to delve deep into why you are thinking and feeling the way that you are.
Working with a coach can help you to see your life from a different perspective and can help you to understand where you need to make changes.
A coach is there to support you and to offer guidance, not to judge you. They should offer you a safe space to work through your feelings of guilt and help you eradicate them from your life.
Final thoughts
Let guilt serve you, not control you. Following the tips above can help you break away from the harm that you are doing to yourself.
Breaking away from current thinking and adopting a new thought system can help you move forward without residual guilt following you.
If you are concerned that you can’t work through your feelings alone then working with a Coach can help you to develop tools and techniques that you can apply to your life to get you moving forward.
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