Guilt

Guilt - October 2012

by Laura A Collins (Notes) on Monday, November 12, 2012 at 3:19pm

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‎"Generally the crisis worker sees guilt as a pretty useless emotion, consumptive of energy that could be used in other, more positive ways.  Guilt is invariably an emotion of the past, and whatever was done can never again be retrieved.  It is one thing to learn from one's past mistakes and quite another to carry past, unfinished business into the present, particularly when one is feeling guilty ...

about not measuring up."  page 552, Crisis Intervention Strategies (2008), by Richard K. James.

I found this particularly striking.  How many times do we "feel guilty" when instead we should learn, accept, and move on.  Sometimes, I believe feeling guilty is the easy choice.  It is much harder to say, "I did this.  I do not like the result.  I am changing what I do NOW." 

If instead of guilt, we look at the event, the circumstances surround the event, and we assess these things, then we have an opportunity to grow past the event which caused problem.  We have a chance to understand what we have done and to change that which we do not like.

I resolve to refuse to feel guilty, and instead to accept the challenges of my mistakes as an opportunity to learn and as the reality of impetus to growth.