If our feelings are signals meant to guide us in life, then guilt is a fantastic guide to tie into. It is one of those feelings that will shoot through us the moment we’ve ‘done something wrong’ and will easily be fed from our resulting thoughts and actions.
In my book Break Free of Parenting Pressures I mention that you can’t send someone on a guilt trip unless their bags are already packed. I hate to say it my bags seem to be packed and ready to go at a moments notice.
A trick I have found over the years to help me stand my ground is to ask myself where my guilt is coming from and then use that information to determine what action could arise as a result. For example, when I feel guilty for snapping at one of my kids, I might ask myself the following: Am I feeling guilty because I spoke harshly and hurt my son’s feelings when he didn’t deserve it? Is it because I said “No” to something that probably could have been a yes? Is it because I just gave a talk on using self-control and I was being a hypocrite by losing mine?
Figuring out what the answer is helps to guide me on where I should go next. If I spoke harshly and hurt feelings, my action might be to apologize to my son and perhaps explain why I behaved the way I did. I don’t do this as an attempt to excuse my behaviour or to change my mind about whatever he was asking for, but more to provide a learning opportunity for both of us. My apology is genuine.
If my guilt came from recognizing that my “No” was premature, I might apologize for snapping and reopen the conversation for discussion. When this happens I love to tell my child he has a second chance to “convince me” rather than just changing my answer to a “Yes”.
On the other hand if these feelings came about because I behaved like a hypocrite I usually need to go inside and look at what I said, how I truly behaved (there is a big difference between snapping at a person and losing self-control) and what this means for the information I’m sharing. Are my expectations unrealistic? Am I being too hard on myself? Is there a teaching point in this I can use in my next talk? Are any apologies necessary (to my son, to myself, to my audience)?
The point from all of this is that rather than feeling the guilt and then beating myself up over how badly I behaved, how I’ve damaged my child for life, or how unworthy I feel of calling myself a Parent Educator, etc, I use this feeling to guide me towards an action that will help me repair damage and grow from the experience. By doing this I feel I am taking this feeling and using it as the signal it was always intended to be rather than heading on the guilt trip my packed bags were ready to take me on.
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