Question: Marina, please suggest what can I do with my feelings around guilt? I have been feeling guilty since childhood, and became more and guilty I as I started growing older. Now I am 50 and it is more than I can handle. As you may understand, I attracted situations in my life where I was feeling guilty. When I started looking at my life: an alcoholic husband, who has been unemployed for more than 10 years, a difficult relationship with my daughter who has low self-esteem. After reading a lot of literature on spirituality and psychology, my guilt increased even more. I realized I couldn’t love my husband unconditionally, I failed to create a harmonious atmosphere in the family and so on. I’m working on myself, I understand the reasons, I am sending Unconditional Love, but I still feel guilty. What should I do?
Valentina
Greetings, Valentina.
Thank you for an excellent question.
First of all, GUILT IS DANGEROUS FOR YOUR HEALTH. It feeds destruction patterns in your body. A person with guilt can be easily manipulated. He will succumb to doing anything just to avoid feeling guilty. The feeling of guilt is quite artificial, which was created and magnified with the help of other people, but no one was born with it.
Most importantly, see, sense and feel that no one is guilty in the eyes of God. This phrase has the utmost importance. It influenced me a lot. When Rami first told me this, I had a feeling that I turned inside out. My guilt was replaced with pain and love simultaneously. Also came the awareness of the problems we create for ourselves, and this cause so much pain. Repeat the following phrase few times: You are the only person judging yourself. No one else is judging you here. God loves you no matter what you do. (Though it does not give you freedom to do what you should not.)
1. First, become aware of the feeling of guilt. Notice when it appears. It may be difficult at first, as the feeling acts on us when we are not aware. Your body can help you recognize when guilt appears. It is a very unpleasant, unsettling feeling in your body and your heart may feel like it is being squished. Fear may also be present. When you start becoming aware of the guilt within, you can see when your actions are based on guilt and when not. Never act out of guilt, this is a self-manipulation, to feel not guilty in your own eyes.
2. Act out of the state of love and selflessness, not guilt. Guilt is very selfish, and thus actions based on guilt will be done only for sake of making yourself appear as «correct». The feelings within will cry out, «I am good! I am not guilty», and they will push you into doing anything to justify yourself in your own eyes and in the eyes of others.
3. Forgive and accept yourself.
4. Allow yourself to be imperfect and to make mistakes. In this world everything is perfect, and God has created you in his own image. Therefore you are perfect. You want to be seen as perfect — this all is merely an idea about how you should be, like being good and innocent. This idea is not what you are in reality. This is your hostility towards your own self. Just be, don’t try to be seen in a certain way.
5. Don’t try to earn love from others (and from yourself), trying to be seen as innocent. Just allow yourself to be the way you are, and do not try to appear like someone, whom in your opinion, you should be. You cannot earn love. Love just is. You can just receive and accept. Don’t deny love just because you are not worth it or because you are guilty.
6. You are good just the way you are. You are worthy of love! You are worthy of happiness. Understand, accept and feel this. You can repeat this out loud.
If you feel tortured because of some event of the past, where you were at fault, do the following:
Imagine this event, in your mind’s eye fill it with light, warmth and love. You can draw upon feeling of love if you remember a person or a situation when you felt real, pure and selfless love. For example, this could be your child when she was a baby, helpless, sweet, and you loved her to pieces. Or remember a person you loved, etc. This feeling of love should fill the event of the past that made you felt «guilty».
Next step, in your imagination, ask for forgiveness to the person who was hurt by you, and because of this, you’re feeling guilty. Ask for forgiveness from your heart. Imagine that this situation, like a air balloon, a ray of light and love, is rising above and then bursts into pieces, and disappears into the ocean of love.
If you have an opportunity to ask for forgiveness from that person in real life, please do your best to do ask for forgiveness in person. Otherwise write a letter, and then burn it.
Valentina, in your case I can see that you are feeling guilty because of what has been happening in your life as well as the life of your family.This is not your fault. You merely made a mistake. We come to this world to learn. We all make mistakes. And these mistakes allow us to learn the lessons and change for the better. Spiritual knowledge should not awaken a feeling of guilt in you but it’s merely indicative of the mistakes that need to be fixed.
Spirituality raises us higher and above the guilt, not lower. If spiritual knowledge causes only guilt, this is only due to your incorrect perception of the situation. Please don’t allow yourself to feel guilty on this account too! Your fault is not there, as you act on your guilt in the situation subconsciously. The feeling of guilt is a subconscious program with which you look at the world. I hope all this will help you to obtain awareness into your thoughts and actions, and let go of the guilt program.
Wishing you best of luck,
Marina Bleckt
