Guilt is not a feeling

These past few weeks I’ve been riddled with guilt, so much so that my guilt would wake me up in the middle of the night, and I would feel my heart beating in my chest, and my mind racing with worry. So often, my clients share how they carry their own guilt for choices they’ve made, especially when others do not approve of those choices.

Recently, I had a deep conversation with my coach about guilt, and I had a profound insight that has changed the way I see my guilt. And I want to share with you here what I’ve learnt about guilt.

I will share that in the field of emotional research, researchers have often disagreed about how to define guilt or even what the benefits of guilt might be. In her book, Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown distinguishes between guilt and shame by explaining that guilt is what I feel when I believe I have done something bad, and shame is what I feel when I believe I am bad. In Brené Brown’s distinction, it almost feels as if guilt is a “good” thing. It’s almost like guilt is your conscience that is steering you towards doing the right thing or repairing a relationship when you have messed up. And shame, on the other hand, is the “bad” feeling you feel when you are at war with yourself, and feel like you are unworthy of existing or being alive. And I’ve written about shame before. It’s also something we explore in the Living As If You Matter private coaching group.

At first, this distinction made sense to me. I’m well acquainted with my own conscience in those moments when I say or do something hurtful or inconsiderate and then feel bad about what I had said or done. My conscience then pushes me to apologize and repair so that the connection can be regained. I am also well acquainted with what shame feels like in my body. I have talked about how we numb when we feel shame. Shame happens to all of us from time to time. And none of us like feeling shame.

Emotions are energy in motion and this energy vibrates at different frequencies, just like sound waves do. Shame vibrates at the lowest frequency, and it feels absolutely awful to us. So, all humans actively avoid feeling shame as much as they can. It’s so painful to feel, and can be so debilitating. So, we do whatever we can to avoid shame – procrastinate, strive for perfection, become aggressive, defensive, or avoidant – and we numb when shame does come, because we don’t want to sit in that soup of shame.

Despite understanding Brené Brown’s distinction between guilt and shame, I still didn’t really feel like it truly explained what guilt was, because even though I have had moments where my conscience would remind me that I had said or done something mean, hurtful, or inconsiderate, I have also experienced tremendous guilt in situations where I had not acted in mean, inconsiderate, or hurtful ways. This was confusing to me.

In fact, I would often experience guilt when I spoke up for myself, or said no to something I did not want to do, or created a boundary with someone in my life. So, paradoxically, I started to notice that I mostly experience guilt when I’m trying to prioritize my own needs, speak my truth, stand up for myself, create boundaries in my life, or when I disappoint others.

So, this was intriguing to me. I noticed how the guilt that was keeping me awake at night was directly related to me disappointing people in my life, saying no, and choosing myself. And I started to hear the same trend with my clients when they shared their experiences of guilt. They would feel guilty when they said no to requests from others when they really wanted to say no, or when they created boundaries with others in their lives, when they spoke out, or stood in their truth, or prioritized their own needs.

I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that my clients who talked the most about experiencing guilt where women and people pleasers. After reading Elise Loehnen’s powerful book, On Our Best Behaviour, I’m not surprised that it’s mostly women who are experiencing so much guilt, because women are often conditioned to prioritize other’s needs above their own, to please others at the expense of themselves. Women are praised for being self-effacing and self-sacrificing. So, it’s now wonder really, that guilt would show up here.

Here is what I discovered when I slowed it down with my coach. Guilt is not a feeling. We think it’s a feeling, because we feel “bad” when we experience guilt. But the “bad feelings” are often so vague and completely overshadowed by the loud shoulds running in our heads. When I slowed it down for myself, I discovered that my guilt is strongest when I am telling myself about all the things I should be saying and doing, or questioning what others might think of me, or how I might be disappointing those I love. Guilt is in my HEAD, not my body.

My coach offered that guilt actually gets us stuck, because it blocks us from feeling our real feelings. And then I saw it, in those moments where I allowed myself to feel my anger, frustration, sorrow, grief, disillusionment, etc., I did not feel the guilt. However, the moment I moved back into my head and questioned what I was doing, and I let my mind run amok and tell me how I was doing the wrong thing, I would stop feeling, and I would just spiral and go around and around in circles, without really feeling anything. I would have this dark, uncomfortable pit in my stomach that would make me feel bad, and I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint what I was actually feeling, so I would tell myself that I was feeling guilty…

The more I felt my rage, my frustration, my fear, my sorrow, the less guilt there was, and the more clarity there was about what was true for me. The more the dark pit in my stomach would lift, and my mood would improve. So, I felt like I had these brief moments of clarity in between moments of dread and guilt…

And so, my coach asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks. She asked, “When are you going to decide to decide?” She pointed out that I had made a decision, but that I kept coming back to the same discussion of guilt, which suggested that I had not really decided, because if I had decided, then I would not still be mulling this over in my mind. This was challenging for me to sit with, because I recognized how I had allowed my mind to run amok and pull me into dissonance; pull me away from my own truth… I realized that I needed to learn how to stand in my truth, and not let the thoughts of guilt – that have been deeply conditioned and will thus always be there – take me away from my truth. I had to build a tolerance for guilt whilst not allowing it to control my life.

So, dear reader, how often do you experience guilt? What do you experience guilt about? What do you tell yourself about it? Are you aware of the thoughts in your head when the guilt is present? And what about the sensations in your body? What do you notice in your body when the guilt is present? Do you feel “bad”, without being able to put words to the feelings? Do you experience a sense of confusion and of being stuck? These are all thoughts, by the way. They are not feelings. Confusion. Stuckness. These are thoughts. I tell myself I’m stuck, because I have not decided. Stuck is the perspective you find yourself in when you have not decided.

When my coach asked me when I would decide to decide, I saw how I was creating my own suffering, by not honouring my choice, and by entertaining my thoughts of guilt about my choice. I finally saw that doing that meant that I had not fully stepped into my choice. You see, when we choose, we are clear. We stand in the choice without wavering. And suddenly, the guilt fades into the background. It might still be there, and my choice is still the beacon of light that highlights my values and truth amid all the fear of conditioned guilt.