How To Deal With Guilt
Channel: Sylvester McNutt III
Date: 2020-09-14

There is an excellent chapter in my book, Care Package: A Path To Deep Healing, that talks about guilt. I wanted to provide people with resources on how to process guilt. This essay is a transcript of the video above + my notes from the present moment as I review the video with you. The best way to consume this content is to watch the video first and then read the essay. At the end of this essay, I'll place the links where you can order my book Care Package.

Ideal Goals With Guilt
–– How not to put the extra weight of guilt on yourself
–– How to develop a healthy relationship with guilt
–– Realizing that you don't own guilt
–– You don't have to allow guilt to stop you

'Guilt Can Have A Home'–– In my experience, I believe its vital to see that guilt does have a home, and a natural place with our human existence. I have never been told that these feelings are okay 
and I hope you realize that they are first. 

That feeling, especially in the context of us hurting someone, is a normal reaction. In that type of situation, guilt helps us grow, learn, and change with what is going on. The feeling of guilt may feel heavy, but part of that heaviness is that we've never been given the reassurance that feeling guilt is okay and normal.

Half of the battle with our emotions is acknowledging them and allowing them to pass naturally. Feeling guilt doesn't mean that we should instantly try to get rid of it; it's okay to feel it and process it. IN HIS ARTICLE, John M. Grohol, Psy.D, 5 Tips For Dealing With Guilt, he notes the rational purpose of this guilt is to try and convince you to change behavior.

He brings up the situation where you eat too many snacks late at night, and then you feel guilty because you knew you weren't supposed to do that. First, I don't want snack shame because I am the GOAT (Greatest Of All-Time) snacker, HA! But here, we have to be real and honest, and we both know that healthy limits and moderation is the only way to enjoy snacks guilt-free. He notes that you're experiencing guilt in this situation because you know you're self-sabotaging. And again, guilt is normal when you are self-sabotaging because that is your body telling you to change behavior.

As someone who can admit that he used to struggle with sugar addiction and smashing snacks, to the point where I would hide it or lie to others around me, trust me when I say ––  I know the depth of feeling guilt. Now, I have healthy boundaries and positive behaviors that allow me to have snacks in moderation. I want to thank and acknowledge the guilt feelings I had because after honoring them and making changes, I admit that my life is in such a right place because of it.

'Detach'––Accept that you do not have to own the guilt. It's not your responsibility to allow it to be connected to your experience. Learn to untrain your mind from the 'this is my fault' or 'I do everything wrong mindset.' Start to practice compassion for myself and practice the art of allowing your emotions to exist and to fade as they may eventually. An ideal way of living is to accept and acknowledge the guilt and then use it as fuel. We do not need to make those guilty feelings our identity. 

''Outgrowing People' –– a normal process that occurs in life; outgrowing people is something that we experience with others, and others can feel that too about us. And it would help if you looked at growth as a positive experience, not a negative one. I get it, though, it can be hard to look at change as positive, especially when those feelings may be creating some inner guilt. There's this ounce of survivor's guilt that happens too, where you feel like, "I wish these other people could be at my level, I wish they could see where I'm at, or I wish the had the tools I had that got me out of the slump we used to be in," kind of feels like that.

Outgrowing family and friends is a perfectly normal experience, especially if you are reading this essay. I believe the only types of people who find content like this are the ones who are continually growing and evolving. With that, we must make sure we are not shaming anyone else in our life for not growing just because we are. But also, we should not shame ourselves because we are growing.





To find the links to my courses, books, website and podcast, and social media please visit this link: https://linktr.ee/sylvestermcnutt