Guilt is anger directed at ourselves – at what we did or did not do. ~ Peter McWilliams
Whether your experience of it is just a small niggling feeling or a full-on surge, guilt is a signal that you’re violating your own moral rules that you closely hold. Guilty is a state of mind. This means that your dominant thought in your sub-conscious always triumph. Example: if you have always built a belief system (from habitual strong thoughts) that working hard means being useful with your time, then when you think of relaxing (a new thought planted at the conscious level and still “weak” – hasn’t got a strong root yet at subconscious level) and act on relaxing, you are violating that belief system of “working hard to be useful with your time”. Since feeling is a feedback of what you are dominantly thinking, the emotion of guilt is your feedback that you have violated your belief system that has been serving you for a long time and for which you have gained some good benefits from it.
Hence to remove the guilt, you will just need to plant new thought seed, example “relaxing is also being useful with my time as I can develop my creativity”. You see…..it is the same formula to use…conceive, believe and achieve. Change your thoughts and you change your circumstances.
Give yourself permission to nurture the new thought seed until it has strong roots. Your subconscious then can get your body to act the command of the new thought seed.
Your feeling will be the greatest feedback giver of whether you succeed in ingraining the new thought seed into subconscious. The degree of feeling guilty about relaxing will inform you of the intensity of the new thought seed planted.
Example : If the guilt feeling is 10% less, you will know that the new thought seed has strengthened by 10%. If you have no more guilt about relaxing, instead you feel true joy then the new thought seed has succeeded in being dominant in your subconscious.
If you ever face this similar issue (with diet, money, health, etc), apply these 4 steps.
- Always question your belief (series of dominant thoughts) which determines how you should behave. “What is my dominant thought that creates this (negative) feeling?
- Challenge that belief. “What is the worst that can happen if I let go of this belief?”
- Detach from old belief and build empowering belief which brings positive feeling. “What thoughts will give me joy?”
- Anchor the empowering belief. “What are the benefits I can gain with this new belief?”
Guilt is a good reality check. It keeps that ‘do what makes you happy’ thing in check. ~ Edward Burns
Whatever you feel, it starts from the thought. Thought => Feeling => Action.
Know that a belief which may serve you well at one time may not necessary serve you well in other time.
Negative feeling is a feedback that your present behavior/action has violated your closely held belief.
Detach from that belief by building new belief.
When you achieve positive feeling you know that your behavior/action synchronizes with your belief.
Keep your mind ON the things you want and OFF the things you don’t want.
No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now. ~ Alan Watts
