Feeling guilty: the limit of your possibilities

We have all done something at one time or another that was not helpful and about which you feel guilty. So guilt is often a consequence of something. So your guilt is linked to something, to a cause

Your brain likes to think in terms of cause and effect.

You scold me, so I feel hurt. Cause-effect. It's your fault that I feel hurt. That's the principle.

But if you say "that person is swearing," there's nothing wrong. But if you link to it that he swears at me, then it's linked and then I have to think something about that.

He’s yelling at me and staring at me—fine.

But when I start linking it, what our brain likes to do, something happens.

Because he looks at me, so he scolds me.

So I feel hurt or whatever. That feeling is caused by that person, because if he hadn’t insulted me, it wouldn’t have happened.

Very logical, but if you remove the links then it no longer makes sense.

But our entire legal system is based on this. Aside from whether this is normal or not.

Getting out of hypnosis is helpful for yourself, though. To see something as it really is.

So he swears, let's assume it's deliberately against me. Then you can say it's his fault.

But how come he is swearing?

He just got fired and is frustrated about it. I was the first person he saw, and I said something like, “How was work?” And he started yelling. He completely lost it at me.

So then you can also say his boss, the economy or corona is to blame.

Suddenly, it’s someone else’s fault again. Someone has to take the blame.

That Chinese person shouldn’t have eaten a bat either. So it’s all the Chinese people’s fault. My brain does that with ease—that’s how you create problems that aren’t really there.

What also often happens is that in family conflicts, people are more likely to look at blaming someone else or even work, rather than to take a moment to look at themselves[1].

Debt and being able to do something about it

The annoying thing is that when it's not someone else's fault, it's your fault.

You often hear phrases like: "I can't help it." This can be true on one hand, sometimes you just fall.

But the other side of the phrase "I can't do anything about it" implies that you can't do anything else about it either.

You may indeed be powerless to prevent something from happening. Sometimes it’s just bad luck.

But that ambiguity of that sentence is about after the event or after the problem is identified.

You can do something about it afterward. For example, you can work on keeping your balance or stronger pinch strength, making you less likely to fall.

Or if I get an illness, maybe I could have done something about it, but that's in the past. Now it is, so now I will do something else.

You have that disease and then you look at the now and the future. Because otherwise you get back to you should have done this and that or someone should have done something. Then you get back into assigning blame.

But it's no one's fault.

It's so hard on our brains because someone must have been guilty.

Understanding the guilty or innocent

When you really think through and know the story of someone's person, you often understand why someone does what they do. Then suddenly a parent of that person is the culprit. But you can reason all the way back to the big bang that way.

So it's not always helpful to think about who is guilty or just to feel guilty.

It is best to assume that everyone is innocent. However difficult this is, because when you think about it, that feeling guilty is a mindfuck of your brain.

The only one experiencing guilt is you (and many other people, me included).

But it's important to get out of that hypnosis of feeling guilty or guilty.

Your own fault

Because you can only be hurt if you allow yourself to be hurt.

Imagine someone scolding you, but you're in a good mood and then you think, "He must have been through something." Then there's nothing wrong.

But in another situation, if it's an acquaintance or you're in a different mood, it can suddenly hit you hard. Then it's not the other person's fault, it's yours (not that you're the culprit then).

But if you take ownership of the fact that you feel the way you do—that you feel hurt or discriminated against—that’s you.

Stop beating yourself up and let it go.

This is easier said than done. Just do it because that is the real power we possess.

To see the world and ourselves as innocent.

Then you won't be touched.

It's easy for me to say, but I'm not there yet myself. It's also a kind of life path you walk.

Actually, I have not believed in guilt, cause and effect for years, also because of certain research. Also from physicists, that there are really only effects.

So then there are no causes, therefore no victims and therefore no culprits.

But go ahead and feel in your heart what this means. This means that you are innocent and so is everyone else. That you are not the guilty party until you point to someone as the culprit or the cause.

This hypnotic principle, if you can really live this, maybe that's being enlightened. At least enlightened from guilt.

Also listen to this podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/4544183-07-kom-uit-de-hypnose-van-schuld?play=true

Freeing someone from debt

In family settings, it is particularly annoying when people are blamed for someone else's problems. One way therapists deal with this is by identifying what positive thing someone was trying to bring about with the behavior,[2] which then unfortunately failed. By finding the positive spin, it is much easier for everyone to let go of the "blame hypnosis."

This is also an important step in hypnotherapy. For example, people who are trying to lose weight or who have another problem often blame themselves—or sweets or something similar—for their problem.

The technique of why you did something and for what positive purpose, can also free yourself from that guilt of your own problem.

For example, if you know why you actually stayed too fat, you can find ways other than staying fat to achieve that specific goal. This can help your subconscious to still maintain that healthy lifestyle more easily.

At the Hypnosis Institute, for example, we always assume that everything you do somewhere for yourself is well-intentioned. Even though it is so strange, you are doing something to help yourself move forward. Sometimes this just works out better and sometimes not so well.

It is then the role of a hypnotherapist, for example, to help you figure out what good cause you are doing something for and in what other ways you can achieve those goals.

This also lets you release the limiting factor of guilt and therefore you can think out of the box again to still achieve your goals.

Sometimes it’s not easy to say why you do something. Your deeper motives are then suppressed. In that case, hypnosis can help you, because in the hypnotic state you’re more open to unconscious thoughts. Regression can be used to release that suppression of your true motive. You often see this, for example, with addictions. A specific event triggers a certain negative emotion that you try to suppress with drugs or something similar.

You often only find out about this with regression, which offers opportunities to deal with that negative emotion in a different way. Sometimes reviewing the event again can even help release the negative emotion so that there is no longer a problem at all[3].

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis can help you break free from the “guilt trap”? Then join our free online masterclass.

Or sign up right away for one of the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands’ training programs. These programs will not only help you become aware of your own hypnotic perspective on the world, but also help you assist others in breaking free from their hypnosis.

Sources:

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1059601111408898

[2] https://www.psycharchives.org/handle/20.500.12034/1657

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2370676/?page=2