Guilt: Mindfulness and hypnosis for less burden
Guilt is close to shame, but it is slightly different. Guilt shows that you know something is your fault and is therefore less taboo than shame. This does make it easier to talk about than something you are ashamed of. Still, this does not mean for everyone that you can get on with your life. You can be distracted by it, making it difficult to focus on what you are doing.
That's why in this article I'll discuss guilt, how to get it and what mental techniques help you suffer less from it.
What is guilt?
Guilt is a negative emotion. It is an emotion that can sometimes be used to motivate people to do something, but it is not the best motivating emotion out there.
Guilt is a feeling usually caused by the belief that you have harmed someone else. For example, you might feel guilty because you once bullied someone. However, you might also feel guilty because you think someone else is unhappy because of you, even though the cause isn’t your fault at all.
You may also feel guilty about something you think you’ve done to yourself. For example, feelings of guilt often arise after a trauma, regardless of whether that trauma was caused by yourself or someone else.
People with chronic guilt are very good at blaming themselves for suffering in the lives of others.
The usefulness of guilt
Feeling guilty is not always a bad thing. When you have done something bad, the guilt ensures that you don't repeat that action again. It is an emotion that keeps you from stepping too much outside of behavioral rules that keeps you from becoming isolated.
If you've done something bad, of course you shouldn't downplay it, but feeling guilty can also be very illogical. That is why it is important to find out, why you feel guilty.
When do people develop guilt?
There are actually five types of guilt and they can also be linked to when and why people experience guilt ( 1).
Type 1: Guilt for something you did.
Feeling guilty about something you’ve done can stem from something you’ve done to someone else, but it can also stem from violating your own principles. For example, you might feel guilty about cheating on your partner because you consider it morally wrong. Another common source of guilt is feeling guilty after eating unhealthy food when you had resolved to never do that again—or at least to do it less often.
Type 2: Guilt for something you wanted to do but didn't do.
Sometimes you want to do something but haven't done it yet. But the very thought of the act, such as cheating, can trigger feelings of guilt. Ideally, you then want to put those feelings away, but the chances that you will then carry it out actually increase. It is better then to accept the feelings and take steps that will prevent you from doing something that is against your morale.
Type 3: Guilt for something you think you did
Sometimes you may feel guilty for something you think you did but didn't do. For example, you may think you accidentally harmed someone by wishing them something bad (even if only in your mind).
In addition, our memory isn’t perfect. This can lead to false memories about something you didn’t do, but believe you did. For example, children often think they are to blame for their parents’ divorce, only to learn the real reason for the divorce later in life. So always check the facts before you feel guilty about something that simply didn’t happen.
Type 4: Feeling guilty because you could have done more
Sometimes someone needs your help, and you weren’t there at that moment. Afterward, you might feel guilty because you think you could have done more. This can happen even when you’ve actually done everything you could to help the other person. But in hindsight, you can often think of a few things that didn’t occur to you at the time. Or sometimes you’ve helped someone so much that you just need a little time for yourself. This is also known as compassion fatigue. People in the healthcare field are particularly prone to this, but it can happen to anyone who helps someone else over an extended period of time.
It's important not to feel guilty, though. That compassion fatigue is ultimately a mechanism of your body to make sure you don't go under yourself by caring for someone else.
Type 5: Guilt for doing better than someone else
You’re successful in life, but your friends or family members aren’t. This makes you feel guilty, and that guilt leads you to do things that undermine your success, such as developing an addiction.
This guilt is common in veterans who have survived a war as opposed to other soldiers and in people who have been able to study as opposed to other family members, even if they are their parents.
Why must something be done about guilt?
Feeling guilty can cause you to stop living and not get all you can out of life. If your guilt is unjustified, this is a great shame and also if you keep thinking about what ever happened.
The last type of guilt also shows that guilt can lead to self-destructive behavior—something you want to avoid at all costs.
Watch this video on guilt and dealing with it:
What can you do about guilt?
For people with chronic guilt, cognitive behavioral therapy is used to change automatic thoughts after an event. In addition, this form of therapy also helps to recognize thought patterns, such as making everything worse than it is and overgeneralizing. With overgeneralizing, you often think that if 1 thing went wrong there must have been a lot of things that went wrong that you hadn't noticed.
Once something has happened, you can’t change it. The best thing to do is to apologize to the person you’ve wronged. Sometimes the things you’ve done seem much worse to you than how the other person experienced them. In that case, this is also a good way to check whether your values regarding what is right and wrong align with those of the person you’ve wronged.
If you feel guilty about violating your own principles—such as drinking or eating too much, or cheating on a partner —it’s best to seek help to prevent this from happening in the future.
When thoughts of something immoral make you feel guilt, you can apply acceptance and commitment therapy.
Acceptance and commitment therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a form of therapy that combines mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Indeed, mindfulness is a way of living in the here and now and accepting situations as they are. What you cannot change you then accept, for example. If you find that you start thinking about what you feel guilty about, mindulness can help you to be in the here and now with your attention again.
Also, mindfulness helps you distance yourself more from your thoughts, allowing you to respond to them more rationally. This can also prevent you from acting impulsively because of those thoughts.
In addition, this therapy involves examining your values and beliefs and finding out what you value in life. Hypnosis can help with this by digging into the subconscious for beliefs that you feel are important or that you want to change.
Like hypnotherapy, the use of metaphors to locate guilt is important in this form of therapy.
Hypnosis Against Guilt
Hypnosis can support acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Multiple studies have already shown that hypnosis enhances the results of CBT.
Hypnosis can also help to recall memories and see them from a different point of view. This can be done, for example, with regression therapy. This allows you to find out that your guilt is misplaced and you really could not have changed anything about the situation.
On the other hand, hypnotherapy can also help you look to the future again and boost your self-confidence so you don't make another decision that you feel guilty about later.
Would you like to learn more about how mental techniques can help you and others? Then check out the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands, or attend a seminar.
Sources:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201208/the-definitive-guide-guilt