Guilt

I feel so guilty…

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Healthy Ways to Deal With Guilt: 22 Tips for a Cleaner Conscience

Reader’s Digest – Stealth Health
Banish the “Shoulds” Ask anyone to define “guilt,” and they hem and haw. It’s a feeling that’s kind of hard to describe. A feeling that I should have done something, should be doing something, should not have done something.

Actually, “guilt” comes from an Old English word that meant “delinquency.” Today Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines it as “feelings of culpability, especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy; self-reproach.” It’s a revealing definition — nowhere does it say that guilt is related to things you actually did wrong.
Sometimes you should feel guilty (if you’ve done something morally wrong, committed a crime, or intentionally hurt someone). But if you’re like most of us, you walk around feeling guilty because of all the “shoulds” that come into your life — that is, the things you didn’t do. That’s not only bad for your mental and physical health, but completely unfair to you. Here’s how to shed some of that guilt:
1. Above all else, learn to forgive yourself. If feelings of guilt haunt you, take some concrete steps to end this self-inflicted punishment. First, list the things you feel guilty about. It could be something stupid you said recently, an act of cruelty you did to a sibling in your childhood, or a detrimental personal habit that has hurt your relationship with a loved one. Then ask, How can I forgive myself and let it go? Perhaps it’s prayer, writing a letter, having a talk, making acontinue reading