I was thinking about something I felt guilty about the other day. Over the years I’ve managed to separate the ‘guilt like’ feelings I have into rough categories. Lets call them real and not real. There are probably sub-categories based on degree, but for now we can just look at these two.

First there is what I call the unreal guilt feeling. Lets say I do something I need to do. I decided it needed to be done and can’t get out of it. In doing it someone ends up with hurt feelings and as a result I feel – what? Kind of guilty? Should I?

Probably not. I did the next right thing as well as I could judge that thing at the time. We’ll assume for this post that I wasn’t acting selfishly. Whenever we act there will be a long emotional chain reaction. Some people within the sphere of activity will feel one way and some will feel another. Are these feelings my responsibility?

No. Adults are always responsible for their own feelings. I guess we’ll also assume we’re dealing with people who should be adults. So, as long as I’m acting in ways that are – as far as I know – unselfish – I’m not responsible for other peoples reaction so any guilt feelings I have can be treated as unreal.

What about the real guilty feelings we might have. We did things that were really bad on a lot of levels and now we – Do regret the past and wish like mad we could shut the door on it. We want it to go away – disappear. Whatever it is we did we all know how it feels. Bad…

What If Nobody Knew?

This is a little game I was playing the other day with my guilt memories. What if only I knew what I did. Maybe just me and the other person(s)  involved. In other words, what if I only dealt with the facts of the deed itself.

Myself – I’ve done a couple of things that stay with me. I think about them when I close my eyes. I think about the others involved. As I was lying there the other day feeling and thinking I realized something. About 70% of the bad feelings I had, had nothing to do with the act itself. What was causing most of my emotional response was thinking about the whole world knowing.

That I would be found out and have my naughtiness go public. The whole of my experience was split up between to negative emotional  manifestations – not just guilt. There was the guilt – and there was the fear.

I mention this so people can test it for themselves. When you’re feeling guilty over some past deed, think about what you’re feeling when you’re feeling it. Now, what if nobody else would ever find out? For me I was able to see a difference. Basically, I was able to see how much of what I was feeling was remorse, or guilt. The remaining, 70% or 80%, was fear of being found out.

Guilt and fear are negative emotions and neither one feels good. They are also different, and need to be dealt with differently. We can’t deal with the guilt efficiently when most of what we’re going through isn’t guilt at all. Can we?

It’s certainly something to take a look at.