Dealing with feelings of guilt with conflicting desires

Feelings of guilt. Do you recognize them? You really want to do something that makes you happy, but your partner sets a clear limit. You want to follow the path of your soul and are ready for the next step, but you feel guilty because your environment does not like that at all. In fact, they indicate that when you want to follow your heart, the relationship is over.

You feel guilty about taking care of yourself and going to the sauna for a day or doing something else to recharge your battery, knowing that you are your sick partner who is in the hospital and longing for another visit from you leave behind. So don’t worry about yourself and drive that week for the fourth time to the hospital, braving the traffic jams that are already exhausting you anyway.

Emotion and energy management

You feel guilty because you are buying something nice for yourself that supports you in your passion, but you know that there are people who have no money to buy a sandwich. Shouldn’t you have donated? You are sick and your best friend comes to visit, but you prefer to turn around in your bed and be alone. Yet you only allow her to talk to you for half an hour and ask you questions that you have difficulty answering, because it is so unkind to send her away because she came especially for you. You would only feel guilty if you did. So you adapt to what the environment demands from you …

What do guilt feelings do to you?

What are the consequences of feelings of guilt? They ensure that you live the life of your environment and what they expect from you, and with that you only get away from your path. You are not yourself. Feelings of guilt ensure that you are more concerned about the well-being of the people around you than about your own well-being. Feelings of guilt make you small and keep you away from your radiant self.

They ensure that we become pleasers, which can even turn into a doormat for others. In the worst case, if we constantly ignore ourselves and our own desires, feelings of guilt make us sick. Apart from that, feelings of guilt are just human emotions that we all have and that have something to tell us. There is basically nothing wrong with that. As long as we dare to listen to the underlying message. Then feelings of guilt are the start of a new way of communicating with yourself and with your environment. Below I show you how you can do that.

What can you do?

Feelings of guilt ask you to turn inside. They require self-reflection and for that it is necessary to make time for yourself and for yourself. We usually tend to flee so-called nasty feelings as guilt. We go netflixing, surf the internet, play games or look for other distractions or flights in anesthesia such as drugs, sex, shopping or alcohol. While going inside and feeling the emotion and investigating what is really going on, is much more effective and also ensures a connection recovery.

Firstly, the connection with yourself and from there you can reconnect with your environment. If you dare with yourself. How do you proceed? Below you will find seven steps that help you in your reflection and lead you to new action.

1. Recognize the reality and what is happening. Recognize that you respond from your feelings of guilt or have a tendency to respond from your feelings of guilt. Feel where it gnaws in your body and breathe in gently. Hello guilt, there you are!
2. Visualize a stop sign and place the word “guilt” in it. It is now time for a different choice. You can also visualize a priority board with “new choice” on it. Or a sign in the shape of an eye that sees everything. Do what fits and feels good for you.
3. Visualize the scenario that would happen if you were reactive and responds from your guilt. What happens to you? How do you feel then? What happens in your energy? Do you feel smaller and insignificant? Which emotions follow? Feel them, experience them and breathe love towards them. Then put this visualization aside or put it in an “old box”.
4. Visualize the scenario what would happen if you were proactive, and responds from the desire of your soul or your passion. Visualize what you would do if feelings of guilt did not even exist? If there is no partner or environment that wants to stop you at your next step. What would happen if you followed your desire and not the other’s desire? How would you charge? How would you like to shape your life or relationship? What does your authentic self look like? Visualize the scenario that nobody is able to stop you. What would your life look like if guilt feelings didn’t exist? Write this all down.
5. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for the feelings of guilt that you carry with you that prevent you from being yourself. Bear in mind the Hawaiian Forgiveness Prayer, the Ho’oponopono: I’m sorry, forgive me, I love you, thank you. Say it to yourself and tell the other person. Do it until you feel lighter.
6. Share your desire with your partner or with your environment. Use the clarity that you have received to take the next step on the path you have chosen. You don’t have to see the end point, it’s just the next step. If the people in your life really love you, they are willing to give you the space to let you shine and they themselves take the responsibility to scrutinize their own emotion management. Of course you are willing to help and support your partner or the other in this! If someone loves you, he or she wants you to fly. If you love your partner, you also want your partner to fly. If you have each other in the tongs, and you are stuck in a situation because you have already connected to a possible endpoint or final conclusion, you secure the energy and nobody can grow or flourish. Feelings of guilt are the killers of your dreams! Only you can make your dreams come true, nobody else. Know that you have no control over the feelings and reactions of other people. They are theirs and it is their job to learn how to deal with this. Trust that there is also all the help they need for them!
7. Dare to trust. There is an answer to every question that you cannot answer yet. Dare to trust that everything is already there, including all the solutions and possibilities that you now overlook because you are only a person with a limited image of man. In the big picture and in the knowing field of love we are all connected. This comprehensive field is full of possibilities. You just have to open yourself up to it. Dare to discover it by taking a suitable and next step, based on the connection with your heart and passion.