HEALTH AND WELLBEING.

The Feeling Of Guilt. 

Weighing heavily around ones neck, that tightens the throat and presses on the chest is the feeling of guilt. A feeling that can whisper of not enoughness. Guilt emerges from a feeling of wrongdoing, when one feels a boundary has been transgressed or where our behaviours do not meet up to self expected or societal standards. And when in positions of responsibility such as in caregiving, our guilt can grow. Closely associated with shame, they can be distinguishable, Brene Brown defining shame as “the painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging”. Guilt arising from a transgression in the external, shame a severing but not an unsalvageable one of the internal. Extracting ourselves from the delicate lattice of shame and guilt that can linger from childhood experience, or arise beyond our conscious awareness throughout our exposures to various subcultures as we traverse our life paths, from families, to professions, the expectations we can hold of ourselves as parents, carers or adults, can be as intricate as the lattice work itself. And guilt, can in certain situations but cautiously not all “can be an energising emotion” as Dr Laurence Howells writes, that may not be an emotion to ignore, but to explore and understand. It may prompt us to redefine what expectations and standards we have of ourselves, and to challenge the seemingly ever expanding societal ones, that do not meet our own.

References and Further Reading.

Gabor Mate: When the Body Says No. The Cost of Hidden Stress. Scribe, London 2003.

Brown Brene, 2012, Daring Greatly. How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead, Penguin Publishing, USA.

Howells Lawrence, Understanding guilt: The useless emotion?The Psychologist, The British Pyschological Society, 10 November 2022. Accessed online, https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/understanding-guilt-useless-emotion. Dec 9th 2024.

9th Dec.

Please note these articles are intended to provoke thought and exploration only. They are not the words of an expert in psychology or emotion, just the reflections of an inquisitive mind. Please take only what resonates.

Further reading and references are included above and please seek professional advice from an expert familiar with your individual case should you require..