Guilt Is Not Proof You Have Done Something Wrong

Guilt is not proof that you have done something wrong. If you carry a constant background hum of guilt, this talk is for you. Guilt about what you are doing, guilt about what you are not doing, and guilt about things that happened years ago. Parenting guilt, guilt about caring for ageing parents, guilt about work, money, your health or how your life has turned out.
In this talk I look at the three types of guilt, why they feel so convincing, and how expectations, most of them made up, keep the cycle going. I introduce Sue, the name I give the inner critic, and the three drives behind her, Safety, Uncertainty and Exposure.
This is not about forcing yourself to feel better or talking yourself out of guilt. It is about seeing where guilt really comes from, so you can let go of the past, make amends cleanly when you need to, and live more from your own calm inner knowing.

Transcript

Hello, I'm Lindsay and welcome. So have you ever noticed that no matter how hard you work or how much you try to keep everything together, That there's always something waiting to make you feel guilty? It seems that today, With all the pressures of modern life, What we need to achieve, How we need to look, What success is supposed to look like, There is an ever-increasing number of ways for us to feel guilty. Guilt about how we're spending our time, Guilt about what we are or aren't achieving, About how we look, Or about how our life is shaping up. The list really is endless. And if you carry around a heavy background hum of guilt, I want to share something important right at the start. Guilt is not proof that you've done something wrong. When we break down guilt-based thinking, It almost always comes down to three categories. The things we are doing, The things we aren't doing, And the past. So in this talk, We're going to look at all three so that you can see exactly how your inner critical voice uses them against you and how to step out of it. So whenever there's this kind of guilt-based thinking and feeling going on within us, Sue is 100% involved. So if you've listened to me before, You'll know that Sue is the name I give to the inner critical voice. Her name spells out her three main drives, S for safety, U for uncertainty, And E for exposure. So Sue uses all three drives to run our lives, But guilt mainly sits in her exposure drive. Driven by questions like what will other people think of me and am I measuring up? And alongside these worries about other people, Sue sets up her own internal standards and measurements. So she sits on your shoulder and says, You should be achieving this. You need to be doing that in order to be okay, In order to be worthy. And then the moment you don't hit those targets, She points her finger and says, Look, You're not meeting the standards that I set for you. So this sits in the exposure drive because Sue is terrified that if we don't meet other people's expectations and standards, Or if our behavior is judged as not good enough in some way, We'll be thrown out of the tribe. And in our evolutionary past, Being thrown out of the tribe meant certain death. What I'd really like you to see here is that the bedfellow of guilt is expectation, Yours and other people's. So expectations can look incredibly real, Like things we absolutely must meet. If an aging parent wants us to visit a certain number of times a week, We feel an overwhelming expectation to meet that. There's an expectation that the house needs to look a certain way, Or that we earn a certain amount of money, Stay out of debt, Or that our children behave or succeed in a certain way. So there are expectations and standards all around us. But 100% of them are made up. They are made up by society and we've bought into them. And on top of society's rules, We also have our own set of internal standards that Sue has made up for us, Mostly picked up from our conditioning and from how we grew up. For example, If you had really successful parents, You might feel you're only good enough if you reach or exceed that same level of success and feel deeply guilty if you don't. Or if you had a parent who always puts everybody else first and you find you can't do that, You feel guilty. So guilt largely comes from these expectations and standards not being met. But these standards are entirely a creation of the mind, A creation of thought, Of conditioning, And of sue. So let's look at how this plays out across the three categories, Starting with the first, Guilt around the things we are doing. So this is guilt around habits or addictions or unhealthy behaviors that we struggle to stop. The things where you promised yourself this will be the year I deal with this or this will be the week that I stop doing that and then you don't. And it also comes up in our everyday reactions, You know, Having an outburst or reacting to your children, Your partner or your parents in a way that you aren't proud of, Or reacting to difficult emotions by slipping back into a habit. So for example, Overeating after a hard day or having a glass of wine when you promised yourself you wouldn't because you're tired and overwhelmed. And here's the sneaky double game Sue plays in these moments. First, When you're stressed, Sue says, You can't handle this feeling. You need comfort right now. Go on, Have the glass of wine, Have the chocolate, Lose your temper. You deserve it. And then 10 minutes later, The same voice, The exact same voice turns around and berates you. Look at what you've done. You've got no self-control. You're a terrible parent. You should feel awful about this. It's the same voice in both the impulse and the guilt afterwards. It's all just the voice in the head, Mental narration. And when you've got caught in reactive habits or ways of coping, You aren't a bad person. You're simply operating from a lower state of energy and consciousness in that moment, Using whatever tool felt most available to soothe yourself. Punishing yourself with guilt afterwards doesn't break the habit. It actually fuels the emotional discomfort that drives the habit in the first place. So if you snap at your kids, You can genuinely make amends. If you have the wine or overeat, See that from the level of consciousness you were at, You were doing the best you could in that moment of overwhelm. And then, When you're not in that low mood, That's the time to reflect on how you could maybe look after yourself better, So that you're not so overtired, Rather than sitting in Sue's guilt. So the second category is guilt around the things that we aren't doing. So this is where we beat ourselves up for not acting in all sorts of areas of life. We aren't taking steps to change career. We aren't getting healthier or fitter, Saving money or paying off debt. Or we feel guilty about the support we think we should be offering the people we love. This is often at its strongest in our relationships and in caring for others. You feel guilty because you aren't offering enough physical, Mental or emotional support to your ageing parents, Or because you aren't doing enough play, Homework help or quality time with your kids. If your children are struggling at school or going through something emotionally, Sue is straight in with, What did you fail to do? What did you miss? Is there something wrong with your parenting? Or if your marriage is going through a hard time, There's guilt about the impact it might be having on your children. We might also feel guilty about work, That we aren't as far forward as we should be or earning what we should be earning. So where does all this come from? It comes from the unexamined expectations. So Sue's exposure drive is terrified of what other people think of you and whether you're measuring up to society's standards. But every single one of these standards is made up. They're rules created by culture, By the media, And by our own childhood conditioning. So if you grew up with a parent who puts everyone else first and neglected themselves, Soon learn that selflessness is the standard. And when you try to take an hour for yourself, Sue triggers guilt because you aren't meeting her rule. So whenever you catch the should, Must or ought to conversation going on in your head, That's your signal. That's suet play, Measuring you against made-up rules rather than anything that's actually true in life. So when you feel guilty for what you aren't doing, Ask yourself this, Whose rule am I actually breaking right now? Mine or a made up standard I never agreed to? The third category is guilt about the past. So many people carry heavy guilt about something that happened months, Years or even decades ago. We don't need to put a fake positive spin on this. Your behavior in the past may well have been a mistake or out of line with your values. But Sue tells a very convincing lie about the past. She says, If I keep reminding you of this mistake, It will keep you safe and make sure you never do it again. Or even worse, If you think hard enough about it and feel bad enough, You can somehow undo the damage. So when we step back, We know thought doesn't have the power to change the past. The past doesn't exist anywhere in the physical world right now. It exists only as a memory in your mind. So when you lie awake at 2am going over a past mistake, You aren't fixing anything. You're innocently using your imagination to torture yourself in the present moment. And Sue will go over and over it, Replaying in your imagination to keep you feeling bad. Why? Because when you feel bad, You're much more likely to listen to Sue. And Sue wants your attention so she can feel in control. No amount of rethinking the past is ever going to change it. Thought simply doesn't have that power. When you keep going back over it, It just becomes a habit of the mind, A habit of Sioux. So hold some compassion for your past self. Did you choose to make that mistake? No. You were acting from whatever level of consciousness and thinking looked truest to you at that time. We all do the best we can, Given the thinking that looks real to us in the moment. Feeling guilty today about a mistake you made six months or 15 years ago is utterly futile. Is just a sneaky way Sue keeps you stuck in your head and absent from the life you're living now. So across all three categories, What we're doing, What we aren't doing in the past, There's a common thread. Guilt only lives in the mind. When these painful stories come up, We often push them away because we believe Sue's lie, That the feeling means we're a bad person. Sue paints a fantasy picture of a perfect version of you. Someone who never makes mistakes, Handles every emotion with total composure, Meets everyone's needs effortlessly and hits every target. That person doesn't exist. Human life is messy. It's okay to get things wrong. To be tired, To have bad days and to have a past. You do not need guilt to be a good human. And when you really do hurt someone or make a genuine mistake, You don't need days of guilt and beating yourself up to put it right. You have an inner knowing, A calm, Clear conscience. That inner knowing simply says, I spoke harshly there, Let me go and apologize. Or I let them down, Let me make amends. It's clean, Direct, And it's free of shame. So guilt isn't a sign that you're a flawed person. Guilt is simply the signal that you're listening to Sue's made-up rules. And what we want to do is to start to separate the story from the physical feeling of guilt. If the story isn't true, You can let the feeling be there in your body without fighting it. And when you stop pushing it away and stop fueling the story, The cycle breaks on its own. And when you live less from the busy mind, From Sue, Who is always handing you opposites, Good, Bad, Right, Wrong. And more from that calm inner knowing, These questions of guilt just fall away. So when we're caught in habits of guilt, We're living life through Sue's filter, Chasing a made up version of a person who never makes mistakes, Meets everyone's needs and hits every expectation. So I'd like to invite you, The next time guilt comes up, Whether it's about something you did today, Something you didn't do, Or something from 10 years ago, Pause and notice who's doing the narrating. Remind yourself that's just Sue. There's never anything to feel guilty about. Guilt is simply the signal that you're believing one of Sue's stories about you. If you'd like something to take away from this, Notice which of the three Sue uses on you the most. What you're doing, What you aren't doing, Or the past. Just seeing that clearly is a good place to start. Thanks so much for listening.

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