Guilt Be Gone

"Guilt Be Gone" is a motivational talk by Michelle Medrano aimed at helping individuals overcome feelings of guilt and self-blame. Through her empowering message, Medrano delves into strategies for recognizing and releasing guilt, fostering self-compassion, and embracing personal growth.

Transcript

I wonder if anyone besides me out there struggles with guilt.

Feeling guilty?

Anybody?

Anybody?

Well if you do I'm going to just take a few minutes and attempt to invite us to consider ways that we can get rid of our guilt,

Ease our guilt,

Heal our guilt and stand in a centered place.

Now before we do that I do want to say that I think there is something that I've heard people call healthy guilt.

Healthy guilt is that recognition I made a mistake.

That didn't go so well.

I wish that would have gone better.

I wish I could have done better.

It comes with a somewhat healthy recognition that not everything goes perfectly.

That we don't always show up perfectly,

Say the right things,

Do the right things but that in mature hearts and mature relationships we can acknowledge it.

We can even feel badly about it but then we can get about doing what we need to make amends rather easily,

Have conversations,

Do whatever is necessary.

So it's not that guilt is horrible and should be stricken.

It's just that guilt becomes then a sign,

An indication for us,

Inviting us to resolve it.

However unhealthy guilt,

Unhealthy guilt is that kind of guilt that even if we have done everything we could to make amends,

Even if we have examined the situation,

We continue to feel horrible,

Berate ourselves,

Fall into shame,

Not give ourselves a break,

Feel for sometimes years and years and years remorse and a lack of self-forgiveness about the things that we've done or said that we wished we wouldn't have and we let it eat at us and what it eats is our greatness and what it eats is our joy and what it eats is our happiness and our energy and our life force and it really doesn't serve us.

If that kind of guilt,

If unhealthy guilt really served us,

We'd all be happy and fulfilled but it doesn't.

It stops us in our tracks and it keeps us from really living out our full potential.

So all of us have those places and situations.

I invite you to think about one right now.

Maybe there's a relationship that you just feel horrible for the choices that you made.

Maybe there's something you've said to someone recently that you wish you could take back.

Maybe there's something you've done in your past that you think if people knew about this they wouldn't like me,

Love me,

See me in the same light.

Well that may all be gnawing away at your heart and there are some strategies that I think can help us begin to shift it.

Probably shift it into healthy guilt and then can shift us into action or shift us into healthy activity that can help us relieve ourselves of some of that toxic energy because as I said in the beginning it certainly makes sense to say I wish I would have done better.

Oprah is fond of saying if they knew better they would have done better and so let's start with that.

Let's start right there.

Take a deep breath and just say to yourself with me if I'd known better I would have done better.

So there's a first step of softness and compassion and allowance for ourselves that I think then can open the door.

The door that gets opened at that point I think can be leading us to a place of total accountability.

Just to say I really messed up.

I didn't do the right thing.

I didn't say the right thing and it can be then in telling someone about it.

They say in the 12-step program we're only as sick as our secrets and so for many of us we have guilt about secrets and I know for myself that my life and my happiness and my sense of acceptance of myself in many ways grows to the level that I'm accountable.

I may not be able to go back and change the past for things that I've done that I might have guilt about but I can tell someone about it even if I feel shame.

I can look someone in the eye.

It could be my therapist.

It could be my life partner.

It could be my best friend and say I need to tell someone what I did and how I feel about what I did and how I'm so sorry about what I did and if I'd known better I would have done better.

What I wished I would have done instead is and to let someone know about it and speak it aloud and even though that person may be shocked or even see us a little differently it can be so helpful to our soul to confess like that and just say this is something that has bothered me for years so I'm accountable for it and I can I can acknowledge that I have not done the best thing in my life and I find personally often one tool when I'm really ready to do this is to write it out.

It might be to write a remorseful letter to that person or that organization or that situation that is in the past.

Dear so-and-so,

I am so sorry for the way that I treated you or for the action that I took that hurt you or for the way I betrayed you or for the way I left you or what it might be and to write that letter full out if I'm not up to telling someone and or if I've told someone and I'm still feeling remorse because I don't feel comfortable going to the person or I can't because they're no longer in my life or they've passed on or whatever it might be that I can write it out and read it aloud to myself and then I can let it go.

I can burn it.

I can feel that I've kind of gotten it out of my system and can move on and so that all of that taking accountability and taking steps that really demonstrate to myself mostly that I'm willing to be accountable for that decision that I made that I regret really can be a first and powerful step to healing myself of the guilt and then there comes along with that and there must come at some point self-forgiveness.

A willingness to release myself from that guilty feeling.

A willingness to love myself.

We say in this teaching and people say it all the time who talk about forgiveness as a beautiful tool that forgiveness is about setting ourselves free and really I see this as when we get to the point where we're willing to forgive ourselves for things we feel guilty about in the past it's it's one step to really restoring ourself to ourself it's like our psyche a part of us a part of our sense of power is stuck in the past and when I am willing to say I let go I forgive myself and do this as many times as possible that I can create an affirmation for myself it could be as simple as here's one I use for myself I Michelle forgive myself see how simple that is or just simply I forgive myself for state the challenge and every time that guilt comes up if I've done the work of accountability every time that guilt comes up I have an opportunity to take a deep breath feel it and say I yeah there it is again I forgive myself I forgive myself and I just breathe into my heart space and just let myself give myself a break it's one way to relieve myself of guilt it's one way to move myself forward just to be accountable to forgive myself to state it to think it to write it to put it anywhere I can in my life to remind myself that I'm willing to see that I made a mistake and I'm willing to love myself anyway guilt be gone good luck let yourself be free

Reviews

What you said was so helpful - I felt lighter just listening to your words. Thank you 🙏

Thank you so much! This helped a lot. ❤️🙏

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Wonderful healing talk! 🙏🏼❤️

Great insight

thank you for this talk. i like the idea of writing it out. i’m going to do that ♥️🙏✨🕊️🌻🌹🌼