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GUILT, Is It Yours Or Mine?
From the day we are born we acquire guilt, possibly even before we were born. Guilt is an insidious, tenacious, sinister, growing, self-abusing practice. We carry guilt, give it to others, use it for our own needs and project it onto others. Not one day goes by that we aren't wound up tight as a corkscrew with guilt. It has become as much a part of our being as our heart and our brain. Mostly though, we feel guilt in our solar plexus, sometimes in our stomach. We do not, as human beings, deal very well with guilt. It lodges in our physical bodies and causes disease, in our minds and causes mental illness, in our emotions and causes problems in our relationships. We throw it around because we find it very uncomfortable to live with. Guilt is painful and soul damaging. None of us feel free to be ourselves because of guilt. We have to put on masks to hide it. We have pseudo-identities so we can control it and only let it out when we are trying to manipulate others or unless it suits our needs. We become so desperate, we even hide it from ourselves. Debbie asked me, "Why do so many people feel attracted to organized religion these days?" I believe the reason is because organized religions thrive on our un-earned guilt. They have a vested interest in helping us feel guilty because the more guilty we feel, the more credence we will give to the dogma. We will give more of ourselves to the church, more service, more time, and more money - just to be free of our guilt! Does all this giving take the guilt away? NO! But some churches continue to help us think that all this giving is what we must do. That's their business and we have taken the bait, hook, line and sinker. We have been told from the day we were born that we are guilty for being born - after all, we are sinners from day one because we came through woman and were conceived in a base human act. Which, by the way, God Him/Her/Itself commanded us to partake in. We sinned and were thrown out of paradise and made to feel guilty for our nakedness, for our own body that He/She/It supposedly created and saw that it was good. Is this what we have to feel guilty about? Such a dichotomy makes a lot of sense, right? Yet we have bought this package for nearly 2,000 years and continue to buy it at an alarming rate of speed. How can so many religions be "right", profess to believe in the same God, kill and hate their fellow man, have bloody wars in the name of God and continue the separation that we find between people nowadays? What happened to "love thy neighbor, as thyself"? One commandment that we find is impossible to live because we can't love ourselves enough to be able to love our neighbor. We are too GUILTY! We are so guilty that we can only give it to God. He/She/It gave it to us in the first place, or so we've been told. Well then, let's project it onto our children, husband, wife, loved ones, friends, neighbors, other countries, the dog, the cat, brothers, sisters, parents, ex-spouses, in-laws, out-laws and so on until it comes full circle back to ourselves. It is obvious that we do not know what to do with this gross, creepy, crawling practice, so what is the solution? I don't profess to have all the answers, but in my studying and searching I have found some things that work for me. First of all we must recognize when we are feeling guilty. Identify why, what were the circumstances that triggered the guilt and whose is it - yours or someone else's? This last one is the hardest to figure out because we've carried so much generational guilt garbage around that it is hard to separate it out just to find our own. For instance, I was conceived out of wedlock and there was an extreme amount of guilt my mother carried. Babies in utero feel like they are a part of their mother so they take on her feelings as if they are their own and that is exactly what I did. I felt guilty for even being conceived. I have carried this through my life and felt guilty for unexplained reasons I could never quite put my finger on. Now I am able to see that most of the guilt is not mine and I stop the resulting behavior and feelings before it goes too far. This is one of the keys - to recognize guilt. Make a pact with yourself to do this and wheels will start rolling. You will be able to clear guilt out of your life slowly but surely. Begin to trust yourself. Know that you are great, with unlimited potential - that you have everything to offer the world. Be willing to see your beauty. Be kind to yourself, pat yourself on the back for a job well done. In spite of it all, you are here now, and have survived. Wouldn't it be much better if the next years could be relatively guilt free? Think of the burden you won't have to carry around. What horizons can you reach? What mountains can you climb? What love would be available to you if you work on just one practice, the one of releasing guilt. No one has to atone for your sins. You do the work, why shouldn't you get the glory? I don't believe in slave labor. Besides, is God so lacking in self-esteem that we must constantly milk His/Her ego? I think not. This is the only world that we really know about, our only reality. Why feel so guilty that we have to live as best we can so we can die and receive some reward in the hereafter that we don't even know is really there anyway. Love yourself. If you do that to the best of your ability, you will feel good about yourself. You won't hurt anyone else; there will be no need to. You will take care of your own, and take responsibility for YOUR life. By loving ourselves and releasing guilt, we allow others to truly choose in all areas of their lives. We wouldn't force them to choose because it is what we or someone else things is best. What better criteria for living a full life based on our own potential and allowing others to reach theirs. We would be free and wouldn't that be the greatest gift we could give ourselves? ~
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I choose to live an abundant life. I choose aliveness and growth. I appreciate good now.
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Copyright 1993 |
ASL Distributing, Inc. |
