19 April 2022

Feeling guilty is toxic to our physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing. It delays growth and prevents you from fully enjoying and experiencing life – the stress, sadness, and overwhelming feelings that guilt brings can wreak havoc on your body. The additional stress leads to making poor decisions and leading a more stressful life. 

If you live with daily guilt, take the time to learn how to let it go and understand what is causing it for the sake of your health and happiness.

Here are three steps you can take to let go of guilt to live a more free and happy life: 

Understand and Accept It

The first step to releasing guilt requires your ability to truly recognise it, understand it, and then accept it. Write down what you are feeling and the thoughts running through your mind as you deal with it. Look to the reasons as to why you are feeling this guilt and truly face it head-on. 

Be truthful and don’t hold anything back. You are the only person that will read this journal, and if you want to improve, you must be honest and share everything by putting your feelings onto paper. The more detailed and specific you are, the more likely you are to let it go. This method is a little like airing out your socks so to speak.  

Own Up to Your Mistakes

Many of the feelings that come from guilt are due to mistakes you have made personally. Instead of avoiding responsibility, own up to them. Recognise that you are human and that you will make more mistakes even after this one. Owning up to your mistakes means you need to take the time to recognise them and note what you can do next time to improve. Avoiding responsibility only allows the guilt to flourish and become something larger than what it should be unless you face the guilt head on. 

Don’t Dwell on Mistakes or Punish Yourself 

Forgiveness is crucial (particularly self-forgiveness) throughout the journey and process of freeing yourself from guilt. Everyone makes mistakes but dwelling on the act alone instead of improving on how it is done in the future is where the real problem starts. It prevents you from recognising why it happens and what tools or information you can use to do better the next time. 

Forgiveness allows you to acknowledge your faults and then take action to improve them to keep moving forward in a positive direction. Living without guilt does not mean you won’t make mistakes; instead, it recognises its value.

Don’t let your guilt prevent you from enjoying your life any longer. Instead, use these tips to get rid of guilt completely. Guilt is not a useful tool; it only hinders your progress and success in life.

Use an Affirmation Exercise to Rid Guilt from Your Life

To help you process feelings of guilt, here is a fantastic affirmation exercise called ‘I Avoid Allowing Guilt to Steal my Happiness’. This affirmation exercise is made for you to read aloud if you wish and then there are some simple questions at the end that you can answer.  Repeat this exercise whenever guilt creeps into your subconscious and starts to cause issues in your life for you. Replace any words out in the affirmation with words that suit your situation where needed. Example: ‘organisation’ with ‘household’ and ‘employee’ with ‘children’. 

___________ ...  ... ... ___________

‘I Avoid Allowing Guilt to Steal my Happiness’ Affirmation:

My life is filled with learning experiences. I realize that some events create negative emotions. But I avoid allowing those instances to make me unhappy.

I know how easy it is to allow guilt to take over and steal my happiness. But I take each situation at face value. I look at the part I play and confirm that my actions are justified.

Sometimes, I end up feeling guilty about situations that transpire and how others are impacted. But I am careful to manage my feelings.
 

When one of my employees is consistently insubordinate, it is my job to address it. After documenting the issues, I am confident about taking action.

I avoid allowing personal situations to make me feel guilty and cloud my judgment. I remind myself of my responsibility to the organisation when dealing with an employee. In those cases, it is easy for me to avoid feeling guilty.

I take the same approach to reprimanding my kids. Wanting the best for my children takes precedence over how upset they feel from being scolded. Although I feel sad when they are upset, I avoid feeling guilty.
 

I eliminate guilt from my thoughts by focusing on taking reasonable actions and feeling comfortable with them.
 

Today, I choose to live my life in a way that facilitates true happiness. I commit to making choices that leave my conscience free from guilt.
 

Self-Reflection Questions: 

1.    How can I ensure I make appropriate decisions without feeling guilty?

2.    Why is it important to explain my decisions to those affected?

3.    What is my reaction when someone else's actions are unfavorable to me?