The Web address of this
3-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/Rx/wounds/guilt.htm
This concludes a three-page article.
In
addition to proactively reducing excessive old guilts, you can learn to...
Minimize New Guilts
Premise: Some moderate guilts are
useful - they help us learn from our social "mistakes." Other guilts are
unwarranted and/or excessive. They often come from adopting other people's rules and attitudes
that you haven't examined and validated. As
your learn to reduce old excessive guilts, you can consciously
avoid taking on unwarranted new guilts. Consider these options:
Stay clear on...
-
what a behavioral "rule" is,
-
who’s rules you
live by (or break),
-
the difference between guilt and shame, and...,
-
how
guilt and shame are best managed.
Evolve and use a
Personal Bill of Rights
to help define your shoulds, oughts, have to's, and cant's (rules).
Periodically review and adjust
your version of these key attitudes
if useful.
Blindly adopting other people's attitudes can foster unnecessary guilts.
Monitor and coach your
,
and
subselves to declare their opinions
vs. scornfully.
Tailor and apply these ideas on giving effective
feedback to your subselves and other people. Use
to ensure that your
subselves live in the present, vs. some traumatic time in your childhood.
Coach
yourself to be routinely
of your (a) breathing,
(b) your body, and (c) your
current thoughts and emotions. When you feel guilty and/or think guilty
thoughts, experiment with these steps:
-
remind yourself that
moderate guilt is normal
and helpful
-
check to see if your
is
If not,
your Self to lead is
more important than managing guilts and shame
-
Identify (a) what specific rules your
subselves feel you've broken (they usually come in clusters), and (b) whether they're your
rules or
someone else's. If you originated a rule, own your responsibility,
review your options, and act.. Ambivalence and/or
doing this suggests a false self is making your decisions.
-
If someone else originated a rule you
violated,
review your Bill of Personal Rights and reassure your subselves that as
an adult, you can respectfully disagree with the other person's rules
and expectations without judging either of you as being good-bad or
right-wrong.
-
If useful, respectfully
your right to
respectfully disagree with the other person's rules and live by your own. Options:
-
affirm the other person's right to not
feel bound to obey your rules;
-
remind yourself of these wise
and...
-
if the other person scorns, criticizes, or
rejects you for disagreeing with or disobeying their rules,
compassionately see them as not knowing they probably have a disabled true Self,
rather than "the enemy.".
Steadily
develop and use your
attitude and your effective-thinking and communication
- specially assertion and empathic listening. These are your best tools for
clarifying, stating, and enforcing your rights, rules,
and consequences
respectfully and firmly.
More options to avoid
undeserved and excessive new guilts:
Patiently work to
old childhood wounds of excessive
and
They promote (a) conflict-avoidance among your
subselves and with other people, (b)
dishonesty, timidity, and
These combine to promote excessive guilt and shame.
Stay clear on your roles and
responsibilities at home and elsewhere. Calmly define
and enforce your boundaries, and respectfully give
other people
responsibility for themselves. Compassionately expect them to resist, and try to
defocus, blame, and/or guilt-trip you. Decline – don’t accept their rules over
yours. If they’re open to it, invite them to
whether they’re
and moderate your
urge to
them.
Read at least one book on the
false-self symptom of
(e.g.
codependent No More
by Melody Beattie), to expand your awareness and compassion. This widespread
symptom of a low-nurturance childhood
promotes compulsive over-concern with another person’s welfare – and obeying
their rules. If you have
codependent traits, you probably need self-motivated
from false-self
Overall:
-
your Self to
guide and harmonize your other subselves (work at
-
coach yourself to grow your
present-moment
-
work to convert
excessive shame to non-egotistical
-
intentionally
minimize new guilt feelings (above),
-
validate whose rules
(shoulds / oughts / musts / have to's / cant's) you broke,
-
apologize to and/or forgive yourself
and other people where appropriate, and...
-
authorize your subselves to
Pause and remind yourself why you're reading this. Reflect on what you just
read.- would improving your ability to avoid unwarranted new guilts be
useful to you? Is there anything in the way of your experimenting with the
above ideas and seeing what happens? Is your Self answering that, or
"someone else"?
The third facet of "effective guilt management" is learning about...
Relating to Guilt-driven (Wounded)
People
Because significant false-self
are so prevalent, you'll
steadily encounter adults and kids who (a) will use "guilt trips" to
try and manipulate you to sacrifice your values and needs and fill theirs;
and who (b) are burdened by excessive guilts, and assume a
(inferior)
relationship stance. Both of these usually cause local or chronic
discomforts.
Once you're aware of the sources and common symptoms of the six false-self wounds,
you can relate to such people in an empathic, centered way. If there are
such people in your life now, how do you relate to them? How
do your strategies usually affect your self-esteem? Do you usually get your needs
met well enough with these people?
Useful options for relating well enough to wounded people like these
while keeping centered,
include...
-
strive to keep your Self
(capital "S")
of your other subselves in calm and conflictual situations;
-
steadily choose an attitude of
and compassion, vs. blaming yourself and/or the other person/s;
-
steadily affirm your
Personal Rights and these wise
-
give able people responsibility for
filling their own needs, and stay aware of the concept of
- promoting another person's wounds and ignorances by "being nice" and
avoiding respectful
with them.
The latter often indicates
unawareness and the false-self trait of
- relationship addiction;
-
In difficult situations with guilt-trippers
and guilt-ridden people, practice taking time to...
-
to identify your current relationship and other needs,
-
your needs clearly, respectfully, and forcefully, and...
-
use
to handle the other person's expected "resistances" to
your assertions without blame. Then repeat your assertion.
Example: A friend or relative is
constantly late in keeping appointments. S/He apologizes insincerely, and
makes excuses ("You understand, don't you? I'm just so
disorganized - I can't help being late!") - and s/he doesn't change,
despite your hints and requests.
You decide to assert your need, and the
next time s/he is significantly late, you take the steps above, get good
eye contact, and say something like...
"Pat, I need you to know I won't
accept your lateness any more. "I believe if you really want to
be prompt, you can be, barring emergencies. The next time
you're more than 15" late, I'm going to make other plans."
(A consequence).
You expect Pat to "resist" -
whine, change the subject, make more excuses, "get huffy
(defensive)," or hint that you're
being "unfair" and "selfish" (potential guilt hooks!). You're
of your shared process and Pat's wounds, and you say something
like...
"You want me to accept
that you feel helpless about being on time, and you don't like me
setting limits with you."
This is
not an accusation. If Pat nods or
agrees (feels heard), you re-assert your need and boundary:
"And (not "but")
I need you to
understand, Pat, that the next time you're more than 15 minutes
late, I'm going to make other plans."
Example: typical over-guilty and
shame-based (wounded) people often (a) avoid contact with you, and/or
(b) compulsively apologize profusely and repeatedly. They steadily send
"I'm 1-down" verbal and non-verbal messages, which invite disrespect,
irritation, impatience, and a skewed relationship.
You can't affect their wounds, but
you can confront them
respectfully about (a) over-apologizing and/or (b) their attitude
of inferiority. The first of these might sound like this:
"Chris, you've apologized about four
times now at great length about forgetting to return my book. I
understand you feel badly about this - and (not "but") when you keep
repeating yourself, I get impatient and irritated, and I tune you
out. I need you to stop repeating yourself, so I can stay connected
to you."
Again,
expect Chris's false self to "resist" - e.g. to apologize about
apologizing, say "I'll try," or "I can't help it," or something
else. Use empathic listening to validate this, and then re-assert
calmly and firmly.
Respectfully confronting a person sending chronic "1-down" messages can
sound like this:
"Chris, when you apologize so wordily
and often, chuckle nervously, and have trouble keeping eye contact
with me (specific observable behaviors), I get uncomfortable because
it feels like you don't respect yourself as much as I do (specific
effect on you). Are you open to me mentioning these behaviors to you
to help you become aware of them and their impacts?
-
Final options are deciding if, when, and how to
alert people to their wounds, what the wounds mean, and
their recovery options. See this
article for specific ideas on how to do this.
Pause now, and see if you can summarize the key things you just read about
reacting to "guilt-trippers" and over-guilty people. The theme is - you have
assertion options, and don't have to endure (be a victim to) such wounded
people! Recall - to react like the examples above, you need (a) your true
Self to be steadily guiding your inner crew (Project 1), and (b) your active
subselves to know how and when to use the seven communication
(Project2).
Recap
Guilt is a normal response to
perceiving that we've broken one or more significant rules - shoulds, musts,
oughts, supposed to’s, cant's, and have to's. Guilt (“I did a bad
thing”) feels like shame (“I AM a bad thing.”), but heals
differently.
Moderate guilt promotes correcting social mistakes, and mutual
respect if
personality
are harmonious and
People who survive
childhoods often develop up to six psychological
One is excessive shame and guilts. These cripple the person's
self-image, self-confidence, communication effectiveness, and relationships
until the wounds are significantly reduced via some form of personal
This
article proposes that you can intentionally reduce
excessive guilt to normal, once false-self wounds are admitted. The article outlines (a) where
guilt comes from, (b) why it can cause major problems in typical relationship
and families, and (c) options you can tailor toward reducing your excessive guilt to
normal.
A requisite for this is working to harmonize and empower
your personality subselves to live by your rules, not outmoded
childhood-caregivers' rules - tho other people may dislike that. Key
subselves for your Self (capital "S") to re-train are your reactive
and
related
and
Reducing
excessive shame is an equally-important, separate
wound-reduction process.
The article also suggests specific options for staying centered
and asserting your boundaries with wounded people who
(a) use "guilt trips" to get you to sacrifice your needs and fill theirs, and
(b) with other people who position themselves as inferior to you because of
excessive guilt and shame.
Pause and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you
needed? If not, what
you need? Is your
true Self answering
or are some other subselves?
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