How heavy is your sense of guilt?

“Throughout life, the two most futile emotions are guilt for what has been done and worry about what might be done. … It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do.” Wayne Dyer

How does the fake blocking guilt pattern sound? 

“If I express what I really think and if I act accordingly, if I ask for respect for my needs, if I say no to something that is asked of me, I will produce suffering, humiliation, frustration in the other person, and that is unbearable to me.”

The truth is that it is not a matter of goodness, nor ability, but of the attempt, through gritted teeth, not to lose the image of oneself. What image? The picture of the good girl/guy. We are obsessed with not wanting to create problems, not saying nos that we prefer to live like Atlas and carry the vault of heaven on our backs.  

Why do we hold up the world alone? It is a thing of leaving behind a self-centred understanding of oneself, which envisages an ‘I’ that, like the mythological Atlas, bears the weight of everything and does not give others the chance to work out their distress and frustrations and to leave the responsibility to whom concern. 

We have to face the loss of this image of ourselves and relate to others as equals, and no longer from our contradictory stand of ‘almighty martyrs’. Freeing ourselves from the sense of guilt means giving ourselves the chance to be known by others for who we really are, feel and think. 

We will discover that we have always omitted a part of ourselves until now, not because we wanted to deceive, but because we were afraid that others would not accept us. 

And finally, if we follow ourselves, we will feel free and authentic.

Photo by Pascale Weber / Styling Victoria Steiner