What is Guilt?

I want to explore the emotion of guilt. Have you ever wondered what prompts this emotion and why we feel it?  

From childhood, whenever someone tried to make me feel guilty, it would evoke anger in me and I wasn't sure why or where the anger came from.  Looking back at it, I must have instinctively known or felt that they were trying to emotionally manipulate me even though I didn't have the logical wherewithal to know or understand this. All I knew was that I felt I had done nothing to feel guilty about and that what they were trying to do didn't feel good to me. I didn't succumb to the emotion they were trying to impose on me that I wasn't feeling authentically.  

Now that I can analyze this, I realize that people use guilt to control others by trying to bend their will. I couldn't understand this at the time but could feel it. This is a tactic in emotional manipulation. They use your feelings against you and try to sabotage your decision-making by placing doubt in your mind about your feelings and inner compass to manipulate you into making different choices that suit them.     

In life, we all have free will. We get to make our own decisions and experience the results of those decisions. That is how we learn, grow and live a full life. Sometimes our choices won't and don't align with those around us, and sometimes we make mistakes. Those are our choices to make and learn from. When our choices don't align with those around us, sometimes they would prefer we make different decisions to align more closely with what they want.   Whether it is because those decisions serve them better, or maybe they think they know what decisions would serve you better, in the end, it doesn't matter; it isn't their decision to make.  When our actions don't align with someone else's preference, this creates a feeling of loss of control for them.   This loss of control makes people resort to tactics that aren't always noble or loving   

This is where the guilt trip comes in.   A person can then decide to use guilt to try to change your mind or make you feel bad about the decisions that you have made. Instead of having a direct exchange and accepting the outcome, they instead choose to use guilt by weaponizing your emotions against you. When you guilt a person, you undermine them emotionally to get your desired result. This isn't a caring or loving action but a tactic to gain control over someone else's free will.  Unfortunately, I see this as a normal relating style in families. It is a learned style and utilized because people either have not learned how to express themselves more constructively when they reach an impasse with someone or used when others feel that they deserve or have the right to have some control over another. (For instance, when the parent never fully acknowledges that the child has become an adult and they feel they still have some control over their lives).   

We can approach these impasses with others by appealing to someone's logic and or emotions to try to help them understand why we are making the decisions we are in life......But, it isn't our responsibility to get them to agree or accept our choices.  We have to be OK with dissonance as an outcome.    We aren't responsible for another's emotions and how they feel about the decisions we make in our own lives.  

To add another layer to this, we do more than an adequate job of feeling guilt without someone trying to put that on us.    We can feel guilty about a decision that doesn't align with another or may disappoint another without them saying or doing anything. This is when we sabotage ourselves emotionally.  Why would we do that and undermine ourselves emotionally?  This isn't a very loving act towards ourselves. This is where we need to get emotionally balanced so we can accurately discern between the emotions we should be feeling and when.  We can't take on another person's emotions or their imbalanced view of our responsibility in the relationship.  You only have total control of your intent; only ill intent should warrant guilt. Most people are making decisions for themselves, not against another, but many people don't see it that way. Many people make everything about themselves, even other people's choices for their lives. We can't own their misperception of the dynamic and surrender our will to try to please them.   We can always consider others when making decisions but sometimes we have to accept that others may not like our decisions.  

In a  balanced interdependent relationship with another, you should be confident in knowing that you have value even when others are upset with you or disagree. You can disagree without guilt.  That is a marker for a healthy relationship with yourself and another.  This is is where we have to work on clear thinking, and emotional balance, so we learn to love ourselves enough not to feel guilty when it isn't warranted.  Taking on the responsibility for another's emotions or making someone responsible for your emotions is a burden and an imbalance that will plague a relationship. If you eliminate unnecessary guilt, you are well on your way in your journey to greater balance, and this is a needed exercise in self-love.