Letting Go of Guilt Can Be a Lifelong Effort

Are you good at letting go of guilt? Or, do you feel it always lingers and getting rid of it has become a lifelong effort?

Does guilt ever go away? Why do we hold onto it for so long?

It’s been well over forty years since Nannie (my grandma) was alive. As I’ve mentioned before, she lived with us in a two-family house in Queens. One day, after I came home from school, I heard someone yelling, “Help Me, help me!” I thought it was coming from outside. I ran out of the house looking everywhere but didn’t find anyone.

I went back inside and upstairs to ask Nannie if she had heard the cry for help. She told me it was her! She had fallen in the bedroom and needed help to stand. Her voice had carried through the radiator under the window,, so I believed it was coming from outside.

She said she was okay. She managed to leverage herself on one of the beds and pull herself up but, I was devastated. Why didn’t I check on her first? I was so angry at myself for going outside! I still get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think of her lying on that floor crying for help.

“There are three basic kinds of guilt: (1) natural guilt, or remorse over something you did or failed to do; (2) free-floating, or toxic, guilt—the underlying sense of not being a good person; and (3) existential guilt, the negative feeling that arises out of the injustice you perceive in the world, and out of your own unpaid obligations to life itself.”

https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/philosophy/goodbye-guilt/

Is Guilt Making You Feel Like a Bad Person?

Guilt can turn into a big problem if you dwell on it and do not or cannot let it go. Most people feel guilty for something they’ve done that was wrong and an apology can typically make that guilt go away. However, free-floating or toxic guilt is a very different story.

When illness or tragedy strikes, is it because you are inherently not a good person? Is the universe trying to tell you something?

Intellectually, I know that is crazy thinking, but those thoughts crept into my mind when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer.

How would my children’s lives have been different if they didn’t experience having a mom with breast cancer? Why did I get breast cancer? Had I done something wrong, and cancer was my punishment?

My daughter was eighteen, and my son was fourteen years old when we told them I had breast cancer. It was a horrible conversation. It’s one of those days I will never forget.

Each of them was embarking on exciting times – Erin was starting college, and Michael was starting high school. My cancer immediately took the “wind out of their sails.”

The guilt I felt was enormous!

It was utterly unfounded, yet it was like a swarm of gnats I could not escape. How could I be a good mom if I had breast cancer? What if I didn’t survive? Guilt, guilt, guilt!

Letting Go of Guilt

Mom guilt is definitely a “thing.” Was I a bad mom because my job involved lots of travel,, and I was not home all of the time? Or, because I couldn’t host weekday playdates like other moms?

I always wanted to be a Class Mom, but my job prevented it. (Yet another thing I can feel guilty for in regards to my kids’ childhood.) The list goes on and on.

Likewise, was I a bad daughter because I took a position in Chicago and was not near my mom when she began suffering from heart issues? I wasn’t available to take her to doctor appointments, visit with her, cook her dinner, etc. I was 1600 miles away – talk about feeling guilty!

Can you see where guilt can be overwhelming? Guilt made me feel that I was not good enough. It wasn’t until I was battling cancer that I learned this was simply not true. Why did it take a tragedy for me to gain such wisdom? So ironic!

The truth is, I learned that cancer doesn’t choose bad people vs. good people. Who I was or was not had absolutely nothing to do with cancer. The disease is random. Once I was able to accept that, my guilt was no longer justified. I was able to take my focus off of feeling guilty all the time.

Through the grace of God, I flipped the switch in the middle of my cancer battle. I started to focus on all things positive. Surprisingly, I found many things to be grateful for!

If you really look for it, most times you can find more positives than negatives in your life. If you focus on the positive you attract more positive things. Have you tried this when you were in a tough spot? I highly recommend it.

Guilt still lingers in the background but I have come to accept it more as a memory than a feeling of pain. For example, I still remember inadvertently breaking John Kennedy’s Tomahawk souvenier in grammar school but, I no longer feel as if I need to replace it. True progress, right?

Do you have any guilty memories of your childhood that make you chuckle now? How do you handle guilt when faced with it? Is it a struggle? Can you let it go? Let me know in the comments below.