Guilt?

[momalle1]

What is good about being humble?

Everything.

 

[MQTA]

Chapter 5 - review of YEZ, Guilt & Worry



“If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.”



“Throughout life, the two must futile emotions are guilt for what has been done and worry about what might be done. There they are! The great wastes – Worry and Guilt – Guilt and Worry. As you examine these two erroneous zones, you will begin to see how connected they are; in fact they can be viewed as opposite ends of the same zone.”



“X__________________ Present __________________X

Guilt .......... (PAST) ........................... (FUTURE) .... Worry



“Guilt means that you use up your present moments being immobilized as a result of past behavior, while worry is the contrivance that keeps you immobilized in the now about something in the future – frequently something over which you have no control. You can see this clearly if you try to think of yourself as feeling guilty about an event that has yet to occur, or to worry about something that has happened. Although one response is to the future and the other to the past, they both serve the identical purpose of keeping you upset or immobile in your present moment.”



“Guilt and worry are perhaps the most common forms of distress in our culture. With guilt you focus on a past event, feel dejected or angry about something that you did or said, and use up your present moments being occupied with feelings over the past behavior. With worry, you use up those valuable nows, obsessing about a future event. Whether you are looking backward or forward, the result is the same. You’re throwing away the present moment.”



“Guilt is the most useless of all erroneous zone behaviors. It is by far the greatest waste of emotional energy. Why? Because, by definition, you are feeling immobilized in the present over something that has already taken place, and no amount of guilt can ever change history.”



“Guilt is not merely a concern with the past; it is a present-moment immobilization about a past event. And the degree of immobilization can run from mild upset to severe depression…Learning from your mistakes is healthy and a necessary part of growth. Guilt is unhealthy because you are ineffectively using up your energy in the present feeling hurt, upset and depressed about a historical happening. And it’s futile as well as unhealthy. No amount of guilt can ever undo anything.”



“There are two basic ways in which guilt becomes a part of the emotional makeup of an individual. In the first, guilt is learned at a very early age and remains with a grown-up as a leftover childish response. In the second case, guilt is self-imposed by an adult for an infraction of a code to which he professes to subscribe.”



“You can learn to savor pleasure without a sense of guilt. You can learn to see yourself as someone who is capable of doing anything that fits into your own value system and does not harm others – and doing it without guilt. If you do something, whatever it may be, and you don’t like it or yourself after having done it, you can vow to eliminate such behavior for yourself in the future.”



“Here are the most basic reasons for choosing to waste your present feeling guilty about things that you’ve done or failed to do in the past.



· By absorbing your present moments feeling guilt about something that has already taken place, you don’t have to use that now moment in any kind of effective, self-enhancing way…guilt is an avoidance technique for working on yourself in the present. Thus you shift responsibility for what you are or are not now to what you were or were not in the past.

· By shifting responsibility backward you not only avoid the hard work of changing yourself now but the attendant risks that go with change as well. It is easier to immobilize yourself with guilt about the past than to take the hazardous path of growing in the present.

· There is a tendency to believe that if you feel guilty enough, you will eventually be exonerated for having been naughty.

· Guilt can be a means of returning to the safety of childhood, a secure period when others made decisions for you and took care of you.

· Guilt is a useful method for transferring responsibility for your behavior from yourself to others.

· Often you can win the approval of others even when those others don’t approve of your behavior by feeling guilt for that behavior.

· Guilt is a superb way to win pity from others.

 

[elman]

Chapter 5 - review of YEZ, Guilt & Worry



“If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.”



“Throughout life, the two must futile emotions are guilt for what has been done and worry about what might be done. There they are! The great wastes – Worry and Guilt – Guilt and Worry. As you examine these two erroneous zones, you will begin to see how connected they are; in fact they can be viewed as opposite ends of the same zone.”



“X__________________ Present __________________X

Guilt .......... (PAST) ........................... (FUTURE) .... Worry



“Guilt means that you use up your present moments being immobilized as a result of past behavior, while worry is the contrivance that keeps you immobilized in the now about something in the future – frequently something over which you have no control. You can see this clearly if you try to think of yourself as feeling guilty about an event that has yet to occur, or to worry about something that has happened. Although one response is to the future and the other to the past, they both serve the identical purpose of keeping you upset or immobile in your present moment.”



“Guilt and worry are perhaps the most common forms of distress in our culture. With guilt you focus on a past event, feel dejected or angry about something that you did or said, and use up your present moments being occupied with feelings over the past behavior. With worry, you use up those valuable nows, obsessing about a future event. Whether you are looking backward or forward, the result is the same. You’re throwing away the present moment.”



“Guilt is the most useless of all erroneous zone behaviors. It is by far the greatest waste of emotional energy. Why? Because, by definition, you are feeling immobilized in the present over something that has already taken place, and no amount of guilt can ever change history.”



“Guilt is not merely a concern with the past; it is a present-moment immobilization about a past event. And the degree of immobilization can run from mild upset to severe depression…Learning from your mistakes is healthy and a necessary part of growth. Guilt is unhealthy because you are ineffectively using up your energy in the present feeling hurt, upset and depressed about a historical happening. And it’s futile as well as unhealthy. No amount of guilt can ever undo anything.”



“There are two basic ways in which guilt becomes a part of the emotional makeup of an individual. In the first, guilt is learned at a very early age and remains with a grown-up as a leftover childish response. In the second case, guilt is self-imposed by an adult for an infraction of a code to which he professes to subscribe.”



“You can learn to savor pleasure without a sense of guilt. You can learn to see yourself as someone who is capable of doing anything that fits into your own value system and does not harm others – and doing it without guilt. If you do something, whatever it may be, and you don’t like it or yourself after having done it, you can vow to eliminate such behavior for yourself in the future.”



“Here are the most basic reasons for choosing to waste your present feeling guilty about things that you’ve done or failed to do in the past.



· By absorbing your present moments feeling guilt about something that has already taken place, you don’t have to use that now moment in any kind of effective, self-enhancing way…guilt is an avoidance technique for working on yourself in the present. Thus you shift responsibility for what you are or are not now to what you were or were not in the past.

· By shifting responsibility backward you not only avoid the hard work of changing yourself now but the attendant risks that go with change as well. It is easier to immobilize yourself with guilt about the past than to take the hazardous path of growing in the present.

· There is a tendency to believe that if you feel guilty enough, you will eventually be exonerated for having been naughty.

· Guilt can be a means of returning to the safety of childhood, a secure period when others made decisions for you and took care of you.

· Guilt is a useful method for transferring responsibility for your behavior from yourself to others.

· Often you can win the approval of others even when those others don’t approve of your behavior by feeling guilt for that behavior.

· Guilt is a superb way to win pity from others.

Guilt can also encourage you to do a better job in raising your kids or dealing with you friends than you did in the past. If it is used that way it is a good thing and not at all imobilizing.

 

[MQTA]

Guilt can also encourage you to do a better job in raising your kids or dealing with you friends than you did in the past. If it is used that way it is a good thing and not at all imobilizing.

Yep.

Isn't that covered there? Maybe it's in the next part. If you do something that doesn't work out, you don't feel guilty over it, you learn to not to that again.

 

[MQTA]

"Guilt is not merely a concern with the past; it is a present-moment immobilization about a past event. And the degree of immobilization can run from mild upset to severe depression…Learning from your mistakes is healthy and a necessary part of growth. Guilt is unhealthy because you are ineffectively using up your energy in the present feeling hurt, upset and depressed about a historical happening. And it’s futile as well as unhealthy. No amount of guilt can ever undo anything.”

 

[Troof]

No amount of guilt can ever undo anything

No, but it can stop you doing the same thing again

 

[savvy]

I agree that guilt has its place, but as with all things, should be done with moderation. Its good in that, if I hurt someone and feel guilty, I will likely not do that again. Good stuff. But lots of guilt is so needless and wouldn't even exist without societal taboos or religion to impose said guilt. That kind is a waste and is worse for people than not feeling guilt at all.

 

[Zakath]

...as with all things, should be done with moderation...

Does "all things" include moderation?

 

[12345678and9]

Just wanted to say hello. I am a newbie...God bless.



~If human love were measured by perfection, than love would cease to exist~
~Distance is only anticipation of greater things to come~ (douggorman)

 

[MQTA]

No, but it can stop you doing the same thing again

bingo, that's the point.

was the first thing to go when I started reading that book 12+ years ago. learned a lot since then, fer sure

 

[savvy]

Does "all things" include moderation?

Yeah, everyone deserves a good splurge now and then.

Or how about, all things in moderation unless moderation is no fun? Guilt is no fun, so down with guilt.

 

[Corran]

The absense of feeling guilty when we hurt others is a sign of spiritual death.

Or it can simply be a mental illness. I for one lost the abilty to feel empathy and guilt over the period of several years of suffering from an undiagnosed psycotic illness.

 

[loriersea]

Personally, I think people feel guilty about the wrong things. I think that some level of guilt is good, and that it can impel us to action. But, I think the problem is that so many Christians are so eaten up with guilt over private sexual sins (and busy trying to make other people feel guilty about private sexual sins) that they don't have any time to feel guilty about their enormous privilege and complicity in a world economy that leaves people around the world starving, which is something we should feel guilty about and try to do something about.

I think that some branches of American Christianity are designed to keep people obsessively guilty about private sexual sin so that they will not address the blatant corporate sins (by which I mean the sins that we as an entire people are responsible for) around them.

 

[Zakath]

Yeah, everyone deserves a good splurge now and then.

Or how about, all things in moderation unless moderation is no fun? Guilt is no fun, so down with guilt.

Actually, I think the ancient quote (attributed to Bautama Buddha) is "All things in moderation; including moderation."

 

[elman]

Yeah, everyone deserves a good splurge now and then.

Or how about, all things in moderation unless moderation is no fun? Guilt is no fun, so down with guilt.

I agree. We somtimes need to get a little zealous or crazy about some issues.

 

[elman]

Or it can simply be a mental illness. I for one lost the abilty to feel empathy and guilt over the period of several years of suffering from an undiagnosed psycotic illness.

I think that is probably correct.

 

[Jacob4Jesus]

I feel guilty if a do long division and get a remainder.

 

[elman]

Yep.

Isn't that covered there? Maybe it's in the next part. If you do something that doesn't work out, you don't feel guilty over it, you learn to not to that again.

But is feeling guilty about it or at least regreting you did something in the way you did, not needed for you to learn to not do it that way again? If you have no guilt or regret, then you don't see that you have done it wrong and you have no reason to do it different.

 

[Skydancing]

I only feel guilt if I have deliberately hurt someone in some way, otherwise not.

 

[MQTA]

But is feeling guilty about it or at least regreting you did something in the way you did, not needed for you to learn to not do it that way again? If you have no guilt or regret, then you don't see that you have done it wrong and you have no reason to do it different.

The idea is what to do with it? HOLD on to it FOREVER and beat yourself up over it ever time something comes up that reminds you of it, or do you see what happened, what went wrong, what to do for next time, and then just LET it GO?

You're going to EXTREMES