Manage your guilt feelings
By Jean Ricot Dormeus
Bertol was working in the Finance Department when he got a loan and had to prepare the check. When he received the signed check, he yielded to the temptation of falsifying it to get more cash. Up to that incident, Bertol was a credible employee. His mistake cost him his job and caused him to harbor feelings of guilt for a long while. His life took the wrong turn as he got depressed.
One day, he watched a sermon on TV and realized that his situation was not desperate. He could take steps to managing his guilt feelings, including by confessing his fault to God and forgiving himself. Bertol applied the teachings and placed his life on new tracks.
Feelings of guilt are common and emerge for many reasons, even for mistakes not our own. The Independent published the result of a study showing how prevalent these feelings are in the UK. “The average Brit feels guilty for six hours and 36 minutes every week… Researchers who polled 2,000 adults found guilt strikes on three occasions each week, with the feeling lingering for more than two hours each time.”
Left unattended, feelings of guilt wreak havoc on our happiness, energy level, and future. We must understand them as signals that our behavior was out of sync with our beliefs and values. Instead of beating up on ourselves, thus setting up conditions for repeating the same mistakes, we must embrace hope and change.
Joseph Prince observed, “What you believe is very powerful. If you have toxic emotions of fear, guilt and depression, it is because you have wrong thinking, and you have wrong thinking because of wrong believing.”
Confirm the validity of your beliefs and thoughts. This step will help you to manage your feelings of guilt and change your life for the better.
Jean Ricot Dormeus
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