Nietzsche said that all of man's old impulses now turned inward on himself in modern men and
this is disease, and this is why we feel guilt. I don’t agree with Nietzsche
but idea is beautiful J Guilt is not a personal disease but
social. Guilt is a way for society to rule the person. And this is a bad way –
rules become behavioral patterns and they in turn never change disregarding
anything.
That’s not all yet.
“Everyone is a moon,
and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” © Mark Twain
The worst here is that
the “dark side” never changes while nobody sees it. Why should it be changed.
Because it limits us, limits our abilities. There’s a lot of stuff about guilt
in the Internet, I don’t want to repeat it all. What I write about is
overcoming the limits. The clue is watching.
You can feel guilt
about action or it’s result, furthermore the feelings of guilt are different:
1.
Social – when
you feel all the world around you looks at you and blames
2.
Personal – you
feel that you did something wrong toward others and you blame yourself
3.
Intermediate
– you did something wrong and it affects your relations
So if you feel guilt the first thing you
can do is “rating” your guilt
Action
|
Result
|
|
Social
|
||
Personal
|
||
Intermediate
|
Just think about it and find its place in
this table – there must be only one. This action has no real meaning except
watching the guilt from outside.
Next step is to understand where it limits
you. What’d you do without this feeling. Try to imagine this thing causing you
to feel guilty never happened.
The last step is treating. The idea of
treating is changing your understanding of your guilt in such a way that it
doesn’t limit you anymore.
It works like this: recall some case from
your life when you felt really happy. You need this state of happiness. Now,
while watching your guilt from outside, become happy because of your guilt,
just smile like an idiot and bring this state of happiness to the situation. I
know it looks stupid, but it works.
P.S.
Same way it works for shame and conscience. Good luck :)
Same way it works for shame and conscience. Good luck :)
