It is necessary to get rid of the neurotic guilt, as this is a destructive, harmful feeling, in which there is no energy to improve life. Such a person believes that he suffers deservedly, therefore he does not seek a way out of the current situation - nothing changes in reality. Compare, for example, two cases. First: you took a bath with someone else's book, accidentally drowned her. Guilty, worried. What will you do? Probably, you will apologize and in exchange you will buy exactly the same. The incident is over. It was a healthy feeling of guilt. What is the sense of guilt and how to overcome it, find out in the article on "The technique of getting rid of feelings of guilt".
The sense of guilt is the price we pay for living in a relatively safe and predictable world. If a primitive man, without hesitation, satisfied all his desires, then modern people are forced to deny themselves some of the pleasures. We know that you can not take away someone else's with impunity or sleep with everyone. It is the sense of guilt, according to Sigmund Freud, that makes our behavior socially acceptable. Internal discomfort warns about the unacceptability of an action in advance, signals that a mistake was made and it would be good to correct it (ask for forgiveness, for example). Another option: you think that because of you, my mother donated a career (she told you this). And your whole life has turned into an atonement for "sin": now you must provide your mother with a comfortable old age, compensate her sacrifice. But no matter how hard, no matter what part of the salary, or give it to my parents, the guilt does not go away anyway. Because there are no objective reasons to experience it. Did you ask Mom to drop the institute? In fact, you are not responsible for the decision it made. The child is able to feel guilt after three years. He uses this feeling as a psychological defense. If parents do not speculate on the child's sense of guilt, then the child calmly accepts the fact that it is not all-powerful. And if adults say something like "you behaved badly, so your mother left" or "did not eat porridge, upset father", then the guilt can become chronic, turn into a life concept. Such a person will feel guilty in the most bizarre situations, like the hero from Chekhov's story that he died because he sneezed at the official's bald spot.
Human manipulator
Guilt often becomes a very powerful tool for controlling people. What, for example, does a girl who does not have enough attention of a young man? Of course, she does not inform him of this her need directly (this does not work, it's been checked a hundred times). Much more elegant and effective will cry or mysteriously shut up, showing offense. A man is unlikely to be able to ignore such obvious "requests" for attention. A sense of guilt ("what a stupid dickhead I am") will lead him to a flower tent or a jewelry store. Of course, the usual quiet conversation "about our feelings" would not cause such a reaction. People use guilt as a psychological defense not only as a child, but also as adults. For example, in such an intolerable, extreme situation as the death of a loved one. We blame ourselves for what was not saved, not saved (although objectively it was impossible), because to accept the fact of its helplessness is extremely difficult and scary. How to continue to exist in a world in which you can not affect such important things as the life of your loved ones? Usually after a while people take their helplessness and move on to the next stage of experiencing grief - mourning. But some carry this unspoken guilt for life. And the more favorable was the childhood of a person (that is, if the wine did not have time to turn into a life concept), the less likely that it will be stuck in a state of self-flagellation. Managing another person with guilt may not be such a bad idea (if you ignore the moral aspect). But only the manipulator himself becomes a hostage of his strategy and almost 100% of the time he experiences guilt, watching how the other person is suffering.
How to understand - is to blame or not?
The most important thing is to establish the limits of responsibility. For example, you feel guilty that my mother did not have a personal life (she said: "And who would take me with a child?"). Or that the boyfriend was injured in a car accident: after you quarreled, he drank and sat behind the wheel. Anastasia Fokina explains that to remove guilt, you should deliberately reduce your area of ​​responsibility. Ask yourself a simple question - could or can I be responsible for this? Can an infant look for a mother of suitors? And did you put an adult drunk man behind the wheel? Of course not. If in the process of thinking about the situation and recognizing guilt, there is energy to correct the error, then the fault is objective. And you can get rid of it by taking a few simple steps: apologize, compensate for damage, offer help. But if you can not clearly explain what was wrong (there is only an internal very heavy feeling), then, most likely, there is no real guilt. So, you can not atone for it. Because there is nothing to bathe.
With limited liability
A psychologically healthy person practically does not experience guilt. The behavior of such a person is regulated by a much more mature sense of responsibility. These are obligations that a person takes on himself voluntarily. Unlike feelings of guilt, responsibility is specific - you can accurately say that one circumstance could affect, and others - no. For example, you can not be to blame for the fact that the life of parents did not work out, because adults are responsible for young children, and not vice versa. The most sophisticated way to cause a strong sense of guilt is illness. He admirably controls the behavior of another person. Who will abandon the unfortunate? Only a scoundrel. And no one wants to be considered as such. And quite often the manipulator falls ill not specifically, but unconsciously. His body assumes responsibility for the relationship of two people from despair - this means that all other ways to tie a person to themselves have not helped. Some are ready to be ill very long and very seriously, if only to maintain the necessary level of feelings of guilt in a partner or children. A child's illness can be the only thing that unites the couple and keeps from divorce. Psychologists call this phenomenon "the profitability of the disease." Some mothers simply do not need a child to stop being sick - because then nothing will keep her husband in the family. A chronic sense of guilt is not a sign of spirituality, but a sign of immaturity, says Elena Lopukhina. Getting rid of him in the adult state is not easy, but even more difficult is to try to go forward, feeling yourself all and always due.
Feeling guilty, scolding ourselves, we can not think, analyze, reason soberly. All the time we turn back ("And if I acted differently?") And get stuck in the past. Responsibility, by contrast, inspires action, it is aimed at the future and allows us to correct mistakes, rather than regretting them fruitlessly. A person in charge, having done something wrong, thinks that he has done badly, and the one who is guided by the guilt will only feel bad. And the first will be easier after he corrects the mistake, and the second will continue to suffer. A child whose parents were taught to feel guilty, but did not teach to be free and responsible for their actions, becoming an adult, will not be able to notice, recognize and correct what he did wrong. It will seem to him that demonstrating his guilt is enough to be forgiven. Now we know what the method of getting rid of guilt is.