Kim Gibbs: The Guilt Guide

Posts Tagged ‘get rid of guilt’

06/16/10

Post by Kim Gibbs

How to Overcome Guilt and Leave it in the Dust – Step 1

Guilt was meant to be a signal, not a life sentence.  You aren’t meant to suffer from guilt your entire life.  Unfortunately, there are way too many people out there who feel guilty far longer than they should.   

In my next several blogs, I’ll lay out the steps that will help you overcome guilt and leave it in the dust.  These steps worked for me and I’m excited to share them with you.

Step 1   Acknowledge what you did wrong.

If you’re serious about overcoming guilt, you can’t just suppress it, weasel your way around it, or jump over it.  You must work directly through it.

So the very first step in healing is to face what it is you’ve done wrong.  Don’t deny it or blame someone else.  Admit your wrong-doing to yourself and to your God or higher power.  Bring it out of the darkness and into the light.  I like to confess out loud to increase my focus and commitment to this step. 

Don’t be tempted to keep the worst of what you’ve done hidden; honestly confess all of it – your thoughts, feelings and actions – or the guilt will come back later, bigger and badder than ever. 

Guilt is like a painful infection just under the skin.  The first step in treating it is to peel back the skin and expose the infection. Then you can effectively get rid of it.  Overcoming guilt works the same way.  First uncover the cause of the pain, and then you can take the proper steps to cleanse it.

Oscar Wilde once said, “It is the confession, not the priest that gives us absolution.”  In other words, acknowledging your wrong-doing and being accountable for it puts you on the right path for getting rid of guilt.  The rest of the steps will be futile if you don’t start by owning up to your mistake.  

I won’t kid you; this step is usually painful, just like poking around an infection is painful.  But rather than avoiding this step because it adds to your pain, see it as a purging that will relieve it.  And know that the discomfort of this step, just like the pain of guilt, is meant to be short-lived.

Beth Diettert

5/10/10

Post by Kim Gibbs

After almost every presentation I do on guilt, a woman will come up to me afterwards feeling guilty about being the recipient of sexual abuse as a  child.  She feels guilty because she was too scared or young or powerless to do anything about it.  I’m truly saddened by the number of women and children who have had this kind of experience and punish themselves for not being able to stop it.

So today’s guest interview is with Beth Diettert, a remarkable friend of mine who had this kind of experience and is willing to share the things she’s done to forgive herself and get rid of the guilt.  I’m sure you’ll agree that Beth is truly an inspiration and that her story will help many other women.

1) Introduce yourself and what you do. 

 I’m Beth Diettert, the owner and CFO of several Quiznos Subs in Montana.

 2) What is your biggest source of guilt?

It began when I was in the fourth grade, one event that forever changed me.  From that moment on I harbored guilt, shame, fear, sadness.  I blamed myself for not speaking up and telling on my mother’s husband for making me touch him inappropriately.  In my head I was screaming and hoping my mom would catch him in the act. 

I knew the moment it first happened it was wrong but I was petrified and thought if I spoke up I would be severely punished.  In my child mind it made sense that if my mom caught him it would end and I would be safe, but I could not be the one to reveal this devastating secret.  So while she was just a few feet away I screamed in my head for her to catch him while I remained frozen with fear. 

Why did I not yell?  Why did I not tell?  Why did I bury this and suffer for so many years with shame?  Each time it happened it was the same scenario, wishing and hoping he would be caught.  And each time he wasn’t I blamed myself for not telling. 

 3) What negative effects did this have in your life? 

 I closed the door on my childhood; it was too painful to see without the shadow of molestation and the guilt I carried for not speaking up.  Unable to even look at childhood photos without disgust.  Yet at the same time I longed to remember my childhood and hated that these awful memories caused me to bury the good times in order to block out the bad.

 4) What are some things you’ve done to overcome this guilt?

 Once the pain became unbearable and I could no longer silence it I began a journey of healing.  I reached out to various people who gave me resources and guidance.  I joined a group with other survivors and we began a journey of healing together (power in numbers)! 

I sought answers in books, tapes, videos, quotes, affirmations, and strong women who empower me.  I keep a journal and surround myself with inspirational items…my vision board and special gifts and treasured keepsakes that empower me whenever I look upon them.  These items are on the corner of my desk; I gain empowerment from them each and every day!  

5) What positive changes have you seen since putting these techniques into practice?

I’m continually learning that we can change our feelings by changing the thoughts that produced them!  Not trying to stamp out all bad thoughts but rather put them in perspective, look at the alternative, reappraise them.  You’ll continue to have scary thoughts but you can live with them.  It changes our brain function when reappraising and enables us to have power over our thoughts.  POWER over our thoughts! 

  6) Any final words of advice?

“Emotion regulation” is a set of tools that enable us to change the course of our emotions.  Ruminate over a past fearful situation BUT visualize it from another perspective “reappraise the situation.”  If you can change the way you THINK, you can change the way you FEEL! 

 “Unconscious conflicts” are things hidden from you but they’re making you miserable.  Psychotherapy’s role is to bring these out and change the way you think.  Think of it as having a little machine buried down in your emotional brain spitting out all of these really scary thoughts and because you’re the one thinking these things you tend to believe them. 

But wait, there’s a saying in cognitive therapy, don’t believe everything you think!  The key is to face these fears and DEFEAT them.  Put them in perspective using rationalization “I don’t need to be afraid or ashamed or carry guilt by these memories.  I can realize what happened was scary but I know now that I can work through these emotions and leave them behind.”  Or as a very wise woman I know (a key player in my journey) would say…leave them in the dust!

Merrilee Boyack

04/28/10

Posted by Kim Gibbs

I’m currently reading a book by Merrilee Boyack called “Toss the Guilt and Catch the Joy” that I highly recommend.  Merrilee is so funny and makes such great points in this book about how we limit ourselves and our joy because of our guilt. 

One thing in the book that really hit home for me is learning to say, “Not My Problem.”   Seems like as mothers, we always take responsibility for our kid’s choices and feel guilty for their bad ones like it was our fault.

Then we beat ourselves up by saying things like, “I should have spent more time with them; I should have said no more often; I should have kept a tighter rein on them.”   Most likely, our kids would have made the same choices no matter how we parented them.  What we need to remember  is that the consequences they’re paying are theirs and theirs alone. 

The situation your kids find themselves in after making bad choices is not your problem.  If they forget to take their lunch to school, that’s not your problem.  After forgetting and being hungry once, they won’t forget again.  If they shoplift and get caught, the fine or community service or black mark on their record is not your problem.  It’s theirs to face and take care of. 

By not taking your kids problems on as your own, they go through a vital learning process.  Merrilee points out that if you come to their rescue every time they goof up, they have no reason to stop goofing up and you’ll always be bailing them out.   But if you tell youself that it’s not your problem, your kids will eventually learn to be accountable for their own actions.

That’s not to say to ignore your kids when they’re in trouble; you should definitely support and encourage them as they work to make things right.  And obviously there are times when you do need to step in and take control.   But you shouldn’t be doing all the work and feeling all the remorse yourself.  That burden is not yours to bear.  It’s not your problem.

Remember, you can eliminate a ton of remorse and guilt from your life when you stop feeling responsible for everyone else’s actions by telling yourself, “It’s not my problem!”

Merrilee Boyack is a life coach, author and delightful speaker. Visit her website at www.moveforwardcoach.com

03/15/10

Post by Kim Gibbs

I’ve already discussed the first 2 challenges we face  in getting rid of guilt – not knowing we’re supposed to get rid of it, and not knowing how to get rid of it.  In this blog I’ll discuss the third challenge we face: feeling guilty when we haven’t done anything wrong.

It’s amazing how often we feel guilty when we shouldn’t.  These are times when we haven’t broken a commandment or hurt anybody’s feelings or violated our personal code of ethics, yet for some reason, we still feel bad. 

Something inside of us says that we shouldn’t have done what we just did even though there’s no evidence of wrong-doing.  Maybe we were late getting dinner ready or got a flat tire on the way home from work.  There’s nothing wrong with either of these things happening, but they make us feel guilty just the same. 

This is called false guilt.  This type of guilt is something we impose on ourselves.  It’s self-inflicted, unhealthy and totally undeserved.  It’s also rampant among women.  The good news about false guilt is that if we examine it logically, we should be able to reason it away.  ”Dinner was late because I got stuck in traffic.”   ”I never even saw the nail I ran over.”

With false guilt, it’s not unusual for us to exaggerate what we think we did wrong and make it much worse than it actually was.   “If I was more organized, I would have made it home in time to start dinner.”  “If I was a better driver, I would never have run over that nail.”  These are the kinds of useless, negative thoughts that make us feel even worse.

So if we pause and peel back these layers of exaggeration and take a realistic look at what we did, we’ll see that we didn’t cross any line after all and can release the guilt.

 The first question we need to ask ourselves when we feel guilty about something is, “Is this true guilt or false guilt?”  Then try to find any evidence of actual wrong doing.  If there isn’t any, then use reasoning to let the feelings of guilt go. 

This is such a huge problem among women that I’ll be spending some time in future blogs giving you examples of false guilt and the reasoning you can use to let it go.

3/08/10

Post by Kim Gibbs

The first challenge many of us have regarding guilt is that we don’t  know we’re supposed to get rid of it.  The second challenge is:  We don’t know how to get rid of guilt.  

There are so many women who really do want to get rid of  guilt but can’t because they honestly don’t know where to begin.  They don’t know how to properly start the process, what steps to take, and how to continually manage their guilt.  

Others have taken steps that they thought would help them overcome guilt only to have that feeling resurface and drag them down again and again. These people make an honest effort, just not the right one that will work over the long haul. 

If that describes you, then keep visiting this blog.  Bit by bit, I’ll expose the reality of guilt and how to overcome it.  The better you understand what guilt is and what it isn’t , the easier it will be for you to beat it.   This is the message I present when I speak professionally.