A Therapist, A Buddhist, and You
A Therapist, A Buddhist, and You
Breaking Free from Guilt: Exploring Solutions for Healing and Growth
Have you ever wrestled with the emotional whirlwind that is guilt? That's so human of you! What if we told you that this complex emotion, often making you squirm uncomfortably, could be turned into the most potent tool for personal growth and self-improvement? From learning to recognize when you've caused harm or breached your values to healthily navigating those feelings, join us as we dismantle 'unhealthy guilt' and its impacts on our lives.
We promise to take you on an enlightening journey, offering a fresh perspective on guilt. We explore its sources through intense discussions, such as societal expectations, cultural norms, and internal beliefs. We tackle how it can manifest physically and emotionally, leading to chronic conditions like stress, anxiety, and depression. But it's not all gloom and doom. We delve into the distinction between healthy and unhealthy guilt, demonstrating how guilt can drive self-improvement and identify our underlying values and principles.
Finally, we share some practical tools to harness guilt for personal growth. Reflecting on past mistakes and mindful decision-making, combined with the power of human connection, can help navigate guilt or shame. You'll learn to let go when responsibility becomes a burden and embrace it as an ally on your path to becoming the best version of yourself. This conversation is more than just an exploration of guilt; it's a transformative journey of self-discovery and an invitation to make better decisions for your future. So, please tune in, and let's start transforming together.
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Welcome to A Therapist, a Buddhist innu, a thought-provoking podcast proudly brought to you by the Recovery Collective in Annapolis, maryland. Reventuring on a transformative journey through self-discovery, exploring a collective solution to all things health and wellness. I'm your host, luke DeBoy, a therapist, here to delve into depths of psychology, spirituality and all things health and wellness. Joining me on this podcast, in every podcast, is my co-host, zalmol. Hey Luke, hello everyone. Good to see you, luke. How's it going? As you guys know, at this point he's a Tidavata Buddhist meditation and life coach, bringing profound insights from the world of spirituality and mindfulness. Together, we'll navigate the intersections of these diverse realms, offering practical tools and perspectives that have the potential to transform your life. So, as part of our collective community, we encourage you to connect with us and fellow listeners on our social platforms all the usuals Facebook, tiktok, youtube, instagram. Links are available in the episode notes.
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Speaker 1:On a therapist Buddhist and you, let's jump in Zal, shall we? Sounds good, let's do it. Let's jump in and talk about guilt. Guilt, that's a complex emotion, isn't it? It is, yeah. So I guess why are we talking about guilt? You know, when it comes to guilt part of I don't know right now what we're going to call this episode you guys listening already know, but there's a level of healthy guilt and unhealthy guilt, so I want to kind of do a deep dive on that. When is guilt beneficial in a healthy way, because it certainly has a negative connotation. When we think of the word guilt, what comes to your mind, as I often throw some things on you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good topic that we're exploring and I am here to learn and also share. The thing that comes to mind is about I'll save some of the thoughts for later because I want to hear what you have to say too. But basically, you know some kind of a moral compass. Having a good moral compass provide a healthy guilt that, well, I've done something wrong and I shouldn't do it again, you know. But if unhealthy guilt gets to the level of shame that I did something bad, as opposed to saying that I did something bad, I'm a bad person, then it could become that wiring of unhealthy guilt where self-esteem and everything just drops as a result. It destroys us. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's one of the things that often people can relate to as that unhealthy piece. It increases stress, like you said, anxiety. It can lead to depression. This chronic guilt can manifest physically. It can affect our digestive system and gut distress. It can compromise our immune system. It can really have a terrible effect if it's chronic, when we stay in that guilt. Let's define guilt as a complex emotion arising from the belief that we have violated our own moral and or ethical standards, meaning we've done something that we're not proud of at a deep level. Like you said, it can serve as a moral compass signaling when our actions may have caused harm or breached our personal values. And it's certainly it's an emotion. Guilt is an emotion. If we have this level of consciousness that we lowered our own moral standards or we did something that we didn't want to, the emotion of guilt can play with us physically and emotionally.
Speaker 2:You mentioned it is physical as well. It really affects how I I guess inability to see the world or inability to look at the world eye to eye level. It's also what unhealthy guilt can do to you. And yeah, I mean, I have experienced that in my life, especially struggling with addiction, so guilt is a very familiar territory for me. But yeah, so I guess it's destructive. I was thinking, yeah, what would be a good way to dig deeper into this? One of the approaches that I'm thinking of?
Speaker 2:is from, you know, because we were talking about morality and moral compass too, or some kind of a values and the standards that we set, which sometimes can be a little too high, and we gain these standards without much of an examining them. Then, by setting that too high, we're going so low, you know, in regards to that, and then there's an aspect of self deception as well for people who struggle with addiction. So yeah, whichever way we want to dive into it, I'm open.
Speaker 1:Well, we can really hammer it home and look how it can be destructive, or we can identify the sources of it. Which way do you want to go first?
Speaker 2:I like looking at the sources. How do you feel Causes?
Speaker 1:How do you feel so? Guilt has various sources societal expectations, cultural norms and these internal beliefs. One thing we do in therapy is look at underlining causes and conditions. What are the root causes of guilt, whether it's a legitimate guilt or, I'll say, justifiable guilt? I often relate when people are depressed or have depression. People are like we often have a society of I should not feel depressed, I should not feel sad. We are not robots. There may be a justifiable reason why someone is feeling stress, anxiety, depression, guilt. These are a full range of emotions that we have as humans and they're uncomfortable emotions. But these can be healthy, which we'll talk about. But let's look at some of the root causes. Internalized beliefs and conditioning, our past experiences can condition and influence how we perceive guilt. You want to mean by that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do, and I'm reflecting on my own experience in my life too, that even if it has happened or if I have an expectation of if I admit that I've done something wrong and if it is perceived with punishment or some kind of embarrassment, chances are that I won't admit it I've, and then either do it over and over again or try to improve it on my own. That adds into that unhealthy guilt which also comes from the environment where, if it's in that loving environment, if you've done something wrong, you're like oh, I did it and then I can improve next time. But if it's an environment of where you can get shamed or you'll be embarrassed and then chances are that you won't share that you've done something wrong.
Speaker 1:I'll relate the guilt with. You brought it up more than once, to the shame. I remember in middle school elementary school too, I believe like speech class and just having this horrible feeling of not feeling ready and not having the ability to be up in front of a classroom of my classmates. And I remember I think we had to do a little five-minute presentation on Greek mythology and I had like one of those Toga robes on because I forgot what Greek God that I was supposed to share on and the whole presentation I just talked like this and shook and I remember my parents helped me add a little joke in there just to help me and lighten the mood. And of course I'm reading this three by five postcard or whatever it was, and then I say the joke and all I did was hear the teacher laugh but I didn't realize I was reading the joke, so it shocked me that she started laughing.
Speaker 1:So then I felt like this feeling of, yes, shame, but this emotion of my parents tried to help me and I should have done better than this, and that rolling distortion of just feeling guilty which went into my middle school career and college career and I'll never be able to speak, and now I do speaking engagements. So it's funny how that's changed. But this overall sense of from this past experience that I conditioned myself that, no, I shouldn't even try to do that, that how dare I think about getting on stage again? Now this is elementary school and middle school, so that internal belief system was nope, I'll never be good, and that's the shame. And it can kind of connect with guilt too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and from the Buddhist point of view too, I think that the source of guilt also comes from my unaccepting of the humanness. As a human being, I'm fallible, like I can make mistakes, and I didn't know this was going to be an emotional topic, but I got a little emotional about, like, how high of a standard we can set for ourselves. So like I'm reflecting on my own experience of all I when I was learning how to speak English, I was very embarrassed about that because, but at the same time, looking back, like how would I know to speak English? I wasn't born in a native, you know, english speaking country. But then I have these like really high standards for myself, like why can I not say this grammatically right? Or why can I not pronounce this the right way? You know all these things which are not fair, you know. So I mean same. This is I'm not sure if it's a good example, like when, you know, when my daughter was born, I don't expect her to start walking right away. You know, it is like yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it just makes me think of that, the fact that we are human being and we got to start from somewhere, which is not going to be perfect, but that's okay. We keep you know making progress. So in a way, it can be an inviting thing to have healthy guilt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the high, unattainable standard of run before you can walk, before you can crawl. We don't have that for your example, you don't have that for your children. Why do we put these sometimes unachievable expectations which can only feel negative sense of self and fuel this negative self talk? I often tell people that everybody has that internal critic. I don't care if you feel like you've had the healthiest childhood growing up or your self esteem is through the roof. We're human and everybody has that negative internal critic. It's like that little thing on your shoulder and we're not always positive, we're not always have the best self esteem and sometimes that little internal critic that's negative can get really loud really loud, sometimes appropriately.
Speaker 1:So if I've done something wrong, I'll give another elementary school example that might fit guilt even more so than my previous one, and I don't know if my parents are listening because I've never told them this story. But we were this was middle school and we took a trip to DC. We live in Annapolis and often kids around here take a trip to one of the 100 museums in DC, and I was often a quiet kid.
Speaker 1:You have to wonder about the quiet kids. And it was just one of those dumb things, that that there used to be t-shirt shops along the streets and I said you won't steal one. So guess what I did? The addict in me stole four, and that people were shocked. So I got one for me and one for someone else and I had the others in my bag and I remember that started to get around driving home and one of the chaperones sat next to me and just started talking to me and I was really quiet.
Speaker 1:And then it was a Friday, but I felt so guilty. I remember the bus ride home that Friday from school. I felt sick to my stomach that whole weekend. I always say no jail cell can punish us more than we punish ourselves with guilt and shame. And I punished myself. I felt sick to my stomach, I was scared to death that I was going to get suspended from school and of course one of the other kids that had a conscious told one of the teachers, but the teacher couldn't fathom that I would do that, so it didn't go anywhere. But my God, I sat with that guilt appropriately so that my moral standard, my value, was not to steal.
Speaker 1:But I did to look. Oh, you think I can't do this.
Speaker 2:Let me show you.
Speaker 1:I was sick to my stomach all weekend and then I was worried for the next week if I was going to get suspended. I don't know what I did. I blocked it out of my memory. I have no idea what I did with those DC shirts Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a cool story. Foul for story, I relate to that. Appropriate guilt, appropriate guilt, yeah, and I'm also thinking about like, from the point of view of Buddhism too. It has a lot to do with attachment being attached to something that has already happened, that will never change, which is true, that action is already done, but as a person, as an individual, I'm evolving. So, like I mean some actions or, yeah, actions are not irreversible but at the same time, I can do better, as a character development.
Speaker 2:In a way, you know so. But, like, my inability to admit comes from the fact that, oh, that was the worst things that I've ever done and it is in the record and it will never change and I'm the worst person ever. But if it's at a healthy level, it can be a good gaging point. You know, sometimes the boundaries are there for us to realize after we've crossed it Not that we will never cross it, it's good not to cross it at all but sometimes the boundaries are there to tell us, oh, I've crossed the line, so let me go back in and not cross again. So I think I don't know if we're ready to jump into the healthy guilt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, guilt can be adaptable. I guess I want to touch upon what is the difference between guilt and shame. One way I try to explain it to people is guilt I did something stupid, I stole on a field trip. I felt guilt and my conscious knew that was wrong and I had an emotion that I start to feel bad about appropriately. So shame if guilt is I did something stupid. Shame is an evolution to I am something stupid. I did a behavior that I'm not proud of. Shame you can look at it as I am that bad thing. So it's almost a deeper level of emotion of hurt. What do you think of that definition?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that relates back to what we have done in episode on about forgiveness.
Speaker 1:The. Thing.
Speaker 2:I share about this too, which is what I've learned from my Buddhist mentor about the difference between, when we forgive, we're not forgiving the action, but we're forgiving the actor. So same with guilt and shame too, that I can forgive myself about the action that I've taken. No, I don't have to forgive myself for the I don't have to forgive the action.
Speaker 2:I've done something stupid, that's it. But then I can forgive myself to do better next time. That action doesn't have to be part of my identity. But then I guess the healthy guilt can also be there, that if I have a pattern of doing something over and over again wherever I go, that kind of becomes my identity which will fuel the shame. But also if the awareness is there, I can kind of separate the two and then do better next time.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the hope with that emotion and what can lead to it being healthy that if I feel that I've wronged somebody or I did something wrong, it encouraged us to improve or make amends. If I did something wrong, I can write it. One of the reasons why I sat with that guilt in middle school after that field trip is because I was scared to death that I was going to be punished or suspended. So I didn't want to make that wrong right by telling one myself or giving or going back to DC and giving the shirts back. So I sat with that guilt for until it made me sick.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, that was physical for you, very physical. You were physically sick.
Speaker 1:I was physically sick. Wow, I was depressed. Yeah, so that's the role of healthy guilt. It's to self-reflect and then hopefully, having the willingness to make amends or change the unhealthy behavior. We see that in our practice, don't we? We do yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of times people come see us for your life coaching and my therapy because there's a change in their behavior in life and they've got this unsettling feeling Guilt might be one of them and they don't know how to change that behavior with healthy coping skills or how to make that change in a positive way. I was crippled. I felt like as a middle schooler I couldn't do anything. I just had to wait this out and not ever steal again. And I didn't steal again for a very long time until I became an alcoholic and addict actively, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm always attracted to the solutions. So, as you're talking, I'm thinking about some of the spiritual program and fellowships and religions and spirituality. The old points towards something which is knowing thyself, knowing myself, knowing who I truly am, knowing my values.
Speaker 2:So, like when I'm coming from that place, things are much more clear you know, because some of the things that I've struggled with, especially when it comes to guilt and shame, comes from the uncertain beliefs about something I don't have a solid ground that I'm standing on. So, like anything, that is self-discovery, knowing who I am sets me on a really right path that, oh, I've done something wrong that really violated my value. I know it and I become accountable to it. I do better next time, but if my values are kind of like shady and floating around, I would do something. I'll. Oh, it wasn't that bad. I'll do it again, although it was really bad, you know. So, like having that really solid moral compass which is also different from a society kind of moral standards which is what I struggle with, that I had to fit in, you know but like knowing your own internal moral compass can take you far, is what I'm thinking about right now.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we try to stay in that murky area when we're in the thick of the resistance, if we're in the thick of the guilt or the shame or the unhealthy guilt that sometimes we feel that we don't know how to get out of it, because we sometimes try to suppress that healthy moral compass. I've been known to ask clients and I often have an assessment that I know the answer to this because I believe they have this in them. I asked them do you know the difference between right and wrong? Well, of course I do and I said good, I believe that too.
Speaker 1:Now, what is right, what is wrong and what is healthy in your situation, and being able to shift the gray area of what someone is going through and go, okay, what's my moral compass, what's healthy that can help them? People go, oh, I just want normal. And I tell them I don't know if I want normal. Sometimes normal is pretty fucked up in our society and our cultural norms. So I go, I don't know if I know what normal is, but I know I want healthy. So, what is healthy to you?
Speaker 1:And begin to help them identify what is that for them and that can take some of the ambiguity out and go. Oh, I feel this anxiety, I feel this guilt. Am I thinking, am I feeling, am I acting in a way that's fueling healthy or unhealthy Anxiety or freedom, fear or joy, problem or solution? And I help them identify. I call it emotional awareness, emotional sobriety, eq. Oh so what is this gut feeling? What is this anxious feeling telling you, man, I'm not healthy with what I'm thinking, doing, acting, coping Well, good, let's empower the healthy part of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that right and wrong question, and I used to ask these questions when I was young, which was probably a beginning of my existential crisis.
Speaker 1:Like why am I here? What is the purpose?
Speaker 2:of life.
Speaker 1:What is this all about?
Speaker 2:And I've been revisiting that question and I've been coming up with an answer, which is that the purpose of life is growth. Life is all about growth, to keep growing. So when you ask that question of right and wrong or healthy and unhealthy I think about like harmfulness and harmlessness, that is, this action is going to help the growth of my life or the growth of my children or people that I'm interacting with, then I should do it, but if it's going to hinder their growth, then that's the wrong thing. So it's probably too much of a simplification but, like anything that helps grow things is the right action.
Speaker 1:That's empathy and perspective. I'm not this selfish, self-centered, it's all about me. Mind frame, perspective and I go. How do I connect with other people? How can this affect another human being in a healthy way? Well, this might affect me in a positive way, but let me see how it affects other people. So, yeah, I think, activating healthy guilt. Yes, we're reflecting our values and our principles. Yes, we're looking at practicing empathy and putting ourselves in the shoes of others and how it affects your actions. For me, taking that shirt from that person that was selling shirts for five bucks, I took away from him and I made other people that would never steal that. I was like look at me, look what I can do. Yeah, you don't know me. Oh, now I affected their consciousness and their version of right and wrong and began to see that and, oh my God, I was sick.
Speaker 1:Like I said, so yeah activating healthy guilt helps us take responsibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before we started recording this too, I was thinking about I might be misremembering or or like kind of butchering it, but in Buddhism they are different levels of spirituality, I guess, like they are people who have attained noble, they are referred to as arahants, like the noble ones who have really purified their mind, but they're not like the Buddha or anything, because Buddha is the one who has attained enlightenment and then can also teach and give it back. But they're like I guess the way they say is that it's almost as the amounts of sand at the bottom of the river. There are just that many noble ones in this. You know eons and eons of time. But one of the qualities that they have of these noble ones is that they have really purified their mind so much that even if they have done something wrong, they have the inability to hide it which is kind of what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:that I mean, they might or might not still make mistakes, but even if they do, they have the inability to hide it you know which is that healthy kill?
Speaker 1:that we're talking about you know, I might think it because I'm a human, I'm not a saint, I'm not an angel, I'm not all these things. Have the ability to look at my thoughts and my actions and not act on all of the unhealthy ones. Now, I might sometimes be an asshole, but I don't always have to act out on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I want to ask you about practical tools that let's say I've done something that I'm guilty of. What would be the first step to either bring that into light or unwind it, or to do better next time?
Speaker 1:Set realistic goals. Sometimes I have someone come in here that is in a relationship or and or a marriage that is lustful, or having an affair and that brings intense guilt to them. So what's a realistic goal for them? One might be to stop texting that individual. One might be to not if you're at work and that person works there, to not take the long way to go past their door in the hallway. That could be the first realistic goal to change that guilty behavior, action that they have and encouraging and powering them. Why do they actually want to set that goal? Why do they feel guilty of doing that action? They know in their eyes it's not healthy and for them it's not right. So set a realistic goal. That would be one I like. That that's very practical. Another is seek support.
Speaker 1:Even though that's a realistic goal for a lot of people, it's still hard for them to follow through with that. Yeah, I know I shouldn't be doing this, but I'm still doing it. So how do we take responsibility? You're not in denial of that behavior and you're not in denial of this guilt, but what are some other underlying causes and conditions? What are your values and your principles that you're choosing not to follow and ignore that's fueling this unhealthy behavior. So those are some of the things that I would explore with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are very helpful. Take a positive action, something simple, realistic goal, or ask for help. That's what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1:And to me where we often like to go. It's how do we practice mindful decision-making? How do I cultivate that mindfulness? And in the process, before acting, do I consider the potential consequences of my actions and be aware to activate before I do it feel that gut consciousness, before the guilt actually happens? I had a friend of mine that said an affair starts at hello and it can certainly ripple effect or go downhill from there. So why do we even explore before we get there? Wait, why am I doing this? I thought I used to be the years ago. This is a disclaimer, this is years ago. I thought I used to be the very safe flirt. So in my professional setting, whether it was the 65-year-old nurse or the 25-year-old, whatever other person working- there that I was the one that was safe.
Speaker 1:They know I wouldn't go down that road but I would just be the flirt. And then I realized, doing some inventory on myself, I was getting something from this. It was feel good, it was attention, whether I was in a relationship or not. And then I started getting this guilty feeling of what's fueling this behavior, just to flirt all the time. And with therapy and 12 steps and things like that, I realized how often this was happening and I would do it innately all the time. And I remember reaching out to someone else that had years and years of sober and I said, oh my gosh, I can't stop myself. And her reaction was, yeah, you're a flirt whore.
Speaker 1:But then as soon as I realized it, I was like, wait a minute, why is fueling this? What is this perspective that I feel that I needed to get this kind of attention and feel good and it wasn't serving me and it led to some other toxic patterns and behaviors, because this is just an empty kind of feeling. And when I looked at that and I stopped doing that behavior and I became so hyper, aware of how flirtatious I was, whether it was a 65-year-old or the 25-year-old and then I got uncomfortable. I said, wait, my first thought is just to flirt. And as soon as I stopped doing that, it's all I shit you not. As soon as I stopped doing that and that behavior changed all of a sudden I got different promotions professionally and I have my now wife. I attracted a different person because I didn't need to fill that void of attention and like, no matter how innocent I thought it was through flirtatiousness and that level of guilt and changing some of my patterns and behaviors in these relationships, a form of amends, all of a sudden my higher power presented me my wife, a healthier relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's powerful. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Yeah, the other thing that I've been thinking about is also I don't know if this speaks to all the listeners it wouldn't speak to people who don't think they've ever done any kind of mistakes in their life. So, like, that's what I love about recovery community that is actually good news for people who have done a lot of mistakes. That for me, that's a moral compass, like for me, that's the mindful decision making that I don't need to speculate.
Speaker 2:I can just look at my own past that, oh, this is how I felt when I did this. It becomes like a hidden goal in a way. And I don't know, I'm a big fan of people who have gone through hell and come back out stronger and I applaud for those people. And that's also part of growth too. Sometimes, from my limited point of view, my growth is being hindered, but, like, in the grand scheme of things, like these difficult things mistakes, guilt, shame, all the difficulties that we go through is part of the growth where we can look back and use it as a reference point or a fuel to do better in the future. So it makes me think of that, about guilt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the nature of being human and the emotions that come with it.
Speaker 2:And one last thought would be about the benefit of reflecting on the previous mistakes. Is that connection with other people? That's the best part about my life today being able to connect and that's, I think, is also the purpose of life. Time is so limited, our time on Earth is so short, so human connection is so important. But then whenever there is something that I've done that prevents or that blocks my connection with other people, I don't want to do that again, you know, because I've lived that way for a long time, where everything was just isolation, because everything was blocked. So that to me is a good motivation to do things that are not guilt-driven, or even if there is guilt, treat it as a healthy guilt and then do better next time, because it helps us connect with other people deeper and more meaningful.
Speaker 1:What a good guiding force Emotions, the power of emotions, and what they're trying to tell us. Well, thanks, saul, this was fun, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:As we explored guilt. It is a natural aspect of being human, reminding us for our moral compass and capacity for empathy and growth. We've delved into the distinctions between healthy and unhealthy guilt, understanding that, while healthy guilt can motivate positive change, unhealthy guilt can burden us with irrational feelings and self-destructive tendencies. Remember it is essential to be mindful of the roots of our guilt, examining our moral principles, cultural influences and internalized beliefs. Through self-awareness and reflection, we can differentiate between legitimate guilt or healthy guilt and guiding us toward self-improvement, and unwarranted guilt hindering our progress. As you navigate your journey through life, embrace empathy and accountability, for they are powerful tools in activating healthy guilt. Acknowledge your mistakes with humility and practice self-compassion, recognizing that we all have moments of imperfection. We encourage you to seek support from your community, friends or professionals as you explore your feelings of guilt and work towards healing and growth. Together, we can create a space for understanding and transformation.
Speaker 1:Let this episode be a reminder that it's through our collective efforts that we can uncover solutions to the challenges presented by guilt. Embrace healthy guilt as an ally on your path to becoming the best version of yourself. So thank you for joining us when a therapist, buddhist and you and if you found this episode valuable. We greatly appreciate your support by once again leaving a like comment or subscribing to our podcast. Share it with others, as we benefit from these discussions, for it is through our collective engagement that we can foster positive change in our lives and the lives of those around us. Remember guilt is an opportunity for growth, not a burden to carry indefinitely. Embrace the lessons it offers and let it be a catalyst for your personal evolution. Until next time, my name is Luke and this is all. Thank you all for listening.