Last summer Jack and I took our sixteen year old twin granddaughters on a road trip to visit my friend Betty. The girls and Betty had many long talks (without Grandmother) and the feedback I received from Betty was fascinating. One thing they told her was that because they like to sleep late, they feel guilty staying overnight at our house because we (Grandmother) gets up so early. Of course we don’t care when they get out of bed. They are teenagers, after all.

Guilt. Why do we teach our children to feel guilty? Katty Kay, the BBC correspondent calls guilt the wasted emotion.
Guilt feels like a huge weight on our shoulders and drains our energy. Guilt affects our decisions and then we feel guilty because of these decisions. We feel overwhelmed and get stuck.

Why do we feel guilty?

• We are trying to avoid something. Perhaps we’ve been asked to do something we don’t want to do. Instead of saying no, we’ve said yes and regret that decision.
• We are reacting to a situation.
• We feel like we aren’t good enough. Some women struggle with their identity after they turn fifty, they retire or their children leave. They are guilty because they feel lost.
• We can’t forgive ourselves, or others. Forgiveness of self and others frees us so that we can manifest positive energy rather than wallowing in negative energy.
• We “should” and “ought” ourselves. How many times have you said “I should’ve known…?” My first response when I learned that we had received a fraudulent offer on our house that was for sale was “I should’ve known.”
• What if … We look at the worst case scenario instead of the best case scenario.
• Our religious upbringing taught us to be guilty.
• As children we heard these phrases with negative endings: “You are always…” You never…”“It’s your fault…”

Try these 6 tips for positively dealing with guilt:

1. Focus on your strengths. Get the book Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath and take the online assessment. Ask your friends what they think your strengths are.
2. Practice affirmations. Create positive statements about yourself and post them where you will see them often. Put one on your computer screen, on the mirror, in your car.
3. Release the power draining words “should” “ought” and “need” and replace them with the powerful phrase “I choose to…”
4. Ask for what you want so you won’t feel guilty when you do make requests. My Grandmother once said to my Mother, “how will Betsy ever get what she wants if she doesn’t ask for it?”
5. Treat yourself to something you love – because you are worth it.
6. If you’ve made a mistake, accept it and move on. Say to yourself “I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.”

Guilt is a wasted emotion. Let it go!