SIGNPOSTS
Blame game
by Gudrun Kittel-Thong
Do you think you're guilty of working too much, neglecting your family and your health, not doing enough in your job, not supporting your partner or being too busy to be a good parent?
Guilt is a creation of the mind. Comedienne Joan Rivers once said: "My mother could make anybody feel guilty - she used to get letters of apology from people she didn't even know."
Making others feel guilty can be a tool for control and it's frequently used by parents to get children to do things. A sense of guilt can virtually shut you down because you are too scared to make any decision, lest it be the wrong one.
The feeling of not having done enough at the end of the working day despite having given it your all can create a nagging guilty feeling that stops many people from relaxing.
Home life can be similar. Comparing your participation in family life with others who may have a very different lifestyle can make you feel guilty of not doing enough for your loved ones. And guilty feelings do not go away easily. A guilty conscience can become so uncomfortable that it eventually motivates us to do something about it.
My advice for dealing with guilty feelings involves several steps:
Look closely at your guilt and ask yourself exactly what the problem is.
Ask yourself who is responsible for your guilt? Did you do something with good intentions but with a poor result due to factors beyond your control?
Ask whose problem it is. How much responsibility do you bear?
Define which part of the problem makes you feel guilty.
Take the "I-feel-guilty" part out of the equation and look at it again. Is the situation clearer?
Forgive yourself if you have made a mistake. Making mistakes is normal and they can be learned from.
Use these steps to look at situations in your past. Is there a pattern? Ask someone you trust to give you feedback. Sometimes patterns are more easily spotted by other people.
Find your "guilt-trigger", and discuss your situation with friends to see if your reasons for feeling guilty are valid. Try to be aware of when you have done enough and when you should simply accept a situation without guilt. And most of all, believe in yourself.
Gudrun Kittel-Thong is a coach at the Institute of Psychotherapy and Counselling and a member of the Hong Kong International Coaching Community (info@coachinghk.org)
