Guilty Feeling

Guilty feelings or regret is a prevalent fact in our lives. Human is not a perfect being. We make various types of errors in our social life. Some of them are driven by our uncontrolled emotions. Apart from these factors, we feel guilty when we fail to meet an expected goal or standard, for example, delay in a project, missing a deadline, being unable to keep a promise, etc.

So, guilty feelings can be divided into two broad categories such as unhealthy and healthy. Healthy guilt can be considered rational. It can be experienced by one when he hurts someone or causes an unavoidable problem. Unhealthy guilt is irrational and misplaced. In this case, the situation is neither under the control of the individual nor the person to blame. For example, you can feel guilty when you achieve success in your career goal while your close friend fails. The situation is not in your hand but you may feel guilty about this.

How do you overcome guilty feelings?

Guilt is a real burden in our lives. Though sometimes guilty feelings are necessary for our healthy social life, which can rectify our social and interpersonal behaviour, most of the time it drag us down. Ignoring guilty feelings or refusing to admit them is not a solution. It may provide you temporary relief but it will become worse and more intense over time. Several strategies can help you to address this harmful emotion:

Stop spending quiet time. It will increase the feeling and that may worsen the situation.

Keep your thoughts busy when spending spare time. You may use some books or journals or music or whatever you are interested in.

Explore the exact source of your guilt. It may be something you did wrong. You need to admit it to yourself.

Maybe you are blaming yourself for an incident or a situation that is not something you can control. If it is not, then apologizing definitely will help you to address this feeling.