Hello and welcome to the Feelings Pod. My name is Sabrina Amina. I'm your host.
We talk about feelings here and we end with a brief mindfulness practice. So
thank you for joining me. Thank you for listening. Today's topic is on guilt and
I've mentioned this in previous episodes. As we move through the winter months, I'm
recording the emotions that kind of come up and I feel moved to speak about
during this time. I am going through a particularly difficult season of life,
not just because it's winter, just... Well, it's... it's... that's just simply where I'm
at right now. So as a little project is kind of... I think it's actually a
way of helping me move through some of these things and hopefully through
sharing my experiences and reflections on these emotions, you'll feel something.
Maybe you'll feel less alone or more connected or seen or validated or
infuriated. So guilt is something that I feel like has been plaguing me my whole
life because I feel like in my family, my upbringing, not just my immediate family
but probably going back generations because this stuff, it kind of gets
passed down. I feel like I'm guilting, shaming and blaming was kind of a way of
keeping control of other people, certainly keeping control of children and
making them... keeping them in check and giving these warnings or...
I'm trying to think of kind of a specific instance but I think it was so... it was
such like a normal operating procedure that it's hard to really pinpoint. Now
as an adult and after being... having been through years of therapy, I recognize it.
I recognize when somebody is trying to get an outcome, a specific outcome for me
using guilt or blame or shame and I have far better boundaries now. But you know
when you're a kid growing up and you're... you know, your caretakers don't allow
you to do something or forbid you from doing something because it will shame
the family or cause them emotional harm or damage in some way, you start to feel
like your actions are inextricably linked to everyone around you and to some
extent that's true but carrying the responsibility and the worry of how
everything you do and say, every decision you make and worrying that you're going
to hurt someone in some way is very... that's a heavy burden to carry. And I've
learned thankfully and I try to teach this to my daughter because I see it in
her as well. I see her wanting to take responsibility for other people's
feelings. So what I've learned is I have to take full responsibility of my own
feelings. You know, if an interaction with another human brings up a feeling of
guilt in me, is the person actually trying to guilt me or is that my own kind
of conditioning? Is that my own kind of old beliefs like that are so ingrained
that are kind of hard to unlearn unless you kind of are really looking at them.
Yeah, I'm wondering if any of this makes sense because I'm also trying to make
sense of it. But as an adult, a place where guilt comes up so much for me
because I'm an educator and I teach and I show up for young people every day and
I lead classes and I teach and is you know when I'm sick or when I need to
take a day away from school, away from my students, away from my teaching, away
from the classroom. Oh my goodness, the guilt that I kind of go through the back
and forth of like, do I really need this? Is this something I can just push
through and yeah, I can always push through some and I think all of us have
the you know to some degree it can always kind of push through and do what we
need to do. I think that's part of living this life that we do. But also
taking a look at what are my needs, what do I need here and is really
doing something to take care of my own needs. Does that warrant this tremendous
feeling of guilt, of calling in sick to work, right? And I know this
is kind of a shared experience. I know I'm not the only person who works and
kind of struggles with taking days off. But it's also interesting, I've read, I
think I read a post or something the other day that I think an American was
talking about her experience with a job in the Netherlands. She got a job in the
Netherlands and she was asking about well how many sick days do I get? And
she kind of got a funny look and they were like well as many as you need. If
you're sick, you just got to take care of yourself. So imagine that. Like imagine
just like not having the pressure to go through the mental gymnastics of being
like am I really that sick? Do I actually need to call out of work today? And
just having the safety and comfort of knowing yeah it's okay for me to
take care of myself when I'm sick. Of course it is. Like why wouldn't it be? So
I'm getting better at just the guilt comes up all the time. But I think I'm
better at just recognizing it and giving myself some compassion and
tenderness and saying it's okay for you to take care of yourself today. It's okay
for you to rest. It's okay for you to take a break. It's okay for you to show up.
Just for you today. Guilt is is tricky. It's it's been very tricky for me.
Yeah so another way that guilt kind of comes up in my day-to-day life is
sometimes my daughter will say well when you get mad at me it makes me really
sad. And I love that she shares I love that she shares that with me. I love that
she kind of says you know you making you're making me you're making me sad.
So I guess I just try to so what I do is I try to explain to her well yeah mom
gets mad sometimes and that's okay and it's okay for you to get sad sometimes.
And then I say like I explain the reasons why I'm getting mad and just say
you know just affirm you know my love for her and that I'm not getting angry to
make her sad and I'm sorry for making her sad if you know I'm you know I don't
know if it makes a lot of sense but I'm I'm glad that I'm having these
conversations with my six-year-old to help her kind of make sense of her own
feelings and I think it's helpful for me to recognize well we're all
responsible for our emotional landscape and how we manage it how we manage it.
And I think it's important for for us as adults to be able to model that for
for younger younger folks and just having an awareness of when you're making
decisions based on how other people are gonna feel or respond or react and I'd
like to say I'm doing that less and less and that's certainly something I'm
proud of I don't have I don't think I have any guilt about it because
ultimately it comes from a place of love it comes from a place of love for
myself and I find the more and more that I'm able to cultivate this love of
self my my capacity to offer love for others grows you know and I'm I'm so
much more honest when I'm able to say no you know and not take on
responsibility for how somebody responds to my no yeah yeah I think that's I
think that's that's all I got to say about guilt for for this moment just
kind of a short little reflection it I will say it helps a lot for me to talk
about it so I think it's a shared experience I I mean I know it's a shared
experience I know I'm not the only one who feels feels guilt and of course not
but I think we all navigated in different ways and I I think it's really
powerful to look at these dark darker heavier more challenging emotions
because wow when we when we're when we're able to do that it like diffuses it
it really diffuses it so let's just get into our practice for today find a
comfortable seat or you know if you can you can lie down make yourself as
comfortable as possible in this moment and close the eyes if that's comfortable
for you
tune into your five senses and just notice your surroundings with your senses
tune into the sense of sound any sounds in your immediate environment take a
deep breath in
let it go
and perhaps notice the sounds just beyond the room that or space that you're
in right now maybe it's outside the building
notice how far your sense of sound reaches what's the farthest sound that
you can hear right now take a deep breath in
and let it go
and if your eyes are closed and you're noticing your sense of sight what do you
see in your mind's eye when the eyes are closed take a deep breath in and let it
go
bring your attention to your sense of touch notice the temperature in the room
notice the texture of the clothes on your body notice the weight of gravity
holding you in place in your seat
notice the pressure on the parts of your body that's that that are being
supported by the cushion or chair or bed
notice how your feet are feeling your legs
your hips your belly
notice the chest and the heart space notice the shoulders and the neck notice
the muscles in your face I let them soften take a deep breath in and let it
go
and bringing your attention and awareness to your sense of taste and your
taste buds in your mouth
you might not be eating or drinking anything at the moment but imagine your
favorite food
imagine the smell of it imagine the taste of it imagine the texture of it
and you put it into your mouth
you can see the texture of it
notice if tuning into your sense of taste brings your awareness to your hunger or if
you're feeling satiated
maybe you've eaten something recently that you can still taste
take a deep breath in
let it go
notice the sense of smell
maybe you don't really smell much in your space right now
notice
maybe there's a pleasant smell
or maybe there's a smell that's not so great
just observe all of it
just notice
take a deep breath in
let it go
when you're ready
as you allow your eyes to flutter open and the light to come back
let your gaze fall on something in the room that makes you smile
thanks for showing up for yourself today I hope you have a beautiful day