Guilt is a powerful force of self-destruction, an evil glitch that can throw you completely off track.

The type of guilt I am reflecting on now is the type of guilt that occurs when you feel the weight of responsibilities as yet unfulfilled. You have a responsibility to your job, to your studies, to your family. Often times, these are responsibilities that impact others. While these responsibilities are unmet, whether through neglect or just not having time to address them yet, you feel guilty as they hang over you, like last year’s Christmas lights hanging over your porch in June.

“The porch, evening” By Lars Ploughmann on Flickr

Why Guilt Sucks:

• It’s unproductive–counterproductive, even. It does not inspire action. It makes the important tasks feel MORE urgent, more difficult, and it becomes therefore more likely that you will put them off for lack of knowing where to begin, fear of failure, or the belief that you can’t finish at this time. This guilt glitch stops your progress everywhere.
• It is a negative force. You fixate on your weaknesses, the times you’ve failed, your doubts. I’m openly skeptical about zealous belief in the “power of positive thinking,” but it’s undoubtedly true that a positive outlook contributes to positive outcomes. If you focus on the negative, you’re more likely to experience more of the same.
• It causes you to neglect yourself (this is the biggie for me). You feel that to do something that only benefits yourself (for me, yoga or writing or reading for pleasure), is irresponsible when there’s a to-do list of “more important” responsibilities. The irony I’ve discovered, however, is this: I feel this guilt BEFORE doing these good-for-me things and I will feel guilty if I DON’T do them. Lose-lose.

Don’t be a guilty dog.

Since becoming a mom, I now have the pleasure of adding mommy guilt to my guilt repertoire. Mommy guilt is the weight of feeling responsible for the well-being, happiness, health and development of another person. It’s a feeling that you can and should be doing better, but whether through lacking or slacking, you’re not measuring up (and therefore your kid is going to be forever scarred or somehow less-than). Oh, joy.

Motherhood: it’s like you’ve put your heart outside of your body but still need it to survive.

My hunch (hope?) is that even the healthiest of us are sometimes overwhelmed by carrying an excess of guilt. Every so often, if I’m feeling a little down, I’ll realize that I’ve been actively and passively abusing myself with a glut of guilt. How do we overcome it? I’ll be exploring that in my next post, which I will deliver in a timely manner, lest I die of blogger guilt.

Are you ever crippled by a guilt glitch? What type of guilt do you carry?