Episode 12 Got Guilt?
Intro with much
Hello and welcome to episode 12. In this episode we take a close look at guilt and regret, how they can keep us stuck and suffering, and what to do to break free.
Music
My husband and I had a wonderful, loving and peaceful marriage. And yet, in the first year and a half after his passing, all I could think about was what went wrong. How I could have been a better wife. Those times I was grumpy, snappy or impatient. I lamented that I focused so much on my work, and I felt guilty for all the traveling I did for work, and the occasional trip I took without him for fun.
The thoughts played like a broken record in my head, and each one led to guilt, at least that’s what I called it at the time.
So I turned to grief books and almost unanimously in chapter 1 I read about the stages of grief, which made me furious. The stages of grief were never for the grieving, they were for the dying, and have been misinterpreted and misapplied for decades. They weren’t meant for me, and they certainly were not helpful.
Afterall, how could this hot mess called grief be categorized or linear in any way?
AND, what I needed to understand was why I felt so guilty. I couldn’t find a book that helped me understand that, so eventually I wrote one. It’s called Life Reconstructed and you can bet that there’s a chapter on guilt. The link to purchase the book is in the show notes.
Because for many people, guilt and grief go hand in hand.
Later I learned to distinguish between guilt and regret. Guilt is when you knew better. You had all the facts and you chose to do what you knew to be the wrong thing. Regret, on the other hand, is when you knew what you knew at the time, and you made the best possible decision.
Given my husband’s very sudden passing, I could not have known that time was so short, but I held myself accountable anyway. I was stuck in a spin cycle of self-judgement. Maybe you can relate.
Guilt, regret, (or any feeling) come from the thoughts we think. Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “Don’t believe everything you think.” The truth is that we have many thoughts that are simply not true and that are definitely not serving us. But the brain offers these thoughts anyway. So what can we do?
First we need to learn to be “on to” our brains. To become better eavesdroppers of what the brain is offering us.
In doing so, you’ll notice that guilt comes in three varieties, guilt about the past, guilt in the present, and guilt when we think about the future.
Thoughts that produce the feelings of guilt or regret include, “I should have known he needed help,” “I should have been able to save her,” and “I was short-tempered with him,” just to name a few.
My brain loved to offer me the thought, “you should have been able to save him.” Which saddled me with guilt and limited my options, because how could I live my life if I wasn’t able to save his?
Present-tense guilt may come from thoughts like, “I should not feel happy because that’s an insult to my spouse,” or “I did something for myself that he would not have approved of.”
Thinking about the future or the next steps in our healing can also bring guilt. “I’d love to have companionship,” or “I’d like to date again,” or “I’m ready to live for me,” are all thoughts that can dish out large servings of guilt.
Why? Because those thoughts are contrary to our current beliefs about loss. Perhaps you believe that dating again would be like cheating, that fully living again would be an insult, or that the length of your misery represents the depth of your love for your spouse.
Beliefs are simply the thoughts we often think, and they can be hard to notice because they usually fly under the radar.
When you feel guilt or regret, write down the thoughts you’re thinking. Get them on paper. And then examine them one by one. Notice how each thought makes you feel. Question each thought: is it true, and does it serve you? If it isn’t true and useful to you, ask yourself what else might be true. Think those thoughts instead, on purpose, and regularly.
The good news is that we always get to choose our thoughts about the past, present, and future, and from there we can build new beliefs that not only serve us today but also serve the person we are becoming.
Because we can choose our thoughts, and thoughts are optional, then guilt and regret are optional.
Maya Angelou is quoted as saying, “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.” Isn’t that what you would tell a good friend who is feeling regret about the past?
If only we can learn to show ourselves the same kindness and understanding that we show to our friends. The grief journey would be easier. Not easy, of course, but easier than being stuck in self-judgement.
In episode 10 we distinguished between pain and suffering. Guilt and regret are intense forms of suffering and add an extra heavy burden to an already difficult journey. When we can challenge our own thinking, and think true and useful thoughts, on purpose, we can set down the extra burden of suffering. In doing so, we have extra brain power and energy for other purposes. And when you have extra brain power and energy, you can take bigger strides forward toward healing, toward rebuilding your life.
This journey does not have to be one ounce heavier than it already is.
If you can’t seem to shake free of guilt and regret, I understand. It took me years, but it doesn’t have to take that long for you. This is one part of what we do inside of Life Reconstructed, my coaching program exclusively for widowed people. Simply go to thesuddenwidowcoach.com and click work with me to learn more. And remember that I believe in you and I’m here for you. Take care.
