why do we feel guilty for making our own life paths?

Guilt is an emotion that everyone experiences at least once. Some people feel it accordingly and others tend to feel it when they don’t need to. And when it doesn’t do them any good. I am one of those people.

Guilt is an emotion that I believe grows in our childhood. It is related to how our parents made us feel when we were children. For example, those parents would guilt trip you for setting boundaries or for saying that you don’t want to hug someone that you don’t feel comfortable with.

Maybe you had an experience with a parent that was always playing the victim and when you were angry at them or felt any sort of negative emotion towards them they got angry at you.

That is how many of us grow to feel guilt and blame ourselves for things that shouldn’t make us feel that way.

Guilt for being yourself

There is a point in our lives when what others think about us starts to matter. And why is that? Because other people treat us accordingly to what they think about us.

So when the way you are, how you think and your lifestyle doesn’t match other people’s expectations of you, you can feel separated from yourself.

Some of us start to act the way people want us to and we start to modify our behaviour to the trends in thought that are happening around us. And when it comes to making decisions for ourselves we have a really hard time choosing what deep down is right for us.

When you trust yourself this decision-making becomes easier but meanwhile when you don’t listen to others you can feel intense guilt.

Reflected from your childhood into your current life, you may be afraid of hurting other people’s feelings by making your own choices and decisions. This doesn’t even have to be true, people may not truly care what you do and the choices that you make for yourself but you feel guilty for not doing what they want you to do. By not listening to them and their advice that sometimes you know that they don’t have the relevant experience or knowledge to give.

Sometimes people actively tell us that we don’t have to make the decision that in their opinion is the best but we still feel this sense of pressure and of guilt for not following their advice.

Guilt is one of the most ingrained emotions and it tends to lead us off our own path.

I believe that having a conversation about guilt with yourself is very important. It leads you to understand yourself better and how to cope with the guilt that you often feel.

I will leave you here some prompts to dive deeper into it:

1. What is your earliest memory of feeling guilty as a child?
2. How were the people around you acting when you were feeling this way?
3. Did you do anything that you remember at that moment to cope with the emotion? (i.e. act out, cry, talk to someone, keep it in) How did that make you feel?
4. What is your most current memory of feeling guilty? Did you feel like it was a learnt response?
5. How do you cope now with your feelings of guilt?
6. What would you do differently now if you didn’t care what people think and you wouldn’t feel guilty making your own decisions?

Now that you have answered these questions try to keep in mind your answers when you feel guilty about the choices that you are making. Or the life path you are choosing. This will help you install awareness and make it a bit easier to guide yourself towards what you actually want to do.

Make sure to recognize your desires and keep them separate from the advice other people give you.