All of us, young or old, have been exposed to feeling guilty.

As human beings, When we make a mistake, the natural feeling of remorse is a significant part of the psychological formation of childhood.

Feeling guilty could be good if it prevents us from being arrogant and bullies. Or gives us sympathy and mercy with others and the world because this conscience controls our feelings and thoughts and, accordingly, our actions to interact positively with ourselves and the world to live happily in this universe.

But the bloated feeling of horrible guilt could be a crushing monster that swells and grows inside us with the accumulation of events in our lives.

If we surrendered to feeling guilty, it would kill us.

If we did not succumb to it, we would leave ourselves to error or bully others, and life would turn into absolute evil.

There may be other names for this feeling that some people use.

 For example :

• Some clergymen and preachers may call it repentance and regret.

• Some parents and teachers might call it politeness, obedience, and respect.

• The person may put this feeling under the name of vigilant conscience and torment of regret.

These names are good if they are natural feelings that are not exaggerated or not used as a weapon against people to control them or limit their ambitions and desires.

Therefore, we must differentiate between usual remorse and healthy and exaggerated feelings of guilt.

So we will show some signs to explain the difference between them.

Signs of healthy feeling and excessive guilt:

Some signs of healthy guilt:

1-Accept your humanity, weakness, and mistake.

2- Forgive yourself, learn from your mistake, do not repeat it, and start over.

3- Awareness that you are growing and realizing that your mistakes are just experiences of the natural progression of your life.

Some signs of exaggerated (unhealthy) guilt:

1- When you make a mistake or fail, you must be hard on yourself internally.

2- Imprison yourself in an eternal trial in which there is no self-forgiveness or forgiveness.

3- Despair, torment, self-harm, and stripping of natural human weakness.

4- Repeating the same mistakes compulsively and endlessly.

5- Steady, rigid, and self-destructive despair that prevents success in anything.

Some outward symptoms of excessive guilt.

1- Feeling unwell in the stomach.

2- A feeling of tingling in the heart.

3- Trembling and knowing in the hands.

Some internal symptoms of excessive guilt.

1- The self-blame and cruelty to oneself.

2- Self-flagellation, self-trial, and humiliation.

3- Responsibility is not directed to the world and things.

4- Not taking responsibility for personal behavior.

5- Rapid and changing convictions and lack of stability on a goal.

6- The constant feeling that you owe others psychologically or financially.

7- Inability to express oneself or one’s needs for fear of rejection or blame from others.

8- The Constant feeling of fear and tension.

Reasons that cause excessive feelings of guilt:

1- Harshly upbringing.

• When the method of raising parents is based on the prohibition of more than what is permitted.

• Conditional love from parents or the surrounding community.

2- legacies of society.

• When society does not accept differences from the norm and rejects different cultures.

• The rejection or attack from the surrounding community of the bold ideas of the person forces him to suppress or hide them.

3- Beliefs.

• Traditional beliefs restrict freedom and hold a person accountable for his thoughts and feelings between a defect or forbidden.

4- Genetic predisposition.

Many researchers noted that some people inherit genes that stimulate this feeling from their parents.

5- A deep sense of selfishness.

This feeling hides in its folds a sense of greed and possession of those around them and Attracts attention and being famous, among others.

6. Neglect treatment of psychological problems.

Denying or neglecting the impact of challenges or pain from past traumatic experiences could lead to excessive guilt.

A person must have been exposed to more than one of these reasons, even in different proportions, to feel excessive guilt.

If you suffer from excessive guilt or this inner monster prevents you from living a happy life, then Life Coach offers you 15 solutions.

Here they are:

1- Forgive yourself and accept weakness, failure, and human error

2-Learn from your mistakes. You will not feel success without loss.

3-Stop judging yourself too harshly.

4- Do not allow people to deprive your beliefs and plant a feeling of guilt in your mind

5- Accept yourself and be aware of your self-worth. Focus on your advantages and improve your flaws.

6- Don’t pretend heroically or burden yourself to impress others.

7- Take responsibility for your dreams and ambitions and focus on your advantages. 

8- Get rid of the inner pain and admit it so it does not affect your behaviors.

9-Look at past mistakes as experience to support your future success.

10- Arrange your day with short and straightforward plans to feel good about yourself and your ability to succeed.

11-Focus on your advantages and improve your flaws.

12- Stay away from people who blame a lot.

13- Talk to those close and supportive of you so that this makes your mind clear.

14- Do not let the void bring you negative thoughts. Occupy your time always.

15- Go to a psychotherapist. He will help you a lot in this case.

Guilt is an unreal feeling that is optional that a person causes to himself.

Get out of the prison of blaming yourself without losing your humanity, go happily, live your life, and achieve your dreams. You deserve.

References:

Exodus from the textbook, Dr. Mohamed Taha / Minia University / Egypt.

Kitab alaqat khatera l al-elaqat al-ejemaayah by Dr. Mohammad taha

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