Feelings of shame and guilt: how to overcome

Young and very promising pilot, the hope of the American Air Force suddenly began to behave somewhat inappropriately. He began to drink a lot, break shop windows, and was caught for theft more than once. In the end, his wife could not stand it and left him, and in 1959 he ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

What could have happened that caused his life and career to go downhill?
It turns out that he was the one who dropped the infamous atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The burden of guilt for tens of thousands of dead people haunted him night and day. Guilt is what ruined his life.

The founder of modern psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, spoke about it this way
“The further we advance in our work and the deeper our knowledge of the psyche of those suffering from neuroses becomes, the more acutely it rushes into the eyes are strongly influenced by two new factors and force us to take a closer look at them as sources of resistance. Both factors are associated with “the need to be bad” or “the need to suffer”... The first of these factors is the feeling of guilt, or the consciousness of guilt...”
How many people have ruined their lives, mutilated their bodies and punished themselves in various other ways in order to atone for their sins. Nowadays, it is not so often that we encounter such radical manifestations of the struggle with feelings of guilt, but we see it in less vivid forms all the time. Even if guilt is not dramatized at the conscious level, the subconscious does it bypassing consciousness.
And it does it tirelessly and with no less force than the mind would do. When it is impossible to get rid of guilt, this feeling becomes even more acute. The feeling of guilt is exhausting, causes unbearable suffering, a person does not find a place for himself.
Another odious modern psychotherapist Bert Helinger said about this even more directly: “Shame and guilt will drive you to the grave.”
Not weak? Maybe it's bending? After all, the feeling of guilt seems justified. You should have done the right thing, but if you did the wrong thing, you deserved the blame.
Is this so?

The usually clear way to solve this problem and deal with the feeling of guilt is to do what is expected of you, pay damages, return, give back. But in the story with our pilot, such compensation was simply impossible for him, no matter how hard he tried. What crushed him.
Usually, feeling guilty in life is a very convenient way to manipulate people.
• You are behaving in a way that makes me uncomfortable. You're ruining the mood for me and everyone.
• Don't be a redneck, lend me some money?
• How ungrateful you are, I've done so much for you, and you can't even...
• These are your parents, how do you like it? It's not a shame to behave like this!
• How can you enjoy life when there are so many unhappy people in the world?!  And you thought about me, how can you relax without me?
• I could have solved this problem a long time ago.

Parents especially often use this tactic to raise their children. A person wants something from you and gets very irritated and offended if you don’t want to give him what he wants.  Therefore, the imposition of guilt is intended to make you change your mind and not do what you want.
It is difficult to call this state objective, because we imposed it on ourselves or other people imposed it on us.
It is a creation our consciousness, conscience condemning us and convicting us that we have acted badly.
A painful feeling of guilt makes us condemn and criticize ourselves even more strongly.  This arises from the awareness that our actions have caused harm to someone. Guilt can arise from being too attached to someone and wasting their time, disappointing them, or defending our boundaries in the relationship. We seem to have an inner critic who feeds on low self-esteem.
What is the difference between shame and guilt?
  Shame is the feeling that we have lost the respect of other people because of our actions. Of course, this is “hello inner critic and low self-esteem”!
Shame has a lot in common with guilt in that both feelings cause internal condemnation.
Wine is about what we do. Shame is about who we think we are.
For example, parents feel guilty for yelling at their son or daughter, and thoughts that they cannot cope with the parental role give rise to shame.

Guilt and shame are strongly associated with internal condemnation that takes over the entire consciousness, an all-consuming feeling that “I am bad.”
Shame and guilt have different sources - guilt is more connected with the fact that others condemn us for our actions, and shame with the fact that we ourselves realize that we are worthless.
But shame and guilt can also stem from the way we are socialized in early childhood. This is a normal part of the growing process. It is much worse when, when we turn into slaves of these feelings. Conscience thus monitors and evaluates our behavior. If this “inner parent” approves of us, we experience relief; if not, then we experience guilt and shame. These are instilled thoughts and feelings conditioned by our environment.
Guilt focuses us on how bad we are, reinforces feelings of inferiority, and fuels our expectation of imminent retribution.
It is a very self-centered feeling, it is directed at us, not on other people. We move away from relationships with others, into refuge, away. Shame does the same thing - it deprives us of the socialization of natural interaction with the people who are close to us.

In order to solve problems of destructive guilt and shame, it is useful to undergo psychotherapy. But right now I want to offer some self-help ideas.
1.  First, admit your guilt and shame.  This may be because these are feelings imposed by other people, but they are your feelings that you are able to deal with.
2. Think about what support you can find from people who value relationships more than punishment and judgment for wrongdoing.
3. Understand where your feelings of guilt and shame come from.
4. Understand that the anger that is inside you has a basis.
5. It is important to forgive those who you manipulates and controls you with these feelings.
6. Allow the support and encouragement of your friends and loved ones from your support circle to flow within you. You can't just get rid of these feelings, you need to retrain your mind by replacing critical voices with accepting and supportive ones.
7. It would be nice to allow others to console and encourage you.

If you find it difficult to find a circle of support in this struggle with feelings of shame and guilt, I invite you to use psychotherapy. Initial consultation is free. You can sign up for a consultation by clicking the button below.
Take action and you will succeed!