I don't do guilt.

Anyone who has known me for long has heard me say this. I don't do guilt. I have come to realize though that people misunderstand what I mean by that...so let me explain.

Growing up with my mother I learned at the hand of a master manipulator. She can wield guilt like a surgeon uses a scalpel. Clean precise cuts that make the outcome just exactly what she wants it to be. I am not entirely positive she even realizes she is doing it, but do it she does. When I was younger I fell in line the same as everyone else. It's just easier. And at times I still do what she is trying to guilt me in to doing, but for my own reasons. The difference in how I view what is happening came for me when I was a teenager. When one of the girls in youth group was trying to guilt our youth minister into something he didn't want to do he told her he didn't do guilt and resented her trying to manipulate him that way. It was like a light came on in my head...other people trying to make you feel guilty is just their way of trying to manipulate you. Wow. Now as an adult we all know this to be true and can usually side step those that try to make you feel guilty. But what about ourselves?

What do we do when it's our own voice that is making us feel guilty? And this is where "I don't do guilt" tends to throw people off. Guilt is just your subconscious telling you to change your behavior. Now when you feel guilty you have a few options. You can stop what ever is making you feel that way, you can examine why you feel guilty and decide that it's not really something worth feeling guilt over (moral codes that don't fit yours, behaviors that someone else expects, out dated ways of thinking) and decide not to feel guilty anymore or you can wallow. It's the wallowing that I am talking about when I say I don't do guilt.

We all know people who do things that make themselves miserable. They eat the wrong things, they date the wrong people, they drink too much, they do drugs. Whatever behavior it is that is destructive they do it, feel guilty, and do it again. I hear it in Weight Watchers all the time from people. They over ate and felt guilty, so to try and make themselves feel better they ate more. Now, I am an emotional eater, I eat when I am sad, happy, bored, lonely whatever, but I don't feel guilty about it. I ate what I ate. If it was higher in calories (and let's face it, carrots are not comfort food) then I need to eat something lower in calories to balance it out. But I do not feel guilty. I enjoyed the food. I ate it for a reason, and now that reason is in the past so why wallow?

I have regrets. I have made my share of mistakes in the past, some big and some small and some off the charts huge. But I don't feel guilty about them. Because I cannot change them. Regret is wishing I had made a different choice, guilt is continually reliving the moment and punishing myself for a choice I cannot change. That's the difference for me. Guilt is an actionable emotion. Or it should be anyway. If you are doing something that makes you feel guilty, then stop it.

You can stop the guilt in one of two ways, either change the behavior, or change the attitude. I find a lot of the time it's the attitude that needs changing as much as the behavior. Do you feel guilty about buying a pair of shoes just for fun? Do you feel guilty about eating the brownie? Do you feel guilty about sleeping with your girlfriend? Well, stop and think, why? If the answer is you are late paying your rent and that's why you feel guilty about the shoes put the shoes back, but if it's because when you were 18 you were broke, but now you have money in the bank and can afford them, buy the shoes, wear them and enjoy them. Are you a diabetic and that brownie is going to wreck havoc with your blood sugar? Then put the brownie down and walk away. But if you are healthy and happy with your weight but your first boyfriend's voice rings in your head about you carrying a little extra junk in your trunk, then eat the brownie, enjoy it and banish that voice to the rubbish bin. How about that sex question? Are you feeling guilty because you know you don't really care about the person? Or is it within your religious beliefs that you don't have premarital sex? If so, then go home alone. Other than that it's really between you and your partner.

So when I say I don't do guilt you understand. I don't wallow. If I do something that makes me feel guilty, I stop and think why? If it's because it falls into an outdated way of thinking for me (old religious beliefs for instance) or into society's rules that I don't agree with (who says I shouldn't dance in the supermarket?) or is it that I am doing something I shouldn't be? What do I need to change? The behavior or the attitude? One of them needs to change because...

I don't do guilt.