WORKSHOP on Guilt: No More “Mom” Guilt!

Welcome to our first ceoMom workshop! For the next week we’ll be tackling one of the big challenges that moms face: Guilt. This emotion causes much stress and attacks our self-worth. 

We are going to spend the next week breaking the cycle of guilt and replacing it with a renewed sense of self. To get started, we must first be aware of when guilt strikes. For the next 24 hours, I want you to be aware of every time you feel guilty. Don’t worry about fixing it right now. Just stand back and say: “Oh, there it is.”  

Here are some instances of guilt that a typical mom may feel: 

• Housework not being done
• Not having dinner on the table on time or at all
• Not spending enough quality time with children
• Not spending enough quality time with husband
• Not teaching children enough and/or not enough time spent on homework with kids
• Allowing children too much TV/video Gaming
• Yelling at or in front of children
• Losing patience/being short or snappy
• Too little or too many activities
• Feeding children a poor diet/lack of exercise (too many fast food runs)
• Neglecting older children because of siblings
• Working too many hours at office and/or from home
• Spending too much time on the computer or talking on the phone
• Leaving the children with a babysitter
• Not being able to buy your child everything you would like
• Not providing the life for your children you had intended

You may even find guilt in seemingly small things as well, such as:

• Leaving the mail in the mailbox overnight, because you just didn’t feel like getting it
• Forgetting to wash sheets after a bedtime accident and having to put a blanket down instead
• Using inexpensive shampoo when your stylist said to only use professional hair care products

So, again, for the next day, please be aware of your guilt and when it arises. Do not try to change or analyze it. Just make a mental note each time you feel guilt.  

Tomorrow we will discuss what guilt really is. You might be surprised.  

We’ve now spent the last 24 hours noticing our feelings of guilt. When did it happen for you? Maybe while buttering your toast and wondering if you put too much on – or perhaps when you got impatient with your daughter while trying to dress her – or maybe because you just didn’t want to do anything and felt like you wasted an entire day.  

For each mom the list will be different. But why we feel guilt can be attributed to three main reasons:

1. Signal for Change
2. Societal Pressure
3. Social Conditioning

The first reason for feeling guilty, Signal for Change, is easy to understand. Guilt can indicate a need for change. Let’s take the example of a child who doesn’t want to go to bed. You try to be patient, but then you lose control and begin yelling at your child. Your child cries, puts up a bigger fight and you get angrier. The child finally falls asleep and you immediately reflect on the night. Guilt sets in. After all, you’re the adult here and yelling at a small child not only changes who they are, but it teaches them to react the same way. In this case, guilt is your friend. It is your soul telling you to stop; that there’s got to be a better way. If you ignore the signal, the bedtime cycle of abuse will return. If you listen to your conscience and seek to change the situation, the answers will come.  

The second reason for guilt, Societal Pressures, is your mind telling you you’re not measuring up to societal norms or expectations. This is the classic case of “keeping up with the Jone’s” – even on small levels. Take for example you see a mom running every morning while pushing a stroller – just what every motivated mom does, right? You immediately feel guilty, because you have not seen exercise in weeks. You also assume the running mom has her life in order and your life is chaotic. The guilt sets in. In this case, it is important to be honest with yourself. No, you have not been to the gym. Yes, you feel yucky. Yes, you recognize exercise is important for a mom. Yes, be honest with yourself. It is what it is. You have not exercised. You may or may not, but you surely will not use your workout energy on feeling guilty instead. Then look at this running mom before you and be proud of her – for she is your motivation – NOT your enemy or your trigger for guilt. If any mom does more or has more, it is not a reflection on you. In fact, the mom who doesn’t play the comparison game will inevitably become the mom everyone wants to be like. The irony.  

Believe it or not, but you have also been conditioned to feel guilty. Through Social Conditioning, your family, your friends and your social structure, have unknowingly taught you to feel guilty at specific times or events. For example, you have been taught that thinking highly of yourself makes you arrogant. You therefore feel guilty the second you feel good about something you’ve done, especially when it comes to being a mom. On the flip side, you have been taught that humility means you are being the right kind of person. But somehow the definitions of self-confidence and humility have been misconstrued: It is very possible to think very highly of yourself and be humble at the same time. In fact, this is what you are meant to do. You can think you are the best mom on the earth, so long as you don’t think you are better than another mom. See the difference? Arrogance is only implied when you compare yourself to another. Humility does not mean you are modest; it means you are free from comparing yourself to another and instead see equality in all persons. Guilt by Social Conditioning is a learned behavior, but one that can be easily unlearned by you.  

When you determine your feelings of guilt arise from Societal Pressures or Social Conditioning, it only requires your recognition of the emotion for the feeling to dissipate. It is that simple. If you feel your guilt is a Signal for Change, take appropriate action. First, you recognize you are feeling guilty about something; then determine what the motivation is behind the guilt based on these three models. What will follow will be the release of the guilt emotions or a catalyst for change. In all cases, guilt itself becomes arbitrary.  

In summary, let us discuss what guilt is not: 

• Guilt is Not Change. Guilt is only an emotion; it cannot make or force change. It can inspire change, but has nothing to do with change itself. Use guilt as a signal, but not to run your life.
• Guilt is Not Necessary. Guilt is not a necessary emotion and does not serve you or your family in any practical way other than triggering action. In other words, feeling guilty all the time does absolutely nothing for you if you are not willing to make a change.
• Guilt is Not You. By nature, you are not a guilt-ridden being. In your natural state, you believe in yourself and others.

Love,

Imagine you are about to place a sign on your front door. You have a choice between two options: “House of Love” or “House of Fear.” Which would you choose? Every person that will walk through your door – your children, your husband, your neighbors, your friends – will read the sign. It’s not even a question for you. Of course you will choose the sign: “House of Love.” No one wants to live in a House of Fear.  

Just to be sure, let’s see what lives in the House of Fear: 

House of Fear

• Stress
• Worry
• Unease
• Anxiety
• Bitterness
• Nonforgiveness
• Regret
• Resentment
• Grievances
• Sadness
• Guilt

These are all forms of fear. In fact, all emotions can be placed in either the category of Fear or Love. Did you notice the last emotion listed? Guilt. Guilt is a form of fear and it lives in a House of Fear.  

Let’s break it down. When you experience guilt, ask yourself: “What am I really afraid of?” Here are a few examples: 

When I feel guilty, I’m really afraid of _______________.

1. Looking like a failure
2. Affecting my children in a negative way
3. Disappointing my husband, children, family

Guilt is really fear disguised. When you see it in its raw form, guilt becomes ugly. 

Ultimately, when you constantly feel guilty by not measuring up, you are placing the sign: “House of Fear” on your front door. And don’t think you can hide it either. Whatever you feel inside, will surface in one way or another (maybe in a negative statement about yourself, perhaps in an outburst or maybe in a medical condition). Your children are especially perceptive to your emotions and feelings and keenly understand you even if they do not have the vocabulary or skills to communicate their feelings. 

Perhaps right now you are feeling guilty about feeling guilty. This is a perfect example of how our minds work. Now, think about this for a moment. Step back and look at yourself feeling guilty. Take a deep breath. You may notice the feelings of guilt are beginning to fade.  

Simply by recognizing guilt is often enough to make it go away. Now there is a space in you to solve the problem without the emotion (this is powerful redirected energy). Remember, guilt does not serve any purpose other than to signal a need for change. Once you recognize the need for change, you drop the emotion of guilt and focus on creating a new outcome. That is power.  

Guilt can be a useful tool for a mom, if you know how to use it. Otherwise, guilt will use you – again and again. Other people will use guilt on you too. This is so prevalent that people do it completely unconsciously. It’s simple too. They want you to do what they want you to do. Only apply guilt to a situation and voila! You’ll step up and accommodate their every wish. You’ll do things you don’t have time for; you’ll stretch yourself so thin you hurt what you love most, just so you don’t have to feel guilty.  

Over the years, centuries even, guilt has been manipulated to be used against you. Moms are especially susceptible (and we have been for decades), because we carry so much burden and responsibility for our family. We want to get it right, so we beat ourselves up every time we think we mess up. And there are people, all around us, telling us exactly how it should be done, how you should feel and how you should act. Anything less is a cause to woe and to become guilty.  

This is “superficial guilt” (based on Societal Pressures and Social Conditioning). Whether it is someone making you feel guilty or you allowing the guilt, superficial guilt is always selfish and is motivated by fear (in other words, it is fear). Someone or some group will use guilt on you to accomplish their agenda. Or you’ll do A, B and/or C just so you don’t have to feel guilty, even if it takes a toll on you or your family. And just as often, you’re part of the party handing out guilt. 

This has been unconsciously passed down from generation to generation: each of us giving and receiving guilt. We take it. We pass it. We teach it. Do this, do that, or else. We’re building guilt and fear all around us, collectively, and in our homes. It’s time, now in our lives, to get back to the pure meaning.  

The true nature of guilt, what guilt intended to be, is only a signal for change. “True Guilt” is love undiscovered. It’s not motivated by fear, but by love. This occurs when you realize there is a problem you want to fix and instead of using the energy to feel guilty, you use that same energy to make a change out of love. This is creative power driven by your very nature: a mom filled with love for her family.  

Imagine what it would feel like not to feel guilty anymore. Can you visualize the heavy weight being lifted off your shoulders? If you can, welcome to the present moment.  

Guilt is caused by too much past. Worry is caused by too much future. Your mind loves, and I mean LOVES, to work in the past and the future (but never now). Guilt is always about something that occurred in the past (whether it be 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago). Worry is always about something yet to happen, that may never happen. But life, your life, only happens now.  

Learning to turn your mind off and focusing on the now, literally as each second occurs, is the trick to overcoming guilt completely and fully. Even when guilt is useful, as a trigger for change, you set aside the emotion and begin to create a new outcome, always focusing on what you are doing now.  

There are three ways you should be spending your time, every minute:

1. Accepting life as it is. Letting go of what you cannot change or what you cannot change right now.
2. Creating something new by using your creative energy. This includes everything from work to solving an issue with a child.
3. Enjoying life. Not thinking about the past or the future, but deciding to enjoy life now.

This is how you build your “House of Love.” That is the construction plan. Guilt, in the traditional sense, tears your house down from the inside out. It affects each of the three steps to building your “House of Love.” It does not allow you to accept life as it is, to create something new or to enjoy life. Do not hire guilt as your engineer.  

But guilt has a new meaning to you now. You see how it was meant to be used – only as a signal for change. “True Guilt” is love undiscovered and is a tool for a mom to create life. The next time you say: “I feel guilty,” you might even start to smile. Go mom! 

ceoMom 101