Nothing to be guilty about

Dr Robert Antho­ny believes that guilt is one of the most com­mon forms of stress in our soci­ety. The world is full of guilt-ridden people. Unless you are one of those rare individuals who have overcome this destructive emotion, you prob­ably share a variety of unnecessary guilt feelings with the vast majority.

Most of us have been conditioned to feel guilty. Family, friends, society, schools; loved ones and religion have consciously or unconsciously turned us into guilt machines. We have been reminded since childhood of our so-called “bad behaviour” and made to feel guilty about things we did or did not do, or said or did not say. Since most of us are condi­tioned to seek approval from others, we cannot handle guilt when it is imposed upon us from an outside source.

Guilt is the master tool of the manipulator. All a person has to do is to make us feel guilty and we feel compelled to get back into their good graces as soon as possible. Most people can be manipulated into doing just about anything if they can be made to feel guilty enough.

We permit this to happen simply because guilt has been associated with caring and, if you do not care, you are a “bad person.” The truth is that guilt has nothing whatsoev­er to do with caring. Rather, it is a manifestation of neurotic behaviour, behaviour which, oddly enough, is accepted as “normal” by most people. In other words, to show that you really care, you are expected to feel guilty. If you do not, then you do not really care. This twisted line of reasoning controls the lives of a tragic number of individuals.

A LOOK AT MORALITY

A great many actions that are labeled “good” or “bad” by certain individuals, society or religious groups are nothing more than moral value-judgments based on THEIR present levels of Awareness, which may be faulty. What is moral and right for you today, may not be moral and right for you tomorrow at another time or in another place. For morality varies from place to place and time to time.

Laws that are based on morality are not Universal Laws, for Uni­versal Laws are immutable. They are few, simple and enforceable everywhere, always, automatically, without interference or moral value judgment by any group, religion or individual. There is no Universal Law to support guilt. Remember,

GUILT IS A LEARNED EMOTIONAL RESPONSE.

Dr Robert Anthony discerns several forms of guilt but catego­rises them into four main types: parent-child guilt, society-inspired guilt, religious guilt, and self-im­posed guilt.

Parent-child guilt

As a child, you were made to feel guilty by the adults around you and by your family in particular. A value judgment was placed on you instead of your actions. Throughout your growing years, especially the first five years, you were conditioned to respond to “good” and “bad,” “right and “wrong.” Guilt was enforced through the reward and punishment system. It was at this time that you began to identify with your actions.

Parents unwittingly use guilt as a means of controlling their children. They tell a child that, if he does not do a certain thing, he will make them unhappy.

Whenever you failed to please your parents, it was time for them to play the guilt game. As a result, you developed a behaviour pattern of pleasing others first to avoid feeling guilty. You said what people wanted you to say and did what they wanted you to do. You were conditioned to believe that, by conforming, you would please others. And so you developed the never-ending need to make a good impression.

Society-inspired guilt

This starts in school when you fail to please your teacher. You are made to feel guilty about your behaviour by being told that you could have done better or that you have let your teacher down. Without getting to the root of the problem – the student’s faulty Awareness – teach­er-inspired guilt makes less work for the teacher and is an effective means of control.

Our prison system is an excellent example of the guilt theory in ac­tion. If you go against society’s mor­al code, you are punished by con­finement in an institution. During this time, you are supposed to feel guilty for what you have done. The worse the crime, the longer you have to feel guilty. You are then released without the real problem – your faulty Awareness, specifically your poor self-esteem – being corrected. The end result is that most prisoners end up back in prison after commit­ting another crime.

Guilt feelings over social be­haviour condition you to worry about what others say or think of your actions. This is why etiquette is so strongly adhered to. To most people, it is a life and death matter, which side of the plate to place the fork.

Religious guilt

Religion has done more than its share to develop and instill deep-seated guilt feelings. Indeed, it may well take credit for the Original Sin of Guilt, as guilt is the means by which religion keeps its followers in line.

Through the mistaken interpre­tation of perfection, many religious denominations instill guilt in those who do not meet their moral value judgments based on their interpreta­tion of the Scriptures.

They start with the premise that all judgment is based on perfection. Perfection, they say, is “good,” imperfection “bad.” This mistak­en interpretation of perfection has limited comprehension of the word’s true meaning. If you put ten thousand of the same objects under a microscope, you would see that no two is exactly alike.

It is a biological, physiological, psychological and metaphysical fact that each entity is distinctly differ­ent. Each individual is an expression of Creative Intelligence. Perfection, and everything else for that matter, is relative.

Creative Intelligence. Perfection, and everything else for that matter, is relative. Wallace Stevens put it this way: “Twenty men crossing a bridge into a village, are 20 men crossing 20 bridges? Into 20 villages…”

Some religions, by expecting two people to perceive God, Truth and the Scriptures in the same way, have doomed their followers to failure.

Paradoxically, to be “perfect,” you must have some flaws. Imperfec­tions are the means by which you learn to grow and by which human­kind is spurred on to create. To have no imperfections is to have no need to develop mentally, emotionally or spiritually. This means we must allow ourselves the freedom to grow mentally, emotionally and spiritually untainted by guilt.

SELF-IMPOSED GUILT

The most destructive form of guilt is that which is self-imposed. This is guilt we impose on ourselves when we feel that we have broken our own moral code or the moral code of society. It originates when we look at our past behaviour and see that we have made an unwise choice or action. We examine what we did – whether it was criticising others, stealing, cheating, lying, ex­aggerating, breaking religious rules or committing any other act we feel is wrong – in the light of our pres­ent value system. In most cases, the guilt we feel is an attempt to show that we care and are sorry for our actions. Essentially what we are do­ing is whipping ourselves for what we did and attempting to change history. What we fail to realise is that the past cannot be changed.

There is a world of difference between feeling guilty and learn­ing from the past. Going through a self-inflicted guilt sentence is a neurotic trip you must stop if you want to develop total self-confi­dence. Feeling guilty does not build self-confidence. It will only keep you a prisoner of the past and immobil­ise you in the present. By harbouring guilt, you are escaping the respon­sibility of living in the present and moving toward the future.

Guilt always brings punish­ment. The punishment may take many forms including depression, feelings of inadequacy, lack of self-confidence, poor self-esteem, an assortment of physical disorders and the inability to love others and ourselves. Those who cannot forgive others and hold resentment in their hearts are the same people who have never learned to forgive themselves. They are the guilt-ridden people.

BY CAPT SAM ADDIAH (RTD)