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Any NO response to the cognitive challenge means look for an internal resolution. You may be able to internally resolve your guilt through how you think.
APPROVAL SEEKERS & CONFLICT AVOIDERS.
Approval seeking individuals feel guilty when they perceive that someone is angry with them. Someone else’s anger at you is not necessarily your problem, nor does it need to be your automatic guilt. Consider establishing the following belief for yourself:
“If someone is angry with me it simply means that they do not like the way I am behaving, SO WHAT!”
1. “I did not make them mad and I do not have to make them feel better.”
2. Another person can perceive, think about, have feelings about, and respond to my behavior. However, “I cannot create feelings in someone else.”
3. “I may want to evaluate my behavior to see that it is reflective of my own morals and values, which generates my own approval.”
4. If necessary, “I may want to make reflective changes in my behavior (reflective of my morals and values), and act accordingly, to again end up with my own approval.” Self-ish-ness equals integrity.
5. “I may not want to make any changes at all.”
TRANSFORM YOUR GUILT.
Sometimes guilt is related to group mentality and the possibility of abandonment or being thrown out of the group. This guilt is obviously related more to security than to a breach of internal morality. Transforming this kind of bad feeling requires you to look beneath the guilt-based thinking to a subconscious level.
Beneath guilt you may find that your thinking has nothing to do with morality. “I feel bad, and I determine it comes from thinking that I will displease others (fear of their consequences for noncompliance).” “I feel bad, and I determine that it comes from thinking that I easily succumb to the wishes of others (mad at myself for not being assertive).” “I feel bad, and I determine that it comes from thinking about a loss of relationship (sad about abandonment).” It would be far more helpful to begin dealing with this kind of guilt by thinking it into another feeling realm, and then problem solving it as such. Essentially, with this resolution you conclude that you have done nothing wrong according to your own standards but have misidentified your feeling as guilt. You can then take steps to resolve your feeling with other more appropriate internal and external resolutions.
The fact of the matter is, you will not please all people. The question is, “Will you please yourself; will you maintain integrity?” There are going to be times when you may need to risk some amount of security loss in order to maintain personal integrity. That is, you may need to displease others in order to please yourself. For those who are inclined toward people pleasing, this notion will seem selfish and you will likely experience guilt. However, to the extent that your belief system has been consciously developed by you, “self-ish-ness” will be equal to integrity. You may need to consciously remind yourself of this “self-ish-ness equals integrity” belief for some time until it is subconsciously maintained.
RESOLVE EXTERNAL CODE CONFLICT.
To the extent that you are in conflict with someone else’s moral code or some other system of morality, you may want to take a look at the external resolutions for mad, sad, or fear. For example: Mary was 38 years old, recently divorced, and living in a new city on her own for the first time in her life. She had entered therapy to help her in adjusting to her new situation. Last week, she found herself feeling bad after a phone call with her mother. Her mother was coaxing her to get a different job, “That one’s not good enough for you.” Mary loved her job and wanted to stay, but she felt bad about not having her mother’s support.
In our next session, Mary explored her thinking related to her initial feeling of guilt and discovered that she had done nothing wrong. The bad feeling was not about a current moral code conflict, but suggested a different kind of thinking: she was not doing as her mother told her. Mary is now in a position to resolve her problem as we explore the next question: “How do you feel about not doing what your mother is telling you to do?” “Mad, because I’m tired of her not supporting me in what I want to do.” “Sad, because I know that if I don’t do as she says, she will withdraw from me emotionally, that’s a loss.” “Fear, because I think something bad will happen, I’m just not sure what.” We concluded that Mary had mixed feelings about her situation, and moved into a problem-solving mode by addressing the feelings one by one, and the possible resolutions for each.
At the end of the session, Mary had decided to make some external changes. Although she would have liked her mother’s support, she did not need it. The most likely worst outcome would be temporarily losing connection with her mother. This would be a chance worth taking to transform their relationship toward something healthier. From then on, prior to engaging in conversations with her mother, Mary intended to give herself a reminder to see herself as a grown and responsible adult. Also, she planned to take an assertive approach toward her mother in their future conversations.
With this resolution, you essentially have concluded that you have done nothing wrong, do not need to feel guilty, and take steps to resolve your feelings with other more appropriate external resolutions.
MORAL CODE CHANGE & MODIFICATION.
Is there an exception to the rule? Some of your moral code standards can be traced to early childhood. You or someone else may have developed rules for you that are based on early childhood dynamics that are no longer applicable today.
For example: Jimmy was raised in an environment with very little parental supervision or involvement. He was required to take care of his younger siblings. Early on in his life, he was operating on a moral code standard that said, “Take care of others, that is your job.” As an adult, he will need to modify this moral code standard when it comes to the adults in his life. At a minimum, he will need to decide whom in his life it is appropriate for him to care for, and to what extent. If he doesn’t modify and establish clear parameters, Jimmy will no doubt get caught up in the position of caretaker for most people in his immediate environment and possibly become obsessive about it.
You may have been raised in an aggressive and hostile environment. In such a place, you developed subconscious standards or fundamental rules that said, “Protect yourself from others at all times, don’t show weakness, and never let your guard down.” As an adult you may want to modify these standards. In other words, “There are exceptions to these rules…there are some situations, times, places, when it’s safe and in my best interest to be vulnerable.”
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