My goal each day is to live in the moment and enjoy my busy life. Sometimes I am unsuccessful because of useless emotions. Guilt and worry can steal away peaceful moments. I can’t avoid these feelings, but I am conscious of the energy they take that could be used in other ways.
In articles written several years ago in Psychology Today, authors discussed the useless emotions of guilt and worry. Worry looks ahead and sees potential threat at every turn. Guilt looks behind focusing on mistakes and disappointments. Guilt cannot change the past and worry cannot change the future.
I sometimes experience guilt when I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot get back to sleep. It seems that every wrong I ever committed pops into my mind until I can count enough sheep to fall back asleep. Irrational guilt is based on “should haves.” Rational guilt is centered on one’s values and expectations of self. Either one can cause me to waste time thinking about something that I can no longer control.
I did the best that I could do with my life most times. On the other hand, I could have done better. I hope I learned from those mistakes and will not worry about repeating them in the future.
Worry is something that comes easily to me. I am becoming better at assessing what I can and cannot control. Planning is important. I can take reasonable measures to safeguard my health and personal interests. Worrying, however, increases my anxiety and does not necessarily help me do my best to be ready for the future. Worry without preparedness adds emotional baggage that heightens my anxiety and interferes with my ability to function.
Since the wildfires in our area in 2020 unnerved me, I do worry about fires. On the other hand, I do what I can do to try to reduce fire hazards around my home. And, this time, I have a better plan for evacuation if needed. I can’t control wildfires, but I can be ready and worry less.
As I try to be mindful and live in the moment, I am finding that guilt and worry can be at odds with a life that celebrates the goodness of what is happening around me. I am learning from guilt and assessing worry to use them to be a better human being in the future.
Amen sister! Amen. Thank you for sharing what so many of us experience and putting words to it.
Good to hear from you, my friend. Keep on keeping on!
Karla,
I, too, spend time thinking about these things. Bruno Geba, my departed colleague from SDSU, talked about a “recreative” attitude toward life that is open to, and lives in, the present moment as opposed to an “analytic” attitude that broods over the past and worries about the future. Geba’s point was that our bodies have no choice but to live in the present moment while our minds can be disconnected from the body by dwelling on the past or the future. It is only when the mind and body are united in the present moment that we can really be open to living life to its fullest. While I agree with what Bruno said (in his book “Being at Leisure: Playing at Life”,) I think it was Ernest Hemingway who said experiencing guilt is the only evidence we have that we have a conscience. Here’s to you and me trying our best to adopt a recreative attitude toward life.
As always, thanks for your insight, Dan. Hugs to you and Kathy.
I like this post a lot. I think many of us likely engage in this same experience (and often at 2 am :)). I think it’s pretty normal, but at times, I think it gets almost obsessive. It’s like there is a trigger of some sort that raises the ghosts of these 2 feelings… It seems they almost always run together though, as you say, so you wallow in the past as well as despair about impending doom down the road. Maybe the trick is to tilt the hologram to see the issue that creates the guilt not as a bad thing but as something to help encourage us to be a bit more tuned in to our “ethical” side so the next time in the future, we can do things a little differently so not as a source of worry, but just as a different choice.