A Conversation About Guilt
In this episode of Work Family Me, I talk about a very common emotion that crops up in these conversations with working women and with my hard working 1:1 clients in general...GUILT.
What the point of guilt is!
An important differentiation to make for yourself.
How to use guilt productively
Some examples and challenges
A 4 step process you can use the next time you feel guilty.
Prefer to listen? Click here A Conversation About Guilt
Hi lovelies, this is Maude, Women's Burnout and Leadership Coach. You're listening to the Work.Family.Me podcast, a series of conversations with women from different cultures and industries around the world about the behind the scenes of earning money, parenting, being in relationship and adulting all at the same time. Here we will discuss the challenges, ideas and support structures that show up in co-earning dual parenting situations and talk through some helpful strategies and mindsets.
Why? So that you as a busy working woman can learn from others, implement what could make your life a little bit easier and share these with your family, friends and colleagues. We are at the forefront of working, parenting and relating in a totally different way to previous generations and there can be so much value in validating this and learning with each other. I'm so happy that you're here.
Let's dive into the conversation for today. Hello and welcome to this episode about guilt. This is a solo episode, so it's not a conversation with anybody else.
It is me talking to you, the listener, about feeling guilty, what that might be for us, why guilt might show up and what you could do to shift from guilt into action if you are somebody who feels guilty a lot of the time and if you're anything like many of my one-on-one clients and women that I work with around burnout prevention or leadership or confidence, you will have times in your life where you feel guilty. You may think about them now, they may be coming up, they may be really often and they may be just once in a while. Wherever you are in your relationship with guilt, you are so welcome here today.
When we talk about guilt, we're talking about a feeling of regret or remorse or embarrassment or a wish that we would have done something differently. Often we are looking at thoughts like, I shouldn't have done that or I should be doing something else. That's key language that you might notice in your brain that's pointing you towards guilt or that shows up in moments of feeling guilty.
You may notice your body responding when you feel guilty. You may notice sensations in your body. Maybe just take a moment to think for yourself, the last time you felt guilty, what happened for you? What happens for you in those moments where you feel guilty? Are there common scenarios or situations? What happens in your body? What happens in your brain? What do you spiral into at that point? A lot of the women that I am working with in my one-on-one coaching practice are feeling guilty a lot of the time.
So they may be feeling guilty for not exercising enough. When they exercise, they may be feeling guilty for not working at that time. While they're working, they may feel guilty for not parenting full-time or not being present for their children.
While they're being present with their children, they may be guilty, feeling guilty for the way they are present or not present. They may be feeling guilty for not working at that same time. So they're in the spiral of feeling like they should be doing different things at the time that they're doing things, which takes them out of presence.
It releases stress hormones. It means that there's anxiety, there's overwhelm, there's confusion, there's lack of focus. And so guilt is something that is changing quality of lives for a lot of people out there.
So if that's you right now, please know that you are not alone. So why do we even have guilt? When we think about this from a societal and psychological point of view, guilt is classified as a moral and adaptive emotion. What does that mean? It's an emotion that is there in our brains, in our human psyche to help us, to motivate us, to stick to societal norms or rules of our tribe.
It's about keeping the peace, making things easier for others, fitting in. So in general, that's important in a tribe, in our evolutionary history and in where we came from. Because if we didn't adhere to the rules or we didn't keep the peace, we would have been kicked out of the tribe and that would have meant that we would have had to fend for ourselves and maybe would have died.
So there is a certain level of collaboration, community, belonging that guilt speaks to, which also means that the fear of not belonging, of not keeping the peace, of not doing the things that we think we should be doing goes to a very primal point in our brain. So when we feel guilty, the brain is doing a sensible thing. It's ringing an alarm bell and saying, hey, hang on a second.
I think this behavior is butts up against or is in juxtaposition to a rule that we have in our community. We need to pay attention. The brain is always looking out for us.
The brain is always protecting us. We're so grateful to your brain. So say you do something or you don't do something and guilt shows up.
The brain is then saying, be aware of something. It's butting up against a rule. It's butting up against a should.
So that can be a helpful thing because what we can then do is pause and have a look at that and self-correct, change our behavior, change what we're doing. But what I want to pause with here and pick apart a little bit is the amount of shoulds that we have and where they come from. So we may have rules that come from us from an external source, maybe that society in general and the rules that we take in around what a mother should be or what a professional woman should be or what a leader should be or what a wife should be.
We get messages as we grow up or as we watch movies or as we read books or as we hear others speak about what that person should be. We may go through a schooling system or a religious education or a family that tells us that certain ways of being are good and other ways of being are not as good. So again, rules are created for us in sometimes our subconscious and sometimes our conscious mind.
Those start creating the parameters around which we judge ourselves. I should be doing like this because good mothers do X. I should be leading like this because good leaders do this. I should look like that because good women look like that.
We are creating these rules for ourselves. And so sometimes what's happening is those are subconscious and they're not really what we as adults decide or choose in the way that we want to be. As an adult, we may say it's not important for to look like X. We may say I believe that women can work and parent at the same time.
I believe that both are possible and there's no should here. So when we have a moment of guilt, we can start to pause and question what is my brain flagging here? Is this a should that's appearing that I really believe in? That's my truth? That when I think about it is what I want to be and how I want to be? So for example, if I have a moment in the evening and I'm coming out of work and I'm making dinner and my children are needing to do their homework and they are running around or they're shouting at me because I'm not making dinner the way they want me to make dinner and I snap at them and afterwards I feel guilty, that guilt may be calling me to notice I don't want to snap at my children. I want to take a deep breath.
I want to act differently. I want to be more loving. I want to be more patient in that moment.
That's appropriate and that is in line with the way that I want to behave. An example of noticing guilt and pausing and noticing that it's coming from an external source might be the example of taking time to rest or do something that you enjoy or have leisure time or exercise. That's often an area that a lot of my clients really struggle in and it is also not as accepted by society for working mothers.
We see quite a lot of permission for fathers or men to take time to play golf or surf or go to the gym or watch rugby or whatever it is that makes them feel good in their bodies, whatever it is that helps them de-stress and relax. We see that being widely accepted and we don't see that same level of acceptance for women taking time to do things that they enjoy for the sake of enjoyment, particularly when they have children and when they are working. What may happen as you get ready to walk out the door to go to yoga or as you plan a weekend away with your girlfriends to swim and watch movies and go to art galleries is you may notice guilt showing up.
As you pause and start to question, why am I feeling guilty? What rules am I coming up against? You may notice, actually, as an adult, I believe that I am entitled to, that I am able to take time to recharge and that's what helps me get through my day-to-day and it's something that I feel all humans should be entitled to. However, because I am raised in a society that I haven't seen that role modeled in or that gives me messages about how mothers should be with their children, I'm coming up against a rule that isn't mine, but that is causing me to feel guilty. Thank you, brain, for bringing that to my awareness, but actually, right now, it's okay.
We can stand down and maybe taking a breath with that and letting the guilt kind of soften. You've turned towards it. You've had a look at the warning bell.
You've reflected and you don't need to change your behavior in that situation. You're actually acting in accordance to your values. So, the reminder is that guilt is there to help us reflect and guilt helps us to amend or change our behavior where that's useful and our job here is to pause, to reflect and think about where we do want to create change and what we might need to let go of.
Now, the final point that I want to make here around this noticing and questioning the shoulds that you have around guilt is also keeping in mind what's realistic for you. So, you may get to a point where you've identified where you feel guilty and it is somewhere that you'd like to create change, but you just aren't able to because of external factors in your life. So, an example here might be that you're working late every single day.
You're feeling guilty because you're not spending the evening time with your children and you really want to do that. So, you've stopped. You've noticed why you're feeling guilty and what it's calling you to do and maybe it does feel aligned to you to spend time in the evening with your children, connecting with them and having family time.
You may stop and say, well, what can I do differently here? This doesn't feel like an external should. It genuinely feels like something that I want to do and I choose to do and it's the person that I want to be, but maybe I can't right now because I've got a big project or because that's my job and it goes over time or because that needs to be the priority because I need to put food on the table. So, sometimes when we stop and think about where I'm feeling guilty, we're noticing it's not the way I want to be and maybe long-term, I want to make some changes or I'm working towards making changes or I'm just recognizing here that there is a value tension.
There is a conflict inside myself because I want to do something and I just can't right now in the reality of my life. That also sometimes happens and I don't want us to negate that. There are real factors here.
We need to eat. We need to make money. We need to take care of other things.
We need to have domestic responsibilities. We're all adults with competing priorities on our focus and attention and we're not always 100% able to live into the way that we want to be. So, there may be moments where we are feeling guilty.
We're recognizing that and it is somewhere that we maybe continue to feel guilty and here it can still feel helpful to notice that, to look at it, to reflect and see what is it that I want to long-term create change around or what is actually going on inside me rather than just having a low-level mess of emotions and thoughts and competing priorities to really get clear on it and maybe even express that to your family or other people involved in that of, I'm feeling guilty because of X or I feel like I really want to do that but I can't because of Y. How can we work with that? Can I make a plan in a different way to spend time with you? Can we have a date on a Saturday night or can you just know that I love you and I'm not able to be there in the evening and that is just going to be the way it is for the next year or two and then I'm hoping to create a change? So, it can still be really, really useful to get clear on your shoulds or your desires within that and maybe you can do something to move towards a different way of being and maybe you can't and recognizing that can also just create so much clarity and peace of mind in a way for you and the people around you. So, I want to summarize by going through that process to use when you feel guilty. You can save this, you can look at the transcript, you can make a note right now, so you've got a few definite anchors to come back to the next time you start feeling guilty.
Step one, notice it. This sounds so simple but because many of us are walking around in chronic states of guilt, we struggle to separate out guilt from other emotions and sensations in our body. So, first step is notice what you're feeling and name the guilt.
I'm feeling guilty right now. Step number two, acknowledge that your brain is doing a good job when it shows you guilt, when it brings up guilt. Aha, you're pointing me towards something.
Thank you brain, thank you for letting me know. Number three, question it. Why am I feeling guilty? What kind of rule or should did I go against? Did I do something or not do something? Did I say something or not say something? Get super clear on why you're feeling guilty.
Step number four, try and separate out whether you're feeling guilty about something that you want to change, that internally feels like it needs change, that isn't in line with the way you want to be, or is this an external should that you want to let go of, that doesn't feel appropriate anymore. And lastly, think about what you want to do differently. If there is guilt here and if it feels true for you to change something because of that guilt, what is it that you'd like to do differently? So, asking these questions will really help you start to create change inside your brain, inside your behavior.
So, I encourage you to slow down enough to do them and follow this process to start creating a bit more separation and awareness around the guilt and around why you're feeling that. The key is to stop just going round and round and round in spirals of guilt and have all of that adrenaline and cortisol and stress hormones causing through your body. Don't let your brain run wild and your resting state to be one of guilt.
Obviously, we take things way deeper in one-on-one coaching and I spend a lot of time working with women on an individual basis around what makes them feel guilty, what shifts that for them. But you can use what I'm sharing with you in this conversation to start changing things for yourselves. If you'd like to find out more about coaching with me, there is a link below to my one-on-one coaching program.
Obviously, I'd love to see you there. Ah, I love having these conversations so, so much. Thank you for being here, for listening to the Work Family Me podcast.
If you want to connect with me in real life, I would love that. You can find me on LinkedIn and I will put the link for my profile below so you can just click on that and connect with me. See you out there.