On the art of coping with guilt

When I think about guilt and feeling guilty the first image that pops up in my head is one of my dad. For some reason he felt extreme guilt for most of his life and it has ruined many things for him. It ruined his relationship with me, my mother, his second wife, his parents and with many of his friends. Of course he made mistakes — but all humans do — but the way we cope with those mistakes and the feelings attached to them in our minds are insanely important. If we learn from them and adjust accordingly, we might gain something from them. If we allow ourselves to be tripped up by them, and succumb to them it can literally destroy our lives.

But back to making mistakes and being human. My dad made mistakes. Some minor some major. I’m sure you have — I certainly have — and if you’re like most people you probably think about those things from time to time and wish you could have done things differently. Obviously you can’t, because that’s not how the universe works. That’s not how our minds work. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by these feelings every once in a while, but thankfully there is a mental button we can push when we feel down to let us cope with our guilt in another way — a healthy way.

One thing that works incredibly well for me, and which is well-documented in the psychological literature as well is the concept of self-acceptance (e.g. Vasile 2013)