Guilt. We all feel this emotion from time to time, but what is it? Per dictionary.com, the definition of guilt is: the fact or state of having committed...

an offense, crime, violation, or wrong against moral or penal code; a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, whether real or imagined to make someone feel guilty in hopes of getting them to do something. Guilt, has many meanings and rears it’s remorseful head at all different times in life.

Coping.org puts the definition of guilt into more relatable, everyday terms.  Guilt is a feeling:

…of responsibility for negative circumstances that have befallen yourself or others.
…of regret for your real or imagined misdeeds, both past and present.
…of obligation for not pleasing, not helping, or not placating another.
…of bewilderment and lack of balance for not responding to a situation in your typical, stereotype manner.
…of loss and shame for not having done or said something to someone who is no longer available to you.

Part of the emotion behind guilt is the accepting of responsibility for someone else's misfortune or problem because it bothers you to see that person suffer; a motivator to amend all real or perceived wrongs; a strong moral sense of right and wrong that inhibits you from choosing a “wrong” course of action; however, you assign your own definitions to the words; and the driving force or mask behind which irrational beliefs hide.

As you can see, guilt is a complicated emotion! Other people play a role in the guilt we feel, as well as how we deal and overcome guilt. How do others play on your guilt? Well, people might…:

• make you believe they will suffer greatly if you do not respond positively to their request(s).

• call on your guilt to respond to their requests, even when it means violating your rights.

• respond to your irrational self by reinforcing your irrational thinking, giving you a sense of blame, for past, present, or future actions.

• build up a verbal or imagined scenario that portrays you at fault for inaction, thus guaranteeing your sense of guilt and your willingness to do anything to alleviate it.

• accuse you of misdeeds, words, or actions to arouse your sense of guilt and make you believe you are the one with a problem in an interpersonal relationship difficulty. (This effectively takes the pressure off of them.)

• build a case with moral absolutes to convince you of the ``right way'' to do things, avoiding that negative feeling of guilt for themselves.

• fake hardship, illness, discomfort, unhappiness, incompetence, or other negative behavior to arouse your sense of guilt and have you take over those tasks, or duties bringing imagined negative consequences for them.

Now that we know how others play a role in our guilt, let’s find out what guilt does to us. Coping.org says that the following are some impacts of guilt on the individual feeling that emotion. Guilt can…

• make you become over responsible, striving to make life “right.” You over give of yourself.

• make you over conscientious. You fret over every action you take as to its possible negative consequence to others, even if this means that you must ignore your needs and wants.

• make you over sensitive. You see decisions about right and wrong in every aspect of your life and become obsessed with the tenuous nature of all of your personal actions, words, and decisions.

• make you immobilized. You can become so overcome by the fear of doing, acting, saying, or being “wrong” that you eventually collapse, give in, and choose inactivity, silence, and the status quo.

• be a motivator to change. Because you feel guilt and the discomfort it brings, you can use it as a barometer of the need to change things in your life and rid yourself of the guilt.

How does a person move beyond guilt and overcome the power this emotion has? Here are five steps to help you prevail over your guilt:

1. Recognize the role guilt is playing in your life. Ask yourself: why you feel guilty? Where your guilt is truly coming from? What would your situation/problem look like if you removed your guilty feeling from the equation? If you feel your problem can be resolved by reducing your guilty feeling, go to step 2.

2. Redefine your problem with the absence of guilt. Work on finding a solution to your current situation/problem without feeling guilty. Guilt could be preventing you from resolving the problem.
3. If the problem is really someone else's, give the problem back to that person to solve and to deal with. If the problem is really yours, go to step 4.

4. You must confront the real or imagined guilt or fear of guilt preventing you from solving your problem. Think about what the underlying issues are surrounding your feeling of guilt. Tell yourself that you deserve to solve this problem, you deserve to be good to yourself, and have others be good to you.

5. If after you’ve attempted all of the above steps, start back at 1 until you’re able to come to a resolution.

All emotions are complicated in their own right. Guilt takes the form of almost every color in the rainbow, which is what makes this emotion extra complicated and at times more difficult to deal with. It’s important to realize that guilt should not rule your decisions or your life. Allowing guilt to have that power doesn’t benefit you in any way. It only holds you back.

Information Used with Permission from www.Coping.org