When you think about the concept of guilt, probably many grave and serious situations come to your mind. However, today, in my writing, I will talk about the concept of Guilt Feeling, which is more related to the subconscious level rather than the conscious level. At the end of the article, I guarantee you’ll say, “Really?”
Even in our childhood years, the concepts of guilt, punishment, and reward settle in the subconscious. We internalize the definitions of good (right) and bad people from our family and the rules of the environment.
“Good people are rewarded, bad people are punished.”
Around this concept, our whole life takes shape. Furthermore, systems also support this to maintain order. When someone violates someone else’s rights, the systems come into play. When you violate someone’s right to property or, worse, their right to life, it initiates the process of punishment. Of course, to some extent, humans participate in this process, and they endure the punishment not to repeat their actions. This is actually a crime-punishment system outside the scope of our topic today. Today, I will talk about another punishment system that almost everyone is involved in: The reward-punishment system that society imposes on its own individuals, also known as Peer Pressure…
The definition of the right person, the good person, may vary for everyone. Depending on a person’s own values, awareness, goals… in short, based on the ideal image in their mind, different elements may come into play. But there are some common features shared by everyone, such as:
- Honest and moral
- Respectful towards elders
- Maintains a healthy diet
- Stays away from bad habits (cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, addictive substances, etc.)
- Loyal and responsible
… and so on.
With all these rights and wrongs, along with what should be, we expect to create the things we desire in life. As we rely more on our triggered rationality and try to live without involving our hearts, we become even more immersed in these conditioning patterns. Conditioning is a rather mild term; more often, it would be appropriate to call it imposition.
These impositions are thrown into the center of society as a seed by the system and are immediately embraced. They begin to be applied at all levels without the need for the system to check again. The rules and these impositions are unwritten, but everyone knows them, and everyone is expected to follow them. Those who do not comply are excluded, unloved, disapproved of, and left alone. Naturally seeking love, approval, and understanding everywhere, these individuals labeled as misfits start living at a low frequency. And as you will see below, at this low frequency, they cannot create the life they want, they lose their energy to the system, and they remain adrift like a leaf.
This table is a measurement of consciousness values based on the research of Dr. David Hawkins, a renowned psychiatrist and one of today’s master spiritual teachers who passed away in 2012. He has explained very profound and scientifically proven data on this subject. For more detailed information on this, I can recommend the book “Power vs. Force.” In the book, you can find detailed information on how this table was created. (To access another article on this topic, click here.)
Now, I would like to delve a bit deeper into this table. The values presented here are frequency values, which are directly proportional to the vibration and energy of emotions. The value next to each emotion represents the dominant energy level that emotion creates in you. As mentioned before, the higher your frequency, the higher your energy, and the more pleasure, joy, and satisfaction you will experience in life. Moreover, your power to create the life you desire also increases. In this context, if we look at the emotion of Guilt, we can see that its value is very low – second to last. According to the information provided earlier, this means:
When the feeling of guilt dominates, a person’s frequency is very low. Therefore, they cannot create the life they desire and remain in a state of deep dissatisfaction.
After explaining the definition of Guilt and its effects on life, I want to talk about the different ways we experience this emotion.
Feeling of Guilt:
Regarding Ourselves:
This can be related to decisions we make about ourselves to keep ourselves in the current state, struggling with the Ego that urges us to make new decisions we cannot implement. We create an ideal image of what the perfect child, spouse, daughter, son, employee, etc., should be based on our existing identities.
For example:
- Deciding to start a diet or quit smoking every Monday.
- Deciding to call our parents every day without fail.
- If you are a parent, deciding to spend quality time with your child every evening.
- Deciding to wake up early and exercise in the morning.
- Deciding to prepare for meetings days in advance instead of doing it last minute after a difficult meeting, etc.
In summary, these are decisions that are difficult to implement according to the circumstances, but we take them to reach the ideal versions of our existing identities.
Let’s provide an example:
When you decide to quit smoking every Monday but cannot do it, the subconscious makes you feel the feeling of guilt throughout the day. It doesn’t care about the details; its language is simple. It says, “A good person doesn’t have bad habits. If you smoke, you are a bad person. Bad people don’t deserve good things.” Smoking is proven to be harmful to health and should be quit, but you should find the strength within yourself and take action at the right time. Due to the subconscious pressure, if you repeatedly make decisions but fail to implement them, the feeling of guilt will lower your dominant energy level, and you will feel guilty. Besides harming your health, it diminishes your frequency and creative power, which are essential for all aspects of life. If you have multiple failed attempts, consider seeking professional help, as this support can help you navigate the process more easily. If you keep making decisions but can’t follow through, the feeling of guilt will erode your energy from within.
Regarding Others’ Behaviors:
Let’s examine our behaviors towards our parents and children under this heading.
Let’s start with our behaviors towards our parents:
Since childhood, the suggestions from our parents such as “be like this, don’t be like that” and the examples they give for comparison with other children create a mental image of what kind of child they expect us to be. Even if we can never be like that or the image is incorrect, we expect ourselves to be the ideal child according to that image. Moreover, often our parents are not even aware of this. Due to the need to be loved by them, we adopt the belief that they will love us if we become what they want us to be. Especially after becoming adults, our responsibilities and difficulties in finding time and energy make it difficult to meet these criteria. Consequently, we feel guilty when we cannot meet those expectations. We bring ourselves down even though they may be proud of us and completely satisfied with us because of the criteria deeply imprinted in our subconscious. Each time we see them, it becomes like a reminder of our inadequacy. As a result, our phone calls and visits become less frequent. By not keeping them in our lives, we start living with a sense of regret. When we see them, we feel guilty; when we don’t, we feel inadequate.
Now, let’s discuss another significant feeling of guilt related to motherhood:
Guilt related to motherhood:
This is the feeling of guilt experienced during the most psychologically sensitive period of the first six months after giving birth. It is the time when the baby needs the warmth and attention of the healthiest mental state of the mother most. However, most mothers, during this period, try not to enjoy being a mother but to prove that they are good mothers or, in other words, to show that they are good mothers. Being overly invested in the identity of being a mother after having spent too much energy and time results in becoming alienated from other identities.
Alienation from the identity of a wife can lead to problems in the relationship with her husband.
Alienation from the identity of a working woman can lead to performance issues and conflicts with her boss.
Alienation from the identity of a friend in her social life can make her feel lonely.
Striving not to feel guilty by clinging excessively to the identity of motherhood and focusing solely on nurturing, a mother may experience emotionally challenging times within a dissatisfying life.
With endless love,
