The Source of Much of Our Guilt

Guilt is no fun. Guilt produces suffering, and people can feel it for the slightest misdemeanors. This problem occurs when, on an inner level, we absorb negative accusations from our inner critic.

 

Sometimes the misdemeanors occurred ages ago. One client could still feel guilty because she had gotten angry for a few hours during her mother's long, fatal illness over 30 years ago. The mother was sick for more than three years, and my client had been a conscientious daughter who tried her best to be helpful and ease her mother's pain. But she still regretted that one-time outburst of anger and frustration. She said she had forgiven herself many times for the outburst, but the painful memory of it, and guilt for allegedly having been a “bad daughter,” kept coming back.

 

I told my client, "The only reason you're still feeling guilty and suffering in this way is because your inner critic is still able to hit you up with negative accusations about that long-ago incident. Those inner accusations of having been a “bad daughter” are unfair and quite irrational. For one thing, we can’t be perfect. We all have occasions when we’re not at our best. Besides, as you said, you forgave yourself for the outburst a long time ago. The problem is that you are allowing your inner critic to continue to pass judgment on you. You absorb that negative accusation, which means you feel that the accusation has some validity. That causes the guilt.”

We absorb aggression and negativity from our inner critic because of our inner passivity. This passivity is an inner weakness, a place inside our psyche that we have not yet claimed with sufficient consciousness, in the name of our authentic self. The outlines of this inner passivity come clearer to us as we study our psyche and acquire self-knowledge.

As we get stronger and eliminate this unconscious passivity, we successfully shut down our inner critic and live guilt-free and in greater harmony.

One Primary Source of Our Suffering

Much suffering is produced through our relationship with our inner critic. This part of our psyche is also called the superego or self-aggression. It’s an authoritarian part in us that holds us accountable for any real or imagined shortcomings or failures. The inner critic is an offshoot of the natural aggression that humans have needed in order to survive in the world.

Not only does it hold us accountable, our inner critic harasses and torments us for our slightest shortcomings or misdemeanors. It is a rogue operator in our psyche that is mostly negative. It attacks us mercilessly for not living up to some unrealistic ideal of who or what we are supposed to be.

Our inner critic gets away with pretending to be our conscience, or pretending to be the inner authority that we are supposed to trust and be passive to. When we grow psychologically, we are able to shift inner authority over to our authentic self. It is this self that we can trust to represent our best interests and to be the true representative of our essence, integrity, and goodness.

When we are failing to check the power of the inner critic, we absorb its aggression, criticism, and negativity. We then become more negative in our relationship with others, and are quick to criticize and judge ourself and others. As long as we are assimilating or absorbing the negativity that the inner critic directs at us, we are compelled to be critical or judgmental of someone or something.

This negativity fills our mind with poisonous thoughts and feelings that we direct outward toward others or inward toward ourself. These negative thoughts and feelings produce much suffering for us in the form of stress, anxiety, resentment, cynicism, anger, depression, and hatred.

When we become stronger on an inner level, we are able to "zap" or neutralize the negative, irrational offerings of the inner critic. In this process of inner growth, we bring into focus our inner passivity. This passivity in our psyche has been enabling the inner critic and allowing it to get away with its abuse of us.

The great conflict in the human psyche is between inner aggression and inner passivity. Our liberation from this conflict is achieved through our study of our psyche, which is the process that leads to self-discovery, peace of mind, and appropriate self-regulation.