(Photo by Alicepopkorn on Flickr)

Comments to my post on Experiencing Guilt Down Memory Lane left me thinking. There was much to explore: Is it better not to dig up guilt? Why bother to go back to the past? Would it be dredging up a whole bunch of dirt? Wouldn’t it be better to bury it and concentrate on moving on? Let’s just say that I’ve done some soul searching and am highlighting some food for thought in today’s post:

1) Awareness or Guilt?

It was late in the evening yesterday. My husband was in the midst of reading Conversations with God Book III. I approached him as to what he thought about guilt as a negative emotion. Incidentally, he had just read page 5 of the book and proceeded to read it aloud to me. The book is written in a Q&A manner:

Q: That’s easier said than done. Sometimes I feel so guilty.

A:Guilt and fear are the only enemies of men.

Q: Guilt is important. It tells us when we’ve done wrong.

A:There is no such thing as “wrong”. There is only that which does not serve you; does not speak the truth about Who You are and Who You Choose to Be.
Guilt is the feeling that keeps you stuck in who you are not.

Q: But guilt is the feeling that at least lets us notice we’ve gone astray.

A: Awareness is what you are talking about, not guilt.
I tell you this: Guilt is the blight upon the land; the poison that kills the plant.
You will not grow through guilt, but only shrivel an die.
Awareness is what you seek. But awareness is not guilt, and love is not fear.
Fear and guilt, I say again, are your enemies. Love and awareness are your true friends. Yet do not confuse the one with the other, for one will kill you, while the other gives you life.

Q: Then, I shall not feel guilty about anything?

A: Never, ever. What good is there in it? It only allows you not to love yourself and that kills any chance that you could love one another.

Note: Aha!….Here is an important distinction made: Awareness and Guilt. In awareness, there is no judgement. In guilt, there is. We are not looking into our past to seek guilt but to seek for awareness. And should we experience guilt, we need to release it. Not releasing prevents us from loving completely.

2) When is a Good Time to Release Guilt?

Here is a real account of what happened to me. I had originally not intended to share it. I do not relish on being the prophet of all doom and gloom. But in the light of the comments on my previous post on Guilt, I feel that I need to close the loop to explain why I had warned that not dealing with overwhelming guilt may surface on your deathbed.

The Release of Guilt

It was last Wednesday evening. For some reason, as I was typing away my draft copy to the last post before publication, I felt a pain on the left side of my abdomen. I noted the pain and continued to type. But the pain refused to go away.

I was not happy to feel this pain. I had a ton of things to do and yet this pain was clearly slowing down my progress. After a while, I decided that I could not ignore it and tune into it.

Where does this pain come from, I thought. I recalled what I ate for the day and thought to myself: no – it is not from something I ate. Then, an intuitive thought arose: this pain is not “mine”.

It was a heavy topic that I was writing in my draft: guilt. I was not very sure whether I wanted to publish it. Who would want to read such a negative issue? Why don’t I just make my job simpler by writing more lighthearted posts?

Still, I plodded on. I might as well finish typing what I have started. The pain continued.

After completing the draft, I decided that enough was enough. I could not carry on at my PC anymore. The pain was just too unbearable and I switched off my laptop to turn in early. Lying on my bed in the dark, I closed my eyes; very much aware of my physical pain on my left side.

Just then, my husband walked into the room. He had just returned home. I opened my eyes and told him about the pain that I was having. He suggested that I used EFT. (EFT is basically a technique whereby you use your fingers to tap at certain energy meridian points on your body, for emotional release. If you need more information about EFT tapping, read my reviews here).

I could barely speak. I replied that I was too much in pain to tap. So, he offered to surrogate tap for me. (Put simply, surrogate tapping means getting someone else to tap for your pain. He visualizes you and taps himself for the release of your emotions).

I closed my eyes again.

In a flash, I saw an old woman. She was in her 80s, lying on her deathbed. She was in physical pain. I understood immediately. The pain belonged to her. Inner knowing arose. I had an idea of who she was.

Here was the irony. As much as she felt the physical pain, she wanted it. She knew that if she left the pain, she would die. She was not ready. She tried to cling on to her physical body. (She was attached to her pain body, much like what Eckhart Tolle talked about in his best selling book A New Earth.) She was not ready to leave yet.

I connected with her emotion. She was experiencing: Grief. Regret. Guilt.

The atmosphere was dense. It was a near-death scene.

Wait! I sensed someone in my mental picture. There was someone else in the room with her, watching her fight her last breath. The old woman did not want to leave this person. Her grief was overwhelming.

In the meantime, my husband was still tapping away, not knowing that these were the images that were flashed in my mind. With my eyes closed, I asked my husband not to stop. Continue with the EFT tapping, I requested.

As I immersed myself more deeply, tears started to flow. They soon gave way to a floodgate. I sobbed.

After a while, I opened my eyes and told my husband to stop. The physical pain was subsiding. The release of emotions left me exhausted.

In the morning, when I woke up, my pain was gone. It has not returned since.

Note: 1. When I first started having experiences like that, I would often question myself if my imagination was on overdrive. I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me. However, through my coach who also happens to be psychic, I have learned not to deny my experience. I am no actress either. My imagination could never have been so vivid as to render a flood of tears for more than 10 minutes.

2. Death is inevitable. The problem is that we do not know when this is going to happen. Neither do we want to focus on when. Instead, we choose to live life fully Every Single Day. So I would suggest that if guilt has plagued you significantly, allocate some time Now for emotional healing and not later.

3. The Past is the Past; Why Not Let It Be?

Throughout the weekend, I continued to ask for divine guidance if I should share my above story. Real as it has been to me, my concern was that readers would not like to read a story that was not uplifting. A chance review with my notes on Sedona Method made me sit up.

Hale Dwoskin, the developer of the Sedona Method, had deliberately not shared an important finding in the basic part of his program. Why? He admitted that it would be hard for many people to accept it. So here is what he shared in the advanced program: There are no problems in the present moment.

Okay…what is this mumbo jumbo about? It simply means that pain is just a memory. Sure there are sensations felt Now but the pain itself is a thing of the past. What has been happening is that you have in fact been seeking your problems. You think that you are having problems and that they are your immediate reality. You are not aware that they actually do not exist at this present moment, rather they have their roots in the past. To release your current problems therefore, you need to go back to your past.

Note: This concept is sure not easy to understand. I have got problems myself understanding fully the idea that problems do not exist in the Now. If I have not gone through my own personal experience with my physical pain and the old woman and all, I would have simply not paid any attention to what Hale Dwoskin shared in his research.

Raise Energy Consciousness in 3 Steps

The whole idea of discussing guilt is to investigate for areas that may be lowering your energy vibrations. You want to be net-positive in what you exude.

I have got to clarify that I am not suggesting a constant need to look at past memories to dig up guilt. Instead, I would suggest that you do so, only if there is a need to. In what instances? In the situation when guilt holds you back, prevents you from moving forward and in loving yourself more fully.

Guilt surfaces on its own. It lowers your energy consciousness. It lurks in the background. You can choose to ignore it but it will always be there, until you release it. Read the following encouragement:

Your spiritual growth does not happen when you are peaceful and content. It happens when you get angry, sad, greedy, jealous, critical, impatient. It happens when you lose your “spiritual mask”, and realize that you are not superman or woman, but just an ordinary human being learning how to love.
— Quote by Paul Ferrini

Here are 3 steps when guilt gets in the way of our energy consciousness:

1. Seek awareness. Be in tune with your emotions. Your emotions form a feedback system. Many of the energy healing practitioners propose this too; Esther and Jerry Hicks, Louis Hay and Hale Dwoksin, to name a few. Hence, be aware – and not punish yourself – because of guilt.

2. If you suspect that you are feeling guilt in a negative and major way, then just release it. You can use either EFT or the Sedona Method. It only takes 5 minutes for basic clearing but more if you want to work on it at deeper layers.

My old-woman-lying-on-the-deathbed experience tells me that I would not want to wait too long to clear any major instances of feeling guilt. In any case, it would be silly for me to procrastinate since it takes all but 5-20 minutes for emotional release.

3. It is not guilt that is driving your positive actions forward. It is awareness. Instead of channeling guilt to anger, redirect it to kindness and compassion to others who are also in agony. You champion for causes that involve personal transformation, turning tragedy into success. Let your actions spring from love. (Of course, if you want to be absolutely sure that it is love that you are acting out from and not guilt, you can always choose to do step 2 above). Some action examples:

– If you have been always been a class bully, how about volunteering to help victims of abuse?

– If you have caused grief to others in the past, how about taking some time to serve the public community in terms of counseling?

– If you have backstabbed others in the office in the past, how about making it a point to be nicer to all new recruits to your organization?

I decided finally to publish my story and to invite your comments. If you have got a similar experience to mine, do also share yours.

(Photo by foreverphoto)

Guilty as Charged

Down the hammer goes! The jury has reached a decision. You wait for what feels like eternity. You have an inkling on what the verdict will be. And you are right. A judgement is passed: You are “guilty as charged”.

Such may be the scenerio that is being played out in your mind as you wrestle with guilt over some of your darkest secrets. I didn’t quite know what to expect, when I asked for confessions in my last post. However, I’m sure glad that a few of you plucked up the courage to share them. I also noted that there are others who chose to play it safe and not reveal their worst ones.

I began to wonder whether some of you are experiencing a general underlying negative emotion or more, beneath the memory of your secrets: Remorse? Grief? Shame? Sadness? Loss of face? My husband helped me with the magic word that summed up a majority of them – Guilt. So join me in today’s discussion on guilt down memory lane.

Guilt, Regret & Remorse: A Goodbye Kiss

They went to a party and started to drink,
No one ever stopped to think.
Soon it was time for them to depart,
They chose to drink, it wasn’t smart.
They thought going fast would be great,
By the time he pressed the brake, it was too late.
They swerved and smashed into a rail,
Three of them hurt, one to jail.
She lay on the road like a broken doll,
They needed help, who would call?
Tubes and machines everywhere,
Flowers and cards from those who care.
He kisses her silently and sheds a tear,
Her time to go is almost here.
They were together for quite awhile,
Those who saw them together couldn’t help but smile.
She was his baby, he was her life,
They were destined to be husband and wife.
Now it was over as quick as a blink,
Her life at an end, because of a drink.
She chokes and takes her final breath,
Then closes her eyes and accepts death.
He starts to cry, and whispers her name,
But she is gone, a drink to blame.

-Unknown
What is Guilt?

I investigated into guilt and came up with these explanations:

1. Guilt is an energetic state that is very heavy and dense in negativity. You put yourself in this state because of what you have done or should not have done. There is an ethical and moral standard that you are measuring yourself up against. It is driven by your conscience.

2. According to Wikipedia, “Guilt is the fact, state, or verdict (by a court or other tribunal), of an offence, crime, violation, or wrong committed, especially against moral or penal law. Guilt is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes – whether justified or not – that he or she has violated a moral standard and is responsible for that violation. It is closely related to the concept of remorse.”

3. Guilt is a feeling of regret and obligation for not having done what is right.

4. It is an expression of remorse, shame and loss.

5. It is a form of self inflicted punishment that you have been irresponsible for someone else’s unhappiness or disaster.

6. It may also drive you to take irrational actions to compensate for your so called “oversight” or “past mistakes”.

A Baggage of Time; An Attack On Yourself

“Guilt is anger directed at ourselves.”

— Peter McWilliams

Guilt can cause much misery. You become separate from becoming a more loving being. When someone else confronts and attacks you, your natural defence mechanism kicks in. However, in the case of guilt, you are really attacking yourself. You have no defence and you punish yourself unnecessarily. If you do not deal with your guilt, you run the risk of feeling defeated, dispirited and never truly happy.

In the last post, many of the confessions made come from events in the past. By far, most of what are shared are secrets that are not unforgiveable. However, it is possible with deep layers of guilt, and in your darkest period, some of you may take the drastic choice of giving up on yourself. You refuse to honor and love your inner child. Instead, you judge yourself harshly, withdraw in sadness and put on a face that masks the misery inside. In moments of insanity, you may even channel feelings of guilt to anger, making sure that no one around is having a good time. Ultimately, the person who really suffers most is You!

Hence, take a step back and rake up your memory. Ask yourself if you are carrying a baggage of time. Investigate as such:

1. Are you letting guilt experienced from a previous relationship ruin your current one?

2. Is guilt from a childhood trauma causing you to act up in fear, experience insecurity or causing you to shut down?

3. Is guilt the reason why you are making more allowances to a specific party?

4. Are your frequent bouts of anger really an expression of guilt?

5. Is guilt the driving force of your major life decisions?

And if you are truly experiencing guilt, know that the past is a thing of yesterday. You cannot change what you have done. There is no point letting your past affect your today or tomorrow. Where you have found that you made a mistake, remember that you are not perfect either. In fact, it will be a good idea to embrace your past as a part of yourself.

Guilt At The Deathbed

Guilt does no more than bring down your energy vibes. Of course, you can choose to ignore it all your life; but realise this: Guilt is often a state that is often experienced on the deathbed. No one says it better than Coco Chanel, the famous French Fashion designer (1883-1971)….

“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.”

It sounds ominous but it is a fact. You cannot guarantee that you have all the time in the world to deal with guilt.

Well, a good way to getting started is to share in a confession or in the comments below. There is no better time than doing it in a group! You may be surprised to find that the little secret that you’ve been keeping is perhaps not the most scandalous of all! Read the following observation…

“Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.”

— Hannah Arendt (German born American Philosopher and Political scientist. 1906-1975)