Guilt is a powerful emotion. It is described as a self-conscious emotion where you evaluate yourself to have failed at something. It is usually accompanied by feelings of anxiety and distress. For some, they can end up carrying around their guilt for years, while the anxiety, distress, and negative self-judgement can end up degrading quality of relationships, career, and life in general. Getting past it can be really difficult.
Guilt is usually thought to be something that arises over our moral or ethical failure. Maybe we couldn’t keep a promise and felt we betrayed someone. It could be due to an accident you were involved in that ended up negatively affecting others. Maybe we got angry at someone and said things we didn’t mean, and now regret.
Guilt is tricky because we can sometimes take guilt upon ourselves for things that may not even be our fault. This happens when we end up taking responsibility for things we aren’t even associated with. For example, we may feel guilty that we can afford to eat three meals a day when we know there are people out there starving. We may even feel guilty for doing relatively well in life when our friends and family may not be.
There are some people who are able to distance themselves from the guilt they feel, but this can often come back to haunt them later and cause them to overcompensate and ultimately lead to bad life decisions that aren’t productive or conducive to their life. Getting past guilt requires forgiveness for ourselves. It is part of self-love and self-care. If we can forgive ourselves for our mistakes, bad judgements, and errors, we can more readily move on with our lives. When we can’t, we end up reliving our guilt and our past, over and over again.
Learning to forgive yourself isn’t something you can accomplish overnight. It’s more of a process that requires self-awareness and self-examination. It requires you to look at yourself, and your actions, and try to come to an understanding. Ultimately, that understanding should lead to acceptance that you make mistakes, you have flaws, and that this mistakes and flaws shouldn’t be something that defines you. These are things that happened, things you did, things you said. They were in the past, and you always have opportunity to make things better and walk a different road.
If you dwell on your guilt, it could prevent you from being able to see opportunities for your own personal development; and that could really hold you back, or push you backwards. Learning how to forgive yourself is necessary for your emotional and mental health, and could very well affect your future quality of life.
Join us at College of Allied Educators to learn more about yourself, what motivates you, and how you can find happiness, meaning, and success in work, love, and life.
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Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling Psychology (PGDICP) is a counselling psychology course accredited by the Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC). The part-time Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling Psychology programme focuses on developing and enhancing experiential knowledge and skills through a holistic approach. Some of the subjects covered include Counselling Children, Addiction Intervention, Crisis Intervention, and Family Therapy. - ADVANCED DIPLOMA IN COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY
Advanced Diploma in Counselling Psychology (ADICP) trains students to apply appropriate counselling skills in different situations while understanding their underlying theories. The ADICP programme introduces students to the nature of psychology and relates it to the theories and concepts of counselling. Students move on to explore themselves in order to promote personal growth and self-awareness, acquiring the key attributes of a competent counsellor and the proper methods of applying those skills. - DIPLOMA IN COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY
Diploma in Counselling Psychology (DCPSY) is a counselling course covering a range of conceptual and functional skills in counselling. It trains students to apply appropriate counselling psychology skills in different situations, and equips students with the ability to work effectively as a counsellor.
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