How to Deal With Guilt and Shame

8 Ways to Deal With Guilt and Shame
Summary

Reflecting on your past, comparing yourself to others’ successes, and feeling left behind can make guilt seem overwhelming.

I understand how it feels: like you’re an inferior person who doesn’t deserve any good. It’s painful, and if you’re reading this, you’re ready to change that.

The good news is that you can deal with guilt and shame by taking the right steps. In this article, we’ll explore 8 effective strategies to help you conquer and overcome these feelings. Let’s begin.

8 Ways to Deal With Guilt and Shame

Guilt is one of the worst emotions you can experience. It might seem oddly comforting to stay in this state, but the longer you do so, the longer your pain will last.

For this reason, to overcome guilt, you should start quickly by taking responsibility for your actions.

1: Take Responsibility for Your Actions

Source: quotefancy.com

First of all, you should take responsibility for your actions, and admit that you’ve made a mistake. It’s impossible to move on with the situation and make the best out of it without admitting where you went wrong.

Whatever your situation is, accept your faults without judging yourself harshly. This is the first step to curing your guilt.

If you are in a relationship and said something that hurt your partner, recognize that your words impact others, and that you made a mistake. In any other situation, recognize that your actions influence other people, and that how your life is your full responsibility.

For example, if you forgot to fulfill a promise to your friend, apologize to him, and tell him that you’ve made a mistake. After that, always keep the promises you’ve made to yourself and others, so that your words are backed up by action.

Again, don’t judge or beat yourself up over what happened. You made a mistake, and it’s in human nature to make errors. The key is to accept your impact, and become aware of how much weight your actions carry.

Once you’ve done that, we can move to the next step.

2: Apologize to Those Involved

Apologize to those involved in the situation. Tell them that you’re genuinely sorry for what you’ve said or done, and carefully listen to them without judgment and interruption.

The best thing you can give to a person after messing up is understanding and acknowledgment of the damage you’ve done. Do it genuinely, and don’t try to justify your behavior, no matter what the situation was.

Sincerely apologizing to the people you’ve hurt will help you ease the feelings of guilt, and more importantly, help you shift focus towards constructive solutions of problems.

Even if it is hard for you to do so, do it. Show that you care, that you’ve understood your mistake, and move on.

After you’ve done that, we can go to the next step: learning from your past mistakes.

3: Learn From Past Mistakes to Deal With Guilt and Shame

All of us have done some bad things in the past. Whether that’s hurting a person we cared about, ignoring them, or dealing other harm to people, we’ve unintentionally made mistakes that affected others.

Memories of such events often cause intense guilt that persists for years ahead, and sabotages your life to this day.

Listen. No matter how hard you try, you cannot change the past. In fact, it doesn’t even exist in the physical sense. Past is a collection of memories that took place before, but are now nonexistent.

There’s no point in wasting your mental energy on stressing about past events or occurrences when you have a life to live right now. Unlike the past, you can control your current thoughts, actions, and aspirations.

To deal with guilt and shame, accept the past as it is, without beating yourself up. Take a few deep breaths, and once you’re calm, objectively look at the incidents you feel guilty about. Think of what you did wrong at the time, and how you can avoid repeating the same mistakes.

For example, if you used to lash out on people you love, and feel guilty about having no self-control, focus on possible solutions to the problem. Learn to ignore aggravators, be in the Present moment, and use the energy of anger to be productive.

This approach will not only eliminate your guilt, but help you use past mistakes to build yourself up now. You know what will give you even more personal growth? Accepting yourself as you are.

4: Accept Yourself to Deal With Guilt and Shame

If you want to beat guilt, shame, feelings of inferiority, and other inner peace killers, you need to accept yourself. Everyone has their own flaws, and, at the end of the day, no one is perfect.

Now, you might tell me: won’t accepting yourself lead to complacency and even more shameful acts? It may seem like it at first, but in reality, self-acceptance leads to accelerated progress.

When you accept yourself as you are, you no longer feel internal resistance that wastes mental resources. You have peace and clarity necessary to analyze yourself objectively, and make changes to make more progress in life.

Negativity and negative emotions at their core are our attempts to resist what is. Therefore, the most effective way to eliminate negativity is ceasing resistance, accepting oneself and external circumstances.

I know, it isn’t easy to accept yourself at first. But remember: no one is perfect, and embracing yourself will cure your pain and help solve other problems in life.

After you’ve said: “I accept myself the way I am” out loud, we can move to the next step of dealing with guilt: being kind to yourself.

5: Show Kindness to Yourself and Others

Did you know that guilt is, scientifically, the worst emotion a human can experience? They have the lowest wavelength, frequency, and if felt chronically, deal enormous damage to your health and immune system.

By hating yourself and feeling shame for past mistakes, you slowly kill yourself and your potential. Another way to cease this madness is to work on your kindness.

Showing kindness towards yourself and others not only improves your mental health, but turns you from a self-loathing boy into a strong and responsible man. These are the exact qualities one needs to overcome guilt and shame entirely.

From now on, tell yourself that you’re a good person, and seek constant improvement. Don’t do things you know are bad for you (binge drinking, smoking, jacking off, doom scrolling, disrespecting others), and help other people when they need it.

This will slowly, but surely improve your self-image, confidence, work ethic, and make you a better person. There is no place for guilt and shame in a person who respects himself and contributes to the wellbeing of others.

The tips I wrote above are effective, but it’s hard to implement them when your brain won’t shut up. Thankfully, there is a great solution to it – meditation.

Related article: How to Quit Drinking Cold Turkey

6: Meditate to Improve Thought Control

Another thing you can do to deal with guilt and shame is meditate. Yes, this habit isn’t only for Buddhist monks living in Himalayan caves. It is practiced by countless businessmen and productive peoples, and for good reasons:

Regular meditation eliminates stress, anxiety, depressive mood, and most importantly – it gives you control over what you think.

It means that you’ll be able to focus on the positive aspects of yourself, your life, and cultivate better habits. You’ll also be able to ignore shameful thoughts, so that they no longer affect your mental health.

Incorporate meditation into your life by learning the technique, doing simple 10 minute sessions in the morning, and taking deep breaths when feeling anxious.

It’ll be difficult at first, but over time, you’ll gain more and more control over your mind, allowing you to conserve mental energy and spend it on the right things.

7: Care for Your Mental Health to Deal With Guilt and Shame

By the right things, I don’t only mean your work. Work is certainly an important part of life, but there is more you can do to holistically improve your life.

In many cases, how your life goes isn’t impacted by what you do on work, but what you do outside of it. It isn’t hard to feel shameful when all you do at home is jerk off to hentai and watch Netflix, without aspiring to more.

Meditating and being kind to yourself are good for mental health, but to improve it more, you’ll need to do some lifestyle changes:

Learn stoic principles, and how to stay calm under pressure.
Find productive hobbies, and invest at least an hour a day into them.
Start working out and making progress in your fitness life.
Replace doom scrolling with deep work, podcasts, or music you enjoy.

These simple lifestyle changes will help you like, accept yourself, improve your character, and deal with temptations that cause guilt in the first place.

All these tips are designed to heal your soul in the long run. If you feel overwhelmed by your emotions, and nothing I’ve written above helps, then the last thing you can do is talk to a trusted friend.

8: Talk to a Friend You Trust

For many people, this is the first step they take when they go through tough times. Venting to the ones you trust decreases your stress, makes you feel heard, understood, and helps to generate solutions.

Call a good friend, ask them how’s it going, and smoothly switch the topic to your struggles with guilt and shame. Tell them what you did, how you feel about the situation, and listen to their brotherly guidance.

Unfortunately, you may be one of those who don’t have friends or family they trust, and keep it all to yourself. If that’s the case, I want you to remember about this:

You can learn to regulate and use your emotions without relying on others. External support does help, but even in the darkest times, many of the ones you love will not be here for you. It’s just a fact of life.

Lay down on your bed, make a cup of tea, grab a good book, and turn on a soothing playlist. Don’t think about the past or how your life’s going, but just enjoy the moment, live through it.

Reading in this soothing environment (alongside using the advice above) will provide a good alternative to venting, and help you regulate emotions without relying on others.

Recommended article: How to Become More Self-Reliant and Independent

Summary

Every person encounters guilt and shame in their lives. These are destructive emotions that have no value, and slowly destroy an individual if he feels them for long.

That is why you should learn to notice, acknowledge, observe, and let go of these emotions, for they don’t identify who you are. You can achieve this with the tips below:

Take responsibility for your actions;
Apologize to those involved;
Learn from past mistakes;
Accept yourself, both the strengths and weaknesses;
Be kind to yourself and others;
Meditate every morning;
Do the things you love;
Talk to a friend you trust (or spend quality time alone).

In short, to deal with guilt and shame, acknowledge your mistakes, forgive yourself for making them, and focus on what you can do from now on.

Remember: you can’t control the past, but you can control your current actions. Waste no more time, and invest it wisely.

Work, lift, drink water, and sleep well. Take care and see you soon, brother.

If you liked this article and found it useful, make sure to share it on social media and leave a comment below. See you next time.