How Do You Resolve Guilt
within a Family?

Communication and understanding are the main efforts needed to alleviate guilt within a family. Guilt is a natural human emotion. It is natural for families to feel it occasionally. Parents often feel a surge of guilt when they are too busy, so that they could hardly find the time to spend quality time with their children. Adults may also feel the familiar emotion when they could not visit their aging parents in the nursing home, or their families during holidays and special family celebrations.

Many husbands/fathers work for long, extended hours, missing important family events. Meanwhile, wives/moms who found a fulfilling career/business may also feel guilt-ridden for not being there for the family’s all sorts of needs. Children may also feel guilty when leaving their families/parents behind to pursue their dreams. All these situations scream a lesson. Guilt can be felt even when you are not ‘committing’ an offense. Missing occasions and being unavailable can also be reasons for you or any person, for that matter, to feel guilty.

Viewed this way, it seems like there is nothing wrong with guilt. Excessive guilt, however, is a different story. Adult children may toss their dreams in the air to stay close to their aging parents. Wives may bury their dreams to be ‘something’ in order to provide care for the husbands they love and to nurture and raise their children. Meanwhile, aging parents or grandparents can feel guilty when they sense how their /grandparents may put their dreams on hold because they need to care and/or provide for them.

The Anatomy of Guilt

Guilt gives you an uncomfortable sensation. It tells you that something is off, that something is not right. It is an emotion that you develop while growing up, prompting you to pay attention to what you say or do. It teaches you to pay attention to how your words or action would affect others, particularly the ones you deeply care for. Part of the learning will teach you what not to commit again – ‘the sin of commission’ – to avoid hurting people. Guilt can also be about ‘sins of omission’ – the things you failed to do, so that you failed to meet expectations.

The action you do to end your guilt is called the ’guilt response.’ It compels you to do a remedial action to correct a slip-up. That could take the form of a simple and sincere ‘I’m sorry’ or an elaborate ‘forgive and forget’ staged with all the paraphernalia, such as flowers, music and some help from close family and friends. The more encompassing is the effect of the blunder. Usually, the bigger is the guilt, the more elaborate is the form of ‘apology.’

Guilt within a family isn’t always bad. It has a positive value, allowing you to see and learn the true meaning of guilt. Going through the experience can help you move on, without guilt, fear or remorse. You must, nonetheless, watch out that it does not consume you. It is the kind that may burden you with so many regrets, dishonor and embarrassment. It is the kind that may result to self-chastisement and self-critical feelings and actions, even when nothing can be done about it anymore.

Bearing the Weight of Guilt

Indeed, who hasn’t committed mistakes in one’s lifetime? Growing up, you must have made a lot. That was part of your learning process. In time and with wisdom, the frequency of mistakes becomes far apart. While it is common to blunder from time to time, nobody wants its impact to be broadly encompassing. Guilt is unproductive, especially the excessive types. The brunt of guilt can burden some family members, putting a strain on your relationships. This is why making amends is important.

Negative or unproductive guilt can bring about emotional issues, such as depression, anxiety, anger, overwhelm, and self-harm. The telling signs that guilt is getting the best of you are panic attacks, chronic pains that have no medical explanations, and gastric queasiness. It may also present itself in the forms of strained family dynamics, divorce, social isolation, and self-destructive activities, like substance abuse. Other manifestations in the family can be:

• Becoming overworked to please a loved one.
• Casting guilt and being oversensitive and fixated about the decisions of the affected member.
• Immobilizing the guilty one, fearing that their words or actions can offend somebody.
• Slowing down the decision-making process in the family.
• Forcing the ones involved to disguise self-denial in order to feel less affected.
• Numbing emotions that may stop you from being happy.
• Deluding you about your true emotions.

‘To Err is Human…’

Unfortunately, you will make mistakes at one time or another, and despite doing your best to be a good person. You cannot avoid erring because it is part of being human. You would want to be good, especially where it involves your family. At best, you would hope that you could keep these to a minimum. You can also hope that you can make amends when this happen, and that forgiveness will be given, absolving you of your ‘sin.’

Saying ‘I’m sorry’ or making amends is an important part of the process, allowing harmony to be reestablished every time. It is a valuable response compared to developing negative patterns of thoughts. Without making amends, the guilty one may cause more emotional harm to others. This may trigger animosity, so that the once happy home can become the nest of negative emotions, like resentment, culpability, faultfinding, self-interest, and abuse.

To beget forgiveness, the guilty one in the family must be sincere with the remorse. Owning up to one’s mistake is as important. Repentance and forgiveness are both necessary to prevent misunderstanding from reaching greater proportions. In retrospect, guilt serves the purpose of calling your attention, pointing to the obvious that something is off. Learning from it means that you avoid committing the same mistake in the future. If you or another guilty member of the family is unnecessarily weighed down by excessive guilt, professional intervention could be your best option.

How to Come to Terms with Unresolved Guilt?

Is there a mistake that still bothers you to this day? If it is giving you sleepless nights, thinking about how it offended, hurt or harmed a family member, you could be struggling with excessive guilt. What have you done to rectify your ‘sin of commission or omission?’ If you have done your part, but you still carry the burden of grief around, it is obvious that you have not come to terms yet with certain unresolved guilt. Being stuck in unresolved guilt within the family is not healthy. It can put you in a dire state of self-blame and distress.

Such emotions can be overpowering. Know, however, that living with guilt is not your only recourse. You can quash it, instilling positive values from it, rather than living with it. The way to do that is through seeking professional intervention from Carolina Counseling Services – Fuquay-Varina, NC. A right-fit counselor independently contracted with CCS – Fuquay-Varina, NC can help you sort out your guilt and relationship issues with the family. Sometimes it takes someone from the outside looking in to see the real situation in the family.

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