On Guilt & Blame

There is a fundamental belief that we all people share and runs so deep that has been either undetected or at best grossly underestimated. It is the feeling of guilt. Guilt about all the things we perceive that we have done wrong, all the things we have said and repented, all the things we have failed to do, all the things not done or said due to fear or laziness, , guilt for been unhappy , guilt for been dishonest to others and ourselves, guilt for having failed, guilt for having betrayed our deepest wishes and dreams, guilt for failing god, guilt for having succeeded and feeling strange and insecure about it, guilt for feeling happy because probably we don’t deserve it, basically guilt about everything. Most relationships between parents and children, employers and employees, god and humans, husbands & wives, brothers and sisters are based on guilt.

In fact guilt is not exactly guilt, is actually blame against oneself, rotating its twisted course with blame directed oneself and then towards others, people, events or circumstances.

In essence guilt and blame are the representations of our denial of the truth as is, denial of the present in favor of the past or the future, denial of life itself.

Although denial manifests as either guilt or blame and distance us from seeing and accepting life as is, GUILT is a much worse culprit. It undermines everything we do destroying our self-esteem, our immune system, our ability to relate, our ability to create, to love, to be whole. It is a very deep archetypal program that runs back to the “original sin” of Adam & Eve. We are programmed to feel guilty for all the ‘wrong” things as well as for all the “right things” in our lives. The wrongs because they condemn us to “hell” and the right ones because we don’t deserve “paradise”. Basically we are damned anyway. Of course the Christian terms are only symbolic and representative of a widespread global belief that governs all societies irrelevant of religion, ethnicity, race, age or historical period.

Even as societies “progress” and self-awareness grows, the concept of assuming responsibility for what happens in our lives, somehow gets distorted and becomes a self-destructive mechanism, perpetuating the belief that we are to be blamed for everything . Of course just blaming others is a form of denial and separation from the unity of life, but self blame has nothing to do with the real meaning of assuming responsibility and fully own who we are and what we do in our lives. This honesty and acceptance of who we are and what we do, liberates us from all internal conflicts based on guilt and all external conflicts based on blame.

Put it in other terms, guilt is so deep that is the last barrier separating us from love. Of course we all “love” something or some ones but the real extend of our ability to love is measured by how much we love ourselves (not in narcissistic terms). Guilt prohibits us to love ourselves as we consider ourselves unworthy to receive love and incapable of giving as a result. Even if and when we do give “love”, this giving is distorted by our guilt and becomes a form of apology, exorcism of our sins or self-punishment of a sort.

Guilt is the most important enemy we face in our journey towards wholeness and is not even ours. Guilt is an illusion, a mass program, a cloud that we get trapped inside and mistakenly believe that our experience of the cloud is actually our very personal flaws, shortcomings, failures. We live tormented lives trying to hide from the others this inner destruction that undermines us, while firmly believing that it is only us who are incapable, sinful, unworthy failures and everyone else is fine. If however we place close attention to the others, we will detect the absolutely same ingredients, fears and guilt which torment them as well while they keep silent about it.

Generalizing a bit, the basic guilt program for men revolves around their actions while for women around their identities. Men beat themselves up for how unworthy or insufficient are all the things they have done or not done, while women beat themselves up for how unworthy they are and how incapable they are in feeling completed.

Men are programmed to seek wholeness through their achievements while women seek wholeness through the presence of a man in their lives and motherhood.