THE CHAPTERS: life lessons

Chapter 6

ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ
Guilt

Years ago, Sandra was delighted when Sheila, her best friend, told her that she was getting married-and ecstatic when Sheila asked her to serve as maid of honor. On the wedding day, twenty-year-old Sandra, driv- ing her brand-new car, arrived to pick up the bride-to-be and take her to the church. San- dra had volunteered for the job not only because she was the maid of honor but also because it meant the bride was going to arrive in style.
It was raining as Sandra pulled into the car- port at Sheila's apartment. The maid of honor helped the bride carry wedding clothes and honeymoon luggage to the car and was about to hop into the driver's seat when Sheila said, "Let me drive."
"You can't drive to your own wedding!"
"Let me," insisted Sheila. "It will help me get my mind off a million things, not to mention that the sun has chosen not to attend my wedding ."
Sandra gave her best friend the keys, and off they went. They drove the couple of miles toward the church, reviewing wedding details and commenting on how bad the weather was getting, how hard the rain was falling. All of a sudden the car started sliding and Sheila lost control. The car slammed into a lamppost, killing the bride instantly. Sandra suffered a few broken bones, but survived. That is, she survived physically. Her psyche, however, was gravely wounded.
Even now, twenty years later, she is haunted by what happened that day. "If only I had driven,'' she lamented, "Sheila would still be alive."
In talking to Sandra, I asked her some questions: "Do you absolutely know that Sheila would have survived if you had driven? Did you know there was going to be a car accident? Did you know she was going to die? Did you know you would survive and she wouldn't?" The answer to all these question was no.
"No, but I lived and she didn't!"
It was clear that Sandra was still unable to release her guilt. I asked, "If it had been the other way around and the roles were reversed, what would you want Sheila to say to you? In other words, if you had died and she was here, and you could speak to her, what would you say to her? If you could look down and see your friend, decades later, still haunted by guilt, what would you say to her about the incident?"
Sandra took a minute to really put herself in her friend's place. "I would say, 'I was the one driving, I was responsible for my deci- sions. No one forced me to drive and no one could have prevented me. It was my wedding day and I wouldn't have taken no for an answer to driving.' " Sandra's eyes filled with tears from a tragic day long since past. "I would say, 'It wasn't your fault. It just happened. I don't want you to waste your life feeling guilty.' "
Sometimes events, even the most tragic of events, happen, and it's no one's fault. None of us knows why one person dies and another survives. Sandra was guilt-ridden because she was angry with herself for not driving, because she had let her friend "drive and kill herself." Sandra had to be reminded that, at the time, she did not know-she could not possibly have known-the consequences of their decision as to who would drive. She thought she was helping her friend have a more enjoyable wedding day by letting her drive her new car.
This reaction is often called survivor's guilt, but it is guilt with no logical basis. The concept first got widespread attention after World War 11, as some concentration-camp survivors wondered, "Why them and not me?" The phenomenon of survivor's guilt occurs whenever someone witnesses or sur- vives a catastrophic experience, such as the Oklahoma City bombing, plane crashes, car accidents, even widespread diseases such as AIDS. It may also strike when a loved one dies, even from natural causes. Although it is easy to understand why people who have lived through painful or horrific events would
wonder why they had been spared, it is ulti- mately a question without an answer. There is even unknowing arrogance in our asking the question. It is not for us to ask why someone dies or why someone lives; those decisions are for God and the universe to make. And yet, though there is no answer to our ques- tion, there is a reason for what has happened: the survivors have been spared in order to live. The real question is this: If you have
been spared in order to live, are you living? The psychology of guilt is rooted in self- judgment, the sense that we have done some- thing wrong. It is anger turned inward, arising
when we violate our belief systems. Much of the time, this unhappy self-judgment is rooted in what we were taught as children. Our guilt so often comes from our childhood because we were raised to be "prostitutes." This sounds harsh, but it's true. Obviously, in using the word prostitute I'm talking about how, as children, we symbolically sell ourselves for the affection of others. We are usually taught to be good little boys and girls, tending to the wishes of others rather than forming strong identities for ourselves. We're not really encouraged to be independent or interdependent. We're trained to be codependent, making others' needs and lives important and neglecting our own. It is not a conscious choice; often we don't know how to meet our needs for our own happiness.
One clear symptom of this codependency is an inability to say no. We're taught to please others by agreeing to their requests. Many parents are unhappy when their children say no. In fact, it's wonderful when children learn to say no, at the appropriate times. We all should learn to say no-early, loud, and clear.
The desire to please others is a fertile ground for guilt, but not the only one. Some- times we feel guilty when we try to assert our independence. This can be a particular problem for children who suffer a loss while still forming their identities. It takes a wise parent to help overcome or head off this guilt.
To some extent we need guilt. Society would be chaotic without it. There would be no red lights telling us to stop. We would drive as if we were the only people on the road.
Guilt is part of the human experience. Guilt can sometimes be a guide, telling us that something is off. It can indicate that we are not following our belief systems, that we are outside the boundaries of our integrity. To move past guilt, we must align our beliefs and our actions.
Guilt binds us to the darkest parts of our- selves. It is a connection to our weakness, our shame, and our unforgiveness. The smallest part of ourselves feeds on it. Inaction nour- ishes it. When we feel guilty, we stay small- minded, our lower thoughts are in control. After a while we become ashamed. The rem- edy is to take action and share our feelings. The real you does not know guilt. Your true self is beyond the guilt of this world.
Shame and guilt are deeply connected. Shame comes from old guilt. While guilt is about what you did, shame is about who you think you are. The guilt that attacked your consciousness becomes the shame that assaults your soul. Like the guilt that precedes it, shame usually takes root in childhood, before we know who we are. It begins to grow before we know we are responsible for our mistakes, and that we will make many of them, but that we are not our mistakes. If our needs and our parents clashed, we felt we must have done something wrong. We began to believe we were wrong. We buried our hurt, our anger, and our resentment. Now we just feel bad about ourselves.
Peace and guilt are opposites. You cannot experience peace and guilt at the same time. When you accept love and peace, you deny guilt, but the opposite is also true: when you cling to guilt, you turn away from love and peace. The good news is that this is a deci- sion. You can commit to love, you can exchange feelings of guilt for feelings of peace.
Some believe in a God that sees us as bad and unlovable. But many at the edge of life find a God that loves us unconditionally, that sees us as guiltless. Of course we have made mistakes, that is part of the human experi- ence. It is our guilt that keeps us separated from our true reality of love and God.
Guilt and time are closely connected, too. Since guilt always comes from the past, it keeps the past alive. Guilt is a way to avoid the reality of the present. It drags the past into the future: a past of guilt will create a future of guilt. Only when you release your guilt do you truly release your past to create a new future.
Guilt clearly needs to be processed out. Workshops can be extremely helpful in allow- ing people to release their anger. Then they must share their guilt. If they share it from a place of good intentions, they will release it, sometimes with a flood of tears. This h n d of sharing is much like the Roman Catholic con- fession. When we confess, we release the bur- den of the secret and often encounter the grace of knowing that we are loved by a power greater than ourselves. We can also learn that we are still worthy of love from others. The key to healing is forgiveness. For- giveness means acknowledging the past and letting it go.
Anything that you think you are guilty of can be cleaned and purified with forgiveness. You have been hard on others your whole life, and you have been even harder on your- self. Now it is time to release all these judg- ments. As a holy child of God, you do not deserve to be punished. Once you forgive yourself and others, the guilt is no longer yours to keep. We do not deserve guilt; we deserve forgiveness. When we learn this les- son, we are truly free.