Feeling guilty can be legitimate—you may have made a mistake and regret something you said or did that makes you feel guilty. However, there are times when the guilt is unfounded - perhaps you took the blame for something you didn't do, or for something you did that wasn't actually wrong. As you know, being tormented by guilt is terrible. So why do we feel this? What's crazy is that neuroscience research shows that our brains actually reward us for feeling guilty. Despite their differences, pride, shame and guilt activate similar neural circuits. Interestingly, pride is the most powerful of these emotions, causing activity in the dorsomedial and prefrontal cortex, amygdala, with the exception of the nucleus accumbens, where guilt and shame win out. This explains why it can be so attractive to take on guilt and shame—they activate the reward center of the brain. Guilt serves a powerful social function in terms of controlling our behavior. People prone to guilt tend to work harder and perform better. than people who are not prone to feelings of guilt, and are considered more capable leaders. People who often feel guilty make better friends, lovers and employees, because people who expect to feel guilty tend to be more sympathetic, put themselves in other people's shoes, think about the consequences of their behavior before acting, and value their morals. As a result, they are less likely to lie, cheat or act immorally when entering into a business deal or seeing an opportunity to make money, research shows. They can also make better employees because people who think less about the future results of their actions are more likely to be late, steal, or be rude to customers. And, as moms everywhere know, guilt makes people improve their behavior. But it is a very bad strategy to make a child feel guilty so that he or she will be more obedient, so please don't use it. Part of the problem with guilt is that we think we should feel bad about what we did wrong. . It's a noble gesture, but research shows that it's not the best way to motivate us to perform better or feel better in the future. Study after study shows that self-criticism is consistently associated with less motivation and worse self-control. It is also one of the biggest predictors of depression, depleting both the power of “I will” and the power of “I want.” It is forgiveness, not guilt, that increases responsibility. Researchers have found that when they adopt a self-compassionate perspective on personal failure, people are more likely to take personal responsibility for failure than when they take a self-critical perspective. Feeling guilty is not the best way to correct your mistakes. So what should you do? Stop exaggerating. You've broken your diet. You insulted your friend. Bad things. Nobody argues with this. But should you feel bad weeks or months later? When we are rational about breaking rules, we set a limit. You won't get 30 years in prison for a traffic ticket. But sometimes you sentence yourself to months or years of emotional pain because of minor offenses. With guilt, we are often irrational. How can we know if we are rational? Look at the intensity, duration, and consequences of the negative emotions you experience. Are they appropriate? Probably not. Accept what happened. No one can turn back time. If you feel guilty about a past mistake or event - for example, if you feel guilty after an experience - you can begin to accept what happened and know that there is nothing you can do to change the past. If you feel guilty aboutsomething and know what makes you feel guilty, first accept that there is nothing you can do to change what happened. Second, understand where you are now and what has changed. For example, maybe you hurt a friend who didn't accept your apology and decided to end your friendship. You did everything you could, but now the friendship is over. Once you accept the truth about your current situation, you can begin to forgive yourself and give yourself another chance. Forgive yourself when you've done something wrong: Forgiving yourself after you've hurt someone or done something wrong requires self-reflection and determination to make changes. Accept and admit to yourself what you did wrong. Admit that you regret your decision and wish you had acted differently. Think about why you made the mistake. Were you tired, jealous, desperate, angry, etc.? Ask yourself how you wish you had handled the situation differently, and commit to responding to similar situations differently in the future. Try to make amends with people who you have hurt. This may not always be possible if they are not willing to cooperate - all you can do is your part. Apologize sincerely and sincerely without being defensive, accept responsibility, and do whatever is reasonable to correct the situation. Make peace with yourself. If you choose to hold onto your guilt forever, a bad situation will only get worse over time. Think about the mistake long enough to learn from it, but don't dwell on it. Apologize if necessary. When you hurt someone, it can sometimes be difficult to apologize. This may be because you feel shame, and this is natural and very common. But there is no need to wallow in guilt. If you think you can solve the problem by apologizing, then this might be a good solution. You may not get the results you wanted, but the person you hurt will see that you are trying to correct your mistake. This can make a big difference. Make your choice (towards accountability). Once you act on the choice you made, it's done - and agonizing over what you should have done differently has nothing to do with it will change and will not help you understand how to stop feeling guilty. It's important to understand that you made the decision you made based on the best information you had at the time. Ruminating over what you did or didn't do will only make you feel worse. Taking responsibility for your choices puts an end to overthinking. If you're having trouble accepting your choices, try this technique: Think about the decision you made, know that you did your best, and acknowledge that you might approach it differently in the future. Then let it go. Catch guilt early. Because people experience guilt in different ways, recognizing your own early warning signs can help you get around the feeling before it affects you on a deeper level. Take a moment to reflect on what exactly happens when you start to feel guilty; Do you feel anxious, paranoid, unproductive? Try to catch guilt when it is in its developing stage, when you can still do something productive with it. Put things in perspective. It is easy to think that something is more important than it really is. We have a tendency to exaggerate the importance of negative experiences. But being able to take a more realistic look at any given action or event can be extremely helpful in your journey to learning to stop feeling guilty. Well, great... but how? To start, practice gratitude for the basic necessities of life that you have, such as food, clothing, and shelter. Once you can do that, little things like forgetting to unload the dishwasheror even forgetting to call a friend won't seem like such huge failures. (And guess what? There just aren't any.) Think about what you would do differently now. What were you doing before you felt guilty, and what can you do differently to feel less guilty? The hardest part may be identifying the behavior that makes you feel guilty. Once you find the source of your guilt, you can begin to make changes and stop feeling guilty. For example, maybe you feel guilty for not helping around the house. Start small and make it a priority to help more. If you have a habit of buying expensive lattes and it makes you feel guilty, start by buying them less often or changing your coffee order. Maybe instead of a daily habit, it will become a special holiday at the end of the week. Try this method. Once you pinpoint the behavior that's causing you to feel guilty, you can start making changes and see if it makes a difference. Focus on the great things you do. Most people have a negative bias, which means they prioritize negative situations and consequences in an attempt to avoid harm and pain. But focusing on the positive things in your life can help neutralize this tendency, which in turn can ease anxiety and guilt. So, challenge yourself to balance every critical or guilty thought with a positive one. For example, if you feel guilty about being late to your friend's play, follow up on that thought by reminding yourself that you were there to support her anyway. Ask the people in your life how they really feel. You can assume that your a partner or friend feels like they're enjoying themselves, for example, because of your busy work hours, but the reality may be completely different - which is why it's important to ask them directly how your actions or statements made (or are making) them feel. Actionable feedback (or (perhaps knowing that you are not neglecting your loved one) gives you the opportunity to effectively respond to the situation rather than trying to figure it out on your own. Don't try to read the minds of others. This is not given to you. Examine what fuels your guilt. Maybe you feel guilty because of how you have always reacted in similar situations? First, determine whether you actually did something wrong. Then try to understand what is fueling your emotions. Ask yourself, "What purpose does this serve?" You don't always need to improve the situation to relieve guilt. Instead, it's about reckoning with the grief of not being able to fix something. Once you can sit with the guilt long enough to understand where it comes from, and what you can do about it to fix the situation (instead to cause shame or anxiety), the guilt may well dissipate. Once you identify what you are feeling, follow the thought to its source, and then determine whether it is happening right now, or whether it is a reflection of something in the past - and is beyond your control. Think about how you would treat someone else in the same situation. People tend to be much kinder to others than they are to themselves, so it's wise to determine how you would talk to a friend who is struggling guilt. You probably wouldn't say, "You really suck. Better get a grip on yourself. You're held to different standards than you hold others to, and that's not fair to yourself. The idea that you're a bad person , makes you a bad person. The feeling of guilt is overwhelming. You just feel rotten to the core for what you did. Guess what? This feeling makes you more likely to do bad things in the future. If you break your diet or give in to temptation, you can tell yourself: "I haveno self-control.” Does this sound like a belief that will lead to better behavior in the future? Oh no. The problem here is that emotions like guilt are so strong that they influence your reasoning. You feel bad, so you think you must be bad. You can either accept yourself as an imperfect person with limited knowledge and realize that you will make mistakes sometimes, or you can hate yourself for it. You are not your actions. It is not said about that you are not responsible for your actions. But you are not defined by any one bad action. It is irrational to assume that you can ever truly evaluate yourself as a good or bad person. You will never have enough information. That “bad person” at work who torments you could be a great father to his children. That other “bad person” at work who royally screwed up today? This mistake can later lead to a huge breakthrough. We will never have enough information to evaluate a person holistically and judge them collectively as “bad” or “good.” So accept yourself. But understand that your behavior may be bad. Understand that things are not always "right" or "wrong" It's easy to think in absolute terms when it comes to guilt, but life doesn't work that way. Nothing is good or bad, and that goes for people. Making mistakes are just actions, not character traits. Also, it's important to understand that there isn't necessarily a right or wrong way to do many things in life—just many different ways. And figuring out how to stop feeling guilty may simply be a matter of viewing your actions or behavior as simply different from societal or personal expectations, but not necessarily worse. Reflect on the lessons you've learned. If you've hurt someone through your actions, think about the lessons the consequences can teach you. Let's say you stole something from a friend. Even if you return everything you stole and apologize, your friend may still decide that he no longer wants you in his life. The lesson here may be that just because you have an impulse to take something that doesn't belong to you, you shouldn't act on that impulse. It could cost you a good friendship. The next time you feel the urge to do something that doesn't seem right, remember the consequences of your past behavior. Reflecting on the lessons you've learned can help you act differently. Recognize that it's completely normal to take care of your own needs. Taking care of your needs is a natural and healthy part of life. If you don't take care of yourself, how can you help anyone else? The next time you feel guilty about, say, taking a yoga class because it cuts into the time you could spend with your family or because it requires you to spend money on yourself, think about how time spent on me benefits you. Do you feel more energetic and renewed? Will you be able to take better care of your loved ones? If so, it's worth it. Look at it as an investment in you as a person. Accept that guilt is often a useless emotion. Guilt can sometimes be a positive source of motivation, but often it simply has no purpose. Guilt is tied to the past, and nothing can change the past. What is possible is to take responsibility for any role you have played in the past and focus on the present and future. If you have tried these methods on how to get rid of guilt and you still feel like pesky emotions are ruling your life It may be time to talk to a mental health professional who can offer personalized solutions so you can get rid of chronic feelings of guilt once and for all. How to Stop Feeling Guilty When You Didn't