I'm staring at my to do list. The end of another day of not completing my tasks. Annoying, because these are the things I find so important. I've let myself be led by others again. Got distracted. I didn't start my day with my priorities. Silly me! Pfff. And I wont have time for it tomorrow either, another fully booked day. Maybe the day after tomorrow? Oh no more meetings. Looks like it will have to be next week, or shall I put some time in right now? No. Then I'll be working into the night. Okay, it is what it is. Next week I'm on it.
I get up, drink a cup of tea and get in to bed. That's when it happens. All these thoughts popping up. Why haven't you done it today? So stupid of you. You agreed with yourself to really do it this time. But no, you needed to squeeze in all these other things.
I feel so guilty.
Feelings of guilt, they can really get in our way.
Feeling guilty usually happends when you're feeling bad about something. That you know you have done something wrong or when you have failed to do something important. You can feel guilty towards yourself or towards others. One person gets more effected by this than the other. Research shows that women feel guilty far more often than men. And that children develop this feeling of guilt when their parents get divorced or when they get abandoned by a parent. Feeling guilty is one of the trickiest emotions to deal with. It's a complex feeling, often combined with other underlying emotions.
So here I am, laying in bed, feeling guilty about not achieving what I needed to do today. My guilt transforms in to anger. Being angry with myself for not doing this. Great, here I am laying awake, thoughts rambling on in my head, getting no sleep. Makes me feel even more angry with myself! Because this doesn't solve the situation either. Makes it even worse by missing out on sleep and having no energy for tomorrow.
Conclusion, feeling guilty doesn't bring me anything... Or does it?
Guilt can be a teacher when it leads you, but a demon when it restricts you.
Just like all other emotions, feeling guilty can be useful. In my example above I have let myself be led instead of giving myself my first priority. I feel bad about saying YES where I wanted to have said NO. Just because that to do list is important to me. It's something that I really really want to achieve. And feeling guilty gives you the insight of what truely matters to you. What you actually want to be doing.
Very often guilt does get in the way. It gets in to your head and body, just like it kept me up in bed worrying all night. This is obviously useless, it will only cause me to get bags under my eyes.
So the next week I start with this 1 prioritised action on my list. No, I'm not going to open up my e-mail first, others are going to have to wait with their requests.
Such a good feeling... Choosing for yourself.
