Guilt and Why Boundaries Matter

Posted on by leelamjourney

When you let other people determine your choices, whether consciously or not, you are effectively giving away your power to them, as you are letting them decide what your right and wrong choices are. When you overstep those decisions, you feel guilty. The reason you may not argue or resist this is because to get them out of your head, you need to set up some boundaries that clearly mark areas of your life where you will not allow interference.

Boundaries make you very nervous as they suggest that you are putting a barrier in between you and other people. And the worry is that this barrier then somehow stops you having a close bond or relationship with them. But that just isn’t true. In fact, you can’t have close bonds with someone where there are no boundaries set in place – because how on earth do you know that you are close when you have no sense of where you start and finish?

Boundaries are just as comforting to others as to you – it tells them the lines within which they can play. Without them, we all become a bit lost, and we can more easily give in to our worst impulses. Think of children who are left to their own devices – they may start out following the rules, but their natural instinct is to push through that, to find out where the limits are to what behaviour can be acceptable. No limit means they just keep going.

Human beings are not designed to have no boundaries when it comes to our emotional security and well being. Look at a baby who is put down on a mat, and not able to feel anything protecting them; they flail their arms around and become very tense. They seem scared because they are scared – they feel that they will fall. You are used to having something around you at all times, from when you are in the womb and beyond.

Freedom might suggest that we don’t want to be restricted, but ultimately, even a skydiver makes sure they have a parachute!

In order to live guilt free, you have to know that the choices you are making are coming from you not others. To do that, you must know where your limits and boundaries are. And you must trust that by putting them in place, you are making life a lot easier for everyone else around you.

The Difference Between Abstinence and Punishment, and the risk of Dry January

Posted on by leelamjourney

Somewhere, someone on your social media feeds, at work, or in your family is doing a month long challenge such as Dry January, restricting their consumption or use of something in the name of charity, or just to prove they can. I love the idea that people want to take action to help others, and put themselves through a small amount of discomfort in order to justify raising money for people who live with hardship and discomfort every day. Whether it is alcohol, meat, or chocolate, they cut something out of their life that would otherwise be an integral part of it and their discomfort and sense of loss during that time feels appropriate and in some way cleansing.

But restricting anything in your life can be triggered by or can trigger guilt. When you are stopping yourself doing something, you have to be very careful as to the reasons, so that you have a clear intention. If you are giving up alcohol for January, the reason you are giving it up makes a difference to how difficult you will find it. If it is because you have concerns about the physical and mental harm associated with prolonged and heavy drinking patterns, then you may feel good at the end of each day that you are helping to heal yourself. But if you are doing it because you are known to love your weekend drinking sessions, and your family can’t believe that you can go without booze for a week let alone a month, your reason for doing it is not so clear or positive and you will likely find it harder, only sticking to it for fear of losing face.

This difference matters. If you are changing your behaviour, any time you do so as a response to your core values and beliefs about the world and who you are, you are taking positive steps to become the person that you want to be – the one you can face in the mirror. Your actions are not determined by appearances but by a deep seated conviction that your actions have consequences and you are no longer prepared to accept those consequences – you want to change. Not only will you find the month long abstinence cleansing and maybe life affirming, you are also far less likely to go backwards quickly.

However, changing your behaviour for reasons external to you – because your friends bet you couldn’t, because others found the idea so laughable that you would even try it, or because everyone in the office is doing it – doesn’t come with the same level of commitment. You are willing yourself to do it, but you don’t actually want to do it. This has a huge impact on your ability to stick with the challenge for the whole month, as well as making the days feel like ongoing punishment. And because it will feel like punishment, you are far more likely to go overboard when the challenge is over, over consuming or overdoing in a way that could be dangerous or irresponsible. Like the kid in the sweet shop, there is no thought of control, just consumption.

If you have felt guilty for a while about something that you are eating, drinking or doing, then such challenges are a great way to help you use the guilt of giving up to compel you to stick with it long enough for it to become a habit. But if that central and (critically) core personal guilt is not there, then it is not going to create a positive change to your life, and you are more likely to be one of those counting down for the month to end so you can make up for lost time.

Guilt and Passive Aggressive Behaviour – If You Say So

Posted on by leelamjourney

Making you feel guilty doesn’t always happen (in fact, hardly ever) as angry tirades of abuse. Its effect is achieved mostly in those small offhand comments, designed to make you question your view of your actions, to make you doubt yourself.

Think of the times when others have been able to adapt your behaviour and the subtlety used. It’s not “Don’t do that!”, but “if you want to do that, then go ahead”. It’s in telling you that they don’t agree with you but they are going to take a grandstand seat to watch you do it. It’s in the lack of congratulations for your achievements but a reminder that they did it before, did it better or don’t see the point of doing it at all.

The subtlety is what makes it so dangerous – you are questioning yourself and feeling guilty and foolish and they have achieved all of that with a smile on their face. The definition of passive aggressive behaviour includes the “avoidance of direct confrontation” and it is this that can make it so difficult to spot and so difficult to counter. There is nothing for you to defend yourself against, as the words used, on the face of it, appear harmless. Once you realise how bad they have made you feel, the only thing you can do is fantastise about what you could or should have said back to them.

So what can you do against the relentless attack on who you are, on your self confidence and self worth that does not appear until it has done its damage

My advice – take what they say at face value. If it is wrapped up in complimentary language, accept the compliment. If they dare you to go ahead without their permission – do it. Don’t respond by questioning yourself but instead don’t question them and hold them to what they say. Passive aggressive works because it threatens without being threatening, due to the assumptions that are loaded into the words used. But, when you take that venom out of the words, you take the energy out of the attack.

This also turns the power back to you. In effect you are saying to them, if you want to attack me, then you need to say it loud and clear, and make it obvious, because I’m going to deliberately not respond when you try to do it subtly. It might sound strange to be inviting an outright attack but they are a lot easier to defend yourself against than charming language hiding hostility.