Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Coping With What You Did - 9 Ways to Manage a Guilty Conscience

By James Warrington


If you've ever had a guilty conscience, you know how difficult it can be to go on with your own life just like before the event that caused your guilt. Taking action that may help you make up for the damaging event or put it in your past can help you deal with your guilt and move ahead with more positivity.

Think about applying these techniques to help you cope with a guilty conscience:

1 . Come clean. If you can go to the person you wronged, completely understanding and accepting what might happen to your relationship, you might be able to purge your own conscience.

* However , if you have a guilty conscience, it is often because you committed a severe mistake towards someone you truly love and care about. You may feel as if you can never come clean with that individual due to possible consequences.

* If you're inclined to pick this method, consider it carefully before you apply it. Reflect both on how this particular knowledge will impact the one you wronged as well as how coming clean will impact you. It might be better to use the written word.

2 . Write down your misdeed and an apology. Read it out loud to the person, or give it to him to read.

3. Acknowledge to yourself that you are human. Be honest with yourself about what you did. Then, recognize that every person can make errors and that your goal is to refrain from creating the same error again.

4. Learn from it. Spend some time thinking about the event and the mistake you created. Put yourself back into that mindset and ask yourself, "Why did I do it? " Understand where you were emotionally at that time and how destructive that "place" was for you. What can you learn from the experience?

5. Seek spiritual consult. If you are part of a religion that encourages confession and reconciliation, follow through with it! It is truly uplifting and motivates healing from your wounds.

6. Invest some time performing volunteer work. If you feel you must do something to "cancel out" the deed you committed, schedule time for you to do volunteer work in your community. It may be addressing envelopes for a local charity to deliver flyers or answering a local organization's phones for 2 hours a week.

* Tell yourself that you're "paying" for your misdeed by doing decent things for others. Maintain positivity.

7. Focus on accomplishing one good deed each day. Maybe you can give your neighbor a lift to the office. Or you can wash your dad's car. Take a look all around you. You will find folks everywhere performing daily responsibilities. Jump in and assist them. It will feel good and restore your faith in yourself and your positive behavior.

8. Give funds to a cause you believe in. Whether it is to aid the Haitians get on their feet or to give toward the restoring of New Orleans, impart a decent chunk of change to assuage your conscience. Will it help? It will certainly create a good difference to someone, perhaps to you as well.

* Recognize within yourself, "I am giving this cash to show I am still a good human being, despite the fact that I made a grievous mistake. "

9. See a specialist or counselor. If you think you're about to burst from the weight of your mistake, it might be time to speak to a professional about it. Therapists are expected to respect your confidentiality within limits as specified by your state. You will be surprised at how great it feels to express out loud what you did.

* A therapist can help you in dealing better with your feelings, learning to leave the error behind you, and grow to be a better person for it.

Coping successfully with a guilty conscience will take time and persistance on your part. Set to work applying the above techniques. You'll be thankful you did!




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