Get Rid of Guilt

Someone once said “Guilt is interest on a debt that need never be repaid.“
Guilt is an emotion that is limiting and draining. It is mentally and physically destructive to us. It is also harmful to those around us.

Many people spend their lives in anguish due to feelings of guilt and shame. We fear that if we were to expose our true selves, then no one will love us. We believe that no one will understand what it is we have gone through - in our lives and the way we operate. When we make what we perceive are mistakes, we isolate ourselves emotionally and in some cases literally. We think that we are the only ones who have experienced a particular situation and fear that we will be judged if we share our experience with others so many choose to suffer in silence.

So many people are brought up with highly religious backgrounds. Often, authority figures in religions teach more about sins or what you mustn't/shouldn't do than they teach about love or what's right and what you should do. Consequently many people feel guilty about simply being who they were born to be.

So how can you get rid of guilt?

Firstly it's worth remembering that all guilt is self-inflicted and created by the mind. It is a feeling that we choose to experience. The feeling is rooted in our ego; a fear of not being accepted by the peers in our social group. So many people try to ignore feelings or describe them as a psychiatric illness, rather than a part of being a human responding to the world. The easiest and best way to rid yourself of guilt is to:

Fully Experiencing the Feeling
As with overcoming any emotion, the best way is to fully experience it. Spend a few minutes in uninterrupted space, close your eyes, now fully and deeply feel the guilt surge over you. Witness it as a third-person. It will be scary at first and probably hurt a bit, but just go with it, it’s an experience that will help you overcome the feeling. As you fully witness the feeling, you will notice the feeling slowly fade away.

Seek to Understand Why
We know that there's more beneath the surface of why we feel guilt. Ask yourself why? Why are you choosing to allow guilt into your life? What is it about this feeling that is serving you and your ego?

Accept that there's nothing you can do to change the past.
You did the best you could with the resources you had at the time. Know that you were as good, loving, and effective as you could have been. If you were able to go back in time, you couldn't do anything differently because that's who you were and that's what you knew then. Constantly going over what you could've or should've done is pointless. If you can't go back to the past, then why are we spending energy on it?

Ask yourself the following question:
“Have I punished myself enough for what I did or didn’t do?” Since guilt is self-punishment, go straight to it and ask yourself if you want to keep suffering more, or are you willing to let it go? If the matter is closed and nothing can really be done to correct the problem, then the best thing that can be done is to forgive yourself and do better in the future.

Focus on What You Can Do Now
Instead of things you haven't done. Distinguish between what's right for you to do and what you do or don't do because you're guilt ridden. Don't let other people's values dictate the way you live your life. Decide for yourself what's important to you, what you value, or the way you wish to be. Don't expect to be pleasant, wise, and even-tempered at all times. It's normal to feel irritable or angry occasionally. Feeling guilty about negative emotions is futile.
That’s not to say we have carte blanche to behave any way we like regardless of other's feelings, but we do need to stop beating ourselves up for simply living our own lives.