guilt

[margene]

I have guilt over the way I have treated almost everyone I have ever been close to. Some of the people are dead. Does anyone else have these feelings. What do you do about it.

[catherine]

I have guilt over the way I have treated almost everyone I have ever been close to. Some of the people are dead. Does anyone else have these feelings. What do you do about it.

DH and I just had a discussion about that last night with regard to my mother. He never liked her.. in the beginning she didn't like him either, but after she had her aneurysm/stroke and experienced a big personality change, she never spoke ill of him, and never complained. However, during that time, he continued his negative feelings about her (which were based on faulty perceptions of how she raised me). I take full responsibility for not pushing back, but his blatant dislike for her did unfortunately impact how often I saw her.

He tells me that the way he treated her is his only regret in life. He cries when he thinks about it, and I, too mourn the fact that I no longer can right my wrongs with her.

There is nothing I can do about it now, and harboring guilt is not going to help at all. I do pray for forgiveness from my mother, and I don't necessarily believe she hears me, but it does make me feel a little better. I use my regrets to remember that I only have today to learn from my mistakes by treating others as well as I possibly can.

[Zoe Girl]

Oh I had such a good post and then lost it.

I feel that spiritual practice is what is very helpful. We all have this and live through it, and hopefully manage it in a way that improves us and how we show up in the world better. My teachers talk about shame being unproductive spiral however regret can be very useful and appropriate. Brene Brown and Pema Chodron both are excellent speakers/writers on this topic.

If you don't have something specific that you believe in there are many people in the Buddhist tradition that are more scientific about how our minds and emotions work, otherwise your fave spiritual tradition likely addresses this very well. And yep, plenty of those over here. I feel a lot of regret about how I was to my parents, certain ways I have lived, and some friendships when I was pretty crazy a few years.

[rodeosweetheart]

One practice that I like for this problem is to write the person a letter outlining what you are sorry for, mean it, express your regret and your love, and then burn the letter in a prayerful fashion, with some sense of ceremony--such as burning it with white sage, for example, burning it in a special bowl--praying to their spirit and to the Divine as you release the letter.

I have found this can bring some sense of closure and peace.

[Xmac]

One practice that I like for this problem is to write the person a letter outlining what you are sorry for, mean it, express your regret and your love, and then burn the letter in a prayerful fashion, with some sense of ceremony--such as burning it with white sage, for example, burning it in a special bowl--praying to their spirit and to the Divine as you release the letter.

I have found this can bring some sense of closure and peace.

Margene, rodeosweetheart has a great first step here. Before you burn it there are two more steps to do that will make it even more powerful. If you decide to write the letter, check back here and I'll give you the second step (and later the third). It's better if you don't know what it is before you write the letter.

Another thing you can do is to identify the wrong you did and make it right with another person. For example, if you didn't pay someone back money you owed to them, find someone who is owed money and pay them. Or, if you excluded someone, find someone who is isolated and include them in what you had excluded the deceased from or something similar.

[Williamsmith]

I just wrote an apology to Sparky. Sparky was my first dog. He was an outside dog. He had a box and it was supposed to be kept full of straw during the winter. My dad insisted I do the taking care of. Well, I was eleven when I got him and not a very mature eleven. I forgot to check the straw as often as I should have. I forgot to feed him periodically and during the summer his water dish went dry too often.

I was amazed at a curious thing. You can kick a dog or otherwise mistreat them and they will run away with their tail between their legs but then all you have to do is speak lovingly to them and they come right back wagging. You can do this repeatedly and back they come.

I really liked to feed him Milk bones. A neighbor girl used to like to poke sticks at him through the chain link fence. One day she was walking down the road and I slipped the gate open just enough for him to get out. He remembered the stick poking little girl to the tune of thirty some stitches.

We we moved to another house that did not have a fenced yard. My dad told me Sparky would have to be kept on a chain bolted to his box. I didn't like that idea. My brother and I got home from school and he let Sparky off the leash to run. He loved running in circles. I thought he would always run in circles and always come when I called him. My dad pulled in the driveway. He got out screaming about the dog being off the leash and a Sparky took off across the neighbors yard and out of site. My dad looked at me and said, "I hope he gets hit by a car. That will teach you a lesson." There was a loud screeching of wheels and a thud. My brother and Dad went to look. I couldn't. My dad came back carrying Sparkys lifeless body and crying. I never saw my dad cry up until then. He cried all night on the living room couch.

I fed him aspirin, I thought he might die of a heart attack. I didn't know he was suffering from a broken heart. I tried to say it was okay. He didn't mean it. Eventually he quit crying. But not regretting.

I don't have any special white sage to burn and don't feel much like praying so I'll just stick it into my cheap little shredder and release it in the same kind of violent way Sparky died. I think maybe it might get to him that way.

[Gardenarian]

Williamsmith, that is such a moving story. I'm so sorry.

I have a lot of guilt about many things, and I'm going to try the letter writing. Sounds painful, but possibly cathartic.

[rosarugosa]

Williamsmith: That is rather heartrending. If Sparky was your "first dog," can I assume there were others? Did your regret for Sparky influence your relationship with subsequent pets?

[rodeosweetheart]

See, I think Sparky already knows and of course he forgives--he already forgives--and he is there waiting for you, and you'll be reunited when you die and cross over into that dimension of being.
That's what I think.

[Williamsmith]

Williamsmith: That is rather heartrending. If Sparky was your "first dog," can I assume there were others? Did your regret for Sparky influence your relationship with subsequent pets?

Yes, I had a Samoyed husky. A beagle. And a golden. Each one was spoiled. I am dogless now.

[Williamsmith]

See, I think Sparky already knows and of course he forgives--he already forgives--and he is there waiting for you, and you'll be reunited when you die and cross over into that dimension of being.
That's what I think.

i think you are right. He had an infinite ability to over look my shortcomings.

[margene]

xmac so I wrote the letter. Now what is the next step?

[Xmac]

Now read it from them to you.

Let me know when you're ready for the last step.

[margene]

well this took a while but I did the second step. Now whats the third step?

[Xmac]

Read it to you from you.

[KayLR]

Bless your heart, Williamsmith. Be at peace about this.

For myself, I have been dumbstruck and shocked at how I can dismiss people from my life and simply move on. It's been easier than it should have been. It's something I am ashamed of, really.
I know people who have hundreds of friends from high school and relationships from former jobs, social groups. I can't seem to keep any. And I'm a nice person; I don't know....it kind of stymies me to think about it.

[SteveinMN]

For myself, I have been dumbstruck and shocked at how I can dismiss people from my life and simply move on. It's been easier than it should have been. It's something I am ashamed of, really.
I know people who have hundreds of friends from high school and relationships from former jobs, social groups. I can't seem to keep any. And I'm a nice person; I don't know....it kind of stymies me to think about it.
Maybe it's not "easier than it should have been" but it's easier for you and it has served you to do so.

When I was a kid, my family moved around a lot. As a capital-I introvert, it was never easy for me to make friends. Keeping them across the miles was even more challenging. I went to college around 1200 miles away from home, so it's not like I could pal around with high-school chums because we were still close to home. I made new friends, sure, but after graduation we scattered to our new careers and families. I don't keep up with anyone from high school or college anymore. I moved on -- and so did they.

Sometimes you have to move on. I've moved on from friends I've had for years because we just took different roads -- new interests, other values. Whatever held us together earlier was no longer there. The same applied to my first marriage (14 years). It did not serve me (or them, really) to pursue whatever relationship could exist. None of us really wanted that relationship. We moved on. Yes, I missed the fun and companionship we had. But that was harder and harder to find. On balance, I'm better off without them. And so are they.

I'm not so sure you should beat yourself up about this, Kay. Maybe it's just the way it's supposed to be.

[iris lilies]

Bless your heart, Williamsmith. Be at peace about this.

For myself, I have been dumbstruck and shocked at how I can dismiss people from my life and simply move on. It's been easier than it should have been. It's something I am ashamed of, really.
I know people who have hundreds of friends from high school and relationships from former jobs, social groups. I can't seem to keep any. And I'm a nice person; I don't know....it kind of stymies me to think about it.
No one has hundreds of friends, unless you mean
Facebook friends. Those are all acquaintances, not friends, but you know that.

Perhaps you miss people in your life. Or perhaps what's operating in your mind is a "should" as in: nice people keep up their friendships with other nice people. Therefore
you "should " do that. I dont buy into that "should."

Some years ago I read, maybe it was here, there are friends of the heart and friends of place.

People who are our friends now are almost all " friends of place" because they are here in our region and are easy to keep up with. We play cards, work in the gardens around here, have dinner parties, work on neighborhood and plant projects, etc. And because we've lived here a long time we've got many friends like these and many of those bonds are decades old.

But if we moved across country how much would we keep up with them? Not much, and only with a few of them. A few of these close friends have moved, and we've not gone to visit the California bunch. We do visit the Midwestern bunch.

Friends of the heart are very few and far between. Those are the people who can always make me laugh. I guess we share the same sense of humor.

[Teacher Terry]

It takes much work to maintain long distance friendships & I only do that for "friends of the heart." About every 10 years I organize a get together of my closet 4 HS friends that live all over the country. It is always like it was just yesterday although we rarely keep in touch in between. I still have my friend from first grade although we live in opposite ends of the country & Had a 30 year friendship that was long distance until she died. Locally of the friends that live here only 1 is a friend of the heart that I would keep up with if I moved.

[ToomuchStuff]

I agree you shouldn't beat yourself up, but I also think there is some middle ground.
As Steve has mentioned in other posts, when that marriage broke up, he did some introspection and figured out what he wanted. Guilt can help direct your attention. to something your not comfortable with, or don't want to do again. But realize the experience that you feel guilty about, made you what you are today, and if you choose to act on its lesson, can make you the better person in the future.

[freshstart]

I just wrote an apology to Sparky. Sparky was my first dog. He was an outside dog. My dad looked at me and said, "I hope he gets hit by a car. That will teach you a lesson." There was a loud screeching of wheels and a thud. My brother and Dad went to look. I couldn't. My dad came back carrying Sparkys lifeless body and crying. I never saw my dad cry up until then. He cried all night on the living room couch.

I fed him aspirin, I thought he might die of a heart attack. I didn't know he was suffering from a broken heart. I tried to say it was okay. He didn't mean it. Eventually he quit crying. But not regretting.

I don't have any special white sage to burn and don't feel much like praying so I'll just stick it into my cheap little shredder and release it in the same kind of violent way Sparky died. I think maybe it might get to him that way.

you poor kid. thanks for the cry, how you could read that and not cry is beyond me. You were kids just being kids. Your dad on the other hand, saying what he said is horrible and he "deserved" to feel regret IMHO.