a guy by the name of william justice
wrote a book called the 37 ways we lie to ourselves to avoid guilt. i was wondering if you maybe were familiar
with few of these.
projection. when you feel guilty you project it on to somebody else. you blame everybody else. “it’s not really my fault.” you blame society. you blame your boyfriend/your girlfriend. you blame your parents. you blame your teachers. you blame the environment – the government. you project your guilt on to somebody else.
he says another way we lie to ourselves is rationalization. we make up excuses. “it’s no big deal what i did. it didn’t really hurt anybody. it’s just this once.” we rationalize. we justify. we make excuses to cover up our guilt.
he said a third way we handle our guilt is comparison. “if you think i’m bad you should see...” if we think if their crimes are worse than ours then we’re mother theresa. we’re a saint.
the fourth way is repression. you’re all familiar with this. that’s where you stuff it down. you push it down in your subconscious. you try to live in denial. “i know it was wrong but i just won’t think about it.” you push it down. the only problem with that is it doesn’t work. you can’t keep guilt down permanently. you cannot live in denial for the rest of your life.
you’ve got to deal with the things you feel guilty about.
if i were to take you out to the swimming pool this afternoon and you jumped in and i gave you eight tennis balls and said, “here’s your assignment. i’ll give you a million bucks if you can keep them all submerged at once.” you’d have a hard time. you’d be pushing one down, then another, then another and they’d be popping back up.
that’s what happens with guilt. you can’t keep it down in your life. no matter how you try to rationalize it, justify it, blame somebody else, make excuses, push it down, forget it. the fact is you know it was wrong and it keeps popping back up. here’s the problem. if you don’t learn how to get rid of guilt in your life you’re going to be tired much of your life. because it’s exhausting trying to keep all those balls submerged. it takes enormous energy to live in denial. it really does. it takes a lot less energy to just deal with it and get it over with. so it doesn’t work to try to repress it.
just a thought from the front porch…
projection. when you feel guilty you project it on to somebody else. you blame everybody else. “it’s not really my fault.” you blame society. you blame your boyfriend/your girlfriend. you blame your parents. you blame your teachers. you blame the environment – the government. you project your guilt on to somebody else.
he says another way we lie to ourselves is rationalization. we make up excuses. “it’s no big deal what i did. it didn’t really hurt anybody. it’s just this once.” we rationalize. we justify. we make excuses to cover up our guilt.
he said a third way we handle our guilt is comparison. “if you think i’m bad you should see...” if we think if their crimes are worse than ours then we’re mother theresa. we’re a saint.
the fourth way is repression. you’re all familiar with this. that’s where you stuff it down. you push it down in your subconscious. you try to live in denial. “i know it was wrong but i just won’t think about it.” you push it down. the only problem with that is it doesn’t work. you can’t keep guilt down permanently. you cannot live in denial for the rest of your life.
you’ve got to deal with the things you feel guilty about.
if i were to take you out to the swimming pool this afternoon and you jumped in and i gave you eight tennis balls and said, “here’s your assignment. i’ll give you a million bucks if you can keep them all submerged at once.” you’d have a hard time. you’d be pushing one down, then another, then another and they’d be popping back up.
that’s what happens with guilt. you can’t keep it down in your life. no matter how you try to rationalize it, justify it, blame somebody else, make excuses, push it down, forget it. the fact is you know it was wrong and it keeps popping back up. here’s the problem. if you don’t learn how to get rid of guilt in your life you’re going to be tired much of your life. because it’s exhausting trying to keep all those balls submerged. it takes enormous energy to live in denial. it really does. it takes a lot less energy to just deal with it and get it over with. so it doesn’t work to try to repress it.
just a thought from the front porch…
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