Do you ever feel guilty or get a bad feeling when you do something for yourself, or even think about it? These sort of feelings may be keeping you from having more of what you want, or even enjoying your life.
You needn't suffer these guilty feelings every time you try to do something to get ahead or help yourself.
By understanding where the feelings come from, you can learn to get rid of them.
Guilty feelings come in two varieties, those that are valid and those that are invalid.
Valid ones come about from doing something that is out of line with your personal values.
Invalid ones come about when you are affected by the opinions or values of someone else.
Valid guilty feelings can be your best friends.
They remind you when you need to make a change in your behavior to stay in alignment with your personal values.
As long as you respond in a positive manner, they will pass rapidly.
Unfortunately, if you don't respond in a corrective manner, the more de-sensitized you get to guilt and your self-trust will begin to break down.
Before you try to get rid of guilty feelings, you need to determine if they are valid or invalid.
If it's valid, use the guilt to motivate you to move your behavior towards your true values.
If, on the other hand, your guilty feelings are the result of other people trying to make you feel that way, you may want to find out why.
If they are "laying a guilt trip" on you because what you are doing is out of alignment with their values, you may wish to examine their values and see how they aren't in alignment with yours.
Often people may try to make you feel guilty for being successful and doing something that they feel may leave them behind.
One cure for invalid guilty feelings is for you to realize that you are not responsible for the values of other people.
Similarly, you can't control the emotions of other people and need to learn that you are not responsible for their actions or feelings.
The more you allow yourself to feel guilty or responsible for other people's actions, the harder time you will have letting go of the invalid guilty feelings.
You must realize that nobody has the right to tell you how to live your life, or to make assumptions about what sort of person you are just because they don't approve of your actions.
The sooner you make a commitment to yourself, to live your life in the manner YOU see fit, and let other people deal with their own emotions.
As you find yourself feeling guilty about something, make it a point to determine if they are because of your internal values or the external values of someone else.
If the guilty feelings are because of your internal values, you know you need to change.
However, if they are because of external values, dismiss them and let the other person deal with their own problem.
Even after you make changes in your life to better align yourself with your own values and avoid the judgment of others, the invalid guilty feelings will persist for a while.
Like changing any other habit, it takes time to effect the change.
Be persistent, and soon you will be free of the external, invalid guilty feelings pushed into your life by other people.
Sometimes, meditation or yoga can help calm your mind and help with clearing of invalid guilt.
They can also provide benefits in other areas of your life, and may be worth checking out.