Stop feeling guilty about feeling good
It’s okay to feel good about yourself and your life…even in a pandemic.
by: E.B. Johnson
It can be hard to find moments of happiness in these uncertain times, but it can be even harder to hold onto those moments. The minute a modicum of happiness comes into our lives, many of us become plagued by guilt. I shouldn’t be feeling so good when everyone else is feeling so bad. This is completely self-defeating thinking, however, and a limited style of belief that will keep us from reaching an even deeper understanding of self.
Stop letting your guilt get in the way of your happiness. Learn how to let go of the ideas that you’re not allowed to feel joy, and access that authentic radiance that’s been waiting for you all along. We were not put here to struggle and we were not meant for a life of misery. We were meant to follow our passions, and through that pursuit find the things that can provide value to the world around us. Release your compulsive need to suffer and start thriving by getting out of the way of your own joy.
Getting down on feeling good about ourselves.
We’re facing difficult times, and it can be hard to find a glimmer of happiness in the swirling chaos. Even when you do manage to snag a moment of happines, it’s not always possible to hold onto it. It’s hard to feel good about yourself and your life right now — and that can be especially true if you’re a woman (who was taught that there’s something naughty or untoward in enjoying ourselves, our bodies and our lives too much) or just someone who lives in a society where personal wellbeing are generally considered the thing of fairy tales.
Because happiness can be so fleeting or so tricky to discover for ourselves, it’s important that we learn how to enjoy it, value it and use it when we need it most. There’s no point in feeling guilty when you’ve finally managed to make yourself feel good. There’s no point in denying yourself joy when that’s precisely what you’re meant to do.
Learning to let go of the guilt that plagues us when we’re happy starts with cultivating a greater understanding of the limiting beliefs that hold us back. Guilt is something generated internally, from our own warped sense of perspectives our outdated ideas. It comes rooted in the deep places of our memories and experiences, and it manifests itself in both our subconscious and conscious behaviors, decisions and lifestyle designs. Transcend the guilt that prevents you from reaching your greatest happiness by learning how you self-sabotage and deny yourself the things you deserve.
Why being happy makes us feel so guilty.
So why does happiness have the power to make us feel so guilty all the time? The truth is a little bit more nuanced than we may realize. From hard lessons on happiness learned in childhood, to self-sabotage, low self-esteem and emotional regression — there are many reasons we allow ourselves to get in the way of our own joy.
Childhood lessons
The lessons we learn in childhood become the cornerstones of who we are as adults. Among these lessons are those on happineses, and who and who should not hold that same happiness. If you saw your parents avoiding their own happiness — or were raised on lessons that self-sacrifice and misery are the only signs that you’re doing the right thing in life — it might lead you to deal with feelings of guilt and shame when you yourself achieve that happiness (on any plane).
Self-sabotage
Self-sabotage is one of the most common reasons we find ourselves dealing with feelings of guilt when we’re feeling good or happy. When you’re low on yourself or your worth, you consciously (or subconsciously) engage in behaviors or decisions that risk your ultimate happiness and wellbeing. (All in order to confirm your worst suspicions about yourself.) Overtime this eats away at our sense of self, and detonates our relationships, careers and even family ties.
Emotional regression
When our emotional state is in shambles, it warps the way we see ourselves and it warps the way we see our successes, our triumphs and even our failures. Existing in a broken emotional state leads to increased feelings of guilt and shame, and can also cause you to turn yourself away from opportunities and experiences that might otherwise provide joy.
Wrong social circles
Running around in the wrong social circles? One indication might be how you feel when you manage to score a modicum of happiness. How do your friends react when you’re excited or particularly joyful about something? Do they encourage that joy? Or do they shoot you down and find a way to bring you stumbling back down to reality? The people we surround ourselves with have a major bearing on how we choose to see ourselves and the world around us.
Misguided definitions
Misguided definitions of happiness has a lot to do with how we process that happiness once it’s within our grasp. Are you someone who thinks that happiness is based entirely on other people, or even material goods? You might be sorely surprised to find that holding such views leads to increased feelings of shame and guilt, as well as buckled hopes and expectations.
What happens when our guilt gets in the way of our happiness.
What happens when we get in the way of our happiness with guilt and other insecurities? We find ourselves struggling on an even deeper level, and facing things like increased financial hardship, eroded relationships and more.
Greater financial insecurities
While happiness is something that is defined internally, there are outward experiences that can help us tap into that joy more expediently. When you spend all your time shunning those things, though, it results in running away from potential career opportunities. Over time, this can push you further away from the financial security that you seek, and compound the misery you’re already experiencing in your life.
Ruptured relationships
Happy people make better partners — that’s just common sense. When we’re happy, we’re confident better-balanced and able to better see and support the people that we love. When we run from our happiness, however, by giving in to our guilt it can lead to a buckling or breakdown in our closest relationships. The more you slip into misery, the further away your loved ones become; until they’re shrouded in darkness and you find yourself entirely alone at the bottom.
Lost sense of self
Because you keep running from the things which might offer you joy and fulfillment, you can find yourself stumbling from relationship to relationship, and job to job — completely losing your sense of self. Lost, you lose touch with your confidence, but also those parts of your self which empower you to achieve your dreams. You have to know who you are in order to know what you want. You have to know what you want in order to get it. You need to get what you want out of life in order to be happy…whatever that looks like.
Misery, misery, misery
When you run from happiness, there’s only one other way you can go: unhappiness. Life isn’t a game about standing still. As the old proverb goes, this experience is not one for spectators. We have to get involved with life, and that means getting proactive about the things that bring joy and happiness into our atmosphere. If you’re not courting happiness, you’re courting misery and inviting more of it into your life to stay.
The happiness boons that should never make us feel guilty.
There are a number of little bumps in life that can offer us a prolific boost in happiness, as well as an enhanced perspective on our own lives and the things that we want from them. Whether that comes in the form of a career bump, or something as simple as nailing that recipe or scoring a healthy relationship — we have to stop being ashamed of the things that make us feel good.
Scoring a career win
You should never feel bad or guilty for doing well at your career. We all have different things that we’re good at, and we all have different paths that we have to take in this life. Everyone has the opportunity to find their path and make the most of it. We alone are responsible for the good things that happen in our lives. Make the most of every opportunity and allow your successes to be the light that encourages others to shine. Don’t dampen your light for someone who hasn’t yet made the decision to be happy on their own terms.
Doing well at something that’s important
We all have different things that are important to us. For some of us it’s cooking. For others, it’s mountain biking or running marathons or knitting a new cardigan for their cat. Whatever is important you to — whatever inspires passion in your life — it’s important for a reason and it provides happiness and contentment for reason. You should never turn from something which brings you joy, no matter how big or small, just because you feel guilty for doing so. You were put here to do those things. So do them.
Having a good relationship
The close relationships that comprise our partnerships and family bonds are important, and they can form a crucial part of our experience on this earth. We work hard to create relationships that leave us feeling happy, fulfilled or otherwise joyful…and that’s a good thing to do. When we build healthy and strong relationships, we discover new facets of ourselves. Never apologize or feel guilty for finding yourself in a happy and stable relationship of any kind. Enjoy it.
Indulging now and then
Life is tough, and it’s filled with all kinds of ups and downs that can make it hard to stay sane — let alone keep your feet. For that reason, we often have to find little moments to indulge or otherwise bolster our happiness. These are the moments we often feel the greatest guilt for, as they are the moments stolen in-between the bad times (like a last-minute splurge on something that keeps you from coming home in tears). Finding a light in the darkness, we feel as though we’ve stolen something that isn’t ours. Nothing could be further from the truth, though.
How to stop getting in the way of your own authentic happiness.
You can stop getting in the way of your own happiness and learn to let go of the guilt and the shame that’s plaguing you. By focusing on kindness and getting real about what happiness truly means to us, we can unlock powerful avenues of healing and authenticity — but we have to commit to the journey and let go of our inner critic.
1. Focus on kindness and the rest will follow
Kindness is the great equalizer and the something we all need at some point in our lives. When we’re kind to people, we let down the walls and allow ourselves to be seen at our true core — thereby encouraging others to drop their walls and increase their vulnerability as well. Kindness is our natural state, and it’s one of the greatest tools we can use to overcome the guilt we feel around our happiness and those things which aadd sparkle to our lives.
If you’re dealing with a lot of guilt each time to start feeling good, lean into kindness and allow it to alleviate the strain. Focus on kind acts that you can give to yourself and others. The more you grow, the more you should lean into this kindness; allowing it to assuage any thoughts like, “Am I doing the right thing? Have I don’t this the right way?”
As long as you always approach your life (and others) from a place of kindness and good intention, there can be no guilt on your end. If you’re always being kind to yourself, kind to the world, and kind to the people who need it most — you will always be coming from the right place. Use kindness to take comfort in the knowledge that your successes equal a better world. When you feel those feelings of doubt or shame creep in, look to the natural reserve of kindness that rests in your heart. Apply it to yourself and others.
2. Increase your altruism
Happiness necessarily means a rise in our status, both mentally and emotionally. When you are happy, you are chasing those things in life which give you pleasure and fulfillment. True happiness means aquiring those tangible and intangible things in life which allow us to express ourselves truly and faithfully. As you rise in the way you feel and interact with others, you can minimize your guilt by helping others to rise with you and increasing your altruistic behavior.
Don’t let your guilt be the reason you take your foot off the gas. Rather than turning away from the happiness you’re currently experiencing, let your guilt be the catalyst for a return to altruism. Much as kindness can assuage our fears of shame, altruism too can quiet our mind and assure our inner-critic that we are doing good and doing it well.
Increase your altruistic behaviors. Reach out to people in need. Find out how you can use this increased sense of joy and self to help others attain the same. We are only as good as the light we are able to bring to the world around us — no matter how big or small that might be. Whether you help one person or twenty…it does not matter. What does matter is that you uplift others when you can. Don’t listen to that niggling doubt. Allow your happiness to be a champion for others and put your guilt to bed.
3. Push yourself harder
Though we can often feel guilt over the general happiness we’re experiencing (“I shouldn’t be so happy when others are so unhappy”) our guilt can also serve as another indication too. Happiness is an indication that we are moving in the right direction for ourselves, but that dark-sided guilt can also be an indication that we need to do more. Are you feeling guilty because you feel as though you shouldn’t have this joy? Or are you feeling guilty because you know you’re capable of so much more?
Like that taste of happines you got? Good. Use it to get focused on the next taste, and the next one too. Dig really deep into the feelings you are experiencing right now. Are they coming from a place of having too much, or are they coming from a place of knowing there’s even more you could have and do? The answers are vastly different and define what steps you take next.
Use your guilt as a launching off point. Let it be the inspiration that pushes you to keep going. The only way to shake off guilt is to work through it. Part of that can be done internally, but so much more of that work has to be done proactively outside of ourselves. Don’t let your negative feelings stop you from pushing on and pushing forward. You’ve found where you belong. Now you need to keep pushing forward. Your guilt is just your inner-critic trying to hold you back.
4. Dig out the roots
We can talk about guilt all day, and take encouraging steps to overcome it — but all that means nothing if we don’t dig out the roots of that guilt. All guilt comes from somewhere. All the shame we feel about ourselves and our success comes from a deep-rooted lesson we took to heart at some point. Now that you’ve identified that guilt, it’s your responsibility to root it out and remove it forever from the garden that you’re building. Whether it’s childhood trauma or just a bad circle of friends, you’ll only overcome by understanding.
Spend some time alone, and make sure you’re in a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted. Get up close and personal with your guilt, and dig into the meat of where it comes from and why it’s hanging around. Ask yourself questions like “Why do I think this way? What experiences taught me it wasn’t okay to be okay?”
The more we analyze where these beliefs comes from, the more we can free our self from their limiting effects. When you really start to question why you feel the way you do, you dramatically shift your perspective and often come out with a greater understanding of not only who you are, but what you want as well. Stop dealing with the surface effects, and start stomping out your hang-ups where they start. Then you can make room in your life for new valuable and self-affirming beliefs.
5. Lean into prioritizing yourself
It’s easy to stop making yourself a priority, especially if you’re dealing with a high-pressure career or family life and all the responsibilities that entails. You become so used to putting everyone else’s needs first that you completely forget that your own needs also deserve a place at the table. When we’re feeling guilty about being happy, it’s often because we’ve forgotten that we’re allowed to be happy. Those days are over, though, and they end now.
You’ll stop feeling guilty about making yourself happy when you learn how to prioritize your needs and desires on an even playing-field with everyone else around you. Know that what you want is just as important as what your partner wants. Understand that anything you need is just as valid as anything your children need or your boss needs.
Make yourself an equal part of your own life. If you need more sleep — get it. If you need 15 minutes every day to meditate and be alone: take it. There is nothing wrong with taking care of ourselves. As a matter of fact, it’s our responsibility as stewards of our bodies. We are only given a short time on this earth, and we can only make the most of it when we are happy, fulfilled and feeling as though we are engaged in a passionate existence. Lean into making yourself a priority and you’ll forget about feeling guilty when you’re so focused on joy.
6. Main line forgiveness
We have to forgive ourselves and we have to start doing it now. Forgiveness is a powerful tool, and it has the power to remove a lot of the guilt and shame from our lives. When we forgive ourselves, we empower ourselves to shine and remove the taboo idea that happiness is reserved only for other people. When we forgive ourselves, we remove the need to be guilty or to hold ourselves back from the future that is rightfully ours.
Start forgiving yourself for everything you’ve gotten wrong (and everything you’ve gotten right) so far. Forgive yourself for feeling guilty. Forgive yourself for feeling as though you aren’t being grateful enough or you aren’t doing enough. Blanket yourself in forgiveness and allow yourself to let go of those hang-ups and outdated beliefs that are holding you back.
Make forgiveness the main-line of your life. Extend that forgiveness to extend to others and start letting go of the things in your past that have taught you that it’s not okay to excel or be happy. Only by forgiving ourselves for everything we’ve ever done or thought can we truly free ourselves to enjoy true happiness without the yoke of shame weighing us down or holding us back. Give yourself a little more each day and get invested in a practice of applied self-compassion.
7. See things differently
We have to see things differently if we want to let go of our happiness guilt, and that means shifting our perspective to a more realistic one. The fact of the matter in there’s no sense in feeling bad about the joy you’ve found. There is enough happiness in this world for each of us, but it is up to us to achieve it for ourselves. Seeing the world for what it is allows you to better understand yourself within it. You were meant to be happy, but accepting that is on you.
Accept and understand that everyone’s journey is their own. Though our lives may be substantially improved by the presence of other people or certain experiences, we alone are responsible for our happiness and our attitude on life. Embrace the fact that you are not responsible for anyone else’s joy — nor are they responsible for yours.
Shift the perspective you have on happiness and come to see it as a state that is entirely within your realm of control. Release the need you feel to attach your happiness to someone or something else. Embrace it where you find it and absorb it into your life as the manna that can sustain you through the inevitable adversities that will come. Happiness now does not mean happiness forever, so hold on tight and see it for what it really is: a gift that we’ve earned, and one that we can create more of when we commit to the journey.
Putting it all together…
We’re living through crazy times, and it can be hard to find a quiet moment of happiness in it all. It’s crucial, though, now (perhaps more than ever) that we learn how to revel in the joy we find, and celebrate it. If you’re feeling guilty for the happiness you manage to find in the world, learn how to let it go by coming to better understand the self-defeating beliefs that are holding you back.
Focus on kindness and make sure your intentions are in-line with your values. When you do everything from a place of goodness and / or love — it ensures that you have no need to feel guilty about feeling the way you do, or achieving the things you achieve. Live with grace, and increase the giving that you do. Altruistic behavior can ease our feelings of guilt, and also increase our feelings of gratitude. Push yourself to keep going, and don’t let the bad feelings hold you back. We all get down, but we all find happiness in our own way too. Dig out the roots, and get rid of the beliefs that tell you it’s not okay to live a fulfilled and joyful life. Lean into forgiving yourself, and shift your perspective so that you can start to see your journey (and your joy) for what it really is. You are the only one who can make yourself happy, and you’re the only one who has a right to your happiness. Chase it. Find it. Live in total fulfillment.
