There are actually two types of guilt, one is positive, the other negative. Positive guilt evokes a feeling of remorse when you do something that breaks an ethical standard. When you feel it and then take steps to correct your actions, that is an extremely positive thing. When people say someone is God fearing in a positive sense, they mean that they live according to high ethical standards such as treating others with equality, equity, and respect.

The other type of guilt is when you feel bad about not living up to a standard that is set by someone else’s ego. Since guilt can paralyze your actions or set you off doing all kinds of activities that have nothing to do with your own path, it is best to learn how to transform it into a positive. How does guilt take you off your path, and how can you get back on it or find it for the first time?

The most common form of guilt-mongering comes from parents who have their own desires for your success or behavior which are mostly about impressing others. Their motivation is recognition. They set the standard of your performance based upon what it will give them in return in the eyes of others. If you were to score 95% on an exam, they would not focus on the 95% positive. They would make you feel bad about the 5% that was lacking. And they would withhold acknowledgment of the good work so that you will see all the mistakes and then improve them. If you become a physician or high paying lawyer, for instance, then they have something to show to their friends, relatives, and acquaintances. It is not about you. It is about them. Feeling guilty when you make a mistake or are not performing to someone else’s standard, lets you know that you have taken a left turn off your true path and are hugely lost.

The reason that it is so destructive to yourself and to the world is that it makes you act in ways that are contrary to how your own inner self would act. Since your own inner self is aligned with the higher spirit, when you are acting according to the misguided recognition-seeking standards of guidance of others, your spirit is in big pearl. You do things that go against the dictates of your own true self. The difficulty for most of us is that we have had parents and grown in cultures where they appear as god-like beings. They are “all-knowing” in our minds. Deconstructing their standards as falsely misguided can be a long and difficult process. For instance, maybe you are a successful lawyer or in another occupation that you had no choice in, you have a family to support, and financial obligations. You dislike what you are doing, but are stuck. Here is some good news.

When you process the guilt correctly, it takes you to your own path without jeopardizing the stability of others who depend on you. Of course it is much easier to wake up as a young person to who you are and then find your own road, but having a mid-life crisis or a late life crisis can be really exhilarating in what opens up. You can use guilt as a guide.

Here is how it might work. Let’s say you are successful physician or teacher or carpenter, but they were things that were chosen for you. If you are having success in the area of work you are in, it means that despite your inner yearnings for another path, you still have developed some pretty impressive skills. They do not have to be thrown away. You can honor them and keep using them. The guilt comes because you have other yearnings. In my case I developed really good skills as a teacher and as an administrator, but I had a huge longing to be a personal counselor right around the age of 40.

I felt guilty for trying to develop my counseling skills because it wasn’t going to pay the bills and support the family. Nonetheless, the drive was there. Rather than abandoning the teaching and administrative skills, I developed the counseling ability on the side, helped people when I could, and then used it more fully on retirement from teaching and admin.

Here is how guilt works. It acts according to someone else’s standards and then shuts off all internal guidance and inner problem solving abilities. It puts you on someone else’s path and makes you listen to their voice, not yours. When you feel guilt, the first thing that should come to your mind is this. Whose voice am I listening to? Whose misguided standard am I am following? When you can recognize the false standard and voice, then you can begin to shut it off and listen to your own inner voice and path.

Your inner voice will guide you correctly because it is connected to the larger spirit. So you feel guilt, find the negative voice and standard, detach from it, and start listening. In most cases the first steps are always quite small to get onto your path. They are not dramatic because the larger spirit has no interest in you disrupting your family’s stability or your own stability. The code that guilt awakens is the code of inner guidance. In other words, when you feel the guilt of not living up to someone else’s standards, it is the doorway to listening to internal guidance.

As human beings we can put some really bad guilt trips on ourselves like the belief that we have to save the whole planet or be first place all the time. When the guilt is felt for not saving the planet, it just means that the actual guidance is not being listened to. We are listening to ego, not the true self.

In sum, guilt comes from listening the wrong voices and standards. The goal when dealing with guilt, is to find your own inner voice and standard. It will guide you.