Battling Guilt

According to Cathy Guisewite, creator of “Cathy” comic strip, “Food, love, career and Mothers are the four major guilt groups.”

Tell me about it!

If I could draw a sketch about guilt it would look like this: There would be a cliff labeled ‘Societal Standards’. Then across from it, there would be another cliff labeled ‘Reality’. In between the gap, between these two cliff edges, would be a river labeled guilt, and I would be swimming in it. If I could draw, I would have made a t-shirt out of it!

I wish I were impervious to guilt. Wish I had a guilt-free recipe for life. Instead, I’m so familiar with this emotion that I’ve made up my own stages of guilt: shame, anger, doubt, dejection, and isolation.

I’ve been wondering how to defend against guilt. Do I just ignore it? Do I accept that I can never meet societal expectations? Or should I internalize these standards and use guilt as a motivating factor to propel me towards them?

I don’t know… I feel dejected and want to be left alone.