Stop Feeling Guilty – It’s Killing You!
I love writing blogs that will teach you some quality English, make you think, make you feel happier, and help your life; all at the same time. I guess that’s like killing 4 birds with one stone.
I was reading an interesting article written by an American female doctor. She recently quit her job as a “traditional western doctor” and has since been writing about “Eastern medicine” like Chinese and many other types of traditional medicine. The older I get, the more I believe in “Eastern” medicines. It’s more about understanding human health, rather than just treating illness with pills and surgery. (Pills and surgery make A LOT of money for the huge industry of western medicine, and people in that industry will do everything they can to make sure they keep making huge profits)
The article she wrote was talking about “self discipline”. That basically means to learn to “control yourself’”. If you have “self discipline” it means you can follow your own plans. For example, if you say to yourself, “I promise I’m going to wake up every morning at 6 am and go to the gym for a workout”, and then you actually do it, it means you have good self discipline. If you make that promise to yourself and then maybe go for a few days and then quit, start sleeping in, and watching TV on the couch instead, it means you have terrible self discipline. So it is all about learning to do what you say you are doing to do, and not be a lazy piece of garbage who keeps doing the easiest things all the time.
Everyone knows that self discipline is absolutely important for business success and for overall life success. This woman, however, was talking about how it’s also just as important for your physical and mental health as well. Even though it seems like life would be much better if we had millions of dollars for no reason and we could just sit around the pool all day getting a sun tan and drinking fancy drinks, it’s actually not as good for us as we imagine. (Trust me, I imagine how awesome this life would be ALL THE TIME)
We are happiest when we have things to do, even if they are sometimes boring things. We respect ourselves more when we do a lot each day, and respect ourselves less when we sit around doing nothing or just goof around all the time. When we don’t do much, we start to feel a sense of guilt for some reason. I’m not even sure exactly why, and I kind of hate this fact, but I think it’s true for the “human animal”. We simply need to do stuff just to feel useful, even if it’s not necessary for the money.
So, the first point is that we need to do what we say we are going to do, otherwise we are going to experience an annoying amount of “guilt”. Who wants to feel guilty for any reason? It sucks. It’s unhealthy too!
The second thing I want to say about guilt was something I learned from a great book she recommended. I got the audio book, I listened to it online, I LOVED it, and I put it here in the VIP community for you guys to listen to as well. I think that book alone is worth trying out a month in there. And there is a lot of other things in there, and a lot more to come…..
….. One of the many interesting things that the book was talking about was guilt from yourself, and guilt from other people.
There are 2 extreme personality types when talking about guilt. One is “neurotic” and one is “character disorder“. These are opposites and are both very extreme. Most people are probably somewhere in the middle between the 2.
If you are “neurotic” it means that you blame yourself for everything. If anything in your life or anyone else’s life goes wrong, you think it’s your own fault, and you feel super sick with guilt because you wish you could have done better. You experience a lot of pain because you keep torturing yourself by telling yourself that you are a failure and you should have been better. If you are “neurotic” in this way, you might be quite depressed and stressed. It’s of course good to take responsibility and try to do the best you can, but if you feel overly guilty for everything that doesn’t work out well for you and blame yourself too harshly all the time, you will feel sick and you’ll be sick. Being “neurotic” is not healthy. If you notice that you are neurotic sometimes, then try to remind yourself to relax a bit and stop blaming yourself too much. Just do the best you can and move on. One advantage of being neurotic is that it makes you more likely to succeed at things. Someone who is neurotic with their English study will often learn it really well, because they won’t accept failure, and if they fail, they will blame themselves and do whatever they can to make sure they learn it. This is how they are with everything. The important point to remember is that you need balance. You can’t be overly harsh on yourself for everything or you’ll probably die young. You need a balance.
“Character disorder” on the other hand, is the other extreme personality type for guilt. If you have character disorder, it means you always think that everything bad that happens to you is someone or something else’s fault. You blame yourself for nothing at all. I’m sure you know people like this. Maybe you are even in a relationship with someone like this… They blame you for everything! They make you feel guilty for everything and they always act like nothing was their fault. They are masters at making excuses. The positive for them is that they don’t feel much guilt, but the negative thing is they make other people extremely miserable all the time, and they also don’t succeed as often because they don’t believe they can control their situation.
The important thing to remember here is this, if you know people who have character disorder, do whatever you can to stop accepting their blame. It doesn’t matter how good of a person you are, they will make you feel guilty, and get very sick, if you let them. You need to stop listening to their insane nonsense excuses. If you have character disorder, you might not even realize it if you are reading this, because you’ll be so great at blaming other people for everything. It’s too hard for you to imagine that your behaviour is your own fault. That’s what character disorder is!
Another thing I found interesting, and quite logical, was that many people who are neurotic date people with character disorder. It makes for a very unhealthy relationship because one person (the one with character disorder) is always blaming the other person for everything, and the other person (the one who is neurotic) is always accepting the blame and guilt for everything. If you are in this type of relationship. you need to either get out of it, or at least tell the other person what is happening and make sure you don’t allow them to “run all over you” and blame you and make you feel guilty for everything. You’ll be sick if you do!
I’d love to hear your thoughts as always. I think you’ll love the book too. Again, the full book is right here for you to listen to and enjoy.
Are you neurotic sometimes? Do you know people with character disorder? Do you believe that endless guilt is as terrible as I’m describing. Please share 
July 22nd, 2013 at 5:13 am
Interesting article indeed. Thank you for that! Guilt is really terrible as it does not give people any chance to get relaxed. It makes suffer and spoils nerves. I agree that it can and for sure it will cause sickness or desease. In Russian we often say that “All because of nerves” and it means that nerves have deepest influence on human’s health.
One way to cure the sense of guilt is to keep yourself busy. Of course I’m not telling of unloading waggons or something like that. People should try to do what they like. It does not describe exactly what I wanted to express but my English level does not always allow me to express my thoughts very clearly. I actually meant that people should find anything that is interesting personnaly for them and mix this things with things that should be done (maybe, routine staff like dishes washing or general staff about work). But any way I a’m pretty sure that people should not do things that they really hate. People should find harmony in their lives. It is very bad and unhealty if people hate their lives.
I personnaly do not know any neurotic people, but I know person with character disorder and it is terrible indeed!!!!! He always spoils mood and lives of people around him. But not only people around him have very hard lives because of his character disorder. His own life is very hard as he thinks that he can not do anything to make his life better and easier, it is anyone else’s fault but anyway not his, nothing in this world depend on him, he is just kind of victim of circumstances. It is hard to explain anything to such a person. He can not understand that every one is responsible for his life and must do anything for him. He thinks that he never must do anything at all, he always must have the results and gets really upset when it does not go as he wants.
July 22nd, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Hi Andy, Thanks
that’s a very interesting topic. I think I might be a bit of a neurotic person, cause I usually blame myself and expect myself to be always better. that’s good though in some points, makes me move forward and keep trying. Then I read it through and get to when u said if you are a character disorder yo may not realize it now, I thought maybe I am and I don’t know it. I think people are in some situation a bit of a character disorder or some times a neurotic. We are not completely one. if we would, we were psychos. I don’t I am blaming myself all the time, most of the time, but some times I am blaming others for their fault, I take action and want them to accept their fault and not blame me. Some time I am both
July 22nd, 2013 at 12:51 pm
Sorry I had some Typos, didn’t get back to edit it.
July 22nd, 2013 at 6:26 pm
you’re right.
but these are extrem cases
July 22nd, 2013 at 8:20 pm
thank you for your fantastic and interesting article.I agree with you that gilt is the cause of a lot of diseases
July 23rd, 2013 at 12:30 am
Hey Andy, I think I am already is neurotic. I always do blame myself, even sometimes something have been passed for a long time, well I don’t know for some reason I always recall them and think of how stupid I was! Something even happened in my childhood.I just wish if this stuff would not have happened to me, but it already done.
July 23rd, 2013 at 1:32 am
Great points were pointed out here. Thank you guys.
Nothing could be more annoying than sitting around and spending time aimlessly for hours and hours. As u said, one adverse consequence of wasting time in this way is feeling guilty to the extent that we might even hate ourselves. It is really an unpleasant and annoying sense, but it can also become a motive to make good plans for the couple of next days and take these plans more seriously.By having self-discipline, feeling guilty can be easily replaced by feeling self-satisfaction and even great sense of personal fulfillment.
In regard with the second part of article, I must say, At times, I am kind of neurotic person. Naturally, I myself am not happy about it, especially with regard to others’ unhappy happenings, but unfortunately, it seems that part of my personality has been formed in this way unconsciously and it is interesting that others accept the blames I put on myself even for their own faults. Feeling guilty for everything bad happing around u, is totally stupid and of course, unfair. Therefore, I am giving it a try to move away from this extreme and somehow make balance between being neurotic and having personality disorder. To me, it is true that both extremes are unhealthy, but the neurotic person would suffer more deeply than the person having disorder character. According to my personal experience, low self-confidence in some aspects is the major factor bringing about being neurotic person.
July 23rd, 2013 at 7:40 am
Hello Andy
It’s really interesting topic.I need to know it.we sometimes forget that self discipline is absolutely important for us.In my opinion I have both of personality.As you said we need balance in our life.
It was a good article.thanks so much. Isa from Bandar Abbas Iran.
July 23rd, 2013 at 8:19 am
Thank you, Andy! I always like to read your blogs. They are useful in both aspects: to learn English and understanding lift situations. I think, itch reasonable human, reading this your blog, has a possibility to look deep inside his (her) core and think about. I enjoy of your blogs!!!
July 23rd, 2013 at 10:37 am
Hello Andy. Very interesting blog, I’m glad I found the time to write Something.
First I want to say something about Eastern medicine. For many years I was treated this way. maybe 15 years since I’m not took pills and other medications.
How I treat then if I get sick ? The first and most important thing is the thought, the brain. why? If you think you are ill you will get sick if you think you are healthy and act like a healthy guy, you’ll be healthy. So when you feel sick, cold or whatever it is you have to say I’m healthy. Personally, I started training more than twice the normal. I take a lot of natural herbs and live as healthy. my mind is like a healthy person. One thing is garlic. And natural vitamins from fruits.
I want to say about self discipline,more precisely neurotic and character disorder.
I think that for the most part I am neurotic. But not just as Andy describes it here. I always look for errors first, first at me, that’s correct I think if you’re with common sense. But I do not blame myself and say that I failed, I take it as a lesson and something to learn. There is a proverb …. is not wrong to trip over a stone, it is wrong if we stumble into it-the same stone twice or three times. to repeat the error.
I hate people who are Character disorder.
They are poor people, they never for anything not guilty. And they envy the success of others because they are losers in life. I know many such people, this type of person can never be my friend and be around me.
July 23rd, 2013 at 12:14 pm
The mind can be diverted from gloomy preoccupations by giving it tasks to perform, jobs of difficulty sufficient to demand all of its powers of concentration.
July 23rd, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Hey, Andy!
I am neurotic sometimes, but fortunatelly not every time.
I guess people with character disoder live in easier way, couse they never blame themselves and feel thte are right(even if they are wrong). They turn away all negative they have. But poor these who are in relationships with them…
July 25th, 2013 at 10:21 am
hey ,Andy
I don’t know that I am neurotic or not?I always sad of the past , I think that I missed good opportunities in my life.Would you please tell me whether it is a kind of neurotic or not?
I would be grateful if you inform me about self confidence.
Tnx
July 25th, 2013 at 11:03 pm
Hey Andy!
It’s an interesting article, It helped me a lot because I did not know that I’m a little bit neurotic from time to time and I know I can handle it, but only If I know that there’s something wrong with my personality, keep the good balance between these two extreme personality types is the key for succeed.
Keep up with your excelent work!!!
Mery
December 12th, 2013 at 5:12 pm
tq for nice article,