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Parental Guilt
Jacques Tetrault, Quebec, Canada
Parents who feel guilty (whatever the reason, and often without reason) are:
Insecure and unstable
Manipulating and manipulated
Lacking in self respect and not respected
Unless you get rid of your guilt feelings, unless you learn to totally forgive yourself for your mistakes and misdeeds, your relations with your children, and even with your spouse, will be tinted with discomfort and manipulation.
You are not guilty for your mistakes, your errors or any shortcomings made in good will. You are still only a growing human being as well. Be proud of what you have so far achieved, given and succeeded in. Admit your mistakes, but give yourself credit for your good will. Your children will, in time, be able to recognize and appreciate your efforts. But if you project yourself as a guilty person, how could your children, and others around you, possibly perceive something else?
On the other hand, if you are truly responsible for deliberate misbehavior, neglect, abuse or other unacceptable doings, you must, for your own sake, admit these to yourself and forgive yourself (that is a somewhat difficult task, but it can be done). Only truthfulness and sincere regret, in the deepest and most intimate part of yourself, in the very presence of the purest, most noble and truest part of you, which I call the Divine Presence in each person, can liberate you and your children. And there our heavenly Father forgives completely and abundantly to factualize our fault and His forgiveness is fact. It only needed our admission to factualize, since it was there all ready in waiting.
Parents who feel guilty transpire guilt and communicate guilt all around themselves, and their children are trapped in it as well.
Guilt feelings are neither helpful nor useful. It is only necessary that we honestly recognize our faults and mistakes and then move on with our best will to do well on the road to growth, right from where we are.
It is needless to ask of ourselves more than we can give this day. Tomorrow we will be able to do better and more; unless some guilt feelings come by and paralyse us.
Regret? Yes! Insight? Yes! Forgiveness? Unavoidable! Guilt? Useless!
There is such a nobleness of heart in each human being, yes every single one of us. And on this nobleness we can build.
A great number of us have been educated in a culture where guilt was omnipresent and overwhelming. It is high time to put a halt to its effects, both for ourselves and for our children's sake. We are worth more than that, our children also. We were not born sinful, and we are not lost souls.
When someone feels guilty, he usually tries to find somebody to share his guilt, someone whom he can charge with at least part of the responsibility. He may try to have somebody involved in his reprehensible conduct, thereby reducing, he thinks, his responsibility.
If we let ourselves be trapped in this game, we are by no means helping the one who feels guilty. We may share his guilt because of our own guilt propensity, but we are not helping our vis-a-vis to shed light and truth on his own situation of fact; in fact, our reaction is an encouragement to intensify his manoeuvre. We are then unhelpful to either party.
We would be much better advised to help the guilty person look with calm and reason at his own situation in all fairness and reassure him as to our full forgiveness and God's full forgiveness and love. This will allow him to stop lying and to forgive himself without having to feel bad or making others feel bad.
God is not a high judge. God does not punish. God is our loving Father; always welcoming each of his sons and daughters regardless of their mistakes and faults. God always forgives, he understands. He loves us perfectly. Forgive yourself! Always forgive; to be truer, to stop hiding.
If you have faltered, clearly admit it, then forgive yourself and joyfully walk on toward better and more good.
If you needlessly develop guilt, stop this nasty habit, learn to accept both your strengths and your weaknesses, give life a smile and life will smile back at you.
Your children need your strength, your confidence and your love. They can only suffer from any guilt that lodged itself in you.
Say YES to your heavenly Father, life will say YES to you. And your children will also be better prepared to say YES to life AT LAST!
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