Hey guys,
This post is about false or misplaced guilt. Chances are you’ve felt it recently, maybe even today.
As someone who has perfectionistic tendencies, I feel it often. It can feel pretty consuming. The heart of this kind of guilt is the question; am I a bad parent?
For example my false guilt was triggered by a (well intended) quote that says “enjoy the mess and the chaos because it won’t last”
I get the idea behind it and I agree - there will be a last restless night of co-sleep, a last piggy back, a last kindy drop off, etc… enjoy every moment to the full and so you don’t regret it later is what I think it’s trying to say.
But the message missed it’s mark with me and instead I had to face fact that I don’t enjoy every moment. Immediately that guilty feeling crept in.
Becoming curious, I set out to explore why I felt guilty. I know it’s normal not to enjoy all of it.
Here’s what I discovered within myself: I strong guilty if I’ve felt like I’ve let someone down. BUT I haven’t done that. So why am I feeling guilt if its wrong? Misplaced?
Looking to expert advice, it turns out that misplaced guilt is a thing and it’s actually linked to a “hyperawareness” trait – where one obsessively wonders whether they are doing a good job.
Which got me thinking:
1) Does having perfectionistic tendencies lead to more misplaced guilt?
A PHD Psychologist called Esmarilda Dankaert says in her article about perfectionism that “the core of perfectionism… is a deep-rooted sense of shame” which originates from an “internalised a belief about yourself that you are inadequate, unlovable, broken, and inherently flawed.” The link between guilt and perfectionism is that hey are sister traits. If you have one – you have the other.
Interesting.
Perhaps misplaced guilt is something that comes out of our childhood. Depending on the messages our parents inherently gave us about mistakes – we developed perfectionistic tendencies and therefore as adults we can expect to feel misplaced guilt more often.
When a parent reacts in a certain way to mistakes – they send you a message about mistakes and your worth. If you did poorly at school, make a mistake, or broke something while playing and were subsequently yelled at, told you were bad, talked about negatively to another adult or emotionally withdrawn from – your child brain would have received a message similar to this:
“When you mess up, you make people unhappy and that makes you less valuable”.
Eckhart Tolle also confirms this by saying “your mind works according to its old conditioning.” He suggests reconditioning your thoughts like this:
“So when those thoughts come, recognize that these are not actual valid thoughts …if you can recognize the thoughts … then in the moment of recognition, they begin to lose their power over you.” Quote from his audio collection
By noticing when you have a guilty thought – that it was just conditioning based of your parents response to you – not a REAL thought – gives us the ability to take that power back and rethink something else.
For example I swapped my guilt for this thought “I love my kids and they don’t need me to be perfectly happy all the time.”
There you have it.
Have you noticed whether your parents’ responses might be leading to misplaced guilt? Or perhaps they had healthier response to your mistakes and as a consequence – you don’t feel guilty when you are less than perfect.
Next time you feel “hyper aware” of your performance – it’s an opportunity to recognise that for what it is: old, invalid conditioning.
This is really valuable to know as a parent because it can affect how you feel toward yourself and your kids.
Side note: Perhaps that “enjoy it while it lasts” message could be more impactful if it was rewritten as
“time together is short” or “the best parts can be found in the every day” or something like that. .
Anyhow…I’m learning that millennial parents seem to be a generation of cycle breakers. Which is incredible. I’m so proud to be part of this generation. We are (truly) trying our best to deal with the burdens passed to us, and reparenting ourselves.
The next time I feel guilty for not enjoying parenthood I hope that I’ll remind myself that my goal is not to feel happy and joyful all the time. That was my parents’ goal for me and it’s irrational.
My goal is to treat my kids with respect and kindness regardless of my mood.
After all – if we find our own negative emotions unacceptable, what might that demonstrate to our kids? If we can’t accept our own negative emotions, what does that teach our kids about theirs?
Want we really need is for them to know that their sadness, anger and fears are acceptable too. I don’t want my kids to feel like they need to smile when they don’t feel like it. Not for me, not for anyone.
I’d like to teach them they can behave respectfully even when they are sad or angry or afraid. I want them to know that feelings of joy come and go and that is a normal human experience. That we can’t always control whether we feel joy or sad on any particular day.
I want to teach them that they can ALWAYS share those negative thoughts / feelings with me. And when they share it, they’ll find only a listening ear. I will not burden them with
- unsolicited advice
- trying to make them feel happy again
- not making them feel inadequate, shameful or weak for feeling that way
- being devastated by their sad emotions
I’m grateful that at the age of 36, I’m finally learning to stop feeling guilty about my own feelings.
Side note: I’ve just had a thought that maybe anger gets a bad reputation and is mostly seen as unacceptable…I might try to explore that a bit in my next post).
I hope you feel like the burden is a little lighter after reading this. My hat goes off to all of you who are trying to unlearn bad habits and giving it your best. You are doing amazing!!
Have a great week,
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