How to leave behind the guilt-edged life
Guilt plays a huge role in the lives of Indian women, but rather than getting bogged down by it, one can harness it to do better
Iwas asked about ‘guilt’ for the first time when I addressed a women’s day event at Accenture in 2007. Those were days when the Indian woman’s career was just emerging and we were talking about everything that would make or break them. Once we opened the box of guilt, the questions flew fast and furious: Is guilt a negative emotion? How do I erase guilt from my mind? Which is worse, guilt or regret?
It was a discussion I will never forget. We spoke about the anatomy of guilt, how it manifests, the difference between guilt and shame and the route to walking the razor’s edge of winning society’s approval while simultaneously being who you want to be. Ever since that energetic discussion in March 2007, there has been no discussion about women or women’s careers that I lead, where guilt has not come up.
Guilt plays a very big role in the lives of women, especially Indian women. It starts when you are a young girl, travels with you during teenage and adolescence, gets entrenched when you are a mother and unless you make a lot of effort to become self-aware and shake off its hold, guilt is your forever companion. It takes many forms—motherly guilt, daughterly guilt, guilt of being a less-than-perfect wife, guilt of being a not-too-great professional—yeah, all kinds. We lead guilt-edged lives, indeed.
I had taken a career break simply because of the guilt I felt at leaving my nine-month-old son with my then-recently widowed mother-in-law, who was grieving her husband’s loss. I am not alone. Over my years in women’s workforce participation, I have seen that nearly half the women who take a break do so out of guilt. Women professionals often lead subpar lives because they feel guilty about some aspect of their lives, where they feel they are failing in their duty.…
When the former prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden, referred to her constant feeling of guilt over not being there for her daughter, she conveyed the challenge that most women go through. Guilt is a strange phenomenon. … The deep conditioning of daughters as caregivers for the family compels us to feel that if something or someone else isn’t all right, it is our duty to fix it. If we want something for ourselves, that makes us guilty too, as if, by so wanting, we are failing in our care for everyone around us. We feel guilty for falling ill, for being silent, for being less than perfect, for pursuing careers, for not pursuing careers—quite simply, for almost everything. It seems that our most frequent expressive state is guilt.
What guilt feels like: Guilt presents itself as anxiety, a knot in the stomach, a constant preoccupation with the past, sleeplessness and even depression. Guilt takes its origins from various influences—religion, early childhood experiences, culture and societal moorings. Guilt is a tiring emotion. It saps our energy, eats our bandwidth, affects our mental and physical health, causes irreparable damage to our lives. So how do we manoeuvre our way through the maze?
Get to the source: Whenever you feel guilty, ask yourself whether you should listen to the voices in your head that tell you what to do or to your own voice? Reflect on why you feel guilty about not attending the 15th family event, even though you attended the last 14. Ask yourself why, even after spending time with your kids, you feel like a failed mom for not picking them up from school. Ask yourself why even though your body is begging for rest, you must cook 28 dishes for four days and stack them in the fridge. Get to the root of these thoughts. … Start the process of becoming self-aware by recording your feelings in a journal. Over time, you will realize that your guilt is a reaction to a belief system that is largely irrelevant.
Take charge of rating yourself: Our guilt stems from the way people around us—those very close to us—determine what is good and bad. Our early childhood conditioning leaves deep imprints, which make us give away our right to create an identity that is our own. While
the advice of our mothers, teachers or mentors has been for our good… not everything needs to be embedded within your belief system. Start taking charge of your scorecard. This may be challenging at first, but over time, as your intentions are clear to those who matter to you, the scorecard will swing in your favour. Communicate simply but powerfully that your identity is your choice and that your parenting, daughterly duties or wifely pursuits are entirely dependent on your determination.
Self-compassion is essential to being your best: Self-compassion, or self-love, is a highly neglected concept in many Indian cultures. The stereotype of the sacrificing mom is so glorified that if we set aside an hour each morning to refresh our bodies or minds, we view that as a luxury. Guilt can be countered only by creating a positive narrative for yourself. What are good things you’ve accomplished? Have you secured your child’s future with your income? Have you helped colleagues through tough times?
Another crucial step is to build empathy and compassion for yourself. The former head of a leading bank said she would look at herself in the mirror every day and state three positive traits of her reflection. Is it that simplistic? Perhaps, yes. But it is also amazingly reassuring.
Guilt as a corrective mechanism: At Accenture, when I was asked if guilt is a negative emotion, my answer was ‘No’. Guilt may be provocative, but it is also a healthy emotion—a feeling that pushes you to think. Experiencing guilt reveals you have been raised with values. It means you developed a sense of right and wrong in your childhood, and that you paid attention to what influential figures in your life had to say.
Ask yourself these five questions: 1) Have you violated your moral standards? 2) Was the situation within your control? 3) Are you feeling guilty because you have failed to meet societal expectations? 4) Are your expectations from yourself reasonable? 5) Do the people you feel you have let down really need your support?
Understanding your feelings of guilt by writing down what you feel is of tremendous help. Explore your emotions with curiosity instead of judgement. Remember this: when approached constructively, guilt is a reminder that you can do better. Rather than getting caught in its trap, not knowing what to do or rushing into hasty actions, if you detach yourself from its thrall and observe what your guilt is trying to tell you, there can be a lot to learn.