Come along on a recent guilt trip I took! No, really. It will be delightful. I promise!
“Did you know Lily’s foot was hurt?”
My stomach plummeted lower than the soles of my manure-encrusted boots. This friendship detonated in front of me. I’d done the unthinkable – injured her horse.
“No. When did this happen?”
Explanations ensue. Part of my brain is processing the input, determining guilt or innocence with the finesse of an experienced judge. Sounded like it happened in the field. I worked her in the arena. Whew!
“She was wondering why you trotted a horse with an injured foot.”
The guilt swells again, almost exploding my chest. What sort of imbecile would lunge a horse that was limping? But she wasn’t limping. Apparently, all that head tossing she did – low rather than high – was supposed to clue me in.
Except I’m a greenhorn. Yes, I noticed her stretch seemed shorter than usual. She moved sluggishly to a trot when she normally snapped into that gait.
Let me tell you, when an expensive animal is involved, the guilt trip can be bumpy.
My mother could put me on a guilt trip with less than a blink of the eye. One well-placed glare, saturated with condemnation, and I was gone.
It made me appreciate the fact that this sort of trip was hardly a vacation. There wasn’t anything fun about it. Did it lasso me into conformity? Certainly. Until I decided I was done being controlled by someone else’s whims.
Mothers are expert “travel agents” for guilt trips. Older siblings learn the job well, too. Most of these must become teachers since, next to Mom, teachers have perfected the art of launching an unsuspecting soul into guilt orbit.
I decided to be atypical. As a mother and a teacher, I refuse to employ the guilt-inducing tactics that produce the desired compliance for sons and students. I have my reasons. Three of them.
Guilt trips damage self-esteem
You don’t normally hear me spouting to protect self-esteem at all costs. I think focusing on low self-esteem is a form of pride. Let’s focus on edification instead.
Guilt tears down. It makes a person second-guess their ability to make decisions. With one good swing of its hammer, guilt can make a decent person feel lower than pond scum.
“What was I thinking? How could I have done that? I’m stupider than dirt.” Doesn’t sound like healthy self-talk to me.
Guilt has a silent partner: shame
At the end of many forays motivated by guilt lies the ugly companion of guilt: shame.
While on the little trip, we fill our heads with the negative self-talk demonstrated above. By the time we reach our destination, we’re feeling about one centimeter tall.
You can be sure that the inevitable whammy life will throw at us as we disembark the Guilt Train will shove us under the wheels. Slicing through our soul with a hefty dose of shame.
“I’m going to stay in my room for a week. I’ll never go near another horse. I’m a danger to everyone.” Sounding more desperate all the time, right?
Guilt doesn’t teach responsibility
This is the biggest reason I despise guilt trips. My job as a mother and teacher is to help my sons and students grow into rational adults. They need to learn to be responsible for their own choices.
Too many guilt trips and those people start blaming us for their mistakes. After all, we’re the only one who seems to condemn them and send them down the dark path to shame.
I believe in natural consequences.
In the event of the stupidity revealed at the outset of this post, I suffered natural consequences. Lily needed shoes on her front feet to reinforce the walls of her hooves so her soles wouldn’t get bruised by the hard ground. The ferrier couldn’t come for almost ten days.
The natural consequences of exercising an injured horse: no working or riding her for at least two weeks.
Every choice has a consequence. You choose not to go to the family reunion regardless of mother’s attempt to guilt you. The rich uncle you’ve only met twice writes all attendees into his will. Guess what you aren’t getting?
What do you think about guilt trips? Do you employ them? Have you been on one recently?
There have been two people in my life who could guilt trip me like no other: My grandfather, who I loved more than anyone and who would say to me, “You should be ashamed of yourself” with this voice and face second to no one’s. I was no older than 5 or 6—imagine how severe my offenses could have been.
The second person? Me. My guilt trips are so massive they’re more like sabbaticals—of 3 to 12 years. However, I am much more selective than my grandfather. I know not to beat myself up over the little things. But what I lack in quantity, I make up for in quality.
A couple of times they were so bad I convinced myself that the world, or at least my immediate family, would be better off without me. Luckily for me (?), this guilt maven realizes that I could extend my guilt trip if I stuck around. And really what better kind of self-flagellation is there? “You don’t deserve the easy way out,” I’d tell myself.
I’m trying to be better about it. I’m trying to focus on being present in my now and not in the past or the future, which is where I’m at my guilt-trip finest. So if I can figure out a way to avoid those two destinations, I should be able to take a different kind of vacation. 🙂
Kelly-
I have been great at guilting myself in the past, as well. Of course, I learned it from my mother. It is always her voice I hear condemning me in my head. I know she did it out of love for me, wanting the best for me, but guilt leads to condemnation.
“That is the Dark path. Once you start down the Dark path…”
I have learned to give away my guilt. It is the best thing about the “crutch” of Christianity – I have an advocate who wants me to hand my guilt and shame to Him.
I hope you can find a place of peace, my friend. Guilt trips can only lead to a negative attitude which defeats in the end.