Guilt

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving: Erma Bombeck

Having survived 12 years of Catholic schools where mostly nuns were the teachers, I know a lot about guilt.  And second to fear, guilt was the next emotion that I had to grapple with. I know my Jewish friends feel they corner the market on guilt, but let me tell you, the Catholics are pretty darn good at guilt as well. To this day, I still feel guilty about the pack of life savers I stole from the shop across the street from our elementary school on a dare from a friend who I can now say was truly the bad influence my mother said she was. My life as a thief ended that day but the guilt may never end.

So given my background as a Catholic filled with guilt, I looked to myself as the sole cause of this cancer within my body. I was not going to take the easy route and blame some environmental toxin, it was me who caused this.  The only good thing about this line of thinking is that if it was me who caused this, then it is only me who can remove it.

What had I done to cause this cancer in my body? I was Miss Organic Food, I was a vegetarian for 32 years, I was a runner and very fit for a 49 year old.  So thanks to that Catholic guilt I had every bad thing I had ever done in my life right at the top of my memory.  I doubt this is a very good way to live, so that is one thing I have worked on quite a lot in the past 17 months.  Stop bringing up things from the past, they are not important now and probably never were.

Did it matter that I smoked as a teenager?  Did it matter that I drank too much on numerous occasions throughout my adult life?  Did it matter that I sometimes did not eat as well as I should?  I will never know the answers to these questions, but it probably does matter if I harbor guilt about these things.  Letting go of guilt has been a very difficult process for me, one in which I have not entirely succeeded, so it is a work in progress.  Please share any strategies you have used.