The value of guilt

First of all, thank you to those of you who reached out after the email last week to let me know that it resonated with you. I have to say, I feel honoured that my squeaky awkwardness as I navigate life chimes with your squeaky awkwardness.

And so we move on again, to this week's feeling which is guilt.

What does the feeling of guilt signpost us to?

Our values, and we need to know our values if we are to lead well.

When we fall short of our own values or expectations we can feel guilty. Guilt can be transformative, as it can lead to changing behaviour and making reparations.

If...

If we have the humility to grapple with our guilt long enough to discover how we have fallen short of our values.

Values, I believe, are integral to leadership. Do you ever think about what your values are? Are they consistent through whatever you do?

What's that?

Oh, you want to know what mine are?

Sure.

They are courage, inspiration, humour, creativity and trustworthiness.

If you want to have a go at picking out some of your own, here's a handy link to a list of values.

When we are grounded in our values we can embrace the humility it takes to re-align our behaviours. In fact, the word 'humility' comes from the Latin 'humilitas' which means 'grounded' or 'from the earth'.

Let me give you a live example of how I have lived this.

Now, just a bit of background.

I didn't scream like a banshee at my children.

At least, as a grown adult I didn't experience it as such.

However, I imagine my son recalls that incident with a shiver as he remembers my caterwaul...

*Ahem*

I’m screaming like a banshee at the hill top on our walk.

I brought my sons along - you know, to bond and share and talk.

One asked a simple question and stated what he’d like.

My ‘not good enough’ bruise impaled by this guiltless probing spike.

I vented my frustration at my ‘demanding child’,

For all my inner calm fucked off - I was left scared, raw and wild.

My observer stood out to the side ‘Get a grip girl, take a breath’.

I saw my son’s hurting sorrow and kind of felt like death.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask my mind. I haven’t go a clue!

In vivo parenting myself (with kids) is hard to do.

“I just want to please you mum" he says through broken tears.

‘You’re failing him if that’s his goal’ my inner critic interferes.

Sometimes I’m messy, and imperfect as a mum,

Acting out my fearful child on my bewildered loving son.

“I don’t have any answers now - just know my tantrum here

Is not to do with you, my love, but an age old triggered fear.”

Sometimes what someone says, or how they behave, can lead us to behave in a crazy way. Maybe we rage, or cry uncontrollably, or our voice shakes and we don’t know why.

Daniel Coleman describes this as the ‘amygdala hijack’ in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ’. In simple terms, when we have such a reaction our fight/flight/freeze’ button has been pushed. This is a different part of the brain to our ‘thinking brain’ - the neocortex. As it is a matter of survival, the emotional part of the brain works much faster than the thinking part. It is, in its very nature, reactive rather than responsive.

This happens because that which is in front of us poses a threat in some way, at least, it’s a perceived threat. When my child asked the question that I mention in the poem (it was to do with a new bike) it triggered my fears around not having enough money. I was tired, we were in the middle of negotiating a house move and resources were low. So my thinking brain was already pretty exhausted, it didn’t take much of a trigger for anything to seem like a perceived threat.
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What you can see in the poem is that in order to ward off the feelings of inadequacy that his innocent question brought up in me, I went into a ‘fight’ mode.

What this resulted in was 'projective identification'. I transferred my sense of inadequacy and shunted it on my child, making him wrong ('my demanding child').

We use projective identification to defend ourselves against our inadequacies that are unacceptable to ourselves and shove them onto another person. So in this case, I was overwhelmed, but rather than own my overwhelm I put the blame on my son by thinking of him as ‘demanding’.

Luckily, because I’m aware that if I fly off the handle then it is something to do with me and how I have been triggered, I could pull myself round quickly. You’ll also see in this poem that my shame was knocking at the door in the form of my critical inner voice (my 'observer').

This is not pleasant for anyone involved and some damage had obviously been done. I was able to quickly get myself back online and own my part.

Even as I was banshee-ing, I felt guilty, because I had truly transgressed my value of trustworthiness for my son in that banshee-esque moment. Owning my part was a way to rebuild that trust, and I was truly remorseful.

Did it end there because I wrapped it in a pretty apologetic bow?

No, of course not, this ain't Disney buster.

I'd say he still has a problem with asking for what he needs materially and, although we can both acknowledge WHY he has that problem and he knows that it's not to do with him 'being demanding', he still has that felt sense nonetheless.

Do I still feel guilty about it? No. And it's a good job too, because if I was still feeling guilty then I may overcompensate by over-giving to my son on other occasions, yet that would totally be to assauge my guilt and never work.

Instead I own my human messiness and we both roll our eyes and shrug at that episode. I feel sad that he has that memory, sure, and that appropriate sadness reflects the momentary loss of safety and trust that he experienced. I can work on embracing my sense of inadequacy with self compassion when it flares up.

How does this make you think about guilt now? Does it help reframe anything going on for you, or clarify what you need in a relationship with someone else?

Hit the button and let me know, would love to hear!

That's it for now,

'Til next time!

Jacky ✨