Pondering this quote:
“People
use guilt to try to shut down your authentic voice.”
I see clearly now.
I know who created my guilt button
I see when and by whom my guilt button was installed.
I see clearly how over and over again that button was activated.
First, a pattern was created, teaching me what I had to do to be acceptable, to be deserving of love.
Compliance was given a reward and noncompliance received the punishment of shunning.
Gradually over time, I
learned that being a good person was dependent on pleasing others. Being a good person became indistinguishable
from pleasing others.
Over time, people-pleasing
became something that was expected of me. Because it became an expectation my
actions became something taken for granted.
Because it became an expectation my good action needed no recognition nor
appreciation. Over time, my good actions
no longer even received a thank you.
Over time, my authentic
voice, my authentic being, disappeared in the language of expectation. Doing good things for others, making the
lives of others better by overlooking their transgressions, was so natural for
me that I harmed myself in an effort to be acceptable to others. I allowed myself to be treated badly to avoid
confronting rejection and loneliness.
Healing has taught me that doing good things because they are expected, gradually became not doing the right thing because it might offend.
My desire to be seen as a “good person”; evolved into me NOT doing the right thing to care for myself. I had no conception that there were good things that I could do that were about taking care of myself. Things like pointing out when others do something to hurt me. In my effort to be perceived as a good person, I was willing to allow verbal and emotional abuse.
In my desire to be seen as a good person I got good at turning the other cheek and became good at suffering abuse in silence, I became good at not saying anything in order to keep the peace.
I ended up in this place where guilt kept me doing things for others even when I received no recognition for what I was doing for them because I had been trained to believe that not doing for others made me a bad person. And guilt kept me silent when others trespassed against my well-being because I had come to believe that I was guilty of being a bad person when I spoke up for myself.
Healing has been slowly
teaching me that I am a good person.
I don’t have to be a people pleaser to be a good person.
I don’t have to accept in silence hurtful language from those trying to guilt me into ignoring their bad actions.
I have learned that sometimes the good thing to do is to uninstall the guilt button. To learn that what I am feeling is not guilt but rather a sense of being manipulated. What I am is not feeling guilt; but an outside expectation to meet the demands of another.
This was for me a
critical observation. I am now starting
to wonder; why did I learn to equate not doing what someone else wanted me to
do with something to feel guilty over? When and why did I let my authenticity
be replaced by what others wanted me to feel in relation to what they wanted
from me?
I am learning that
being a good person is quite different from people-pleasing.
I am learning that
being a good person actually means that some people won’t like me. Not because I am not a good person, but because
I have now become an unmanipulable person. I am learning that those who try to convince
me / guilt trip me into believing that I am not a good person, have an ulterior
motive, their motive is to gain something from me.
This thought is freeing. But the healing is not yet done.
Even though I know it
is happening on one level, on another, I still feel guilt when I am being
manipulated into “giving” their desired response. I feel guilt when I am shunned for not giving
their desired response.
I can logic talk myself
out of caving to the manipulative demands,
but in isolation, I continue to
battle the feelings of guilt.
Yes, my guilt button
was well and truly installed.
Renate Dundys Marrello
2022 – 04 – 03
I know who created my guilt button
I see when and by whom my guilt button was installed.
I see clearly how over and over again that button was activated.
First, a pattern was created, teaching me what I had to do to be acceptable, to be deserving of love.
Compliance was given a reward and noncompliance received the punishment of shunning.
Healing has taught me that doing good things because they are expected, gradually became not doing the right thing because it might offend.
My desire to be seen as a “good person”; evolved into me NOT doing the right thing to care for myself. I had no conception that there were good things that I could do that were about taking care of myself. Things like pointing out when others do something to hurt me. In my effort to be perceived as a good person, I was willing to allow verbal and emotional abuse.
In my desire to be seen as a good person I got good at turning the other cheek and became good at suffering abuse in silence, I became good at not saying anything in order to keep the peace.
I ended up in this place where guilt kept me doing things for others even when I received no recognition for what I was doing for them because I had been trained to believe that not doing for others made me a bad person. And guilt kept me silent when others trespassed against my well-being because I had come to believe that I was guilty of being a bad person when I spoke up for myself.
I don’t have to be a people pleaser to be a good person.
I don’t have to accept in silence hurtful language from those trying to guilt me into ignoring their bad actions.
I have learned that sometimes the good thing to do is to uninstall the guilt button. To learn that what I am feeling is not guilt but rather a sense of being manipulated. What I am is not feeling guilt; but an outside expectation to meet the demands of another.
This thought is freeing. But the healing is not yet done.
2022 – 04 – 03
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