Disbanding my Kangaroo Court

Disbanding my Kangaroo Court

Innocent is a lovely feeling. Innocent is a feeling I can totally  take for comfy, satisfied, granted. Guilty, on the other hand is really expensive. Innocent is a part of freedom. Guilty demands that we pacify it over and over and over. And over. What a lot of work for a crappy feeling.

And isn’t it interesting that the crappy feelings take a lot of work in general, and the good feelings don’t take any.

Why do I choose? How do I accept? What makes me decide?

For some of us, the guilt we feel is about things we do. I just had someone fail to flimflam me out of some cash. Poor him. That’s something he may feel guilty about, a bad decision to reconsider, and choose not to repeat. Sometimes we take stuff, or do something intentionally to hurt someone, cheat, or make a big lie. We can assuage our guilt for things like this by owning our behavior, making amends, and changing our behavior.

For others of us, the guilt we feel is about being alive. Existential Guilt is the fancy name. That was my favorite kind. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry” is the motto of Existential Guilt. I developed breathing problems because I worried on a deep level that I was using up other people’s air. Seriously. I did all sorts of weird, overcompensating things to try to justify my existence. Oy.

We need to stop resenting ourselves for the first kinds of guilt. We need to make amends where we can, and apologize, and forgive ourselves. That means, if I have done what I can to clean up the situation, I stop beating myself up, And repeat as needed.

Forgiving ourselves for the second kind is a little weird, but we need to do that, too. We are not forgiving ourselves for being alive, we are forgiving ourselves for feeling bad about being alive. We are forgiving ourselves for all the strange things we did to try to make it up to the world for our existence. We trade out our mislearning for a supportive belief, and then we can let it go, and relax.

And relax. And relax. And relax.

One of my dear friends said that his behavior changed when he realized that he would rather not have to be making amends for his nasty smartypants talk, so he learned to hold his tongue, or say neutral things, or kind things, and not have to apologize. Easy. As we choose to grow up, we find all sorts of examples like this, places where we unchoose our old, painful ways, and replace them with new, elegant, easy, joy-inducing ways.

Why do I choose? What makes me respect myself? How do I feel good about me?

As we release our behavioral guilt, and our existential guilt, we often find that we are making better choices, choices that we feel proud of, rather than guilty. We may find ourselves feeling innocent.

How do I feel when I am innocent? Me, I feel uplifted, and open-hearted, relaxed, cheery, and happy. Innocence is part of my natural life, freedom from a bunch of stuff, ease, simplicity, creativity, peace. Ahhh.

How have I changed from doing stuff I feel guilty about to living in innocence?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04262014

What are some ways you've changed your behavior from guilt-inducing to clean and easy?

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