I’ve been seeing a bunch of people, recently, that were trapped in “have to” loops. Meaning I have to go to this, I have to do better, I have to sell more, I have to be this kind of person, or whatever. The common thread in all of these conversations was that they were somehow linked to a past trauma. The reaction to what was suffered created a series of behavioral “musts” as some form of penitence. I started to wonder: Why do we feel we “have to” do anything?
In Italian the word for have to, or must, is “dovere”. It’s the same word we use when we owe something. You could say “Devo andare” – which means I have to go, or you could say “Ti devo 10 euro” which means I owe you 10 dollars. Hold on to this idea of “having to” as a debt because I’ll come back to it later.
I’ve been digging into this idea of guilt & the guilt trip a lot over the last few days, & the deeper I got, the further the rabbit hole went. I always know a concept is complex when there isn’t universal language around it. For example, the concept of a conscience can be traced back to Latin, and the language is pretty universal. Conscience is the idea of an internal knowing that guides our behavior. In fact there is a very distinct difference between conscience and guilt, as seen in the fact that we can put them together; the former qualifying the latter…i.e. guilty conscience.
It’s impossible to talk about guilt without taking a walk through the religious texts. The first major distinction is the separation of guilt & sin. In the old testament, there are actually two different words. Sin is a temporary abdication of conscience, focussing on the act & very much an individual occurrence, whereas guilt implies a relationship – the effect or aftermath of the sin. Asam, the word most closely used for guilt, in the Old Testament, means “a debt to be repaid”.
This idea of guilt being a debt is repeated throughout a number of cultures. The word guilt in Germanic languages is Schuld (you guessed it, pronounced should) which is the same word for debt. In biblical texts translating the Lord’s Prayer into Latin from Old English the word gylt is replaced with debitum.
The Old English gylt, is also at the root to two other key words: gielden – to yield or to pay for, & another word you might recognize: gilt – covered in gold. There are bonds in the UK you can buy called Gilt Funds. Are the pieces starting to come together?
Guilt is the debt you accrue for your wrongdoing. And that debt yields gold. Just not to the guilty party.
So what does this mean in real terms? Even if we ourselves are not religious, the idea of original sin has been drilled into culture for thousands of years. It’s inescapable. Look at what happened to the first two people who messed up – they got kicked out of paradise causing the fall of humanity. We’re taught that small mistakes can have gigantic consequences. Clever, no?
When you have a debt, & you pay it, the debt is cancelled. But, in our lives, how do we get rid of this debt? We’re told from day one that we’re born already owing. Each mistake we make just triggers & compounds that. Technically the only way to make amends is if the other entity absolves/forgives you or if there’s some sort of payment; it may be time, service or money. Think of the “indulgences” from the Catholic church down to monetary court settlements. This is where the “have to” do this & “should” come in. We are desperately searching for ways to pay off this invisible debt.
Here’s the catch, we are also taught that Error umanum est – which means that by definition we as humans make mistakes. The “wrongdoing” is part of our nature. An error free life, even without the conditioning from birth, would be impossible.
If we can’t stop making mistakes, because it’s part of our nature, how the hell do we ever pay off this debt?
Simple. We can’t.
We’re always going to be in some cycle of making a mistake & having to make it up to someone/something. It’s a game you can’t win…which means it’s an endless cycle.
This is why it’s a poisonous, and pointless, emotion.
Anyone who’s ever been guilt tripped knows that it is never just one time. It’s a habit. Once someone knows it’s a tactic that we respond to, it gets used again & again. We’re almost programmed from birth to respond to it, so as a manipulation tactic it’s almost a guarantee.
The reason why guilt works so beautifully is because your brain hates the idea of being wrong. It has two basic programs: go towards things that make it feel good. Get away from things that make it feel bad.
Think about the language we use when we feel guilty….we feel bad. Your brain hates guilt & will do what it has to in order to get rid of it. This can come in the form of trying to pay the debt immediately (acquiescence), transferring the debt to someone else (blame shifting), creating circumstances where the debt doesn’t exist (justification).
Ever try to get someone to admit that they did something wrong? It’s rare that someone just accepts the wrongdoing willingly. We don’t want to because we know what comes next.
If we admit wrongdoing, we’re guilty as charged. If we’re pronounced guilty, there’s a sentence. We now owe something. Our power goes to the other party. (P.S. try getting someone to accept responsibility for their actions as opposed to admitting their wrong – you’ll get a lot farther).
Another reason we don’t like guilt is that it causes us to enter into a state of being: we are guilty. This activated state, over time, becomes shame. If you’ve seen Dr. David Hawkins Emotion Map (from Power v Force) guilt & shame are the two lowest emotional rungs on the scale of personal power. Who wants to live in that space?
How we experience guilt.
There are three ways to perceive guilt: you’re accused & you did it, you didn’t do it, or you’re your own accuser.
If you’ve done something that acted against your conscience – the fastest way to get rid of the guilt is to own your actions. This literally kills that energy, because you are no longer guilty, you are now responsible for what you did. A very important shift.
There will be consequences to our actions, yes. If we cheat on our partner, own it & apologize – we’ve still broken a bond of trust. That has real implications. But choosing to stay in guilt is both dangerous & a cop-out. Picking guilt over responsibility may seem like the easier choice. However, the long term effect of it will have a far greater negative impact on you. It may look like you’ve escaped the consequences of your actions, when really you’ve turned them inwards onto yourself. The guilt keeps you in limbo. Remember that saying “the truth will set you free”? Exactly.
I’m not suggesting that we live without conscience. I’m saying that guilt is useless. It doesn’t change the past. It can’t offer you solace. It keeps you stuck in a very specific power dynamic…until you release it. This is for both the accuser & accused.
If you’ve been accused of something & you didn’t do it – well then it’s up to you to accept, or refuse, the guilt that’s being dumped at your feet. A classic manipulation from parents/partners is “If you love me, you’d…” This is lethal. If it’s happening to you, a very simple “I do love you, but I’m still not going to…..” Refuse the accusation & reinforce your boundaries. The blame game can only be played if there are 2 willing parties.
If you’re your own accuser, there’s likely a situation that you feel responsible for, whether or not it’s true. Similar to anxiety, it’s our minds chasing a ghost.
Things happen to us as children that we can’t possibly understand from our narrow comprehension abilities. Yet our interpretation of them, due to our underdeveloped & narcissistic minds (we see the world as extensions of ourselves through adolescence) & limited life experience, puts us at the center of the situation; what happens to us is because of us.
Someone who is molested may believe that somehow they deserved this behavior, that something about them must have provoked it. Someone who suffered abandonment of the caregivers may believe that something about them caused the parents to go away. If the parents fight, it is our fault. We end up spending our lives trying to correct what – we think – we did wrong. We “have to” or “should” make up for things we had no way of properly processing. If we do enough of “this” perhaps we will be absolved, perhaps the wound will heal. If I am successful enough, if I am quiet enough, if I people please enough.…maybe that debt will be paid. Literally what’s it going to take for me to feel forgiven?
This is how we take ourselves on a guilt trip. A line from one of my favorite Afghan Whigs songs says “If I inflict the pain then only I can comfort you.” This is the same situation when we make ourselves feel guilty. The only ones who can absolve us of this guilt….is us.
For those of us that are stuck in the “have to” dynamic, I have to work hard, I have to beat my last results, I have to make my parents happy etc, start training your brain out of the debt mode. Every time you want to say “I have to” replace it with – “I choose to”. Even this tiny change will force your brain to recontextualize your thinking.
Have to is the prison & want to is the way out.
Ready to retrain your brain for greatness?
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