How to Free Your Mind From Guilt

5 Practical Steps You Can Take to Stop Feeling Guilty

5 min readMar 10, 2020

Knowing how to free your mind from guilt can save you from mental anguish and prevent you from generating unwanted stress.

Those who hold themselves to high standards or have good values will experience guilt if they have not acted the way they know they should.

What is Guilt?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines guilt as:

The fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty.
The state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously.
Feelings of deserving blame especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy.
A feeling of deserving blame for offenses.

Why Do We Experience Guilt?

People feel guilty when they know they have done something they should not have. Guilt is a way of knowing you have not upheld your values and standards, which then causes you mental or emotional discomfort.

You will experience emotions of guilt if you know you have let yourself or someone down. The intensity of your emotion will depend on your interpretation of what happened, what you did or did not do.

The Dangers of Not Dealing With Guilt

Even though everyone experiences guilt, the consequences or effects will always vary. The cost of not dealing with guilt include:

Lower self-confidence and self-trust.
Inability to trust others.
Generating unhealthy thoughts and emotions such as shame, embarrassment, self-criticism or blame.
Damaged relationships.
Experiencing health issues.
Inability to focus well.
Feelings of depression or anxiety.

5 Steps You Can Take to Free Your Mind From Guilt

While guilt shows you have good values and standards, you still need to process it. Here are five steps you can take to free your mind from guilt so you can avoid any negative consequences.

Take responsibility for your part in the situation. You will only feel guilty if something happened that did not match a value that is important to you. If you are experiencing guilt, it means you had a part in creating that reality. Before you can move on, you have to take full responsibility for your part in creating that experience.
Forgive yourself and make a new commitment. Once you have taken full responsibility, you have to forgive yourself. What’s done is in the past and you cannot go back and change reality. This is about accepting you were doing the best you could. Practicing self-love and compassion will allow you to commit to doing things differently.
Apologise if you know it is the right thing to do. If you have done the wrong thing by someone else, apologising is the right thing to do. You have to be mindful of the intensity of the situation and know when to apologise. Sometimes, you will need to give the person time and space before apologising.
Use what happened as a learning experience. You can extract something positive from any unpleasant situation. A bad event can be turned into a new learning opportunity, which you can use to respond better next time you are in a similar situation.
Focus on the next action you can take. Guilt should not keep you down or prevent you from focusing on what’s important. After you have completed the previous steps, you have to do what’s required so you can continue moving forward. This is about using guilt as motivation to achieve what you want.

Things You Can Do to Avoid Feeling Guilty

There are things you can do to be proactive and not put yourself in situations where you violate your values. Here are things you can do to avoid feeling guilty.

Be clear on your priorities and do not over-commit or make promises you know you won’t keep.
Avoid spending time with people who like to complain, blame, judge or criticise you and others.
Let go of perfection or how you think things should be.
Do not let other people dictate what should be important to you, if you don’t agree with them.
Avoid making other people feel guilty when they have not met your expectations.
Speak your truth always and continue to focus on your self-care.

Final Thoughts

Guilt is an unhealthy emotion and can ruin your life if you do not deal with it. If you experience guilt, you can acknowledge yourself for having good values in life. However, you should not let yourself relive what you did or did not do repeatedly.

If you don’t free your mind from guilt, you risk feeling bad about yourself for extended periods, which will not serve you as you strive to become the best version of yourself.

Everyone makes mistakes and it is okay to forgive yourself, let go and move on from whatever you did.

Action Step: Reflect on the last time you felt guilty about something you did or did not do that was against your values. Assess whether you handled the situation the best way you could. Based on what you know now, identify what you will do next time you experience something similar.

Question: What are other practical steps to take to free your mind from guilt?