Excessive Guilt Quotes

My mother was French Protestant, and my father was Italian Catholic, and their union was an excess of God, guilt and sauce.

My son . . . guilt, in proper measure, can be a useful emotion. However, when indulged to excess it becomes self-defeating, and even worse, tedious.

Remember, anoretics do eat. We have systems of eating that develop almost unconsciously. By the time we realize we´ve been running our lives with an iron system of numbers and rules, the system has begun to rule us. They are systems of Safe Foods, foods not imbued, or less imbued, with monsters and devils and dangers. These are usually “pure” foods, less likely to taint the soul with such sins as fat, or sugar, or an excess of calories. Consider the advertisements for food, the religious lexicon of eating: “sinfully rich,” intones the silky voice announcer, “indulge yourself,” she says, “guilt-free.” Not complex foods that would send the mind spinning in a tornado of possible pitfalls contained in a given food – a possible miscalculation of calories, a loss of certainty about your control over chaos, your control over self. The horrible possibility that you are taking more than you deserve.

The rewards from detachment are great: serenity; a deep sense of peace; the ability to give and receive love in self-enhancing, energizing ways; and the freedom to find real solutions to our problems. We find the freedom to live our own lives without excessive feelings of guilt about, or responsibility toward others.

It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief.

began to feel that queasy guilt that you can only know if you have lived among the English—a terrible suspicion that any pleasure involving more than a cup of milky tea and a chocolate digestive biscuit is somehow irreligiously excessive.

Some modern theologians have, quite rightly, protested against an excessively moralistic interpretation of Christianity. The Holiness of God is something more and other than moral perfection: His claim upon us is something more and other than the claims of moral duty. I do not deny it: But this conception, like that of corporate guilt, is very easily used as an evasion of the real issue. God may be more than moral goodness: He is not less. The road to the promised land runs past Sinai. The moral law may exist to be transcended, but there is no transcending it for those who have not first admitted its claims upon them, and then tried with all their strength to meet that claim, and fairly and squarely face the fact of their failure.

Guilt is imperative if we are to create and sustain a decent code of ethics and a sound moral compass. Guilt can help us to listen to our conscience, enhance empathy, and therefore have fulfilling relationships. Without guilt, we would live in an extremely dark world. However, misplaced guilt often triggers us to be over-apologetic and people-please. Many people repeat the word ‘sorry’ without needing to, while still others feel guilty for their very own existence. Emotionally wounded, shame-based people often feel that they are constantly ‘getting in the way’. This stems from a sense of feeling unlovable. To ask for one’s own needs to be met often results in a feeling of guilt. I call this misplaced guilt. Similarly, a person may feel guilty even if they have been abused or harmed by others. Misplaced guilt or excessive guilt stifles people’s chances to live happily and peacefully.

Worry and guilt and regret may serve a function—as a turbo-charger of conscience—but in excess they are useless and incapacitating.

Collectivism is history’s utmost elusive criminal mind game, created by a syndicate of self-pitying parasitical narcissists who feel excessively entitled.

Neurotic guilt,” like that often fostered by religion, is a different matter. It tends to be excessive and inappropriate, based on the expectations of others instead of personal values or dwelling on the error rather than using the guilt feelings to make a change. In your religious experience, committing a sin made you a sinner, a bad deed made a bad person. This global condemnation creates low self-worth and more neurotic guilt and misery.

The most tragic error into which older people can fall is one that is common among educators and politicians. It is to use youth as scapegoats for the sins of their elders. Is the nation wasting its young men and its honor in an unjust war? Never mind — direct your frustration at the long-haired young people who are shouting in the streets that the war must end. Curse them as hippies and immoral, dirty fanatics; after all, we older Americans could not have been wrong about anything important, because our hearts are all in the right place and God is always on our side, so anyone who opposes us must be insane, and probably in the pay of the godless Communists. Youth is in the process of being classed with the dark- skinned minorities as the object of popular scorn and hatred. It    is   as  if  Americans  have  to  have  a  "nigger,"  a  target                             for its hidden frustrations and guilt. Without someone to blame, like the Communists abroad and the young and black at home, middle America would be forced to consider whether all the problems of our time were in any way its own fault. That is the one thing it could never stand to do. Hence, it finds scapegoats. Few adults, I am afraid, will ever break free of the crippling attitudes that have been programmed into their personalities – racism, self-righteousness, lack of concern for the losers of the world, and an excessive regard for property. One reason, as I have noted, is that they do not know they are like this, and that they proclaim ideals that are the reverse of many of their actions. Such hypocrisy, even if it is unconscious, is the real barrier between them and their children.

Adopting a child is a blessing. Those who perceive themselves as "doing someone a favor" are not ready to adopt. Pity is such an insult. When making a lifetime commitment to someone, it's no time to let guilt or excessive altruism take over.

When dealing with the excessively rich and privileged, you’ve got your two basic approaches. One is to go in hard and deliberately working class. A regional accent is always a plus in this. Seawoll has been known to deploy a Mancunian dialect so impenetrable that members of Oasis would have needed subtitles, and graduate entries with double firsts from Oxford practise a credible Estuary in the mirror and drop their glottals with gay abandon when necessary. That approach only works if the subject suffers from residual middle-class guilt – unfortunately the properly posh, the nouveau riche and senior legal professionals are rarely prey to such weaknesses. For them you have to go in obliquely and with maximum Downton Abbey. Fortunately for us we have just the man.

My life is beautiful because I decided it to be. It is a perspective, a way of seeing things, and that perspective is available to any of us. Our lives become beautiful because we decide they are beautiful. The second we decide our lives are beautiful, this decision ushers in a whole host of events and actions. We begin to treat our life like any other beautiful possession we have. If we think our lives are beautiful, we are far less likely to mess them up with drugs, anger, vengeance, excessive guilt or remorse, fear, hatred, jealousy, or any number of other destructive emotions and actions. Your life and my life can be beautiful because we decide they are, and that decision is the fundamental decision of happiness.

I must emphasize and explain repeatedly the moral dimensions of all social life, and point out that morality is, in fact, hidden in everything. And this is true; whenever I encounter a problem in my work and try to get to the bottom of it, I always discover some moral aspect, be it apathy, unwillingness to recognize personal error or guilt, reluctance to give up certain positions and the advantages flowing from them, envy, an excess of self-assurance, or whatever.

Collectivism is history’s utmost elusive criminal mind game, created by a syndicate of self-pitying parasitical narcissists who feel excessively entitled. They so much believe themselves to be right that they presume the authority to force their views upon others. It has resulted in an infinite evil circle of emotional terrorism. Those who foster manipulism are masters at creating puppeteers who in turn create more puppets. The puppeteer is the collectivist’s everyday occupation.

The cardinal feature of antisocial personality disorder is an incapacity for experiencing genuine inner guilt and the associated lack of concern for others. Individuals with antisocial personality display a predominantly narcissistic orientation in which even the seeming islands of devotion hide selfish motives. They have an excessive sensitivity to displeasure, an 'addiction to novelty,' and a highly cynical view of the world. Their self-concept is that of a victim and an exception to ordinary social rules.

One of W.A.'s descendants described the mixed blessing of inherited wealth: "I think having such wealth can lead some people to have a lack of self-worth because of not having developed a lucrative career of their own or even having investigated their own potential. Having an overabundance of wealth can make people insecure around others who have far less than they do, since the former might wonder if potential partners or even friends are 'only' after them for their money. Well-meaning people of excessive wealth can feel anxious about the lack of perfection of charities they support, and about the fact that even as willing patrons they are powerless to obliterate suffering--all the while knowing that any small amount of money that they might spend on themselves is still enough to change or even save some lives. Wealth can lead to guilt over the unfairness of people working endlessly for them who have never been included fully into the family. In sum, having immense wealth can lead one to feel isolated and to have a false sense of being special.

Overall, depression is considered “clinical” when symptoms are severe and include difficulty getting through a daily routine, sleeping too much or too little, disturbance of concentration, excessive negative or pessimistic thoughts, severe guilt, and an inability to connect with or be around others. Secondary symptoms include diverse aches and pains, headaches, or other uncomfortable physical symptoms. Depression can make you feel overwhelmed, anxious, worthless, and hopeless, and you might even have thoughts about ending your life.

But the greatest human problems are not social problems, but decisions that the individual has to make alone. The most important feelings of which man is capable emphasise his separateness from other people, not his kinship with them. The feelings of a mountaineer towards a mountain emphasise his kinship with the mountain rather than with the rest of mankind. The same goes for the leap of the heart experienced by a sailor when he smells the sea, or for the astronomer’s feeling about the stars, or for the archaeologist’s love of the past. My feeling of love for my fellowmen makes me aware of my humanness; but my feeling about a mountain gives me an oddly nonhuman sensation. It would be incorrect, perhaps, to call it ‘superhuman’; but it nevertheless gives me a sense of transcending my everyday humanity. Maslow’s importance is that he has placed these experiences of ‘transcendence’ at the centre of his psychology. He sees them as the compass by which man gains a sense of the magnetic north of his existence. They bring a glimpse of ‘the source of power, meaning and purpose’ inside himself. This can be seen with great clarity in the matter of the cure of alcoholics. Alcoholism arises from what I have called ‘generalised hypertension’, a feeling of strain or anxiety about practically everything. It might be described as a ‘passively negative’ attitude towards existence. The negativity prevents proper relaxation; there is a perpetual excess of adrenalin in the bloodstream. Alcohol may produce the necessary relaxation, switch off the anxiety, allow one to feel like a real human being instead of a bundle of over-tense nerves. Recurrence of the hypertension makes the alcoholic remedy a habit, but the disadvantages soon begin to outweigh the advantage: hangovers, headaches, fatigue, guilt, general inefficiency. And, above all, passivity. The alcoholics are given mescalin or LSD, and then peak experiences are induced by means of music or poetry or colours blending on a screen. They are suddenly gripped and shaken by a sense of meaning, of just how incredibly interesting life can be for the undefeated. They also become aware of the vicious circle involved in alcoholism: misery and passivity leading to a general running-down of the vital powers, and to the lower levels of perception that are the outcome of fatigue. ‘The spirit world shuts not its gates, Your heart is dead, your senses sleep,’ says the Earth Spirit to Faust. And the senses sleep when there is not enough energy to run them efficiently. On the other hand, when the level of will and determination is high, the senses wake up. (Maslow was not particularly literary, or he might have been amused to think that Faust is suffering from exactly the same problem as the girl in the chewing gum factory (described earlier), and that he had, incidentally, solved a problem that had troubled European culture for nearly two centuries). Peak experiences are a by-product of this higher energy-drive. The alcoholic drinks because he is seeking peak experiences; (the same, of course, goes for all addicts, whether of drugs or tobacco.) In fact, he is moving away from them, like a lost traveller walking away from the inn in which he hopes to spend the night. The moment he sees with clarity what he needs to do to regain the peak experience, he does an about-face and ceases to be an alcoholic.

The rewards from detachment are great: serenity; a deep sense of peace; the ability to give and receive love in self-enhancing, energizing ways; and the freedom to find real solutions to our problems. We find the freedom to live our own lives without excessive feelings of guilt about, or responsibility toward others.6 Sometimes detachment even motivates and frees people around us to begin to solve their problems. We stop worrying about them, and they pick up the slack and finally start worrying about themselves. What a grand plan! We each mind our own business.

The person who experiences disruption of bonding recoils and withdraws emotionally. He does not experience his need, the hunger for love. Instead, he buries his needs deep inside, so he can no longer be hurt. This withdrawal is called defensive devaluation. Defensive devaluation is a protective device that makes love bad, trust unimportant, and people “no darn good” anyway. People who have been deeply hurt in their relationships will often devalue love so it doesn’t hurt so much. And they often become resigned to never loving again. People who are unbonded do funny things in relationships: They don’t look for safe people: there’s no hunger. They don’t recognize safe people: no one is safe. They don’t reach out to safe people: why get hurt again? Although unbonded people often have friends and families, their isolation is deep and can cause many serious problems. A person who cannot bond may suffer from addictions, depression, emptiness, excessive caretaking, fear of being treated like an object, fears of closeness, feelings of guilt, feelings of unreality, idealism, lack of joy, loss of meaning, negative bonds, outbursts of anger, panic, shallow relationships, or thought problems such as confusion, distorted thinking, and irrational fears.

I’ve never minded having hangovers. I mean: it’s not that I enjoy them – but there’s something important about them, I think. Something to do with acts and consequences. Something to do with facing down extinction. The truth is we get drunk less for the intoxication and more for the aftermath. Because the experience of intoxication itself, whilst pleasurable (I guess), is fundamentally banal. Whereas the experience of hangover, of post-drunken-excess guilt, has about it something more profound; it carries within its temporary discomfort a mustard seed of existential resonance. It says: I survived, which is to say: I can survive.

As the third evening approached, Gabriel looked up blearily as two people entered the room. His parents. The sight of them infused him with relief. At the same time, their presence unlatched all the wretched emotion he'd kept battened down until this moment. Disciplining his breathing, he stood awkwardly, his limbs stiff from spending hours on the hard chair. His father came to him first, pulling him close for a crushing hug and ruffling his hair before going to the bedside. His mother was next, embracing him with her familiar tenderness and strength. She was the one he'd always gone to first whenever he'd done something wrong, knowing she would never condemn or criticize, even when he deserved it. She was a source of endless kindness, the one to whom he could entrust his worst thoughts and fears. "I promised nothing would ever harm her," Gabriel said against her hair, his voice cracking. Evie's gentle hands patted his back. "I took my eyes off her when I shouldn't have," he went on. "Mrs. Black approached her after the play- I pulled the bitch aside, and I was too distracted to notice-" He stopped talking and cleared his throat harshly, trying not to choke on emotion. Evie waited until he calmed himself before saying quietly, "You remember when I told you about the time your f-father was badly injured because of me?" "That wasn't because of you," Sebastian said irritably from the bedside. "Evie, have you harbored that absurd idea for all these years?" "It's the most terrible feeling in the world," Evie murmured to Gabriel. "But it's not your fault, and trying not to make it so won't help either of you. Dearest boy, are you listening to me?" Keeping his face pressed against her hair, Gabriel shook his head. "Pandora won't blame you for what happened," Evie told him, "any more than your father blamed me." "Neither of you are to blame for anything," his father said, "except for annoying me with this nonsense. Obviously the only person to blame for this poor girl's injury is the woman who attempted to skewer her like a pinioned duck." He straightened the covers over Pandora, bent to kiss her forehead gently, and sat in the bedside chair. "My son... guilt, in proper measure, can be a useful emotion. However, when indulged to excess it becomes self-defeating, and even worse, tedious." Stretching out his long legs, he crossed them negligently. "There's no reason to tear yourself to pieces worrying about Pandora. She's going to make a full recovery." "You're a doctor now?" Gabriel asked sardonically, although some of the weight of grief and worry lifted at his father's confident pronouncement. "I daresay I've seen enough illness and injuries in my time, stabbings included, to predict the outcome accurately. Besides, I know the spirit of this girl. She'll recover." "I agree," Evie said firmly. Letting out a shuddering sigh, Gabriel tightened his arms around her. After a long moment, he heard his mother say ruefully, "Sometimes I miss the days when I could solve any of my children's problems with a nap and a biscuit." "A nap and a biscuit wouldn't hurt this one at the moment," Sebastian commented dryly. "Gabriel, go find a proper bed and rest for a few hours. We'll watch over your little fox cub.

People who are unbonded do funny things in relationships: They don’t look for safe people: there’s no hunger. They don’t recognize safe people: no one is safe. They don’t reach out to safe people: why get hurt again? Although unbonded people often have friends and families, their isolation is deep and can cause many serious problems. A person who cannot bond may suffer from addictions, depression, emptiness, excessive caretaking, fear of being treated like an object, fears of closeness, feelings of guilt, feelings of unreality, idealism, lack of joy, loss of meaning, negative bonds, outbursts of anger, panic, shallow relationships, or thought problems such as confusion, distorted thinking, and irrational fears.

There once was a female snake that roamed around a small village in the countryside of Egypt. She was commonly seen by villagers with her small baby as they grazed around the trees. One day, several men noticed the mother snake was searching back and forth throughout the village in a frenzy — without her young. Apparently, her baby had slithered off on its own to play while she was out looking for food. Yet the mother snake went on looking for her baby for days because it still hadn't returned back to her. So one day, one of the elder women in the village caught sight of the big snake climbing on top of their water supply — an open clay jug harvesting all the village's water. The snake latched its teeth on the big jug's opening and sprayed its venom into it. The woman who witnessed the event was mentally handicapped, so when she went to warn the other villagers, nobody really understood what she was saying. And when she approached the jug to try to knock it over, she was reprimanded by her two brothers and they locked her away in her room. Then early the next day, the mother snake returned to the village after a long evening searching for her baby. The children villagers quickly surrounded her while clapping and singing because she had finally found her baby. And as the mother snake watched the children rejoice in the reunion with her child, she suddenly took off straight for the water supply — leaving behind her baby with the villagers' children. Before an old man could gather some water to make some tea, she hissed in his direction, forcing him to step back as she immediately wrapped herself around the jug and squeezed it super hard. When the jug broke burst into a hundred fragments, she slithered away to gather her child and return to the safety of her hole. Many people reading this true story may not understand that the same feelings we are capable of having, snakes have too. Thinking the villagers killed her baby, the mother snake sought out revenge by poisoning the water to destroy those she thought had hurt her child. But when she found her baby and saw the villagers' children, her guilt and protective instincts urged her to save them before other mothers would be forced to experience the pain and grief of losing a child. Animals have hearts and minds too. They are capable of love, hatred, jealousy, revenge, hunger, fear, joy, and caring for their own and others. We look at animals as if they are inferior because they are savage and not civilized, but in truth, we are the ones who are not being civil by drawing a thick line between us and them — us and nature. A wild animal's life is very straightforward. They spend their time searching and gathering food, mating, building homes, and meditating and playing with their loved ones. They enjoy the simplicity of life without any of our technological gadgetry, materialism, mass consumption, wastefulness, superficiality, mindless wars, excessive greed and hatred. While we get excited by the vibrations coming from our TV sets, headphones and car stereos, they get stimulated by the vibrations of nature. So, just because animals may lack the sophisticated minds to create the technology we do or make brick homes and highways like us, does not mean their connections to the etheric world isn't more sophisticated than anything we could ever imagine. That means they are more spiritual, reflective, cosmic, and tuned into alternate universes beyond what our eyes can see. So in other words, animals are more advanced than us. They have the simple beauty we lack and the spiritual contentment we may never achieve.

With our desire to have more, we find ourselves spending more and more time and energy to manage and maintain everything we have. We try so hard to do this that the things that were supposed to help us end up ruling us. We eventually get used to the new state where our wishes have been fulfilled. We start taking those things for granted and there comes a time when we start getting tired of what we have. We're desperate to convey our own worth, our own value to others. We use objects to tell people just how valuable we are. The objects that are supposed to represent our qualities become our qualities themselves. There are more things to gain from eliminating excess than you might imagine: time, space, freedom and energy. When people say something is impossible, they have already decided that they don't want to do it. Differentiate between things you want and things you need. Leave your unused space empty. These open areas are incredibly useful. They bring us a sense of freedom and keep our minds open to the more important things in life. Memories are wonderful but you won't have room to develop if your attachment to the past is too strong. It's better to cut some of those ties so you can focus on what's important today. Don't get creative when you are trying to discard things. There's no need to stock up. An item chosen with passion represents perfection to us. Things we just happen to pick up, however, are easy candidates for disposal or replacement. As long as we stick to owning things that we really love, we aren't likely to want more. Our homes aren't museum, they don't need collections. When you aren't sure that you really want to part with something, try stowing it away for a while. Larger furniture items with bold colors will in time trigger visual fatigue and then boredom. Discarding things can be wasteful. But the guilt that keeps you from minimizing is the true waste. The real waste is the psychological damage that you accrue from hanging on to things you don't use or need. We find our originality when we own less. When you think about it, it's experience that builds our unique characteristics, not material objects. I've lowered my bar for happiness simply by switching to a tenugui. When even a regular bath towel can make you happy, you'll be able to find happiness almost everywhere. For the minimalist, the objective isn't to reduce, it's to eliminate distractions so they can focus on the things that are truly important. Minimalism is just the beginning. It's a tool. Once you've gone ahead and minimized, it's time to find out what those important things are. Minimalism is built around the idea that there's nothing that you're lacking. You'll spend less time being pushed around by something that you think may be missing. The qualities I look for in the things that I buy are: - the item has a minimalistic kind of shape and is easy to clean - it's color isn't too loud - I'll be able to use it for a long time - it has a simple structure - it's lightweight and compact - it has multiple uses A relaxed moment is not without meaning, it's an important time for reflection. It wasn't the fallen leaves that the lady had been tidying up, it was her own laziness that she had been sweeping away. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. With daily cleaning, the reward may be the sense of accomplishment and calmness we feel afterward. Cleaning your house is like polishing yourself. Simply by living an organized life, you'll be more invigorated, more confident and like yourself better. Having parted with the bulk of my belongings, I feel true contentment with my day-to-day life. The very act of living brings me joy. When you become a minimalist, you free yourself from all the materialist messages that surround us. All the creative marketing and annoying ads no longer have an effect on you.

I teach excessively agreeable people to note the emergence of such resentment, which is a very important, although very toxic, emotion. There are only two major reasons for resentment: being taken advantage of (or allowing yourself to be taken advantage of), or whiny refusal to adopt responsibility and grow up. If you’re resentful, look for the reasons. Perhaps discuss the issue with someone you trust. Are you feeling hard done by, in an immature manner? If, after some honest consideration, you don’t think it’s that, perhaps someone is taking advantage of you. This means that you now face a moral obligation to speak up for yourself. This might mean confronting your boss, or your husband, or your wife, or your child, or your parents. It might mean gathering some evidence, strategically, so that when you confront that person, you can give them several examples of their misbehaviour (at least three), so they can’t easily weasel out of your accusations. It might mean failing to concede when they offer you their counterarguments. People rarely have more than four at hand. If you remain unmoved, they get angry, or cry, or run away. It’s very useful to attend to tears in such situations. They can be used to motivate guilt on the part of the accuser due, theoretically, to having caused hurt feelings and pain. But tears are often shed in anger. A red face is a good cue. If you can push your point past the first four responses and stand fast against the consequent emotion, you will gain your target’s attention—and, perhaps, their respect. This is genuine conflict, however, and it’s neither pleasant nor easy.

I DON'T WANT to talk about me, of course, but it seems as though far too much attention has been lavished on you lately-that your greed and vanities and quest for self-fulfillment have been catered to far too much. You just want and want and want. You believe in yourself excessively. You don't believe in Nature anymore. It's too isolated from you. You've abstracted it. It's so messy and damaged and sad. Your eyes glaze as you travel life's highway past all the crushed animals and the Big Gulp cups. You don't even take pleasure in looking at nature photographs these days. Oh, they can be just as pretty as always, but don't they make you feel increasingly ... anxious? Filled with more trepidation than peace? So what's the point? You see the picture of the baby condor or the panda munching on a bamboo shoot, and your heart just sinks, doesn't it? A picture of a poor old sea turtle with barnacles on her back, all ancient and exhausted, depositing her five gallons of doomed eggs in the sand hardly fills you with joy, because you realize, quite rightly, that just outside the frame falls the shadow of the condo. What's cropped from the shot of ocean waves crashing on a pristine shore is the plastics plant, and just beyond the dunes lies a parking lot. Hidden from immediate view in the butterfly-bright meadow, in the dusky thicket, in the oak and holly wood, are the surveyors' stakes, for someone wants to build a mall exactly there-some gas stations and supermarkets, some pizza and video shops, a health club, maybe a bulimia treatment center. Those lovely pictures of leopards and herons and wild rivers-well, you just know they're going to be accompanied by a text that will serve only to bring you down. You don't want to think about it! It's all so uncool. And you don't want to feel guilty either. Guilt is uncool. Regret maybe you'll consider. Maybe. Regret is a possibility, but don't push me, you say. Nature photographs have become something of a problem, along with almost everything else. Even though they leave the bad stuff out-maybe because you know they're leaving all the bad stuff out-such pictures are making you increasingly aware that you're a little too late for Nature. Do you feel that? Twenty years too late? Maybe only ten? Not way too late, just a little too late? Well, it appears that you are. And since you are, you've decided you're just not going to attend this particular party.

Mardi Gras in Cuba was one of the most uninhibited festivals I have ever witnessed. Although I do not condone the criminal elements that existed behind the festive atmosphere, I dove into the sweeping pleasures without guilt. At my age, life was to be lived, and live it I did! Most of the people surrounding me, on the packed streets of Havana, came from the United States. It also seemed that half of the Miami Police Force was there for these unrestrained festivities. Perhaps the excesses I witnessed are to be criticized, but it was all fun and well beyond my imagination. Everything was new and extremely exciting at the time. The many beautiful girls, who were said to have been exploited, certainly were as caught up in the euphoria as we were and enjoyed the moment every bit as much as we did. The decorated cars and beautiful floats with girls and guys waving, were followed by people dancing to the loud Latin beat. The jubilant parade wound its way along the coastal route to the Avenida Maceo, having started from the wide boulevard Calle G or Avenida de los Presidentes. Crowds of tourists and other revelers laughed and cheered. Smaller, but every bit as intense, were celebrations on other main streets such as Calle Neptuno. Everyone had a great time, and thanks to our officers, even our available time ashore was extended by an hour. I don’t think that it was abused by anyone, but the next day we were all tired and nursing hangovers.

I’ve learned that for every condition in our lives, there’s a need for it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have it. The symptom is only an outer effect. We must go within to dissolve the mental cause. This is why willpower and discipline don’t work. They’re only battling the outer effect. It’s like cutting down the weed instead of getting the root out. So before you begin the New Thought Pattern affirmations, work on the willingness to release the need for the cigarettes, the headache, the excess weight, or whatever. When the need is gone, the outer effect must die. No plant can live if the root is cut away. The mental thought patterns that cause the most dis-ease in the body are criticism, anger, resentment, and guilt. For instance, criticism indulged in long enough will often lead to dis-eases such as arthritis. Anger turns into things that boil, burn, and infect the body. Resentment long held festers and eats away at the self and ultimately can lead to tumors and cancer. Guilt always seeks punishment and leads to pain. It’s so much easier to release these negative thinking patterns from our minds when we’re healthy than to try to dig them out when we’re in a state of panic and under the threat of the surgeon’s knife.

East Germany may have been a giant penitentiary administrated by the Russians, the Stasi may have embodied the worst excesses of German authority and bureaucratic thoroughness, and anyone with brains and spirit may have fled the country before the Wall went up, but the inmates who'd remained behind to expiate the country's collective guilt had paradoxically been liberated from their Germanness (...) Humble, unpunctual, spontaneous, and generous with what little they had. (...) their real loyalties were to one other, not to the state.

HOW MBS DEVELOPS FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW: Childhood and adult stressors trigger feelings of fear, anger, or resentment, which are stored in emotional memory (internal child). Personality traits learned in childhood create a strong sense of duty, self-blame, self-criticism, guilt, and excessive concern for others (internal parent). In situations where people feel trapped by stressful events that trigger emotions from childhood hurts, or feel a conflict between what they want for themselves and what they feel they need to do for others, MBS symptoms are likely to develop, especially if there is no outlet to express these feelings or the feelings are actively suppressed.

A neurosis is a psychological disorder defined by persistent and deep levels of anxiety and an overall fear of life. In addition to these cardinal symptoms, a neurotic illness may also include depression, guilt, phobias, obsessions and compulsions, excessive worry and rumination, insomnia, irritability, or anger. Carl Jung suggested that the neurotic’s fear of life was a result of “a disturbed or diminished process of adaptation” (Collected Works Volume 18) and “a morbid development of the whole of a personality” (Collected Works Volume 10). A neurotic, in other words, is an individual who fails to adapt to the demands of life, whose personality is stunted as a result, and whose existence, therefore, becomes a continual struggle with little, to no reprieve.

his desk, reading the paper. He looked like he had gotten eight hours of sound sleep and spent the last hour at the gym. Recruiting poster. He set his paper aside and asked if we were OK, that we looked a little under the weather. When we replied that we were fine, he said, “OK, get to work.” The bar scene was never mentioned again. Jim eventually became so depressed, he decided to volunteer for another tour in Vietnam. However, he only had months to serve, and the army refused to deploy him. Jim found a way. He got into his Olds 4-4-2 and headed toward Louisville. Between Ft. Knox and Louisville was the small town of West Point. It occupied the southeastern bank of the Ohio River and was a notorious speed trap. Local residents claimed that the majority of the municipal budget was covered by speeding fines collected from the Ft. Knox troops. Jim ran through the northbound radar trap in excess of 100 mph. After the policeman wrote him up for reckless driving, Jim turned around and ran through the southbound speed trap at 110. He was arrested immediately. When it came time for his disciplinary process, he was busted back to E-4.

In order for Christians to muster enough mercy to accept the ramifications of such a broad salvation, we must be willing to rethink our current exclusivist claims on the gospel. . . Shalom living was God's plan for all nations from the beginning. God makes a nation of Abraham specifically for the purposes of spreading shalom as it is demonstrated by practicing justice and righteousness....Where does the condemnation stop and where does the acceptance of those who don't deserve more begin? The answer was clear to Jesus. Acceptance begins with just one. Each and every one. Ezekiel 16:49 states, "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy." Such greedy living habits were clear violations of the hospitality ethic, sharing equity and such, that are God's expectations of people living out shalom. Again, the backdrop narrative of Sodom concerns inhospitality to strangers and not taking care of the poor and needy. This is the same rebuke Jesus makes to the Pharisees. Jesus' stories are trying to get the Pharisees to think about God's willingness to welcome and not condemn others whom they feel don't deserve acceptance into God's shalom community of creation. Jesus is still trying to get us all to do the same.

Guilt is not Jesus’ medium. He is battling for global redemption right now; His objective hardly includes huddling in the corner with us, rehashing our shame again. He finished that discussion on the cross. Plus, there’s no time for that.

Short-term thinking – Focusing on what matters at the moment, rather than on potential consequences over the long term. Socialization – An element of a monologue that is designed to encourage a person to share truthful information by suggesting that the activity under investigation is one that is regularly engaged in by others. Stimulus – The question that prompts a behavioral response. Throat-clearing/swallowing – A nonverbal deceptive behavior in which a person clears his throat or performs a significant swallow prior to answering the question. Timing – The guideline in our deception detection model dictating that the initial deceptive behavior must begin within the first five seconds after the stimulus. Transition statement – Statement made by the questioner to allow for a transparent transition from an interview to an interrogation. It is the first sentence or two of the monologue, and takes the form of a direct observation of concern (DOC) or a direct observation of guilt (DOG). Unintended message – A truthful statement made by a deceptive person that, when the literal meaning of the statement is analyzed, conveys information that the person does not realize he’s conveying. We also refer to this as “truth in the lie.” Vague question – A question to be avoided because it allows for excessive latitude in

People, especially women, are judged on their bodies. And food, far from being a source of energy and enjoyment, becomes a battleground of guilt and shame and excess and deprivation. Everywhere we look, success and sexiness and happiness seem to belong to the thin.

Land was eminently quotable. Mr Fierstein lists several “Landisms” that give a flavour of the man. “If you are able to state a problem…then the problem can be solved.” “Optimism is a moral duty.” “What the physical sciences teach the social sciences is how to fail without a sense of guilt.” “If anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing to excess.

the Accuser’s final complaint. He took a confident breath and embarked on his concluding strategy: blame shifting. The Accuser said, “If I am to stomach this dodgy ad hoc definition of ‘death’ as eventual mortality, and the excessive punishment of death and exile for the primal pair in the Garden, that is one thing. But to then shift that blame onto the rest of the human race, that is the most unfair, unjust, unwarranted, unreasonable, unjustifiable attribution of guilt anyone has ever seen in the history of the heavens and earth.” Enoch thought the Accuser’s rhetoric reached its shrill climax of excess in this catalogue of allegations and complaints. The Accuser continued, “What kind of a just god blames innocent people for the guilt of others? What kind of a loving god punishes the entire rest of the human race for what two moronic idiots did in the Garden?” He stood there with dramatic pause. There it was again, thought Enoch. The endless refrain against a ‘loving god.’ But now the Accuser was adding a new slogan for a bit of variety with ‘what kind of a just god’ etcetera, etcetera. The Accuser concluded, “The prosecution rests its case.” He sat down by the other Watchers.

In general the power drive is given free rein when it can appear under the cloak of objective and moral rectitude. People are the most cruel when they can use cruelty to enforce the "good."In daily life we often suffer pages of conscience when we permit ourselves to be excessively motivated by the power drive. But these guilt feelings completely disappear from consciousness when our actions, while unconsciously motivated by a lust for power, can be consciously justified by that which is allegedly right and good.

A sense of our inadequacies and failings, a recognition that we could be better people than we usually are, is one of the forces for moral growth and improvement in our society. An appropriate sense of guilt makes people try to be better. But an excessive sense of guilt, a tendency to blame ourselves for things which are clearly not our fault, robs us of our self-esteem and perhaps of our capacity to grow and to act.

Gothic is the genre of fear. Our fascination with it is almost always revived during times of instability and panic. In the wake of the French Revolution, the Marquis de Sade described the rise of the genre as 'the inevitable product of the revolutionary shock with which the whole of Europe resounded,' and literary critics in the late eighteenth century mocked the work of early gothic writers Anne Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis by referring to it as 'the terrorist school' of writing. As Fred Botting writes in Gothic, his lucid introduction to the genre, it expresses our unresolved feelings about 'the nature of power, law, society, family and sexuality' and yet is extremely concerned with issues of social disintegration and collapse. It's preoccupied with all that is immoral, fantastic, suspenseful, and sensational and yet prone to promoting middle-class values. It's interested in transgression, but it's ultimately more interested in restitution; it alludes to the past yet is carefully attuned to the present; it's designed to evoke excessive emotion, yet it's thoroughly ambivalent; it's the product of revolution and upheaval, yet it endeavors to contain their forces; it's terrifying, but pretty funny. And, importantly, the gothic always reflects the anxieties of its age in an appropriate package, so that by the nineteenth century, familiar tropes representing external threats like crumbling castles, aristocratic villains, and pesky ghosts had been swallowed and interiorized. In the nineteenth century, gothic horrors were more concerned with madness, disease, moral depravity, and decay than with evil aristocrats and depraved monks. Darwin's theories, the changing roles of women in society, and ethical issues raised by advances in science and technology haunted the Victorian gothic, and the repression of these fears returned again and again in the form of guilt, anxiety, and despair. 'Doubles, alter egos, mirrors, and animated representations of the disturbing parts of human identity became the stock devices,' Botting writes, 'signifying the alienation of the human subject from the culture and language in which s/he is located.' In the transition from modernity to post-modernity, the very idea of culture as something stable and real is challenged, and so postmodern gothic freaks itself out by dismantling modernist grand narratives and playing games. In the twentieth century, 'Gothic [was] everywhere and nowhere,' and 'narrative forms and devices spill[ed] over from worlds of fantasy and fiction into real and social spheres.

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but they did not aid the poor and the needy. They were haughty, and did an abomination before me, so I removed them, when I saw it.

I feel uncomfortable and experience building tension or discomfort that seems to come out of the blue when I think about a particular situation. ____ 2. I avoid specific situations that make me feel uncomfortable. ____ 3. I have at least four of the following symptoms at the same time: shortness of breath or feeling smothered; heart palpitations (rapid or irregular heartbeat); trembling or shaking; choking; dizziness or unsteadiness; nausea or abdominal distress; numbness, feeling detached or out of touch with myself; fear of dying; fear of going crazy or out of control; hot flashes or chills; sweating without exertion. ____ 4. I worry excessively, and so I feel restless, keyed up or on edge, irritable, easily fatigued, have trouble falling or staying asleep or I wake up tired, have tense and tight muscles, have difficulty concentrating, and/or find my mind going blank. ____ 5. I have recurring intrusive thoughts such as hurting or harming a close relative, being contaminated by dirt or a toxic substance, fearing I forgot to lock my door or turn off an appliance, and/or have unpleasant fantasies of catastrophe. ____ 6. I perform ritualistic actions such as washing my hands or counting to relieve my discomfort because I have fears that keep entering my mind. ____ 7. I have witnessed or been subjected to a life-threatening experience and have persistent symptoms that have lasted for at least a month, including repetitive and distressing thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks, attempts to reenact the situation, emotional numbness (out of touch with your emotions—feeling no anger, sadness, guilt, or relief), feeling detached from other people, losing interest in activities that once gave me pleasure, sleep or concentration problems, startling easily, irritability and/or have outbursts of anger.

Meanwhile, although Lamus refuses to ever speak a word against cocaine or heroin, and uses a variety of drugs himself at various times, Peter and Lou are required, as a condition of membership in the abbey, to keep careful records of their psychological and spiritual progress. Specifically, they can use as much dope as they want, but on each occasion they must write in their record book why they used the drug on this particular occasion. A genuine and quite rational distaste for drug excess begins to grow in them, although Lamus refuses to allow them to experience this as a moral guilt, and endlessly repeats his slogan about “Do what thou wilt,” sometimes varied to “Find your True Will and follow it.

Neurotic guilt,” like that often fostered by religion, is a different matter. It tends to be excessive and inappropriate, based on the expectations of others instead of personal values or dwelling on the error rather than using the guilt feelings to make a change.

A number of recent studies published in periodicals like the Journal of Psychosomatic Research have found a powerful interrelationship among anxiety sensitivity, irritable bowel syndrome, worry, and a personality trait known as neuroticism, which psychologists define as you would expect—a tendency to dwell on the negative; a high susceptibility to excessive feelings of anxiety, guilt, and depression; and a predisposition to overreact to minor stress. Unsurprisingly, people who score high on cognitive measures of neuroticism are disproportionately prone to developing phobias, panic disorder, and depression. (People who score low on the neuroticism scale are disproportionately resistant to those disorders.)

Food restriction does not necessarily lead to self-starvation; in fact, a common effect of sustained weight loss is a tendency to binge whenever food is available (typically with feelings of automaticity and loss of control). Common triggers for binges include tempting food and excessive hunger, but also interpersonal stressors and strong emotions. To compensate for impulsive overeating, some people start to adopt purging behaviors such as vomiting and laxative use. The combination of bingeing and purging may lead to the onset of a self-reinforcing cycle. Especially in the early stages of the cycle, bingeing and purging cause intense guilt, shame and anxiety. Those negative emotions may then trigger more binges or prompt renewed attempts to restrict food, which ultimately end up strengthening the cycle. Bingeing and purging can be rewarding on a number of levels. On the one hand, these symptoms relieve anxiety, boredom, emptiness, and other negative feelings; on the other hands, they prevent stressful interactions with other people (e.g. staying home from school or work to binge), attract attention from family and friends, and may provide a way to communicate one's ill-defined psychological distress in concrete terms. Over time, the behavioral sequence of bingeing and purging becomes more automatic and less emotionally intense, but also harder to interrupt.

There were words in excessiveness when we sat in church. All those thous and thees and manifestation. Now there's a doozy for you. I even knew when I was little that their words were falsely weighted, that god was not a bellower, but light as motes of dust, that there wasn't a definitive god but god spirits living in everything I saw around me. In the wind, the snow, the soft earthly curves of the prairie stretching ever eastward. The sound of crickets thrumming, the whistles of gophers in the warmish spring and the shrieks of redtails swirling high above me. The gods would never linger in pews stinking with selfish guilt, with all those wads of gum.

Everything must be structured around the center - from the core of the being of the person and not just one aspect of him, from his heart, as the vernacular names the source of the individual - and not from his head. The excessive stretching of the consciousness of responsibility - for which the excessive expansion of the belief in reason, in the social and political effectiveness of conviction, is to blame - already has been broken asunder in the world ... For the most serious human evil is lack of moderation.

The group members [parents] display an excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment to an individual [their child]. • The group members [parents] are preoccupied with bringing in new members. • The group members [parents] are preoccupied with making money. • The leadership [child] induces guilt feelings in members [parents] in order to control them. •  Members’ [parents’] subservience to the group [children] causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group. • Members [parents] are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group [children]. •  Members [parents] are encouraged or required to live [in the suburbs] and/or socialize [playdates] only with other group members [parents].

The effects of excessive or unresolved guilt impair our communication with the person we've harmed and limit our ability to relate to him or her in an authentic manner...

Certainly when we are in the throes of unrelenting or excessive guilt it is extremely difficult for us to enjoy our lives in any substantial way. Things that used to bring pleasure, joy, or excitement lose their appeal, not because we no longer enjoy them, but because we no longer permit ourselves to do so.

Adult Children of Alcoholics. A Addictive/compulsive behavior or marry addicts D Delusional thinking and denial about family of origin U Unmercifully judgmental of self or others L Lack good boundaries T Tolerate inappropriate behavior C Constantly seek approval H Have difficulty with intimate relationships I Incur guilt when standing up for self L Lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth D Disabled will R Reactive rather than creative E Extremely loyal to a fault N Numbed out O Overreact to changes over which they have no control F Feel different from other people A Anxious and hypervigilant L Low self-worth and internalized shame C Confuse love and pity O Overly rigid and serious, or just the opposite H Have difficulty finishing projects O Overly dependent and terrified of abandonment L Live life as a victim or offender I Intimidated by anger and personal criticism, or overly independent C Control madness—have an excessive need to control S Super-responsible or super-irresponsible

Like other feelings, guilt should not be considered an end in itself, nor as punishment. Guilt is a signal to do something differently, and this is functional for survival. When mistakes are viewed this way, they become learning experiences. You feel bad, review what happened, make new decisions about what you would do in the future, and repair whatever damage you can. “Neurotic guilt,” like that often fostered by religion, is a different matter. It tends to be excessive and inappropriate, based on the expectations of others instead of personal values or dwelling on the error rather than using the guilt feelings to make a change. In your religious experience, committing a sin made you a sinner, a bad deed made a bad person. This global condemnation creates low self-worth and more neurotic guilt and misery.

Many adults who were punished severely as children struggle with higher levels of stress that can lead to excessive guilt, anxiety, or depression.

Feeling lost in life often occurs when we feel stuck and unable to progress. Feeling lost is often a symptom of isolation, unresolved grief and a lack of presence-awareness. Uncertainty, confusion, shame and excessive guilt often drive a sense of feeling lost.

The first case is one in which the father behaves in an excessively patriarchal way, withholding affection and strictly enforcing rules and standards. He often controls his children by making them feel shame and guilt. To his children, such a father looms large, like a mountain that cannot be crossed. Even as adults, his children do not feel comfortable around him, having spent their childhood afraid of him, and cannot bring themselves to open up and have an honest conversation with him.