What makes you feel guilt or shame? I know men and women feel things differently and experience these emotions on various levels of intensity, but none the less, we all deal with both of these feelings from time to time.
Does what you eat cause you guilt? Are you ashamed of your career? Your significant other? Your life style? Do you experience guilt over the choices you make? The things you do on a day to day basis?
The other night I spent an evening in, home alone, with my thoughts, my feelings, and a whole lot ofGossip Girl. I made a simple dinner of roasted veggies with a cool avocado sauce, wrote cards to friends back home, and fell more in love with Chuck Bass.
As water ran over my ink stained fingers and I scrubbed the remnants of dinner from the singular white Ikea bowl, I was struck with a feeling of guilt. Was I wasting my night? My time? Sure I was getting things accomplished, but did having a show on in the background automatically negate the work I was doing? Was I turning my brain to mush!?
I walked back to the sofa and sat for a moment in silence; flipped open my computer, edited some articles, prepared some documents, got posts prepped for the following week… and then it struck me… I am fine. I wasn’t really wasting time, I only thought I was wasting my time, to be honest I was getting a whole lot of work done while the show was playing. Having the back ground noise be more then just music seemed to inspire me. Having a story (albiet steeped in drama) to follow made the night fly past and made my work more enjoyable.
This realization made me then critique the voice that was guilting me for eating a one inch bite of a pastry at 10:30 at night. The voice was telling me I shouldn’t have done it, too much sugar, I was going to get fat (I know…I KNOW)… but then I paused and after some careful thinking, I decided that the voice wasn’t worth listening to and it can GTFO. I know I can’t eat those things all of the time, I realize eating them at that time of night may not be the wisest of decisions, but sometimes you just need a little treat to brighten your mood… even so, having that mind set isn’t doing anyone any favors.
A) I am not defined by my waist size and worrying about every calorie I consume is a waste of time and energy… though as a woman it is incredibly hard to accept this fact.
B) My guilt of watching TV, though stemmed from a place of wanting to better myself, is a bit of a double edged sword. I enjoy story, I enjoy the way writers piece things together to make characters say and do the unexpected season after season…but I also feel like sitting there watching a screen is melting my brain. To be completely honest, I don’t even own a real tv, and I really don’t watch it allthat often… so guilt be gone!
C) Learning to measure accomplishment and success in a different way is a must if I’m going survive as a freelancer. I no longer have the structure of a normal job to validate my career path, therefore my input of “gold stars” is significantly less. Learning to recognize the little victories in my life (and Drews) will make my “path” feel far more valid.
The list could continue on with point after point to enhance my life or make me a better person by decreasing the guilt and shame I feel. However, in reality we must deal with the little things (like food and tv), repair the small cracks, so greater damage (career, life goals, significant others…family) won’t become a gaping hole… now if I could just put the list down and find some spackel.
xx
