Guilt is not so much a feeling as it is a suppression of feeling. Guilt is but shame paralytically infused with fear-driven and fear-making thought, manifesting as the self-punishing “sensation” of having violated some sort of contract or moral agreement.

Where shame painfully exposes the conventional self, guilt painfully splits the same self, compensating itself for such pain by continuing to engage in the “bad” or “immoral” act that supposedly is its “can’t-help-myself” raison d’être.

As such, guilt means we get to stay stuck. And small.

Guilt is inherently self-divisive: One aspect of us, fixatedly childish, does whatever it is that apparently triggers -- or justifies -- our guilt, in conjunction with another aspect of us, rigidly authoritarian, which righteously punishes the doer of the supposed crime or misdemeanor. The relationship between these two -- basically a nastily stalemated parent/child conflict -- is the essence of guilt.

At the same time, however, guilt is simply something that we are doing to ourselves, something we are superimposing on ourselves, something that can be counted on to keep us divided, disempowered, stuck, and predictably exploitable.

Put another way, guilt means that we get to again do whatever it is that seemingly generates our guilt -- we permit ourselves to do it over and over again, even as “we” simultaneously punish ourselves for such transgression. We may decry (and even publicize) the abuse we are suffering from our own hand and self-incrimination, but that very punishment, if it is sufficiently severe and well-broadcast, significantly lessens the probability of “outside” punishment, while ensuring -- and perhaps even, at least to some degree, legitimizing -- our continued participation (as “victims,” of course!) in what we “shouldn’t” be doing.

Guilt thus allows us to remain selfish. And irresponsible.

Guilt’s prevailing reality is that of toxically simplistic right and wrong. Its moral stance is stubbornly prerational, dutifully skewered by the ossified finger of blame. Guilt is irresponsibility taking impotent or make-believe stabs at responsibility, which it consistently confuses with blame.

Guilt means we get to stay small, “safely” tucked away from truly taking charge of our lives.

The self-accusations of guilt are in the “spirit” of the other-accusations of resentment. To the extent that guilt is an amalgam of shame and anxiety, resentment is an amalgam of shame and aggression. In fact, one could describe resentment -- especially in its globally hypercritical stance and underbelly of toxic impotence -- as everted guilt. Resentment is all about dragging others down. In guilt, we drag ourselves down, giving ourselves such a large dose of condemnation that we all but guarantee our domicile in guilt, thereby bypassing any significant intimacy with responsibility and love.

Healthy shame does not take long to flush the entire system. Instead of continuing to contract one’s organic impulses, it unknots and expands them -- one blushes, one’s blood flows more freely, one’s body warms up, enriched with an admittedly uncomfortable yet nevertheless enlivening passion. As such, the whole body is then simply just a confession of felt responsibility for what has happened. There is a powerful, deep-rooted impetus to coming clean, letting go, and healing, a painful yet heartfelt resolution to grow.

But guilt, on the other hand, is not really interested in healing. The guilt-ridden and guilt-spurred do not have much energy for genuine growth -- they are driven to “do it” again and again, and in order to justify “doing it” again and again, they need to keep the threat of parental punishment hanging over them.

When we are stuck in guilt, we are, so to speak, repeat offenders keeping ourselves behind bars, playing both prosecutor and accused, but without any real resolution, chronically resurrecting our courtroom drama and suffering the pains of once again fitting ourselves to its loveless script, while finding a “needed” (and perhaps even pleasurable) release through once again “doing it.” Herein, not far below the surface, there is enormous grief, such a lack of self-compassion, such an agony of desperation and addiction.

Guilt is a refusal to love, and it is also a refusal to sanely parent oneself. In our guilt, we childishly cling to -- and react to -- outside parental forces that we have deeply internalized. By contrast, healthy shame provides fertile conditions for reconnecting with the parental authority that’s native to us.

Shame can catalyze an environment in which real forgiveness can bloom -- it is an opportunity to come clean and enter a truer scene. Guilt, however, works against the possibility of such forgiveness. Guilt fills churches and empties hearts. It is a psychological parasite, a destroyer of love, claiming temporary insanity.

Nevertheless, guilt is not some kind of entity at which we can or should throw darts, or which we can exterminate. It is something we are doing, something that we often don’t particularly want to see that we are doing.

Guilt is a suppression of Being, a withdrawal from real feeling, a flight from integrity, the very epitome of “divided we fall.” The guilt-ridden are easy to control and exploit, for their power is consumed by their internal warfare. (Ironically, as we have seen, the very disempowerment generated by guilt empowers us to persist in it.)

Guilt reduces God to the ultimate parent or punishment-wielding overseer, a fact exploited by more than a few religions (as exemplified by the inculcation of the doctrine of Original Sin).

Guilt is false conscience.

So how to work with guilt? First of all, don’t approach it with a closed heart or with moral righteousness -- feeling guilty about having guilt won’t help. Get in touch with the shame, fear, anger, and hurt that underlie guilt. Identify them, get detailed in your attentive survey and investigation of them, and do so as compassionately as you can.

At the same time, do what you can to expand your energy, and do it mindfully. Do not let yourself automatically bounce between the childish and parental sides of guilt -- recognize that neither one is you. They are just polarized personifications of guilt’s script. Instead of identifying with either one, sit where you can naturally and compassionately hold both and know, right to your marrow, that you are neither. See and feel them as clouds, and be their sky. Literally. Introduce them. Unmask them, bridge them, bring them together without taking either side, letting their mutual rainburst be your cry.

Thus do we let go of the whip, and also of the morality of blame. Thus do we shift from guilt to shame to freedom.