7

“Unhealthy” guilt is when a person feels guilty for something that is out of their control. They blame themselves unnecessarily making the guilt they feel harmful. This state of mind takes over the persons life and doesn’t help anyone. It is hard to find a remedy to fix this kind of guilt.

Having “healthy” guilt on the other hand is helpful to maturity. Healthy guilt is often built when a person acts irrationally or inappropriately. Having this kind of guilt alerts the person that they have to change their behavior. Even though this feeling is unpleasant it helps build character in a positive way.

First step to subside the guilt is to acknowledge what wrong was done. By knowing what you did wrong you could analyze how to apologize. Apologizing is most likely not going to be enough to subdue the felling of guilt but it is the first step. After apologizing, “change your behavior” the reason you probably have that guilt is from a bad habit like keeping emotion bottled up only for them to be lashed out on a person. If this step is done correctly that’s when growth appears within a person. Lastly Accept and move on, if the first 2 steps are accomplished then there is no reason to still feel guilty. Just let it go.