Prose - Guilt

Guilt has been upon me ever since I can remember. Maybe as a very small person, I didn’t know what it was called. But I remember the feeling being there. It's planted deeply with sexual abuse, guilt and shame. I’ve worked with it most of my life. For a long time I carried guilt for not being the daughter my Mom dreamed of. She would have been happier if I were religious, had a greater interest in decorating my house, my body and were more of a go-getter.

And then there was guilt around being a better Mom myself. I honestly thought I was doing a pretty good job, especially being devoted and attentive to my daughters’ nutrition, until all they can talk about are the junk foods they didn’t get to have. I could have spent more time, for instance, developing their spiritual lives.

Sometimes, there’s guilt about not being a better citizen, not being more active to help change the world. There’s guilt about turning up the heat, using too much water, using the earth’s resources extravagantly.

Of course, the ultimate guilt, was leaving my husband when he was recovering from a major crisis, when he had no will to fight for himself. I felt cowardice on my part and yet it was the only way it could have been done. His great fear of abandonment allowed my great need to enact my guilt and shame.

Guilt is a characteristic of the Metal Element, lungs and large intestines. These organs hold guilt, sorrow, loss. The color of this element is white. These words just feel white to me. The Metal Element is also about hoarding, and oddly enough this is the level cancer is known to begin in the body, in the Five Element theory. Guilt, sorrow, loss, emotions mankind will hopefully learn to live without. They only hold us back and serve no purpose, except to be aware if they are present within and consciously move through them quickly and completely.

As the channel, Abraham says, “there is no suffering into joy, we can only joy our way into joy”.
Patricia