Guilt, a 5 letter word.

Men have NO GUILT for wanting it all…why do women?

Ask yourself,

What does “wanting it all” mean for me? So many women do not have any idea what they want.

There isn’t even room yet to have guilt when you don’t know what you want, right? Not knowing what you want is actually rather common.

We are not SOCIALIZED as females to design our lives. (Have you seen Sheryl Sandberg’s Ted Talk?)

We are not TAUGHT as females how to ask for what we want.

More often than not, we have to to learn how to design our lives and ask for what we want as an adult.Great news right!! If you are one of the women out there who is not 100% sure what you want, hey you got plenty of sisters around you!

Now comes the reality, ready?

When you don’t know what you want, you just follow the herd, or “go along with”, or “I don’t know where the years went” or “I’m not sure how this happened” or “Shit, WTF. I hate this.”

And it doesn’t have to mean all being in the herd is always BAD. One of my first jobs, I was working in a hospital a GERIATRIC PSYCH UNIT. Now granted, I was thrilled to have a great job, a new job and my first job!

But then before you know it, my next job was also on a psych unit. Was this wanted I longed for? No but it just “kinda” happened. Great jobs, but not what my heart yearned for, called out for, needed or desired.

So, I had to be conscious of this and make a switch—

GUILT ALERT

The guilt came when my employers didn’t want me to go. Was I hurting them? No, there was a waiting list for hires. But I had a serious case of the guilts. The comments, “You shouldn’t leave a good paying job.” Or, “What’s wrong with you, you were lucky to have such a great job.”

Replace all of the job talk with ‘a man’ as in, “You shouldn’t leave a good man.” or “What’s wrong with you, you were lucky to have such a great man.” Fill it with whatever is on your guilty mind.

Do men have guilt for leaving a job?

Do men have guilt for wanting something better?

Do men worry they are letting someone down?

Do men feel badly for wanting more sex and asking for it?

No.

Go ask any guy if you don’t believe me. Simply ask, “Do you have any guilt for wanting better in your life?”

Now, ask yourself the same question.

What comes up for you? Who is talking to you in your head? Your mom, your sister, your husband, your kids…WHO? Now ask your intuition.

She has a different answer I am sure. Guilt when it comes to wanting more, is really a misplaced sense of worry and judgement. True guilt is when you have done something to actually harm someone else. Feeling guilty for, say doing something for yourself or wanting a better love life, is really your own worry of what others will think, of what kind of response you will get- not because you have harmed someone for doing something for yourself.

How many times does a friend tell you good news and then says she feels guilty for telling you? This mind set is as though by her sharing her goodness, somehow this is harmful to you. Let’s rethink this whole guilt thing.

What would your life look like if you didn’t label your feelings guilt?

What if instead you were able to actually say, “I worry ‘they’ won’t like me, will be sad, will judge me…” and the like?

Then we can have a real conversation about how to NOT worry, to love ourselves enough to own what we want, what we desire, what we need to take care of ourselves. Then we can feel empowered because we are honoring our true selves. Then we can truly know the feeling of self-love because we are cherishing our ideas and our wants.

Here are some other examples of “guilt.”

Asking for what you want in a relationship. (please ask for what you want in all of your relationships, don’t know how call me)

Saying you don’t want to go somewhere (in-laws, that restaurant, to bed for sex etc.)

Buying something new for yourself. (unless you are ruining your family’s financial situation, then yeah, guilt away)

Asking for a raise. (Do it!)

Deciding to spend a day at the spa (Do it!!!)

What could you do, have or be in this life if you released your guilt (a.k.a. your misplaced anxiety about other’s judgements)?

What could you do?

What would you want?

I feel there will be more on this topic in the near future, stay tuned.

Why do women have more guilt? What are you thoughts?

If you really are struggling with this, you are not alone.

You can reach out and schedule a time to chat.