Healing Guilt Through Inner Work: A Personal Journey for Highly Sensitive People

By the end of this episode, you’ll discover how a participant was able to release his guilt over not speaking to his family for six months.

Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host, Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie, a way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover how to look for a thought to question in a stressful situation from years ago, why you can trust the stressful feeling to lead you in the right direction, and why guilt, when seen in the light, has little chance of persisting. Today is another edition of Open Session Wednesdays.

You bring your questions and stressful situations, and I facilitate you in the simple, powerful process of the work of Byron Katie. As always, I share the unedited recording so that you can experience the open session just as we did.

Okay. So what’s your situation?

The situation is I am meeting my mom and my brother in a cafe in London, and I haven’t been speaking to them for quite a long time.

Yeah, it’s the first time I’ve seen them.

So this is in the future or it’s already happened?

This has already happened. This was about eight years ago, 10 years ago, something like that.

All right. So you’re meeting them in the cafe. And then what’s the situation within that situation? What’s the specific?

So I heard I stopped talking to my family for about six months, and they didn’t know where I was. And I agreed to meet my mom. I’ve been living in hostels and sleeping rough a little bit as well. And it’s the first time I’ve seen them. I was like, yeah, okay, I’ll meet you. And my mom is, this is really intense. That’s my story about her. And I found the situation very stressful. Yeah, that’s it.

Okay. And then what’s the moment that you want to focus on here?

It wasn’t even when I first saw them. It was when, I mean, I will just gloss over my brother because it’s really nothing to do with him. But when I first saw my mom, I was fine. But it was when we sat down at the table and I suddenly kind of felt like I was reverting to being a child again and having to be told off. And she held me, and she was so worried. And it was like, in that moment, I was just so overwhelmed because I was just so overwhelmed. And it was just everything growing up with this. I didn’t know how to stop it. So I just agreed with her, and I was like, yeah, I’ll go with you. I just remember that. That was such a defining moment since then. And I’ve been back in contact with her. I’m 37 now, so yeah, 10 years ago. That’s just been on my mind all, whenever I’m with her, that’s like a defining, this is the role I play with her, if that made any sense.

Yeah. That makes perfect sense. And I can relate. So, what is the stressful thought that you’d like to question?

I’m upset with mom because she was so stressed when she met me when I had been so worried. So worried. Yeah.

And what does that mean to you? When she was that worried, what was your emotional interpretation of that?

I just, I interpret it as like, so I want her to stop doing that. I want her to be like Byron Katie or someone very calm and very…

I just want her to… it becomes my mission to now make her okay. I need to step up and do something to placate her, make her feel better. So it’s like I kind of resent her for how she is being. And then I also feel like it’s my mission to fix her, which I really hate.

Yeah, hate to do that.

Well, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So if you’d like, let’s question that. You know, “I need to placate her” or “I need to fix her.” Does that sound close to the stress that you’re feeling?

Yeah. That I have to do anything to her. Be nice to her. That I have to feed into this fearful “this is a bad situation, we need to deal with this.” I need to feed into that.

Is that true?

Yeah. I need to feed into her idea that this is a bad situation or something like that.

So just making sure we’re landed on the same statement to question. So, I have to feed into her idea. This is a bad situation. I have to be nice to her. I have to fix her. I have to placate her. Which one sounds like it for you?

The first one—that I need to feel, I need to feel bad. Something’s bad, and I need to follow her.

Yeah. So I need to feel bad and there’s something bad, right?

Yeah.

It’s like, I see it all across my life now after that moment, with my partner that I’m with now, with things at work. I see it, like, from that moment. I mean, in my story, I see it mirrored in many situations. If I do something bad, if I make a mistake or something, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So, you need to feel bad. Is that true?

No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No.

So how do you react in that moment, especially when you think that you need to feed into this idea that this is bad?

I become David. I become the son, the brother, the one that did this past, stop empathizing with her. I feel tight. I feel trapped. I feel ashamed. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to touch her. It’s like I’m looking everywhere but at her. I refuse to look at what’s in front of me. And I’ve become this follower where I’m like, head down, yes, okay, yes, okay, I’ll, I’ll… And I’m confused. I thought I knew what I wanted. And now I don’t know, there are two things, and I really don’t know what to do.

Yeah. What is the emotion you feel when you think this?

Fear and sadness.

And then, how have you lived your life since that time when you’ve had this idea that you needed to follow her, feed into her idea that this is a bad situation?

Like I’m afraid of everything, and I don’t really want to know who she is. I don’t want to see the good in her. That’s how I live my life. My partner, she does her own kind of meditative things. And she said something the other day, she was like, “Oh, parents, you know, they really tried their best.” And something in me was just like, I could see myself really embracing that. And it was like, I wanted to throw up. It’s like, I didn’t know. It was so alien to drop that story. I almost didn’t know how to behave. So I completely lived my life protecting myself from anything good that she does.

Oh yeah. Sorry, I don’t know the question was there.

So this is what happens. That idea becomes that, that this thought that “I have to feed into her idea this is a bad situation,” becomes like a central stressful experience. And then it’s almost like you have to block off anything that would contradict it, or that would lead you, as you said, to see the good in her.

Yeah. So, yeah. That’s it.

Okay. So going back to that cafe, who would you be when she’s hugging you and saying how worried she was about you, doing exactly what she did, if you didn’t have the thought that you have to feed into her idea that this is a bad situation?

I could see that this is just who she is. This is what she does, and I can see the value in what she’s doing. That maybe it’s not so personal. She’s got two other children, and she would be like this to anyone, I think. She was a very good mother figure to my first girlfriend who lived with us. And years before that, I think this is just who she is. I wouldn’t make it so personal to me.

Actually.

Yeah.

So if you’re not making it so personal to you, then what does it feel like to be hugged by her and worried over a little bit?

Feels nice. Feels nice.

Hmm. Yeah. Feels nice. That’s who you are without the thought.

Yeah.

It’s like receptive, a little bit.

So, how would you turn the thought around? “I have to feed into her idea that this is a bad situation. Something’s bad.”

I have to feed into the idea there’s something good.

Okay, yeah. So is it possible that she has an idea that this is good, or that you have an idea that this is good? Like, is there anything you can feed into there?

Well, without the story, I’m just being hugged by someone who cares about me, seems to care about me, and that’s just nice.

Yeah.

So, what else is good happening here? When you look at what did you think was bad? What did you think you had done bad, or what was your idea of this idea of bad here?

Yes, I thought that I was living a dangerous existence not in accordance with what she would want for me and the way that she’s brought me up to take care of myself.

Yeah, and I see that’s coming from me. She didn’t actually say anything. I hadn’t spoken to her up to that point.

So the idea is that you were—what you saw as bad was not living in accordance with how she would want or how she brought you up. The turnaround is “I have to feed into an idea that this is a good situation.” Is there anything good about not having lived in accordance with how she brought you up when you were living in hostels and out of contact with her? Is there anything good in that possibly?

Yeah, yeah, I found Byron Katie in a bookshop. I was open to it. There was a picture of her, I think, on one of her books, and I was drawn to that vibe, that energy, so yeah.

Yeah. So you were exploring and you found something interesting, something helpful. What else was good about you being out of contact and not doing what she would want you to do? Is there anything good about that?

It was very freeing to not have to play me in family gatherings. And I knew that she had a son and a daughter that kept that going with her, so it was very nice to not have to be there for someone. It was very selfish, but it was a very simple existence that allowed me to focus on myself a lot.

Yeah. And why was that good for you, for her, for everyone?

I actually found it very low stress. I didn’t work. I slept a lot. I read a lot. And I found the whole thing, even though it was physically difficult, emotionally, it was very good in many ways.

Wow. Wow. So that’s your internal reference. And if you can hold that, then even if she disapproves, there’s something real inside like why you did that and what was good about it.

So I have to feed into… the turnaround is literal, “I have to feed into my idea that this was a good situation.”

Wow.

Yeah.

Just for balance. I threw all that out of the window because I was so obsessed with “it was bad.”

You took up what you assumed was her reference, her frame of reference. It may have been her frame of reference, but you never know for sure. You picked that frame of reference up, and then you judged your good experience from that point of view.

Yes.

And then suddenly something good became bad in your mind.

Yeah. That’s so true.

So all you have to do to come back to balance is feed into the other side, which is your own experience and that frame of reference, which is, you know, you’ve actually experienced it. So there’s actually truth in it as opposed to whatever you suppose about what she was thinking.

Anything else good about you going away for that time? Anything good about it?

It was the London Olympics at the time. And I got to just immerse myself in watching the Olympics. I don’t know how long it lasted. A week? It felt like the whole summer.

It was a couple weeks, I think, and there were all sorts of things. I had so much time every day. And I don’t think I had that amount of time to just be since I was a kid without any responsibilities.

Yeah. I mean, people pay good money to go on retreats like that and go on vacations like that.

Yeah.

So this is a good situation. As long as you keep in touch with that experience, what was really good, then, you know, that’s your keel. That’s your steady place.

You know, I had a similar experience with my mom when I was in my twenties, and I moved from one place to another. I actually moved to an ashram for, like, and I didn’t tell her, for at least a couple of weeks. It wasn’t as long as yours, but… I just had to do it. I didn’t think she would approve. And it was really… I just had to do it myself, and it felt—I knew it kind of hurt her, and I kind of didn’t like that. I felt a little bad, but in the end, it was almost like me growing up, like me saying I’m my own person, and like that little rebellious part of me as a kid needed to do that because I was always kind of a good kid. So yeah, I’m just relating to what you’re saying—like this could be healthy even, right? Going away from parents at a certain point.

If I didn’t have the story that it was bad, I could have, after two weeks, I could have fully embraced that and then spoken to her and I wouldn’t have been selling myself short. But because I was so wrapped up in the badness of it, it kind of just prolonged this “when do I ever talk to her again” thing. Without the thought, it could have been like two weeks or two days.

Yeah. Thank you for the story.

Yeah, you’re welcome. And you never know—like for you, it being longer, I don’t remember what you said, like six months or something like that, however long it was—that may have been how long it needed to be for you. I mean, that might have been the perfect amount of time, and two weeks would have been rushing it. And you’d go right back into the same pattern. So, who knows, right? What we’re exploring is the possibility that this could have been a really good thing that you did.

So, okay, “I have to feed into her idea that this is a bad situation”—that was her original statement. “I have to feed into my idea that this is a good situation”—that’s our turnaround. Are there any other turnarounds? I’m not sure there are. I don’t have to feed into her idea that it’s a bad situation.

Yeah. I don’t have to feed into her idea that it’s a bad situation. It’s that thing. Why not? It’s that thing of being in the same… You were talking about it last time I was on this thing, where you can be with someone—I think you were saying you’re at Christmas or something with your family—you can be with someone that is really different to you, but you can just be with them, and it doesn’t have to be this against vibe going on. You can hear what they’re saying, and you can be with them without making a…

Yeah, exactly. We have some kind of weird assumption that we have to think the same in order to be close, or to be friends, or to be somehow related. But we can actually be very different in our thinking and still feel connected. You know, it’s possible.

She can think what she wants. I just know that I had a good experience, and I feel myself being really loving with her in that moment.

Yeah. The only thing that blocks the love is this idea that you have to feed into something that isn’t true for you. “I have to feed into this is a bad situation,” when in reality it wasn’t a bad situation. Then I have to protect myself. It’s like this whole dynamic gets created, and now I have to sort of stay away emotionally, instead of, if she’s allowed to have her view and I’m allowed to have mine, then we can just love each other.

“I don’t have to feed into her idea that this is a bad situation.” She has to feed into my idea that this is a good situation, right?

And that might mean sharing what your experience was with her, so that she would have a chance to see that good side. Because maybe she can only see the worry.

Because I’m believing it was bad. So this is what I’m showing her with every ounce of my being. I’m transmitting that to her. I’m not transmitting that this was a good experience.

I got caught in that trap so much with my mom, like so much. I loved living in the ashram, and I would come home, and I felt shame. I couldn’t say anything. I was imagining what she was seeing of me, and I didn’t feel like I had any right to say my experience somehow. I just had to follow her lead, and so she had a wrong understanding of what my experience was. She thought I was, like, depressed or something.

Exactly. Exactly. That’s all she can see. Big misunderstanding. All she can see.

Exactly. So this just brings back this idea of standing in my own experience, seeing my experience for what it is, and then, on the basis of that, sharing bits of it here and there. Even though it’s not my business whether they see it or not, but from where I am, if my experience is real, it also can be contagious, and people do see it, or can see it. It’s just so easy to get caught up in the other person’s business. So easy.

Cool. Well, thank you for this work. Really. Like I said, I can relate.

Thank you.

In this episode, we looked at how to look for a thought to question in a stressful situation from years ago. And it basically means going back and putting yourself in the situation. Here you heard him there with his mother, giving a hug—like he was really in that situation. From there, all the stressful thoughts begin to come out, and then it’s just a matter of brainstorming and letting those thoughts be expressed. And then I was writing those down, or if you’re doing this by yourself, you can just write those thoughts down.

Next, we looked at why you can trust the stressful feeling to lead you in the right direction. So it’s all coming from the feeling. The feeling is that stress, that guilt, that feeling of unworthiness, whatever it is. In this situation, it was like that. And that will be giving rise to the words that you’re searching for, the stressful thinking that is connected to it. And if you listen to that, if you stay attached to that feeling, then you’re going to be finding the words that are connected to that. And when you do the work on them, it’s going to directly affect that internal experience.

And then finally, we looked at why guilt, when seen in the light, has little chance of persisting. Guilt is a perspective, and it comes from when the mind gets caught on something, and it just loops and loops. And when we bring in a larger perspective, as we did, and as we looked at the different turnarounds that came out here, you could see, like, oh, the perspective was getting larger, and the guilt naturally begins to diminish. So this is how to deal with it—not just guilt but any stress. The larger the perspective you have, the less strong that feeling is going to be.

So thanks for being here, listening, participating in this session, and I look forward to doing many more over the coming weeks, months, and years. And I’d love to have you be a part of it whenever it works for you. In the meantime, have a wonderful day, and thank you again.