Guilt is women’s most unpleasant friend.

As I write this article, I'm about to accomplish a goal that I've dreamed of for months. When I found out that my plan was going to work, my first reaction was not to celebrate, but to cry. "Do I deserve it?" I asked myself.

Seeing me crying, my mother told me something I didn't remember. When I was a child, I won a scholarship to study in a high-ranking school. She told me that I had the same reaction at that time. Crying, I asked her: "Do I deserve it? And how about my friends?".

I'm not trying to say that I'm "the queen of empathy." In fact, most women feel guilty about something. One British survey showed that 96% of women feel ashamed at least once a day. I concluded that guilt is our most unpleasant friend.

Since childhood, we are trained to be people pleasers. In addition, we learn to assume too many roles. And it's almost impossible to succeed in each of them. Guilt is one of the consequences of this whirlwind of demands.

On the other hand, as a study suggests, men don't seem to suffer from the same ailment. A patriarchal society requires much more from women than from men. From the top of my head, I can list things that make you feel guilty daily.

Guilty because you don't feel like a good mother/wife/daughter/friend/professional. Guilty because you don't want to be a mother (or because you can't). Or because you don't eat healthily. Perhaps you pay the gym and don't go. Or maybe you are not productive 24 hours a day, and, sometimes, you want to do nothing.

Guilty for putting yourself first. Guilty because your house is messy. And because you feel beautiful (or don't feel beautiful enough). We feel guilty for being happier than the people we love, and we feel guilty even for things out of our control.

Can you add more items to this list? I bet you can.

Behind the feeling

Some specialists claim that guilt comes from the fear of making mistakes. Thus, it's more common among perfectionists and self-critical people. Another characteristic of those who feel guilty is the habit of rumination: you create scenarios about what people think about you, about what you did or said, or even about what you didn't do.

So, it's essential to know how to differentiate the guilt about actual events and that one you feel based on your thoughts (not real!). My example, some paragraphs above, is a good one: why did I feel guilty about my colleagues?

Could I pay the school for them? No. If I refused the scholarship and continued studying in the public school, would it make any difference in their lives? Also, no. Would I miss a fantastic opportunity if I had said "no"? Yes! So, the guilt is entirely useless, right? It wouldn't help me, and neither would it help my friends.

Once I read somewhere that guilt is an empty feeling. It doesn't provoke change or growth. On the contrary, it can paralyze you. It sucks your energy, taking too much space in your thoughts. It can trigger problems like insomnia, anxiety, and low self-esteem.

Getting rid of it

You may have already noticed that I'm not the best person to advise on guilt. But everything that I researched about this subject points in the same direction. You can take the blame out of your daily thoughts when you assume responsibility for your actions.

Back to the "real guilt" versus "imaginary guilt." Let's start with the real. If you know that you messed up with someone or feel that you are not doing enough in some area of your life, you can do something realistic about that. Evaluate the possibilities (maybe an apology?), change habits that bring you guilt, and pursue moves that can improve your life.

Nonetheless, pay double attention to the imaginary guilt. Maybe the feeling that keeps you awake at night is just the result of something you made up. Sometimes, we compare ourselves too much to the ideals of a "perfect mother," a "perfect professional," and a "perfect body" as we want to become the real-life Wonder Woman.

Since it's impossible to accomplish all these roles with perfection, it is beneficial for our mental health to allow ourselves to make mistakes. The guilt decreases when we create our own "quality standards." It's a cliché, but accurate: the only comparison that generates growth is the one we make with our past selves.

To conclude, it's always important to remember that our journey here, on this planet, is individual. Even the "queens of empathy" or the "Wonder Women" have to know the right time to leave the stage and let their loved ones grow by themselves.