Choosing to Remain Guilty

Each time we’re tempted to get frustrated or upset, it’s helpful to remember that we’re actively choosing to not be at peace. Other people very well may have done unkind things toward us. But that has nothing to do with who we are. Unless we choose not to see it that way.

All negative emotions like anger, sadness, and fear come from an underlying sense of unworthiness, or guilt. And because we don’t like having that guilt, we do what everyone does - we project it out. And we hope that by seeing guilt in others, it has magically disappeared from us.

So by choosing to see ourselves as unfairly treated, we can point a finger at someone else and say, “There’s the guilty one!”

But as we all know, projecting guilt doesn’t do anything to lessen our deep sense of unworthiness. In fact, it does the exact opposite - it strengthens it. These powerful lines from A Course in Miracles help make it clear:

When you condemn a brother you are saying, “I who was guilty choose to remain so.” You could as easily have freed him from the past, and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him to it. And in his freedom would have been your own.

We can use all our negative emotions as triggers to remind us that we are condemning - either another person, situation, or even ourselves. And with that trigger reminder, we can gently make a different choice in our mind.

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