In the last installment of this series on guilt, I discussed the false and conditioned belief that we are guilty if someone else is uncomfortable or disappointed. I suggested a reframe, namely, to see guilt as an opportunity to become aware of and challenge the cultural narrative that sits behind your guilt and that your behavior threatens. And to question the conditioning we receive about who and how we should be as good women and good mothers. Furthermore, our agreement to feel guilty reinforces a broken system that promotes destructive and faulty narratives.

What we don't learn is that we can meet our own standards, behave in a way that we respect, and even be proud of our choices and efforts, and, at the same time, someone else can be disappointed in us, and not get what they need from us. The experience of being in alignment with ourselves and someone else being unhappy and even unhappy with us, lo and behold, can coexist. And yet, we bring in guilt to bridge that gap and create cohesion, to make those two seemingly disparate experiences make sense. Guilt is there to remind us we've done wrong on account of the other person's disappointment, which further promotes false assumptions of our responsibility. This is the primary narrative that we struggle with as women, and the one that keeps our guilt at the ready and on constant replay. If someone is not okay (other than ourselves), then we have failed at our primary job--taking good care of others.

But even though we're not taught this, we can deeply care about other people's experience, and also, not feel responsible for it, or........

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