Just Because It Works, Doesn't Mean You're Doing It Right
Kids often teach you things. Usually, it's indirect and unintentional on their part. From my children, I have discovered...
The dirty socks underneath the game room couch will never reach critical mass; you can always fit more.
Saying, "My kid would never..." will guarantee they will exhibit that exact behavior or something far worse in the next seven seconds.
I am actually not too terrified of roaches to kill them or even to chase our oldest child around the house, dangling the one I just pulverized by the leg. (Sometimes parents are just toddlers with mortgages.)
Recently, my oldest kiddo taught me something very explicitly and intentionally.
Gone are the days I could kick his ass in soccer or basketball just by virtue of being taller and weightier. He is fourteen now, and he's got a lot of game. So he undertook the task of teaching me how to kick a soccer ball properly.
He explained what part of my foot to use, but I still kept kicking with my toe, which was producing not bad results, smashing the ball against the wall at which we were aiming. Very patiently, he explained...
I know that seems to work, but this is one of those things...It works to use your toe now, and it seems harder to use the top of your foot, but if you practice it, eventually, it will work way better than using your toe.
I may not be able to kick a ball worth a shit, but I am 47 years old; I have been here before -- this place where the easier method worked just fine...until I hit that ceiling and it would take me no further, not get me where I wanted to go.
Guilt is like this. Guilt is a motivator.
I will write that freelance piece, clean the kitchen, water the yard, volunteer for that field trip, finish that work assignment, all in an effort not to feel guilty. Feeling bad about something in the manner of guilt is always, in some way, morally tinged. It's not just that the dirty bathroom is bothering me; it's that I am a bad person for having a gross bathroom. (This isn't logical; it's deep-seated emotional stuff.)
Guilt will get me places.
It will get things done. It has for years...until suddenly, it's not. Guilt will not get my novel edited or published because no one is counting on that from me except for me. And in the case of the dirty bathroom, since I've let it go so far for lack of time and prioritization, guilt is actually backfiring; I am not cleaning but avoiding the bathroom so I won't be faced with feeling bad about the dirt. So yeah, guilt works, but not always. Sometimes it results in using a whole bunch of energy to avoid something instead of getting it done or letting it go. Plus, it doesn't feel very good.
There's something else: choice.
There is what I want to, what I think is important to do. There is internal motivation instead of external. So no, I don't want to edit the novel, but I do want to see it in print, so it's important to do the editing. The bathroom, honestly, isn't yet an undeniable health hazard, so it can fucking wait. It's not that important right now. I choose to ignore it; end of story.
Guilt feels internal, but it has an external origin.
Guilt is about what other people would think of your behavior: your friends, your parents, even your god. Guilt is about feeling watched, afraid to be caught "being bad" even if no one is actually watching you.
I'm still working on this; guilt creeps in and, more often than not these days, prompts me to avoid the thing I'm feeling guilty about. Letting go of that guilt makes room for ownership and choice. It's the harder path for me right now because I'm not practiced at it. It's kicking the ball with the top of my foot.
Kicking the ball with my toe gets the ball where I want it to go, but it hurts my foot. Kicking it "the right way," as instructed by my teenager, feels a lot better, and after fifty or so tries, it went further, faster more accurately than did my aching toe kicks.
So I'm going to keep practicing letting go of the guilt and owning my choices. It doesn't come naturally yet, but it does feel good. And it’s funny how often letting go of guilt doesn’t look any different from the outside — I still end up doing a lot of the same things. They just feel better and more self motivated.
What tasks do you complete to avoid guilt? Do you ever hide from those things instead of doing them, like I do from the bathroom?
Great human touch, April.
I hear some of this guilt infused with shame as well which makes it extra spicy. It reminds me of something that happened to me a few years ago which (after painfully going through the eye of the needle) I learned self-forgiveness.
Great work!