Guilt the Only True Negative Emotion
For my entire career I have had clients come to me with issues relating to what they perceive to be negative emotions. They come with issues like sadness, anger, fear, etc. Whilst these are all powerful emotions which can elicit negative ramifications, they are not negative in and of themselves. For example, sadness is unpleasant, but it is the flip side of happiness. In other words, one cannot know true happiness without having known sadness.
There is an emotion which I have always told clients is an absolutely negative emotion which is guilt. Why do I say this? I say this because guilt does not have a flip side which could be construed as positive. Guilt, as an emotion, has been used as a mechanism of control from the earliest times in our history. It is used by religions to invoke control, by parents to restrict the activities of children, and lovers as a mechanism to maintain loyalty. These may be in, some cases, a necessary thing, but guilt leaves scars deep ones which limit sufferers lives and ability to enjoy what is out there.
If you feel guilty, do something about it. Make amends of let it go, the holding on to it is a major contributing factor to issues like anxiety and depression.
