Guilt

I’ve spent my whole life with a sense of guilt. I wasn’t filthy rich, but I was well enough off, and no one let me forget it. I heard the words “selfish” and “spoiled” very often, and was made to feel like I didn’t deserve anything that I had. That is why I spent my whole life not asking for anything, feeling uncomfortable when I get gifts, and denying myself anything special. My ego tells me I don’t deserve it. I try to give things away as much as possible, I have so much trouble buying anything for myself that I don’t completely need, and I feel extremely guilty for having anything at all. I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove that I’m not selfish and spoiled. That I deserve anything that I have.

This idea has even leaked into such mundane things. The other night I decided to have some tea. I had just washed dishes, so all of my coffee mugs were clean. What I usually do is start with using the ugliest mug and work my way up to the prettiest mug. I had never noticed that I did this before. I was consciously making decisions to choose the next ugliest mug, and yet I hadn’t bothered to wonder why I was doing that. I wanted to save the pretty mug. I didn’t “need” to use it. I would use it last, when I had nothing else to use. How weird! So that night, I decided to use my best mug, even though all the rest were clean. My body disagreed with this decision. My ego was so mad at me. It felt unnatural. I felt like it was a waste. I felt like I should save it for a special occasion – coffee on some beautiful, relaxing morning over the weekend. How weird that the simple use of a pretty coffee mug gave me so much heartache!

On a larger scale, I think this is also affecting… well, everything in my life, including work. I think my humbleness is just me feeling like I need to hold myself back, because I don’t deserve to go further in a career or make more money – I already feel guilty! I have to feel comfortable and worthy before I will timidly seek out such things. That was really astonishing when I made that realization. I’m definitely going to work on that. That is not how you have a successful career! I need to have confidence and know that I DO deserve everything I get. Maybe as a kid you could make that argument, but now I’ve gone to college and I’ve held jobs, so now there is no question that I do deserve it. This is all me. I did this all on my own. And again, the more I have, the more I can help others. I don’t have to feel guilty and deny myself opportunities just to prove some stupid point to the world. No one is even going to notice, anyway. Anyone who looks down on me is still going to judge me, despite any efforts on my part. Punishing myself isn’t going to help matters. That only hurts ME. It helps NO ONE.

I deserve to be happy.

I deserve to have a successful career.

I deserve to be healthy and beautiful.

I deserve happiness.

I deserve to be loved.

I deserve it all.

So now I’m going to go get it!