Right before a family vacation this summer, my daughter came to me with one of her creative projects: painting her room.

I immediately went into “guilty mode” because I knew that I had to say “no” if I were realistic about the time I could allot to it. I still had to pack my suitcase and close my business, finish pending jobs, send an email blast to inform my clients that we were closing for two weeks, record a new voice message and back up the computers.

I found myself in a predicament.

On one hand, I wanted to assist my daughter, but on the other hand, I knew if I helped her, I’d have to stay up all night catching up with my chores. I could have escaped the feeling of guilt by agreeing to her request, but I would have run against resentment for doing something that was inconvenient for me.

I realized that guilt and resentment are the currencies we use to pay for our desires.

With the currency of guilt, we buy the permission to do what we want when we think we shouldn’t—we want to do something that contradicts a value we were taught, but that we need to review. If you think about it, guilt comes from a sense of duty: “I should be eating healthy, but I don’t want to” and the form of payment to reconcile this discrepancy is guilt.

Resentment, instead, is like a debt. It builds up in our soul as a feeling of unfairness against ourselves: “I won’t say anything about your unacceptable behavior so I can keep peace with this relationship.” Resentment feeds the feelings of victimhood and powerlessness. It’s a self-made trap that seems impossible to escape from. But can we? And how?

In the case of my daughter, I chose honesty—I explained to her that if I stop getting ready for the trip to help her, I would have to deprive myself from sleep. She empathized with me, felt supported, my guilt washed away and I eliminated the possibility of building up resentment against her.

By choosing guilt over resentment we are taking care of ourselves first because guilt indicates where our soul wants to go. When we act despite our guilt, we take the road of self-discovery beyond our conditioning. At the same time, we exercise the muscle of honesty because it makes us wonder what works for us, hence giving us the power to negotiate fairer conditions in any of our relationships. But when our actions build resentment, we abuse ourselves in the name of “doing the right thing” or “avoiding to hurt someone’s feelings.” Eventually, this self denial becomes a habit (specially in women) and resentment densifies in our bodies as an illness.

The good news is that, as we gain more experience and review our values to only keep the ones that serve us, our desires will align with our values and the need to confront this duality, will subside. But until then, I remind myself, that choosing between guilt and resentment, is about choosing between honoring or denying myself.

Relephant: 

Lessons Learned From Parenting Guilt.

Author: Marilu Holmes

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photos: Lauren Hammond/Flickr