Dear Brooke,
Why do we feel guilty when we are happy, or that we don’t deserve things when they are going our way? This is a question my Jewish mother and I ponder frequently! I’m not sure what to make of it. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
JAM
Dear J,
This question may be short, but it’s so packed to the rim with beautiful, juicy, delicious, growing learning opportunities, that I’m pretty much beyond excited to respond. So, here we go…
The fact that you included the detail of your mother being Jewish isn’t for nothing. As it turns out, these feelings of guilt in response to happiness and success are actually in your genes. Really? Yes, really.
Let’s take a little journey through history…
In the 60s, therapists starting seeing tons of clients who were describing practically debilitating feelings of guilt. They described extremely traumatic experiences, including witnessing others around them die, or surviving as others were killed instead of them, simply by chance or blind luck. What the therapists found to be in common amongst an astounding number of these clients is that they were survivors of the Holocaust. These strong and beautiful survivors’ feelings of intense guilt, even thinking they were wrong or bad for living through the Holocaust, came to be known as Survivor Guilt.
(Currently, the label Survivor Guilt spans beyond Holocaust survivors and can be experienced by anyone who survived a traumatic event of any kind.)
So, even though there are Holocaust survivors of many ethnicities and religions, the Jewish culture has carried this survivor guilt in their bodies-minds-souls-core…since they started surviving which, come to think of it, according to Jewish text, has been happening since way before the Holocaust. But, I digress…
So, flash forward to present day.
Though the guilt you’re talking about is not directly connected to the Holocaust, the thing about Survivor Guilt is that it’s been passed down from generation to generation, and during that passage it’s shifted, changed, become diluted, even miscommunicated and misinterpreted. You, sweet darling, don’t feel guilty for surviving a traumatic event, though you are in fact a survivor; a joyful, blessed, beautiful, happy, healthy, and alive being, and you’re experiencing Survivor Guilt…circa 2010.
So, now that you have a total grasp on what’s going on with you and your cute mother, let’s talk about how you might shift your thoughts, because not only is this guilt not working for you, it’s actually not working for anyone around you either…
You can absolutely change your mindset to a place of being proud of yourself for where you’re at, and come to realize that empowering yourself actually empowers the people around you. Yes, you can actually help others by loving yourself. I know, crazy-exciting.
Like having a daily workout, the following is a daily mantra that I think fits the bill perfectly for working with Survivor Guilt, especially of the modern day variety. It’s an amazing quote by Marion Williamson that Nelson Mandela recited in his 1994 inaugural speech. I took out some “God” parts to make it more universal, but kept it in quotes nonetheless.
My suggestion: print this baby out, change it to the first person, and say it to your gorgeous face in the mirror every morning. And see what happens.
Without further ado…
“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be?? Your playing small does NOT serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the light that is within us, ALL of us. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others.”
So JAM, go shine your amazing light all over the place…and survive like nobodies’ business.
Love,
Brooke.
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