Guilt bombs make you hold onto negative opinions about yourself. “I don’t want anybody to be mad at me or dislike me so I don’t make waves!” … “I hate to hurt somebody’s feelings!”… “I can’t stand it when anyone is upset at me!” Those negative thoughts encourage you to soak up guilt like a sponge and require you to major in interpersonal miscommunications. Are you TOO good at guilt for your own good? Shahzam.
When you permit others to make up your mind about you, everyone’s in trouble. “You can guilt me into doing anything!” makes you feel as if you’re not good enough to be loved as you are. Some weighty but little-known guilt factors:
▫ Shame: “I get what I want by making you feel guilty!” is the ultimate purpose behind every guilt bomb dropped.
▫ NOT Good Enough: Guilt bombs include any transaction, verbal or written, that promotes: “I’m/you’re NOT good enough!” energy. This includes dirty looks that declare: “I’ve judged you to be the bad one here and NOT good enough…SO you owe ME!”
▫ Fear of Loss: Guilt bombs activate fear, fear of loss, fear of loss of love, fear of being punished because you are bad, bad to the bone, not quite good enough, beyond redemption.
▫ God’s Watching, You: Guilt bombs imply God’s watching you, judging unmercifully and ready to smack you down or take something away from you because you didn’t do something perfectly enough or follow the golden rule closely enough when you were mad.
▫ Fatal Flaw: Guilt bombs are laden with threats of abandonment. Namely, all guilt trips evoke the ugly feeling that you will be abandoned by your tribe in the wilderness of life.
▫ Smokescreen: Guilt bombs are a diversionary attack or smokescreen to fog over another problem or need for change in the guilt bomber. Guilt bombers are usually good at bullying and communication badgering.
▫ “This is TOO hard!” You can tell if guilt bombs are going off in your relationship world because you feel: “This (relationship/communication/compromising) is TOO hard!”
More often than not, guilt trippers continue to manipulate you and drop their bombs because the manipulation works. It works until you decide, “Enough, already!”
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a relationship coach and communications psychologist from Dayton, Ohio, and the author of TALK TO ME: Communication Moves to Get Along with Anyone available at his Web site. Dr. O’Grady is an avowed advocate of “traveling lightly down the two-way communicator highway.” “Traveling lightly” means you and I don’t lug around big suitcases of irrational, unearned and misplaced guilt that ditch your self-esteem and drag down your life energy and strand your creative talents.