ELF: How to be Even
Better at Guilt
Note: If you’ve skipped straight to this chapter it’s going to get a bit weird and confusing in here for you; I’d strongly recommend reading the book in order instead.
For the purpose of this book, I’d include the following terms within the embarrassment of riches that is guilt:
The Guilt ELF (Excellence of Limited Function) triggers when we think we may have done something that is considered either by us, or by others, to be ‘wrong’. If you’re a familiar user of the Guilt ELF, you’ll probably recall that we already covered in an earlier chapter how guilt has virtually no useful purpose whatsoever.
The Guilt ELF is also purely a result of our cultural training – one culture will consider a particular behaviour to be part of polite etiquette and another will find it totally unacceptable. The okay hand gesture used in many Western countries is a good example. Yet the gesture means ‘money’ in Japan, ‘zero’ or ‘worthless’ in France, ‘homosexual’ in Venezuela and Turkey, and ‘go away’ in Brazil. If you made this gesture unwittingly in these countries you might notice a strange response from the locals – at the time you might be puzzled but not guilty. You could only feel guilty about it later, if someone told you you’d made an unintentional error. This highlights the fact that guilt is an optional learned response rather than a ‘something’ you inherently have.
Keep that in mind as you read on…
Having explored the previous ELF recipes, you’ll be more familiar with the slightly strange phrase:
‘In order successfully to dû guilt you must dû the following things. It simply will not work properly if you don’t.’
Let’s look through the recipe book that celebrates the genius of the Guilt ELF and, while we’re doing that, explore how easy it’s going to be to finally fail at being a genius at it.
You’ll remember filters from the ‘filter for red’ exercise, where looking for red things made red things show up. Well, in the recipe for guilt, the first step is to be really brilliant at filtering for:
1. More evidence for ‘even if we didn’t intend to’:
» How wrong, bad, hurtful or selfish we are.
» Our mistakes.
» How we always get it wrong.
» How we are the cause of others’ pain and suffering.
» How we do nasty things.
» How we make things turn out bad, how we spoil and ruin things.
» Why we should feel guilty.
» How we’re thoughtless.
» How we’ve contravened some code or broken some rule.
» How we’ve let people down.
» How we don’t deserve or are not worthy of something.
» How we’re to blame.
» How we ought to have done something that we either are not doing or haven’t done.
» How we are less good than others (‘better people’).
You may notice some similarity with some of the above and some of the elements of the Low Self-esteem ELF filter (see Step 1: Filter). As a result, these two often go hand in hand; and sure enough many people with low self-esteem feel very guilty and vice versa.
2. We can also generate guilt in advance by anticipating that we might wrong someone, or feel guilty about something, well ahead of the event.
Exception filter
This ELF could be easily derailed if you:
So, if there are any warning signs of this breaking out, the Guilt ELF:
Everything seeming to be fine is therefore very worrying, as we know we’re bound to have done something wrong, and either we’re not aware of it or don’t even feel remorseful about it. This makes us feel guilty for not feeling guilty.
Here’s the filter in a handy table for quick reference:
| Pattern | Single event | Creates prediction | Filter |
| Guilt | We start to mess up and make things ‘bad’ | Just as I thought, I’ve made it bad for everyone | How am I ruining this? How am I embarrassing others or myself |
| Guilt | I’ve not made anyone upset or embarrassed myself | At least, not yet! This false sense of ‘okayness’ is just setting me up for a bigger fall when I start to make things go wrong, as I am just about to do I am doing something ‘bad’; I’m just so inept I’ve not even noticed it yet |
Even ‘okay’ guilt-free periods are just a signal that I’ve probably already messed up or am about to; all moments are seen as the same (guilt-filled) |
So you can see that if you are good at running the Guilt ELF then:
When you see it this way you can see how perfectly designed it is as a foolproof mechanism for getting you to stay guilty; again truly a work of genius!
Do you sometimes use any of the above filters?
Yes/No
When you dû that does it get you a life you love?
Yes/No
Remember, these are things you dû, so there will be some times when you aren’t dûing them; naturally, in those times, you won’t experience guilt.
The power and fragility of the ELF
As covered in the earlier chapters, we can easily see how this will rapidly cause a spiral of guilt, yet in spite of its powerful appearance, the ELF is fundamentally a fragile, easily exposed confidence trick.
Failing at the ELF
Notice what happens when we consider what would naturally result from swapping these filters, and instead:
» How successfully things turned out.
» How we aren’t responsible for the happiness of the world and for other people.
» Knowing deep inside that it’s okay not to get things right all the time.
» How many mistakes aren’t that serious in the greater scheme of things.
» How no one gets it right all the time.
» How people aren’t that concerned or aware of most errors.
Clearly taking on this version of the world produces a very different, and much more fulfilling life experience.
If, when reading this, it strikes you as a ridiculously distorted way of looking at reality, you would in some ways be right. However, it’s no less distorted than the Guilt ELF, which discards any positivity and amplifies all negativity to exactly the same extent. If this ELF can be so powerfully disruptive in our lives, then starting to put energy into excellence of being at peace will have an equal yet opposite effect. The question to ask is probably not ‘is this a distortion?’ but:
Which one would you rather have?
This, in common with the other ELF recipes, uses the familiar words of generalizations:
Due to the specific focus of the Guilt ELF the types of phrases used are different from other ELFs.
Guilt generalizations
‘Every single time I stop being guilty about everything, that’s always when everything goes wrong.’
‘I have to control everything.’
‘I have to be responsible for everyone’s feelings.’
Do you sometimes find yourself using these ways of thinking or speaking?
Yes/No
When you dû that does it get you a life you love?
Yes/No
Failing at the ELF
Notice what happens when you use that simple question mark approach: ‘I have to be responsible for everyone’s feelings.’
‘Everyone’s?’
Once again, the ELF shows up how fragile and how easily disrupted it can be.
As mentioned earlier (see Failing to use the ELF):
| Pattern | Step into | Step away from |
| Guilt | ‘Wrongness’, others’ potential, imagined or real upset, guilt-filled feelings and memories or anticipations | Being at peace, things working out and recognizing others have a responsibility for themselves |
To maintain high levels of guilt ensure that whenever possible you step fully into the guilt-filled feelings and memories or anticipations of events. Disregarding peaceful experiences, not stepping into or enjoying relaxation and the times when things worked out well, or seeing others responsibility for their own lives will also massively help in maintaining the Guilt Elf.
Do you sometimes find yourself devaluing or distancing yourself from positive memories and experiences and immersing yourself in disempowering or negative memories or anticipations?
Yes/No
When you dû that does it get you a life you love?
Yes/No
Failing at the ELF
It’s easy to see that if we just switch this around, we immerse ourselves in positive life-affirming memories, anticipations or experiences and step away from the disempowering ones, then the whole ELF just falls apart, and instead we become a genius at being peaceful, Present and happy.
We can see from the chart below the specific uses of time in the Guilt ELF:
| Pattern | Past | Present | Future |
| Guilt | Guilty – I should have managed those situations better to avoid the problems | Polluted by forthcoming inevitable guilt, which I have to plan for to avoid getting it wrong as much as possible | Full of a million disasters – so, even my detailed planning won’t be enough to avoid them all |
To develop a powerful experience of guilt, it really helps to focus fully on the guilt-laden future you are responsible for creating. The only thing you can count on about your future is it’s going to be tense and difficult and no matter how far ahead those problems may be, it’s vital to feel the shame about them now.
Do you sometimes find yourself having these kinds of relationships to your past, present and future?
Yes/No
When you dû that does it get you a life you love?
Yes/No
Failing at the ELF
It’s easy to see that if we just change any of this, then the whole ELF just falls apart, and instead, when we take on an ‘at peace’ approach to time, we become a genius at being peaceful, Present and happy.
Good indicators of playing internal negative soundtrack include phrases such as:
It also really helps if you can include any phrases that ensure you focus entirely on the forthcoming guilt-filled future.
Do you have a negative soundtrack that sometimes encourages guilt?
Yes/No
When you dû that does it get you a life you love?
Yes/No
Failing at the ELF
If this is your ELF you should recognize some of these examples. Imagine if you started to say the opposite things to yourself with the same conviction and authority as you currently use when telling yourself the negative things – just notice what would naturally happen as a result. If you start to do (consciously and intentionally) the things that people with profound peace and trust in themselves, and the world, dû without thinking, then the ELF couldn’t work any more and you’d naturally start to feel the same about yourself as they do about themselves.
To maintain the Guilt Elf it really helps to be in overdrive, very busy, always on the go and to avoid relaxation and physical calmness.
Do you sometimes notice your posture encourages feelings of guilt in certain situations?
Yes/No
When you dû that does it get you a life you love?
Yes/No
Simply moving yourself around differently or changing your posture will prevent effective running of the ELF.
This section is quite similar for all ELFs but, as it’s so important, I’ll repeat it one last time. When any one of the ELFs is at work, it really feels as if it’s all just happening to us and that there is very little we can do about it. We just have to wait for it to pass, which puts us completely in the passive, powerless, victim position that we discussed in the chapter on Dû.
It also leaves us with the sense that since we can’t sort it, it’s something out of our control that we’ll just have to live with.
Failing at the ELF
As soon as we begin to recognize we do have some power, this piece of the ELF ‘machinery’ melts away. This is because the Guilt ELF thrives on, and needs you to have, a sense of powerlessness to keep you trapped in it; once you’ve seized back the reins of control, the ELF just can’t function and it completely fails.
Having looked through this pattern, you should have noticed that when you dû guilt you use these styles of thinking. And when you don’t think in that way, you don’t feel ‘guilty’.
Consider the bit of the recipe that you use most often – check out what would happen if instead of dûing what you normally do, you started to do the opposite – what would happen to those feelings of guilt then?