False Guilt

Lately I've been having wars with false guilt and while talking to some close friends, I know they've also experienced this kind of war. Feeling false guilt is tiring and frustrating. One type of the false guilt I've gotten over with is the "guilt" I felt for not being able to provide a grandchild to my parents and my in-laws. For some time the guilt stayed in my heart, but after a while I realized it wasn't "good guilt", so I threw it away. Every time it tried to appear, I threw it away again and again and now it's gone.

Another one that I'm trying to conquer now is the false guilt I have felt for saying "no", especially when I feel that I really don't want to take "more than I can handle", even if that means someone else has to do it. However, other people also have the power and right to say no, so it's not my fault if I set up my own limits of when I should say "yes" and when I should say "no".

I know one friend is experiencing false guilt now for not being able to take care of her father more often. I told her that it wasn't "healthy guilt" 'coz she has her own family and child to take care of and her Mom is the one who is more responsible to take care of her husband. I know it's hard to get rid of the guilt 'coz in the Asian world, normally the children feel more pressure to take care of their aging parents.

Another close friend has just told me that she used to feel guilty when she couldn't reply to our emails as often as she wanted to. However, due to her busy schedule, she knew she had to rearrange her own expectations so that she wouldn't be burdened with false guilt.

I come to think that it's true that in life we have to set up certain limits for ourselves, boundaries so that we don't get "carried away" with other people's pressures or expectations. Sometimes it's not so easy to figure out the boundaries settings, but if we don't do it ourselves, other people or life's circumstances will keep pushing the boundaries and in the end you'll feel invaded, frustrated, jaded, and even angry.

Anyway, I leave you now with these pics of a woodpecker that I was lucky enough to see the other day in front of my MIL's place. I wanted to take more pics, but it flew away already by then.


MIL said that just like a squirrel, woodpeckers love hiding its food somewhere. That was why it went up the tree, I suppose. :-D


OK, I'll blog hop later. Hope everybody's doing GREAT. ;-D I myself am a little bit under the weather (again), so I'm gonna take it easy and rest a lot during my days off.