Don’t Let Others Make You Feel Guilty
If someone is making you feel guilty, watch out! You could be dealing with a person who wants to manipulate you for their own benefit.
Making someone else feel guilty is one of the easiest ways to get something done. Guilt has enormous power and it isn’t necessarily positive. It’s actually quite the opposite, people can use it to manipulate you and get what they want from you.
Guilt is the feeling that makes you believe you’ve done something wrong, that you haven’t adjusted to what’s expected of you, and you need to fix it somehow.
Sometimes it humbles you and causes you to ask for forgiveness. Other times it makes you act in a way that benefits another person. But… what if it’s all a trap?
Manipulation makes you feel guilty
When you’re confronted with a manipulative person, they can make you feel guilty about what you’re doing. But most likely they don’t have any valid reason for causing you to feel that way. For example, a manipulative person in a relationship can make you feel bad about spending time with your other friends. This allows them to try to control you and also treats the person that they’re partnered with like a puppet.
Sometimes, this happens because of fears, insecurities, or jealousy. These provoke this type of attitude that harms the manipulated person. In fact, they feel guilty for not making the other person happy, for making them angry, when this isn’t the case.
Letting someone else manipulate you can make you feel bad, and when it’s constant over time it can damage your self-esteem. You might not want to admit that other people – whether it’s a partner, a family member, or a friend – can make you doubt what you’re doing, what you have the right to do, or what you like.
It’s important to reflect on what you should prioritize and what you shouldn’t so as not to allow others to make you feel guilty.
Learn why Self-Esteem is the Key to Happiness
People aren’t always right
The biggest problem with not questioning why others urge you to stop doing something because they think it’s wrong is that it can make you feel guilty and that you have to provide an explanation.
Why are you doing this? Because you have the bad habit of depending on the approval of others and their opinions: above all, how the people around you make you feel.
If your partner makes you feel bad because you’re out with friends, you’ll stop doing it even if it hurts. The opinion of the person by your side often matters more than your own. It’s important to know how to set limits and identify what it is you won’t ever tolerate in a relationship.
You have to be clear about this so that no one has the right to make you feel bad without your permission. Thus, you must impose limits and be aware that the decisions you make are not in the hands of others, but in your own.
Read these Habits for a Happy Relationship
Trust your gut
It’s important to be clear so that no one has the right to make you feel bad when what you’re doing makes you feel good.
What you want matters. What makes you happy is what counts. You don’t have to satisfy others and their desires, or what they think is right or wrong. The only person that matters is you. Thus, you decide what you want to do and when you want to do it.
You’re no longer a small child at the mercy of powerful parents who tell you what to do. Now you’re an adult with the power to make your own decisions. You’re free to do what you want, even if other people judge you or don’t agree.
Keeping this in mind can help you overcome fear and not let anyone make you feel guilty.