Are you stuck in the dance of guilt?

The Dance of Guilt
What is guilt? Have you ever realized how you react to guilt? Most of us do what I call the dance of guilt. Life is so much about moving towards or moving away from anything and everything. When we feel guilty we often retreat into the moving away from stance. We withdraw from life. We find a way to hide until the guilt has eased.
Maybe we do this because we fear that whatever we feel guilty about may happen again, because if we were so weak in the past to act in a way that now makes us feel guilty, how can we be sure that we will not do so again?
Or sometimes we react aggressively, the anger within that feeds guilt takes hold. Have you ever noticed a common tactic to respond to guilt is try to dump guilt onto those around us? If we do they enter the dance and either attack us back or withdrew from us. The beat of the dance of guilt seldom allows us to communicate.
Do you know anyone who loves guilt? So why do we participate in the dance of guilt? It’s kind of like the party game pass the parcel. We either pass it on to get it back and despite sometimes holding onto it just long enough to take of a layer of wrapping we seldom get to the gift within.
Is that because we do not want to take responsibility for out guilt because that feels bad? Kind of like winning pass the parcel, many of us feel guilty about receiving gifts and feel we have to reciprocate straight away.
Perhaps we should keep the parcel, get right down to the gift and then share it. To hold onto guilt and let it go and get it back again and again is a destructive process. Perhaps getting down to whatever it is we feel guilty about, accepting the responsibility and knowing we have learned not to repeat it is a way of letting go.
If we can let go we may be able to remember our innocence, what it felt like not to be guilty. In remembering this we may too remember the innocence of those around us.
Why not just for today look at the areas of your life where you are either withdrawing or getting angry. The areas of your life that are not running smoothly are often connected to anger or withdrawal. Ask yourself exactly what is it that you are feeling bad about to act in such a way that you are. Find it! Open the parcel and then let it go. End the dance of guilt once and for all.
To remember innocence is to find the path to a new level of success. Getting back onto the path of innocence can be a difficult struggle. Staying on it once found can feel so good.