Years ago I began to realize that the experience we have of feeling guilty – the emotion of guilt, which is so awful and painful – is our way of punishing ourselves. Guilt is pretty much the most searing, painful emotion I’ve ever experienced.
When we believe we’re guilty (newsflash: we’re always wrong), then we’ll punish ourselves with that awful feeling that goes with the whipping in our mind.
Erica Jong wrote this poem that’s in her book Here Comes & Other Poems that happened to be on my parents bookshelf when I was a kid. I picked it up when I was a teenager and came across this poem that I’ve always remembered. I particularly have always recalled this first line, which reminds me of what guilt seems like.
Alcestis on the Poetry Circuit
(In Memoriam Marina Tsvetayeva, Anna Wickham, Sylvia Plath, Shakespeare’s sister, etc., etc.)
The best slave
does not need to be beaten.
She beats herself.
Not with a leather whip,
or with stick or twigs,
not with a blackjack
or a billyclub,
but with the fine whip
of her own tongue
and the subtle beating
of her mind
against her mind
For who can hate her half so well
as she hates herself?
and who can match the finesse
of her self-abuse?
Years of training
are required for this.
Twenty years
of subtle self-indulgence,
self-denial;
until the subject
thinks herself a queen
and yet a beggar—
both at the same time.
She must doubt herself
in everything but love
She must choose passionately
and badly.
She must feel lost as a dog
without her master.
She must refer all moral questions
to her mirror.
She must fall in love with a cossack
or a poet.
She must never go out of the house
unless veiled in paint.
She must wear tight shoes
so she always remembers her bondage.
She must never forget
she is rooted in the ground.
Though she is quick to learn
and admittedly clever,
her natural doubt of herself
should make her so weak
that she dabbles brilliantly
in half a dozen talents
and thus embellishes
but does not change
our life.
If she’s an artist
and comes close to genius,
the very fact of her gift
should cause her such pain
that she will take her own life
rather than best us.
and after she dies, we will cry
and make her a saint.
Wow. Isn’t that amazing? It so well describes slavery to the ego. We can bust free of that.
We can dissolve the mental chains that bind us to littleness and suffering.
I decided to give up all guilt and follow the instructions in A Course in Miracles: “I do not feel guilty because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision …”
What’s the “wrong decision?” It’s our beliefs. It’s our belief in unworthiness, in guilt, shame and blame. When we decide for those kinds of attack thoughts we will be upset – every time.
A Course in Miracles tells us: The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the punishment of God. Yet even in this it is arrogant. It attributes to God a punishing intent, and then takes this intent as its own prerogative.
It takes real willingness to undo the mind-training in guilt.
However, if we’re willing to go the other way, we can recover our right mind. It’s worth it. It’s so worth it.
LATEST ACIM PODCAST EPISODE: my topic is Choosing Heaven on Earth. ACIM teaches us that we can choose heaven or hell – it’s our decision. In this week’s episode, I share how we can help ourselves out of the low vibration of guilt and shame and live at a higher vibration. It’s not natural for us to suffer. And look for a new episode shortly!
