Guilt is such a common emotion that comes up for parents. When you hear it talked about it’s more commonly met with a kind of ‘how to manage’ approach. This is also a kind of ‘get busy’ type approach giving us all kinds of things to do and direct our energy into controlling other things. Sometimes you might even notice that the advice is an attempt to take you away from feelings of guilt.
It comes up for me all the time. Am I spending enough time with my children? Do they have the same experiences as other children? Could I of handled that situation differently?
But could we look at it in a different way. Just the very fact that guilt exists might suggest that it is a sign that we as parents have a deep calling or yearning to be our childs best bet. In this sense guilt is a wonderful indicator that your parental instincts are intact. Imagine what type of parents we might be if we were incapable of feeling of guilt?
. What if this guilt was to be treasured in this way and allowed to be there. How might this drive us towards the caretaking needs that our children all need from us.
In my work with families, compassionate inquiry and the Neufeld Approach it’s our attention to really make space for this guilt to be there for in this way it has a very important job that serves us. Within this space maybe you might find some grief or some sadness for what has happened or maybe it can be challenged. It might be someone else’s guilt or a societal guilt that we may carry with us into our parenting. But if we make space for it with compassion then it’s much easier to be explored and find our other transformative feelings that all lead the way to parents becoming the answer to their children’s needs.
Feelings of guilt will always be close as parents and my invitation to parents is to really have them and form more of a relationship with them instead of the ‘doing something about them’ approach which seems to be far more common.
If you want to find out more about my work with families or compassionate Inquiry then please contact me here: mail@joeatkinson.co.uk