Solving The Guilt Equation (Finally!) from A Mind of Her Own

As a psychiatrist, I was hearing from so many women in my practice, my personal life, (my mirror,) this feeling of “I’m doing so much. I keep taking on more and more and it just does not feel like enough.”

Is this something you’ve ever experienced? I find that when I ask women in these situations, “What is it you think you’ve done wrong?” The answer might be, “Nothing?” or, “Everything?” I started to realize that this was actually guilt. That women were feeling like, “No matter what I’m doing, I’m not getting it right. I’m missing something. I’m doing it the wrong way. I’m falling behind.”

During the COVID pandemic, I was home seeing patients in my private practice. My kids were knocking on the door frequently for things like cookies or snacks or questions. I just felt like I wasn’t doing anything well. I probably wasn’t exercising the way I was supposed to. I certainly wasn’t learning how to make sourdough or any of these other sort of performative actions that people were taking. And I found that so many women I was trying to care for were feeling the same way.

When I really tried to break it down into the most simple terms possible, I came up with something called The Guilt Equation. The Guilt Equation is just a way for you to take that guilty thought and examine it to understand, “Where is it coming from? Why am I feeling this way all the time?”

This is the equation: Guilt equals our expectations of ourselves in a particular role minus our perceived reality. Perceived reality in this case means what are we noticing? What do we believe to be true? If we believe to be true, “I’m not doing anything well. I’m the worst at everything. I’m a terrible mom. I’m not a great sister. I’m not doing a good job at work. I’m not ambitious enough. I’m too ambitious,” then this becomes our reality.

When it comes to guilt, then, it lives in the difference between our expectations of ourselves and how well we believe we’re measuring up. The important thing here though is these expectations are not those that we’ve just created out of thin air. These are items that we have been taught throughout our lives to carry. Expectations of the different ways that we are supposed to show up as women in our lives. Not only are we taught this, but it’s reinforced in our interactions with people in the world around us.

These expectations can grow so sky high that we feel like we’re never measuring up. And when we see that not reaching perfection as some kind of failure, we can feel like we’re constantly failing. This is what I hear from women, the sense of constantly failing or falling behind or not getting things right.

My goal in writing the book was to help them understand that this is guilt. It’s not that we’re ever going to eliminate guilt entirely from our lives. In fact, some guilt is adaptive. It may be one of the key reasons that we as a society have lasted and thrived the way we have. Because when we feel guilty, we’re saying to ourselves, “I’ve done something wrong. I’ve made a mistake. I need to make a repair.” It causes us to move toward someone else, to maybe apologize, to try and do something better.

But yet, this isn’t always the case in our modern life. We may not feel guilty for a specific reason. We may feel guilty about everything. Therefore, it’s not something that we can apologize for, repair, and move on. It’s not specific. It’s not something we can truly address. It’s everywhere. It’s constant.

I think this is so important for us to realize. That this is not because we are getting something wrong. This is because we’re perpetually trying to live up to and reach these sky-high expectations that others are holding for us and that we’ve absorbed as the only way to be. As if the only way to be loved and valuable is to take care of everyone around us, and the only way to be of interest to someone else romantically is to have a perfect body, to be the perfect sexual being, to be the perfect partner. The importance of understanding that this is guilt then allows us to address it, to recognize these expectations are not fair, they’re not reachable, and we have the power to create our own expectations based on who we are and who we want to be. What are our values? What is it that we want to do to show up in that particular role, and then do it to the best of our abilities. (But not with this idea that we could somehow reach perfection.)

This was important for me to share so that women know that this is guilt. In fact, many I’ve spoken to since releasing the book have said, “I didn’t think I had much guilt because I didn’t realize that’s what this was. I didn’t realize this constant feeling was actually guilt. And now that I know, that is so important because I can start to say, Hey, What do I have to feel guilty about? What are my expectations here? And also notice what am I’m doing well? How am I showing up for myself and for others?” Because when we dismiss that and only pay attention to ways we believe we’re falling short, of course we’re going to feel like we’re constantly failing.

Remember, we didn’t do this to ourselves. This is not because we are getting something wrong. But we have ways to push back, to reset those expectations, pay more attention to the things that we’re doing well, and show up differently in our lives, making decisions based on what we want and what we need, what we desire and what brings us joy, and not what we think we should be doing.

If you have interest in learning more about how to manage, understand your guilt, look for future episodes of Guilt Free, For Real. You can also check out my book, Guilt Free, available broadly, including an audiobook, which I read, and ebook, and I’d love to hear your feedback.

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Connect with Jennifer Reid, MD

Dr. Jennifer Reid is a physician, the host of A Mind of Her Own, and the author of Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life from Unreasonable Expectations — available at major retailers.

🌐 Website: jenniferreidmd.com Instagram: @JenReidMD Threads: Jennifer Reid, MD

Feeling inspired by this conversation? Start your own Guilt-Free Group at jenniferreidmd.com/guilt-free-groups.

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