How to Handle the Guilty Ecologist
“Man is made or unmade by himself. In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.”
James Allen
How often do you feel guilty for choosing a course of action – from forgetting to take a bag shopping with you, to wasting printer paper, to using your car when you could have walked? What is the point of that feeling of guilt?
I would suggest that guilt can be a clue that something needs tweaking. Guilt is often a sign that we’re misunderstanding a cause and effect and that we’re heaping unnecessary blame onto ourselves.
Supposing I were to feel guilty about forgetting to put an apple in my son’s packed lunch. Here’s what my internal Guilty Ecologist would be telling me:
“Oh no, now he’ll probably grab his favourite chocolate bar from the newsagent’s on the way home. That’s not good for the planet (think of the embodied energy in that compared to my locally grown, organic apple!). It’s not good for humanity (it’s not even Fair Trade Chocolate!) or his health (chocolate bar = hydrogenated fat + white sugar mostly isn’t it? – yuk. What will that do to his insides?!). And all of that is my fault!!” All this time, my son, oblivious to my anguish, is carrying on with his day as normal. So, my thoughts about what I did and my projection of what the consequences might be are what’s triggering my guilt, not what actually happened!
As guilty ecologists, we can inflict plenty of torture on ourselves by failing to forgive our mistakes, our ignorance and our misunderstandings on our individual journeys to a more resilient future.
How could I have avoided torturing myself with my guilt in the example above?
Perhaps I could have done that by:
1. Being aware of the guilt.
2. Just watching my thoughts doing their monkeying around, rather than reacting to them.
3. Recognising my wish to live simply and sustainably and to nurture my son. Being grateful that I care.
4. Reminding myself of where my responsibilities lie – my son’s quite capable of making his own decisions about what to eat in place of the missing apple – or not. That’s his call. He might even learn something from doing that!
5. Take action to remind myself of the apple next time.
6. Forgive myself!
Written down that might sound like a lot of “stuff” for one small incident. In reality, this processing to relieve guilt can happen in a few seconds, with a bit of practice!
If, like me, you find yourself being The Guilty Ecologist from time to time, here are some ideas for preventing such self-torture:
Regret and Compassion
We can be sorry for what we did. Then we can recognise that the person who acted in the way we regret is not the same person that we are now. We are changing, evolving and developing all the time and can choose to act differently given a similar set of circumstances in the present or the future. We can have some understanding for the stresses we were feeling at the time that contributed to our actions.
Intention
We can reflect on our intention at the time of the incident. Sometimes we can cause harm to someone else or to the environment inadvertently. By asking ourselves what we had intended to happen, we can perhaps reduce the negative impact of our actions. For example, if I forget to take a bag shopping with me, I can choose to spend a little more money and buy a durable bag from the shop that I can re-use next time.
Learning the Lesson.
At the same time, if we’re in a situation where we’ve made a mistake and we can’t do anything to remedy it, then we can choose to accept the situation and to learn from it, rather than to undermine the rest of our efforts with guilt.
Responsibility
We can check whose responsibility the decision in question was. Perhaps the reason I didn’t have time to walk to my appointment was because I delayed my departure in order to help a colleague who had become unwell. Not all undesirable events that happen to us are our fault. Our responsibility is how we choose to deal with them.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is an art and an important part of learning how to live in healthy relationship with others and with ourselves. Part of this is reminding ourselves that all normal human beings make mistakes. If we are to be capable of forgiving others, then we will need to learn to forgive ourselves too.
Feedback
At a time when we’re feeling courageous, we can confess our mistake to someone else and ask for their opinions on it. Perhaps our reasons for feeling guilty are not fair on us and someone else’s feedback will highlight this for us.
Giving
A great way to soothe any emotion that we perceive as negative is to find ways to give to others. It’s remarkable how this simple act can change our outlook on a situation in just a few minutes. How does that work? Energetically, it reverses the energy flow. Guilt is self-directed negative energy – we don’t like ourselves. Giving is other-directed positive energy – just the opposite!
There are many negative emotions that can arise on our quest to live and work more sustainably. We can imagine these as being like weed seeds in our minds. If we feed them they will grow. All we need to do to ensure that they remain dormant is deprive them of nourishment i.e. stop dwelling on them, and instead focus on growing the seeds that are good for us. 
March 9, 2010
Posted in: Ethical Shopping
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