My birthday this year fell on a Saturday and I made it a day of self-indulgence. I did absolutely nothing of 'value'; I lazed about, relaxed, ate exactly what I wanted and didn't feel guilty about a single thing I did, or didn't do, the entire day. It was fabulous but what struck me was the contrast to a regular day in the life of ! Oh my word, when did I slide into a cycle of feeling bad about feeling good?  

Guilt is an emotion that rules our world, often without us even realising. As children we learn that to get our strong need for love and approval met, we need to do things that others approve of. We start to think of guilt as being good; our conscience that stops us losing control, something that keeps the lid on those pesky uncontrolled urges that are most definitely not allowed.

Sadly, as any one who has ever dieted will know, the opposite is generally the case. Guilt is not a good motivator and feeling guilty does not necessarily have a positive impact on our behaviour.  In fact, more often than not, guilt creates an inner environment of anxiety and depression that makes change even harder. If not halted, this dynamic can become a closed circuit in which no matter what you do, you feel guilty.

There are a couple of ways to approach this catch-22. We can begin by reassessing our attitude towards guilt. We need to recognize that guilt is not our friend, it's a false friend that does not bring out the best in us. Instead it makes us feel bad about who we are and how we live and drains the pleasure from our life.

We can also question whose moral code or standards we are trying to live by? We often have an internal moral code, whether it's about what we say no to, our sexual orientation or our weight, that differs from socially accepted codes of conduct. It leaves us with a terrible choice, do we honour our true self, or do we bow to the pressure of externally imposed labels?

So to really tackle guilt head on, we have to understand it for the self-worth issue it fundamentally is. Can we find the acceptance and approval we crave within ourselves? Freeing ourselves from the tyranny of guilt is a lesson in unconditional love. It's about loving the disappointing side of ourselves as much as we love the pleasant.