What Guilt Is Really Trying to Tell You

After years of working as a therapist, I learned to recognize a certain weight that my clients carried. It wasn’t exactly sadness, nor fear, though those were often present. It was guilt. This wasn’t a feeling that came and went, but instead, it looped in the minds of my clients. This guilt was redundant in nature, but it didn’t react to repetition as other things do. It didn’t dull with time.

I saw this guilt in the parents of children struggling with addiction, in spouses watching their loved ones battle chronic illness, and in caregivers who thought they should have done more, even after doing everything possible.

I was also familiar with this feeling because I’d carried it myself.

There’s something quietly desirable about guilt. It feels active. Guilt gives us a sense of agency, a feeling that if we try harder or research more, we can change what happens. It tells us we can make a difference.

Our guilt hides hope within it.

When Hope Isn’t Enough

At first, it’s strange to think of guilt as concealing the expression of hope. While guilt has other psychological functions related to past behavior (like those found here), it can also imply there’s something yet undone in the future. If my mother is sick and I feel guilty about it, perhaps I should visit in the coming days. If my friend is struggling, maybe I haven’t yet called enough or lent the right perspective.

Guilt preserves the possibility for change. It allows us to believe that with new effort, different outcomes remain possible. We’re not yet at the mercy of fate, time, or biology. In secret, guilt is an optimist.

But eventually, we encounter the limits of what we can control. No amount of guilt can make someone heal faster or protect the people we love from suffering. And when guilt leaves us with nowhere left to turn, we find ourselves staring at something we like even less: the feeling of powerlessness.

Why Powerlessness Scares Us

If guilt is movement, powerlessness feels like stopping. And we experience this stopping after we accept that our efforts won’t change how things turn out. For many of us, this is intolerable.

We aren’t a culture that sits well with powerlessness. We believe in productivity, in effort, in making things happen. To stop feels like giving up. And so, we keep feelings of powerlessness away by holding onto guilt a little longer. We convince ourselves there must be something left for us to do. It’s in these instances that guilt protects us from feeling powerless.

But what if powerlessness isn’t a threat? What if it’s something that might protect us?

There are times when powerlessness isn’t defeat but a boundary. It’s a recognition that we have done what we can, and now we must step back. This stepping back isn’t the same as abandoning. It’s not the same as withholding love.

Instead, accepting our powerlessness can ultimately bring us to rest. When we hold onto our guilt too tightly, we fatigue quickly. We push past exhaustion because we don’t think we have the right to stop. But what happens when the next crisis comes? What happens when we find ourselves in a situation where we can make a difference? If we’ve spent all our energy fighting battles we can’t win, we’ll have nothing left to win the ones we can.

Instead, powerlessness can invite us into rest, and this rest can prepare us for the future. But without accepting our powerlessness first, we can’t be sure that when our efforts do matter, we’ll be strong enough to act.

How to Let Guilt Go

The transition from guilt to rest isn’t easy. It requires accepting discomfort and sitting with feelings we’d rather push away. But it’s a necessary path, and it can be traveled. Here are some steps to start:

1. Recognize what’s within your control. Ask yourself: What can I realistically influence in this situation? If the answer is something, do that. If the answer is nothing, acknowledge it. Your energy is precious. Spend it where it counts.
2. Acknowledge the hope within your guilt. Remind yourself that you might feel guilty because it feels like action. Letting go of this guilt doesn’t mean you’re giving up on future action when it matters.
3. Reframe powerlessness as protection. Instead of seeing powerlessness as failure, see it as a necessary boundary. It’s the thing that guards your energy and keeps you from depleting yourself in a battle you can’t win.
4. Commit to rest as preparation. When you rest, you’re not abandoning responsibility, you’re preparing for it. You’re strengthening yourself for the moments when you can make a difference.

Guilt Essential Reads

Stop the Guilt: 3 Ways to Take Back Your Power to Say No

The Problem With Guilt

Releasing Guilt and Retaining Hope

Guilt tells us to do more. Powerlessness tells us it’s all been done. Rest tells us to prepare for what’s next.

When we change our approach to guilt, we make room for new clarity. With this clarity comes the ability to be present, not in a desperate attempt to fix the unfixable, but with the rest needed to help those we love the most.

That’s what our guilt hoped for, after all.