How Can I Deal With Ongoing Guilt Over Something I Did as a Child?

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:05]How can I deal with ongoing guilt over something I did as a child?

[00:00:12]So this it's a tough question. Everybody knows this is a tough question when it comes to the past and how people deal with past. But let's just say it as it is.

[00:00:21]We have a control problem.

[00:00:25]And it's okay to say that because it's not a problem. It's nature. And it goes like this. Our brain is wired to always want to be the one that owns. No one wants to be a rent. I want to be the owner. Why?

[00:00:41]Tell me why. Tell me how. Tell me exactly. I need to know. So this is what happens. Anybody anybody who faces any decision in in in life, the first thing is maybe it's not going to happen. So there's fear of future. Hey, in the past I I I didn't do didn't do well. So it's haunting me a lot of things in the past.

[00:00:58]So what happens is people are never in the present. They're never able to have clarity of mind to be fully present in the present.

[00:01:06]And so our question is dealing with the past and we have to unpack this slowly.

[00:01:12]Number one, we're not dealing with something I did to someone else. I hurt someone's feelings. I was insensitive.

[00:01:19]That would be a different question. And obviously that has to be an apology, a genuine apology. And the word apology is not the words sorry, but it's the emotion. And there's a big cloud, a big rule that goes like this in emotions. If you have a genuine emotion and you share it in the right time, the recipient will feel it. It's not words and it's not fancy words and fancy letters. It's do you really feel the emotion of deep shame, not shame, deep pain of what you did and deep regret of what you did. Share that with the person who you pain. That's a different discussion. Our discussion that we're dealing with is not necessarily I did something to someone else, but I messed up in an interview. I lost an opportunity. I said something to I said something and I looked like a fool. How do we get over that? And so here's three points for that. Number one, learn from the past. Identify the mistake and don't repeat it. A fool does something twice.

[00:02:24]Don't repeat the same mistake. Number two, it's very nice to say, I learned something, but end of the day, I'm still looking at my past. I'm like, I went through such a shameful experience, and that experience is still living within me. Reframe it. Stop.

[00:02:44]It wasn't a shameful experience for nothing.

[00:02:49]Allow that shameful experience to actually be something productive for you forever. You can actually use that experience and you can't buy it for no money in the world. You can use it as the most expensive teacher you paid for.

[00:03:08]Use it for moments of relationships, for moments when you feel like you're like smirking at someone and you're almost about to step on someone else's feelings. Remember, you also were humbled once. You also made mistakes.

[00:03:24]Relax. Humbling experiences actually help us remember who we are and they help us connect truthfully to others. Cuz if we made a mistake, the other person's also allowed to make a mistake. So, it's going to allow me to be sensitive to someone else's feelings.

[00:03:42]I was also went through that experience.

[00:03:43]And if you look carefully in life, you'll see a lot of people who are exceptional people, they had stories.

[00:03:48]People love hearing stories. Why?

[00:03:50]Because at the end of the day, it depends if we take our experience and turn it into a story. Turn it into a story. Turn it into something that you say, you know what? It was an experience I never wanted, but I'm looking back.

[00:04:03]I'm seeing how this actually helped shape who I am. That's a different way of looking at your past. You're suddenly having a productive twist and redefining that story. And now you can take the third step. Now you might ask yourself, why did that happen to me? First of all, you already took out something productive. You already learned that we don't control this world. David sends us messages. It's up to us to turn them into stories. It's up to us to identify those experiences. You say, "You know what? It was shameful. I messed but I learned something so valuable and you never know where in life those valuable lessons can be used. It's like a post-dated check. You never know when it can be used. What do we know about life?

[00:04:46]In the end of the day, in the end of the day, instead of saying I know and I'm supposed to know, yes, you should know as much as you can. But you also know you don't know and you'll never know and it's impossible to know. So, who knows?

[00:04:56]Maybe that experience will actually be a defining moment that's going to help you somewhere in life. Not who knows but it has to be because who sent that experience. Now you're able to let go.

[00:05:08]You're able to say I don't know. It's okay. I don't know. I don't need to know cuz he knows. So the why is crooked.

[00:05:17]It's not meant to answer. I'll tell you why. Who are you to say why? I'll tell you what I learned from it. But why? I don't know why. And I don't care to know why. He knows why. I'm busy figuring out what I can take out of it. If we take our past and we split it that way, we suddenly look at a rich experience instead of a humbling experience. Yeah, it's not an experience that I chose, but he sent it to me and I turned it into my story. Now, you turned into someone who has a,000% present in their present. And as a matter of fact, the past can actually help me be even more present in my present rather than robbing me of my present.