Tips for Coping with Guilt for Widows

Guilt is destructive to our minds. Guilt is something that can erode our self confidence and our ability to live a normal happy life. I understand how guilt occurs with widows and widowers through regret, mistakes…however we need to understand what is causing the guilt and then work on the underlying reasons.

G =Give yourself an emotional break! You are human, you make mistakes…unfortunately our imperfection causes us pain however in our imperfection lies our “humanness”

U = Understand that if the guilt is over someone who has died, there is little practical things we can do. Concentrate not on what went wrong in the past but how that can turn into the right thing for the future – which is in your hands.

I = Idolise them not! We can punish ourselves for our imperfection whilst seeing our loved ones as perfect. Somehow death make us remember the good, not the frailties in their personality. I found that once I didn’t feel guilty remembering the true person – the one who had good and bad traits….then I could understand how my guilt occurred. You loved them because they weren’t perfect!

L = Love is not perfect. Love is about accepting each other for the good and the bad. A missed word, a silly argument before death does not take away our love…it shows our love as it overcomes those mistakes.

T = Try to write down one thing that you could do through learning from the guilt. So if you had a silly argument then resolve to never go to bed before resolving any problems in the future….if you hadn’t said you loved them recently, then tell people around you what value you bring to their lives.

[image by istockphoto]