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MY SUNDAY JOURNAL
By Dalton Roberts
For IPS Features
2-10-02
THOUGHTS ON GUILT
From 1989 journal notes
Guilt is proof we have integrity. The word integrity comes from the
Latin word "Integritas," which means health or wholeness. Your
sense of integrity is that which hold you together, that which gives
life meaning for you. When you violate that, it should make you feel
guilty and you should remain guilty until you repair the damage and
restore wholeness.
Yes, some innocent people do feel guilt. Some of them have adopted the
impossible standards of people who shaped them in their formative years.
This kind of guilt is an illness, a job for mental health experts.
There are people who are guilty but feel no guilt. Flee them. It is a
form of madness. They are dangerous.
Unlike some "modern" mental health experts, I think repentance
helps to purge guilt. But to dwell on old sins means we are still drawn
to them. To continually be repenting over such acts from our past when
we were poorly informed, locks them into our awareness, spoiling our
days like a bad apple spoils a whole barrel.
Actually, the root meaning of "repent" is to turn from. So if
we have truly repented, we have tossed aside the acts of our past that
violated our sense of integrity, or wholeness.
FIND A NEED AND FILL IT
From 1990 journal notes
Once when I was discouraged, one of my special pen pals, Sparklea
Tartanian of Endwell, New York, wrote me to "find a need and fill
it." It seemed like such a blase suggestion that I was disappointed
in the lack of eloquent advice I expected from her.
She is such a fine writer with exciting, colorful ways of illustrating
truth, and here she was just telling me to find a need and fill it.
As I pondered her simple words, I saw a profound truth emerging. When we
are doing something to help a person or higher cause, there is much less
room in our consciousness for discouragement and unhappiness. We move
from a morbid inward preoccupation to the wide and wonderful world of
other people.
Dale Carnegie had a "14 day plan to beat depression." It was
simple. For 14 days, just get out of bed and go do something –
anything – for another person or cause close to your heart. No matter
how simple your act is.
Once when I was down, I just decided to take a walk on the magnificent
Tennessee Riverwalk, asking that someone be sent to me for me to
"find a need and fill it." Sure enough, a lady whose husband
had died stopped me wanting to talk. She seemed to gain great relief
from our time together. And all I did was listen! But to listen is to
care and to care is to slip some love into someone's heart.
Sparklea is right. To find a need and fill it is to stop depression in
its tracks.
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