An Interview With Marilyn: Part 4

Guilt and Setting Self-Care Boundaries

Interviewer: What can we do if we feel guilty for prioritizing ourselves?

Marilyn: My experience has demonstrated that guilt is a form of anxiety. And I differentiate guilt from remorse. Remorse is something that is inherent to our nature, unless you’re a sociopath, and there’s a neurological basis for that where some people don’t have the ability to feel remorse.

You’ll see animals, one will be upset and one will go and lick the other. I believe we inherently have remorse because we’re social animals and we’ll feel it. Guilt is another thing entirely—guilt is thought-based, and it’s anxiety-based.

Interviewer: We can feel guilty for so many things, like feeling excitement when we know that there are tragedies happening out there in the world. Or, we feel guilty because we tell someone, “I’m not really up for going to breakfast this morning with my friend because I feel sick,” knowing that that might disappoint the friend we were supposed to meet.

Marilyn: I want to be able to feel remorse if I’ve done something to you, and want to feel remorse that you were disappointed that I didn’t show up.

But, here’s the thing: Do I disappoint myself, or do I disappoint you? If I don’t feel well, my inner parent might say, “Well, you have to go anyway.” There’s a part of me that is going to be disappointed that my inner parent didn’t say, “Oh, I’m sorry you don’t feel good. You still have to call Jane and let her know you’re not coming, and I’m sure she’s gonna be disappointed. But you can stay home.”

Disappointment in that way is a sign that your friend cares about you, you know—they wanted you to come, and they are disappointed. Feeling disappointed doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. That’s the thing. 

Another things is: If you tell someone you’re not feeling well and they don’t want to come visit, and that ends the relationship, is that really the relationship you want? 

You’ve probably learned about attachment developmentally. Attachment to a parent, ideally, should never be questioned. If there’s a healthy attachment, the kid doesn’t think, “Oh, every time Dad gets mad at me, he’s gonna leave,” or “I’m not gonna have a relationship with him.”

The reason you’re scared is that you don’t really trust, because maybe your earlier relationships weren’t trustworthy. But here’s what’s really cool: Ultimately, you’re basically telling this little girl inside: what you need is important. The more you do that, the more you’re able to handle rejection. Because it hurts, it’s disappointing, but it doesn’t mean, “If that person doesn’t love me, I’m not valuable.” Because by setting a boundary, I’m treating myself like I’m valuable. I’ve built this relationship with myself where I now believe that I am valuable. 

A lot of the people I’ve worked with did not internalize that they were lovable. You can mentor yourself,  but it means doing those scary things, like you may not trust that that relationship’s gonna be there after setting a boundary.

Interviewer: It takes courage. 

Marilyn: A lot of courage. 

Guilt is really anxiety that somehow it’s gonna affect our relationship if you don’t show up. You might project on it because of your conditioning. If you say no to somebody, it might be experienced by you as a threat to attachment, which we cannot afford as kids. 

If you’ve done something, you’re gonna feel remorse. But that doesn’t mean you’ve done something bad to somebody.

So how not to feel guilty? We can’t not feel bad. If you’re a heart-filled person and you’re connected to what’s good, you’re going to be affected by what’s happening in the world. But we are powerless over so much of what we’re exposed to. 

Thomas L. Friedman wrote a book, Thank You for Being Late. He wrote that it takes about 40 years for the human brain to adapt to culture-changing technologies.

For instance, when Gutenberg invented the printing press, it was probably 300 years before we saw our last papyrus. When cars were invented, it might have been 40 years before we saw our last horse and buggy. But now, the culture change, like when the iPhone came out in 2007—it’s just been 16 years since then. The brain really hasn’t caught up.

The human brain is built to handle suffering in its village. It’s not built to handle all the suffering that we’re exposed to. If I were to see somebody get hit by a car on the street, the human brain is built to go out and try to do something, try to help somebody, call an ambulance. It makes the brain feel like it can do something.

Or even if you’re my next-door neighbor and your parent dies, I can bake you a cake or a casserole. It’s not going to bring your parent back, but my brain has something it can do, and our brains don’t get overwhelmed by that kind of stuff. I’m not talking about mass trauma, but we’re exposed to so much. It’s not something to feel guilty about if you’re not doing something about it; I think it’s more of an invitation to take care of yourself.

Interviewer: It makes me think about self-love again, because if you’re able to say, “I love myself so much that I’m going to set this boundary with you, knowing that it could lead to the end of our relationship,” you have to be okay with knowing that it could end. I guess part of that is trusting you’ll be able to handle whatever pain that might cause you. 

Marilyn: I really do think that understanding that it really starts with your self-love—that’s actually how we’re going to save the world: by love. It has to start here, not with self-sacrifice.

I really do believe most of the evils of the world are promulgated by people who really never learned to love themselves. You don’t see somebody who’s content, who loves themselves, you treats other people chronically unkindly. 

Again, when you ask that, it’s how not to feel guilty? I think it’s really about having a consciousness about what you’re really looking at. And what you’re feeling really is anxiety about what you’re seeing. If you’re saying, “I’m turning off all my stuff and I’m just gonna read books and poetry and cook dinner for Meghan and go see Michelle and do things that move me to help in my community”—that’s still helping. There’s gonna be more loving creatures that way.