Have you had the dreaded visitor yet this year?
You’ve probably had so many visitors over the past year and through the holidays that you can’t even fathom who this might be. Ladies I am sure you’ve had this visit already, and settling in nicely for the New Year and I know for sure if you are a mother, this is your nearest and dearest friend.
The name is GUILT but to all of you kids and just so you know who is in charge she prefers to be called Miss Guilt!
Maybe you’ve heard of her.
Since she has been my steadfast and mainstay friend especially being a single mother, I just thought that I would give her a little recognition. Every time I think I have lost her around some corner, she pops up again and again plaguing every waking moment of my life with what I should have done or could have done for my mother, siblings, friends, and mostly my children. When my kids were small it was guilt about more time, as they got older it was guilt about more stuff. For my family and friends it has been what more I can do overall for them to have better lives and of course more stuff. All in all it is always more; what more can I be doing and what less I could or should give up to make sure that everyone else has all that they need.
As we know in life there will always be something that holds us back not allowing us to progress. We will always have things that try to break our spirit and paralyse us from moving forward. Guilt is one of those major things and the sooner we get over this phenomenon the better for everyone. We are human beings and not perfect and will make mistakes. Reflecting is always good and we will have moments of silence that we can reflect on how or why we could have done something differently and this is important and healthy. But as long as we are coming from the right place, we need to make peace with ourselves and put guilt in perspective and understand that guilt is not necessarily perspective. People in our circle also need to take responsibility for themselves and we need to let them do so, and yes I am speaking to myself also (so listen up self). And kids need to be taught the reality of life that not everything they want, they can get or at the time that they want it; this is not the way life works for most of us.
So friends let’s tell little Miss Guilt or whatever she wants to be called today that she is no longer welcome and that 2012 will not be entertaining her like 2011 did. She has had a good run and enough of our time and energy and needs to be on her way because she is so last year. Tell her that you are doing the best that you can with what you have and learning each day how to do it better. And wake up every morning relaxed and refreshed with the notion that “today is a new day and a new chance to do it better and that better does not necessarily have to mean more, but it is all that you’ve got to offer”.
And if she refuses to leave then invite her to pull up a chair and take a number because we have life to tend to so she can watch, help or keep on moving!
And tell me how your week is going at [email protected].
Catherine Tyson is the author of I’m Somebody’s Mama and host of the Lighten Up Show With Catherine Tyson on Cayman 27.
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