When Guilt is Good
Many of us are used to creating safety by giving up our needs, especially if we have relational or sexual trauma. The dynamics we learned got us through past experiences but create unhelpful patterns in our relationships.
Maybe a history of being overpowered or neglected by others taught us to see our needs as a problem to overcome. We might have decided that it’s better not to have needs than to risk voicing them and enduring more conflict. In environments like that, it's safer not to want anything.
When our caregivers don’t respond to our early needs, those needs may go unmet for so long that we have trouble recognizing them. We might think we're being selfish, or self-centered, for having needs at all.
Those of us with complex trauma or developmental trauma from childhood may have crafted beliefs about ourselves, relationships, and the world from these experiences. We may have learned some version of, "I don't matter," "My needs don't matter," or "No one cares what I think."
Not feeling safe to have needs disconnects us from our natural power and aliveness.
Our needs connect us with the basic human drives that help us build a good life. We can't know ourselves or what makes us happy, without them. But connecting to our needs often brings up waves of shame and guilt.
No matter what happened in the past, I want us to have the best possible chance to thrive. If it doesn't feel safe to have or voice our needs, let's explore that.
The Shame of Needs
Being disconnected from our authentic needs, desires, and preferences is inherently disempowering. We must know ourselves in order to self-actualize, express the person we are, and build the life we want.
Those of us with relational and sexual trauma are usually so used to acquiescing to the needs of others that we have no idea what our needs even are. Our focus on creating safety for ourselves by appeasing others costs us our sovereignty and self-knowledge.
We're used to camouflaging ourselves to not attract attention, chameleoning against the background so we aren't perceived as "making a fuss." The way we learned to create safety comes with a deep unease, whenever we get close to our own needs.
When we feel what we truly want, a sense of danger can easily drag us into the overwhelm of a freeze stress response. Every contact with our needs feels like heresy when we haven't been encouraged to express or navigate them before.
At the same time, we have a deep, somatic knowing that our needs for human experiences like love, safety, and belonging are real. This can bring up a bitter shame because we know that by abandoning our needs to create a semblance of safety, we are betraying ourselves.
We might feel shame that we are a person who abdicates our power to maintain relationships. We might feel shame that we aren't standing up for ourselves, the way we could. We might feel shame that we aren't stronger, different, or "better" in some way.
That shame will lurch up and grab us in its crocodile jaws, pulling us down to the riverbed, rolling us in the mud until we drown — if we let it.
Instead, we must choose the brave path of finding and feeling our needs. Only this will protect us from the shame.
Getting Used to Guilt
When we start to discern our needs, wants, and preferences, we often feel suddenly and unbearably guilty.
The guilt comes on strong. If we're not ready for it, it's almost impossible to keep our footing and it carries us with it, back to the stable ground of the Fawn stress response. It's not our fault. Appeasing others is how we learned to create safety.
Prioritizing our needs, wants, and preferences means putting ourselves first. Or, at least, not last. It is a visible and vocal place to stand, and it might feel to our nervous systems that we're directly in the line of fire.
When we voice our needs, we step into our self-assertiveness. Saying "no" when something doesn't work for us, speaking up when someone is overstepping our boundaries, or pushing back when someone's behavior isn't a match for our values are all assertive acts that center our needs. We can only do this when we know that what we experience, feel, and think matters.
Connecting to our inherent self-worth, by feeling and speaking our needs, can induce waves of guilt. By sharing our perspectives, preferences, or points of view, we might feel like we're hurting the other person or going "against" them.
The guilt is good.
To heal, we must learn to prioritize ourselves — even and especially when it's uncomfortable. To feel the guilt and do it anyway means we're standing for our needs, at the risk of offending others.
We're claiming our experience of life and communicating to ourselves, others, and the world that we matter.
If we don't make friends with the guilt, we're easy targets for others to manipulate and exploit us, in relationships. Even if they don't mean to, the abdication of our needs puts them in a position of unequal and unnecessary power.
Each time we let this happen, we sow resentment in the relational space between us and others. We condemn ourselves to unhappiness because we're afraid of speaking up for ourselves. We miss out on intimacy because, by choosing safety over the risk of connection, we're not being true to ourselves.
We can learn to dance with the guilt, to welcome it as a sign of healing.
Learning to navigate guilt isn't easy. Our minds scream that we're selfish and putting our relationships in danger. Our hearts cry that we might lose love and approval. Our bodies panic, desperate to avoid the tension of nervous system activation and find safety through a Fawn response.
How to Welcome the Guilt
1. Notice when others override our needs.
Awareness is the first step. We might notice the activation of a Fight stress response, when we realize that our needs are being minimized or ignored. We may feel emotions of anger or despair. Tracking this shift is our first indicator that we have needs that are not being met. Slowly, we learn to listen. This is the most painful part, because we often feel shame at how deeply we've self-betrayed ourselves to gain safety, love, or belonging.
2. Discern our needs, wants, and preferences.
Next, we need to figure out what our needs are. This can be frustrating if we're starting from a position of not-knowing. How do we know? We listen to the body. Learning to map our "yes" and "no" to our somatic response is a crucial part of the trauma healing work I do with clients. We often need to rewire habituated responses and learn to listen to the soft, subtle cues inside.
3. Imagine what it would be like to speak up.
Even imagining voicing our needs, wants, and preferences to others will likely create a stress response. This gives us a clear experience of how we'll need to down-regulate our nervous systems in the moment. We work with the activation by learning tools to down-regulate our nervous systems, so that we can reliably shift into a place of calm and collected self-advocacy.
4. Practice speaking needs when the stakes are low.
The best way to get good at speaking our needs and wants is to practice in low-stake situations. Correct the colleague who mispronounces your name. Send your food back, if it isn't what you ordered. Challenge a friend whose opinion you don't agree with. Learn how to hold yourself through the charge of nervous system activation, as you speak your needs, wants, and preferences into the world.
5. Pick and plan your moments.
If you've been habitually silent around your needs and wants in relationships, starting to speak up shifts the gravity. Others will notice. Not everyone will respond with the celebration the moment deserves. If you anticipate conflict, plan your conversation. Try not to over-invest in your desired outcome. All we can do is show up for who we are, with integrity and authenticity. And it's enough.
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Staying authentic to our needs, wants, and preferences helps us discern what is and isn't good for us. Our sense of safety shifts from externally focused to internally generated, as we realize it's our responsibility to be true to ourselves.
No one else can do this for us.
I wish you courage on your journey.
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