The Etymology of the Word Guilt
Clues to why it haunts us.
I’ve been going through my book notes for the past few months in preparation for writing my next book. There are probably easier ways to do this work—A.I. programs that would do it for me, I’m sure!—but I love this phase even though it’s somewhat interminable. Every time I read a book, I mark up passages and then I type them all up into a master document for eas(ier) reference. I’ve been going back through 100s of these documents from the past five years or so, remembering what I’ve read, and flagging and coding certain sections.
To that end, I was going through my notes on David Hawkins’ Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, which is about the effects of not only attachment, but of suppressing and repressing our emotions. At one point, he scales the emotions and gives them a vibrational rating. Well, you know I love any set of stages or states!
This is Hawkins’ view, which I decided not to summarize but cut-and-paste in full because there are some beautiful ideas in here.
Here’s Hawkins’ Scale of Emotions:
Peace (600): This is experienced as perfection, bliss, effortless, and oneness. It is a state of non-duality beyond separateness and beyond the intellect, as in the “peace that passeth all understanding.” It is described as Illumination and Enlightenment. It is rare in the human realm.
Joy (54): Love that is unconditional and unchanging, despite circumstances and actions of others. The world is illuminated by exquisite beauty, which is seen in all things. The perfection of creation is self-evident. There is closeness to unity and discovery of Self; compassion for all; enormous patience; the feeling of at-oneness with others and a concern for their happiness. A sense of self-completion and self-sufficiency prevails.
Love (500): A way of being that is forgiving, nurturing, and supportive. It does not proceed from the mind; rather, it emanates from the heart. Love focuses on the essence of a situation, not the details. It deals with wholes, not particulars. As perception is replaced with vision, it takes no position and sees the intrinsic value and lovability of all that exists.
Reason (400): This aspect differentiates humans from the animal world. There is the ability to see things in the abstract, to conceptualize, to be objective, and to make rapid and correct decisions. Its enormous utility is problem solving. Science, philosophy, medicine, and logic are expressions of this level.
Acceptance (350): This energy is easy-going, laid back, harmonious, flexible, inclusive, and free of inner resistance. “Life is good. You and I are good. I feel connected.” It meets life on life’s terms. There is no need to blame others or blame life.
Willingness (310): This energy subserves survival by virtue of a positive attitude that welcomes all expressions of life. It is friendly, helpful, wants to assist, and seeks to be of service.
Neutrality (250): This is a way of life that is comfortable, pragmatic, and relatively free of emotionality. “It’s okay either way.” It is free of rigid positions, non-judgmental, and non-competitive.
Courage (200): This energy says, “I can do it.” It is determined, excited about life, productive, independent, and self-empowered. Effective action is possible.
Pride (175): “My way is the best way,” says this level. Its focus is achievement, desire for recognition, specialness, and perfectionism. It feels “better than…” and superior to others.
Anger (150): This energy overcomes the source of fear by force, threats, and attack. It is irritable, explosive, bitter, volatile, and resentful. It likes to “get even,” as in “I’ll show you.”
Desire (125): It is always seeking gain, acquisition, pleasure, and “getting” something outside oneself. It is insatiable, never satisfied, and craving. “I have to have it.” “Give me what I want, and give it to me now!”
Fear (100): This energy sees “danger,” which is “everywhere.” It is avoidant, defensive, preoccupied with security, possessive of others, jealous, restless, anxious, and vigilant.
Grief (75): There is helplessness, despair, loss, regret, and the feeling, “If only I had…” Separation. Depression. Sadness. Being a “loser.” Mournful, as in “I can’t go on.”
Apathy (50): This energy is characterized by hopelessness, playing dead, being a “drain” to others, being immobilized, and the feelings: “I can’t” and “Who cares?” Poverty is common.
Guilt (30): In this energy field, one wants to punish and be punished. It leads to self-rejection, masochism, remorse, “feeling bad,” and self-sabotage. “It’s all my fault.” Accident-proneness, suicidal behavior, and projection of self-hatred onto “evil” others are common. It is the basis of many psychosomatic illnesses.
Shame (20): Characterized by humiliation, as in “hanging your head in shame.” It is traditionally accompanied by banishment. It is destructive to health and leads to cruelty toward self and others.
There are many things that are fascinating to me about this list, but the one that really strikes me is GUILT, second from the bottom. Hawkins’ definition is intense but as I sit with it, I see what he means. Most of us experience guilt as the low-grade “I should,” or “I feel bad” but those self-directed energies…still hurt. The other day, I was doing a session with Uta Opitz (I wrote about her in “The Codes of Anger”), when I felt my nails curled into my palm to the point where it was a little painful. When I went to stretch out my hands—I was referring to them as my claws—she asked me what was up. “I try to hold back my feelings, or what feels like truth, because I don’t feel I have the freedom to say exactly what I think—and this hurts me. But it also hurts me to repress the feeling. But when I let it out, I also feel bad because it’s not always ‘nice,’ or what people want to hear. I’m in a double-bind. I can’t necessarily say what I think and move on, or do what I want to do without feeling bad, or creating bad feelings. And, by the way, I can make myself feel bad even for thinking bad thoughts.” Ah, to be human.
This is something I think we all struggle with—taking responsibility for our own emotions and reactions to the world, without blaming others for disturbing our peace. And the flipside of this, of course, is to take some responsibility for not…disturbing the peace of others. It’s a bit of a rub—what do we do with all of this bad feeling? Particularly because the end result of this bad feeling is…guilt.
After all, there’s no doubt that provoking guilt—in ourselves and in each other—is one of the most powerful mechanisms we have. It’s the foundation of much of organized religion for one thing, along with almost all social movements. The logic goes something like: “We must feel bad to do good.” Or, “We must make other people feel guilty in order to inspire action.” I’m wondering if this is true.
Guilt is also interesting to me because it has no clear etymology—it wasn’t really used until the 14th century and it has unknown origins. The other day, my friend
sent me a page from Edward Edinger’s Ego and Archetype—which has been on my “To be Read” bookshelf for years, that stopped me in my tracks. He wrote, “Etymology is the unconscious side of language.” Etymologies are eventually buried and displaced by the definition—the ego, or “persona” of the word—but words still carry their unconscious, or shadow, definitions. It feels meaningful to me that the etymology of guilt is so amorphous as to be unknown. It is source-less and in some ways, contained within everything, and everywhere.The definition of guilt that’s most prominent in our culture relates to the verdict of a crime—but that’s not how it strikes us in our everyday lives. Instead, it’s about transgression in some indefinable way—“a feeling of deserving blame for offenses.” The problem here is that it’s a feeling of offense, a feeling that we’ve crossed some sort of invisible line—without any proof. I see why Hawkins things it holds the chain of emotions down, right there with shame.
Any of you have any thoughts about guilt? And what do you do with “bad feelings” that you need to move out of your body? My go-to these days is to send them straight into the ground.
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For me, I've studied these paths since my 20s, I'm now almost 80, and I've just learned a tool called "Give Back, Take Back" (GB-TB)-- and by God, it's changing my life. My sense is that when I was born, I was a pure light filled with creative imagination, joy and play. I was like a sponge, sucking up all the stories of my ancestral lineage that were given me by my parents -- and they gave to me what *their* parents gave them, and what their grandparents (my great grands) gave them -- I can just smell the moldy mildew of these stories and belief patterns now. And this tool GB-TB allows me hear/read/see something upsetting to me, feel it my own body as I listen to my body, listen to where it hurts, tenses, curls up and I sit with it. Doing this often, helps me feel the suffering, and my body will name it for me. Then I notice where *that* came from, who or what believed that, who or what gave that energy to me, because there it is in my field -- and then I give back the energy to them, and I take back the energy in me that was quashed then. I first did this in a workshop called the Journey of Profound Healing (a Sai Maa program) I did it with my childhood, my parents. For example, I'd give my Mother back her numbness, and I'd take back my aliveness. I'd say, "Mother, I give you back your criticism and I take back my compassion, my love for myself." So that's where I find myself today ... "I give _____ back their guilt, and I take back my innocence." This is all done with love ... I give back what belongs to someone else, it was never mine, it was just an energy in my field that doesn't belong there. When I'm complete with the energy I free myself and the other by saying, "_________, today I free you from me, and I free me from you." Blessings.
A few months ago I realized that I carried guilt around as a way of deflecting envy. If I let guilt weigh me down, drag me down, spoil my joy then I could pre-empt the spoiling of others, their envy. How wild is that?? Needless to say, I have become much more vigilant about guilt. It is so not useful. It doesn't propel you into action, it crowds out deep loving compassion, it sucks the energy out of you. I wonder what the opposite of guilt is or the emotion below the emotion with guilt - my hunch is fear but fear of what?