Suicide attempts, causeless anxiety and fears - often people turn to a psychologist with these serious problems. To help a patient, a specialist must understand the cause of his suffering. And often this reason turns out to be a feeling of guilt that remains unrepentant, often deeply hidden. Sin without repentance, committed in the past, grows into spiritual tragedy in the present. And people often don’t understand: why? And the cure, it turns out, is very close.
Wrong emotion?
Man has centuries of experience with guilt. Back in paradise, Adam accused Eve of temptation, Eve accused the serpent of temptation. From the first sin, sinners try to shift their guilt onto someone else. Each of us, one way or another, knows this painful feeling: we did something that should not have been done, we crossed a certain law that our conscience knows. Over the years of my clinical practice, I have observed a strange phenomenon: the obvious confusion of psychologists in the face of guilt as an ineradicable symptom of serious pathologies and disorders. No matter how many theories and methods have been developed, no matter what scientific works have been written, the feeling of guilt still continues to disturb the human mind and psyche. Classical Freudian psychoanalysis, in my opinion, hardly coped with the task, offering a dubious “cure for guilt” - justifying it by the actions of other people, and especially parents. In modern pop psychology, especially Western psychology, there are widespread theories and practices designed to increase human self-esteem by any means.
It is believed that people should stop judging themselves and feel important regardless of their actions or circumstances. It is assumed that a person is destined to satisfy his needs (“I deserve it because I exist”), and therefore there can be no guilt. Some go even further, declaring guilt a wrong emotion, and propose simply destroying the “guilt zone” forever, as a useless experience, as something shameful and negative. The result of attempts to “heal” or “cancel” guilt has been an increase in the number of people with chronic conditions of pathological anxiety, neuroses, psychoses, and suicides. The number of those who try to drown “guilt in wine” or escape from it in a drug frenzy does not stop increasing. Often people themselves come to a psychotherapist in order to immediately get rid of a painful feeling, and, often revealing their moral failures, they expect to hear that there is always something or someone - a husband, wife, parents, children, a difficult childhood, society, lack of money, etc., - which forced them to commit a bad act, to violate the moral law. In a word, the blame for what they did does not lie with them at all, which means there is no responsibility. But a formal justification for sin in a psychotherapist's office has only a temporary effect, and then in rare cases. Unconscious and unacknowledged guilt, like a hidden abscess, continues to carry out its destructive work in a person.
Get the skeleton out of the closet
Here are some examples from my practice. Patient Mikhail K. (real names of people have been changed), 45 years old, two attempts at suicide, changed several psychotherapists, suffered from depression, uncontrollable anxiety, insomnia for many years, is aggressive with people, hates women. I was married for a short time, had no friends, and never stayed at any job for more than six months. After several weeks of psychotherapy, the root of his problems came to light - a deeply hidden sense of guilt towards his mother. As a teenager, in a quarrel, Mikhail pushed her against the wall. After an unsuccessful fall, the mother fell ill for a long time, and the son, unable to bear the situation, left home. He returned three years later, when his mother was no longer there. Another patient, Boris A., 64 years old, was a former successful businessman, the head of a large company, divorced, suffering from depression, irritability and sudden mood swings. At the very first session he admitted to an uncontrollable fear of death. The only son lives in another city, we haven’t seen each other or communicated for more than twenty years. After several months of therapy, he recognized his main problem - a hidden feeling of guilt in front of his son, whom he had bullied and humiliated all his life for not living up to his father’s hopes, not learning and becoming a big man, and disgracing his name by choosing an ordinary profession as a tiler. One more example. Dina S., 40 years old, suffers from severe depression, chronic anxiety, fears, auditory hallucinations - she constantly hears children's voices. She lives alone, finds it difficult to get along with people (according to her, she runs away from them, as if afraid of some kind of exposure (a sign of paranoia). A terrible self-destructive force and total internal terror possessed her for most of her life. It took six months of intensive therapy before a mental abscess broke through and she said that at the age of 18 she left her one-year-old child with the man with whom she lived at the time and ran away with someone else. Telling her tragic story, which splashed out of her like stagnant water from a dam, she admitted: “I tried for a long time to justify myself, " I thought, because I was still a child. But now I realized that the child was my daughter, and I was the mother. " All these fates and many others similar to them are united by one thing - a feeling of guilt hidden in the very depths of the being. Often, caring about the well-being of the external facade, we do not even suspect what terrible destructive work the worm of suppressed guilt is doing in our soul.In these destinies there is also something else, obvious to me as an Orthodox psychologist - a complete absence of love. Moreover, an inexplicable fear of any manifestation of it. Each of them reacted almost inadequately to my simple question: are there people in their lives whom they could truly love?
Are there people who are guilty without guilt?
| Nikolai Nosov’s story “Cucumbers” wonderfully shows all the stages of a person’s awareness of guilt and liberation from it. The boy’s mother clearly explains to her son that he didn’t “just take” the cucumbers, but stole them, and the guards can be punished, and kicks the boy out of the house along with the cucumbers. The boy wants to throw the cucumbers into the ditch and lie that he returned them, but he can no longer: repentance helps him overcome his fear of the dark empty street and the wrath of the watchman.
“Kotka pulled out the cucumbers and put them in the garden bed. - Well, that's all, or what? - asked the old man. “No... one thing is missing,” answered Kotka and began to cry again. - Why is it missing, where is he? - Grandfather, I ate one cucumber. What will happen now? - Well, what will happen? Nothing will happen. He ate it, well, he ate it. To your health. - And you, grandfather, will nothing happen to you for the fact that the cucumber disappeared? - Look, what's the matter! - Grandfather grinned. - No, nothing will happen for one cucumber. Now, if you hadn’t brought the rest, then yes, but otherwise no. Kotka ran home. Then he suddenly stopped and shouted from a distance: “Grandfather, grandfather!” - What else? - And this cucumber that I ate, how will it be considered - did I steal it or not? - Hm! - said the grandfather. - What a task! Well, what’s there, don’t let him steal it. - What about it? - Well, consider that I gave it to you. - Thank you, grandfather! I will go. - Go, go, son. Kotka ran at full speed across the field, across the ravine, across the bridge over the stream and, no longer in a hurry, walked home through the village. He was happy in his soul.”
Fragment of N. Nosov’s story “Cucumbers” |
What does the band-aid of self-justification hide?
Our moral ideal is nothing more than our conscience, which contains God’s Law of good and evil, what is good and what is bad. We always have a choice - to cover it with a band-aid of self-justification or to open our spiritual wounds, believing in their healing. The first one is undoubtedly easier to do. Even if at first our conscience, tormented by sin and confusion, resists and demands cleansing from dirt, the second, third and subsequent attempts to muffle these impulses are easier for us. The heart grows colder, the mind becomes more cynical, and the soul shows fewer and fewer signs of life. From all this it is not far to the most disastrous outcome - the spiritual decay of the individual and spiritual death. Many of my patients have paid a high price for guilt—that unresolved emotional wound—in years of despair and illness. In my practice, working with unhappy and restless people, I constantly observe this fine line, beyond which human life can plunge into impenetrable darkness if there is no light of faith in it. Guilt and forgiveness are recurring themes in my conversations with people during therapy sessions. And for those of them who do not reject faith, but try to find their way to it, it is always easier to realize the important truth that when we violate the laws written in our conscience, we are guilty, regardless of whether we feel guilty or not. When we sincerely repent, we are forgiven, even if we do not feel forgiven. Guilt, guilt and the conflict generated by this feeling is a spiritual loss. And therefore, one must seek its resolution in a person’s spiritual life, in faith. As an Orthodox psychologist, I try to rely primarily on faith in the therapy process itself. When people realize their responsibility for what they have done, they themselves seek purification through repentance and deep regret. And only then - through pain and joy - does peace begin to come into the human soul, only then does healing occur.
One of my former patients, who once had seven abortions in her youth and was left without children and without a family, came to repentance through terrible mental anguish. Continuous prayer for the souls of her unborn children, for the sending of God's light and mercy to them, gave birth to hope for a new life. As Saint Demetrius of Rostov said, repentance restores the fallen soul, makes it from alienated to friendly to God; repentance encourages a tormented soul, strengthens a wavering soul, heals a broken soul, and makes a wounded one healthy.
Free gift
In “Crime and Punishment” by F. Dostoevsky, Sonya Marmeladova asks Raskolnikov to repent of the murder: “- Get up!.. Come now, this minute. Stand at the crossroads, bow down, kiss the ground that you have desecrated, and then bow down to the whole world and say out loud: I killed. And then God will send you life again... What a torment to bear! But a whole life, a whole life!.. “I’ll get used to it,” he said gloomily...” Raskolnikov was not used to it. And after many years of ordeal and mental suffering, already in prison, he came to faith. No matter what theories and mechanisms a person comes up with in the fight against guilt, sooner or later they stop working. And the moment will come when the external noise and vanity with which we are trying to drown out the voice of conscience will finally fall silent, and then in deep silence we will hear the bitter truth: “I overstepped... I disobeyed God.” Repentance is impossible without humility and meekness. The realization that I personally, as a person, am weak and unable to resolve my guilt on my own is not easy for a modern person: our pride, inflated to gigantic proportions, gets in the way. To pacify her is a great victory. The ancients said: out of two people, the first of whom defeated the army, and the second - himself, the second emerged victorious. God knows our guilt, but believes in our ability to be cleansed. Purification does not occur at the level of the intellect, but occurs in the heart. Often we hide emotional traumas deeply, like a terrible secret that we cannot tell even to our loved ones, for fear of losing their love or respect (“if they find out “this” about me, they will stop loving me”).
Faith—and I, as an Orthodox psychologist, am convinced of this every day—breaks this dangerous concept that gives rise to alienation. True love is unconditional and unconditional. It is impossible to lose her. Repentant guilt only restores our unity with God. Repentance is God’s gift, given to us, to each of us, irrevocably and free of charge. How we use this gift: whether we consign it to oblivion due to inconvenience and uselessness, or carefully carry it through life, is up to us to decide. Psychotherapy can be useful at the first stage of personality awakening, when a person learns to distinguish between his true and false feelings, the motivation of actions, the causes of conflicts, to overcome mistrust and fear, to recognize and pronounce guilt. Real cleansing occurs in higher spiritual realms, and I always advise my patients to seek it in communion with the Church. The doors of God's temple are open. It is our choice to pass by, consoling our conscience, or to go inside and face our guilt before God, the only one who can truly console our pain. One warrior asked the elder: “Does God accept repentance?” The elder replied: “If your cloak breaks, will you throw it away?” The warrior says: “No! I'll sew it up." - “If you spare your clothes this way, won’t God spare his creation?”
Natalia VOLKOVA
Drawings by G. Valk
Nina, St. Petersburg
How to deal with the fear of guilt?
Good afternoon Please help me figure it out, I will be very grateful for your help. As a child, it seems to me, I was frightened by the existence of hell and heaven, and since then I have tried to pray often, sometimes praying every day. Now, as an adult, I don’t pray every day. But there was a feeling of fear of what would happen if I didn’t pray. I can’t even imagine exactly where this fear comes from, but it really interferes with my life. One time I didn’t pray in the morning, and fear arose in my head: what if, if I don’t pray right now, something bad will happen to my future husband? Now I'm afraid. I didn’t pray, not because I am against prayer, but because I believe that the Lord knows that I in no way wish harm to my loved ones, I love them very much and am afraid to wish harm. And this does not depend on how often I pray, but on what is in my thoughts and how I act. Tell me, please, am I thinking correctly? I also became afraid to buy any things. I wrote a letter to the psychologist, I suggested that this was my fear of guilt. I'm afraid of being guilty. And therefore, imaginary situations of guilt arise in my head. For example, I want to buy a specific thing, but the thought arises in my head that if I buy, then again something bad (specific) will happen to a loved one (specific). In no case do I want to wish anything bad, but I’m afraid of it, and from this fear these thoughts arise! But I also think: I’ll buy a thing, what if the Lord thinks that this person is not dear to me, since I’m doing this, and will allow trouble to happen so that I feel guilty? Please tell me how to dissuade yourself, maybe pray, if such thoughts arise before purchasing? Thank you very much in advance for your help!
It’s probably better to start from afar: there are people who are afraid to leave the house without looking in the mirror; there are those who are afraid to cross the path of a black cat; many are afraid of an empty bucket or hares. Most likely, this is called superstition. If I, having forgotten to tie my shoe, collapsed on the street, in my opinion, it is not the black cat or the woman with a bucket three blocks away from me who is to blame, but my carelessness. Do you agree? Is it necessary to feel guilty for the Chernobyl tragedy or the events of the Fukushima region, without even having a territorial, emotional connection to it, and without even knowing where and how? We can try to hold onto a stone, a mug, or something else that has been lost from our hands, but there are laws of attraction established by God. We can ask for an electric current so that it doesn’t hit someone dear to us, but let’s understand: “ My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord."(Isa. 55:8). Did what we bought to eat in the supermarket today have an impact on the beginning and results of the First World War!? I think that this grotesque can hint that each person at the Last Judgment is responsible precisely for his own deeds, words and thoughts, and not for who and what thought of him and who did what from those around him.
God will help you to live piously, pray, do good deeds, but at the same time calmly feel like yourself, a human being, and not an “Entity”, on the turn of whose head the fate of all mankind depends. Pray for your salvation in the Kingdom of Heaven, and here for the granting of a prosperous Christian marriage! Pray with humility. For the rest " Thy Will be done!"(Matthew 6:9-13).
It seems to me that at the moment you are combining different realities and aspects of existence. You think that you have more responsibility for the world around you than you can bear on your shoulders. Your question, in principle, does not allow for a “remote”, anonymous answer; it probably makes sense to contact a priest, or perhaps a specific medical specialist, to resolve a complex situation created in your mind.
One of the fundamental concepts of Christianity, and we constantly hear, read, and pronounce this word. But there is another word - “guilt”. In church life, in our religious life, we hear it much less often than the word “sin”; one gets the impression that the word “guilt” is not from the church dictionary. What is guilt? In fact, this is an external result, a consequence of our sin, and also our debt, often unpayable. We caused damage to other people, we became the cause of their suffering, and through us a certain “amount” of evil entered the world. Even if we have the opportunity to somehow repay the people who suffered from us, at least apologize to them, who will give them back that time, those vital forces that were taken away by the pain we brought? Even if these people have forgiven us - and some of them are inclined to forgive because of family love - should this make us feel better? And how often it happens that we have no opportunity to make amends, what we have done is irreparable, the debt is unpaid - completely.
One woman - subtle, sensitive, deeply religious - convinced me that through our repentance, the guilt is erased, the wounds inflicted by us heal, and if the person who suffered from us is already in the next world, then there is no need to worry at all: he feels good , and if it’s bad, it’s not our fault. After my first confession, I asked the priest if this was so. The priest replied: it is permissible to hope for this, but there can be no certainty or peace of mind.
Those who definitely cannot have peace of mind are those who, at least involuntarily (if voluntarily, then that’s a different conversation) caused death. As a journalist, I know of several cases where the perpetrators of tragedies caused by carelessness, lack of foresight, inability to handle weapons, etc., committed suicide. It is hardly worth recounting these cases here. I will only say that I am unable to forget these people and that in each of them I see myself: this did not happen to me, but it could have happened! For minutes it seems: in order to live myself, I need to find some convincing arguments for the person who killed himself, some reasons to tell him: “Live.”
In these cases, the Church says precisely “live”: suicide is prohibited for a Christian. But, calling a person to life, she cannot help but answer the question: “How to live now?” And she answers this question, no matter what guilt, lethal or non-lethal, we ask her about. One should not think that Christianity does not have an answer to the question of living with guilt.
First of all, what are we looking for, what do we want, when asking how we should live? We want to feel better; we seek peace, maybe even comfort. In other words, the opportunity to sleep peacefully. But the holy fathers of the Church did not seek peace for themselves, did not count on it. In order to be convinced of this, it is enough to open the usual prayer book: “What evil have I not committed, what sin have I not committed in my soul...” (Rev. Simeon Metaphrastus). This attitude towards the evil done is completely opposite to the common psychotherapeutic advice to “leave the past to the past”; forget about what can no longer be corrected; Don’t waste yourself “in vain.” The saint cannot and does not want to forget about the evil he has done. He prefers to see his earthly life as it is. For what? In order to cleanse yourself by repentance. This is only possible by imagining yourself realistically. We, today, simply cannot do without a sense of our own positivity; We cannot, it seems, exist without mentally counting ourselves among the bright part of humanity: “Of course, I have shortcomings, and I have done some things wrong in my life, but on the whole I am a good person. Well, I’m not the same as all the scoundrels out there!” And a clear vision of what we have done, the memory of it, takes us out of this Pharisee state.
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Of course, you wouldn’t wish such a cross on anyone, but it seems to me that a person who has hit someone with a car and is truly worried about it (not everyone is, many justify themselves here too) will never do evil consciously. He will never be cruel, callous, or arrogant. Of course, this doesn’t make it any easier for the victim’s loved ones, but I’m not trying to soften the situation - it’s truly terrible. However, the one who caused it will die if he turns away from it, finding a way to justify himself or simply managing to forget; and will be saved if he accepts all its horror to the end.
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Yes, this is not a projection on a wall, not on some kind of screen - on human souls, on destinies; This is a bitter, terrible help, but who is to blame that we do not accept other help, that we do not hear the voice of God sounding in secret?
The more wine, the fewer false exits and side paths it leaves for a person; a person crushed by enormous guilt must inevitably understand that he now has only one path - upward, to the One who said to the thief: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
I know (also as a journalist, as a court reporter) people who are unable to accept this gospel episode. How is it possible: he cut and slaughtered people, robbed and robbed on the roads, and then said a few words - and off to heaven! Where's the justice?
And it is in the words of the Prudent thief, who finally understood what was happening: “We are condemned justly, because we accepted what was worthy of our deeds, but He did nothing bad” (Luke 23:41). This is how Saint John of Shanghai spoke about this robber in one of his sermons:
“Looking at Him, the robber seemed to wake up from a deep sleep. He clearly saw the difference between Him and himself. He is an undoubted Righteous One, forgiving even His tormentors and praying for them to God, Whom He calls His Father. He is a murderer of many victims, shedding the blood of people who did him no harm.
Looking at Him hanging on the cross, it was as if he saw his moral fall in a mirror. All the best that was hidden in him awakened and was looking for a way out. He realized his sins, realized that only his own guilt led him to a sad end and he had no one to blame. Therefore, the angry mood against the executioners, which possessed the thief crucified on the other side of Christ, and initially himself (see: Matt. 27:44), was replaced in him by a feeling of humility and contrition. He felt the fear of God's judgment coming upon him.
Sin became disgusting and terrible for him. At heart he was no longer a robber. Philanthropy and mercy awoke in him. With fear for the fate of his soul, he was combined with disgust for the outrage that was taking place against the innocent Sufferer.”
The robber would not have entered the heavenly abode if he had forgotten what he was doing. He came in precisely because he remembered.
The Church, by the way, honors not just one Prudent Thief - many; one of them is the holy martyr Moses Murin. His life is striking - namely, with a martyr's end. He accepted death at the hands of the robbers who attacked the monastic monastery as a desired retribution for himself, as a natural and necessary consequence of the murders that he himself committed. As a confirmation of Christ’s words: “All who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). This is what the memory of wine does to a person.
“Remembering all this evil that I committed in those years is the hardest thing for me... This whole nightmare... Karamazov’s dirt... All this happened in the absence of my Christian faith...” - this is from the diary of a chemist professor, spiritual writer, ascetic, secret educator of destitute Soviet Russia. In his youth he was a Bolshevik, a commissar, and served in the Cheka. And then all his life he was driven by great repentance.
But can an ordinary person, far from ascetic exploits, purely psychologically withstand this burden - the constant memory of guilt? Is he capable of being under such tension day after day? After all, he needs rest, he needs some kind of acceptable well-being, and, in the end, he needs a restful sleep - so as not to burn out...
The prayers of the evening rule speak about sleep more than once: “And now let me fall asleep without condemnation,” “grant me a peaceful and serene sleep,” “...may I lie down in peace, sleep and rest...” At some point, as they say, I It dawned on me: we are not talking here about getting a good night’s sleep, but about ensuring that we, who do not actually have the right to the peace we need, receive it by the grace of God - precisely because we cannot do without it. And this applies not only to sleep - to our entire daily life. Our guilt does not deprive us of the right to the autumn forest, to the spring air, to the sea surf, to friendship and love, to creativity and knowledge. Because it is He who gives us everything. And we will do badly if we do not accept His gift.
At every liturgy we hear a cry of repentance that burst from the chest of the psalmist king after the prophet Nathan pointed out to him his terrible guilt. Having truly listened to this text, a person is surprised. What does David ask for, having destroyed the honest and valiant Uriah because of his lust? He asks for something that seems impossible after such an act: joy. “Reward me with the joy of Your salvation and strengthen me with the Lord’s Spirit” (Ps. 50:14). But would David have been able to ask for joy for himself if he had not seen, without any embellishment and self-justification, both the depth of his fall and the horror of its consequences for other people?
17.07.2015
One of the most obvious misunderstandings regarding our faith relates to guilt. Almost all "outside" people (and, alas, some Christians) say that a Christian must live with a constant feeling of guilt. This is true exactly the opposite - the Good News is precisely the news of the forgiveness of sins. That through Jesus Christ God delivers us from guilt - not even from feeling, from the very fact of guilt.
As Scripture says, “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin” (Rom. 4:7,8). Christ is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
Christ died for our sins so that we would be justified by His righteousness. Those who continue in faith are no longer under condemnation: “Who will accuse God's elect? God justifies [them]. Who is judging? Christ Jesus died, but also rose again: He is also at the right hand of God, and He also makes intercession for us” (Rom. 8:33,34).
Christ is our Intercessor - the one who acts on our side. He took the entire burden of our guilt onto the Cross, and the Supreme Judge solemnly declares us innocent. It is completely inappropriate for a Christian to be tormented by feelings of guilt - his sins are forgiven.
This does not mean that he cannot sin and make mistakes. Alas, it can. And the Holy Spirit will convict him of his sins and encourage him to repentance. It's important to note how this differs from guilt. The Holy Spirit always points out specific sins that we need to confess. The feeling of guilt is vaguely oppressive. We don't know what to do with him. There is always a promise in the convictions of the Holy Spirit - as soon as we repent, we will be forgiven. There is despondency and hopelessness in guilt. We must accept conviction from the Spirit and immediately repent, but as for guilt, it must be rejected.
Non-believers associate Christianity with guilt for an obvious reason - the Good News reminds us of the reality of sin. The proclamation of forgiveness reminds us that we need this forgiveness, and sin always “wraps” itself in many layers of denials and justifications, and revealing them can be painful. Before we can receive forgiveness of sins, we must recognize them as sins. But as soon as we do this, we will be forgiven. Completely. And we will stand before the Throne of Judge completely justified.
Sergey Khudiev
“When I come to church, I want to cry. If I prayed at the icon, but did not cry, then it seems to me that I came to church in vain. I am surprised by those who smile in the temple and talk to each other from time to time. When I stand at work, I feel strong internal tension. And it seems to me that I have no right to anything else.”
This phrase from one of the participants in the conference “Patristic Psychology and Contemporary Practice of the Church,” which was held in Moscow in January, as part of the XXVI International Christmas Educational Readings, was literally etched in the memory of us, their delegates. And today, as we continue to analyze and publish materials from this global forum, we decided to pay attention to this particular topic. It must be admitted that similar thoughts and experiences one way or another visit many Christians: the conviction that staying in church means focusing on one’s guilt before God, on one’s worthlessness, on a wasted life — is not such a rare opinion. But nervous breakdowns are also not uncommon, after which a person who has replaced heartfelt contrition with self-trampling sometimes stops going to church altogether.
How to distinguish a true feeling of guilt from a neurotic disorder? How does the fear of God differ from the fear of man? All this is discussed in our material.
Scold yourself in order to reconcile?
“Both healthy and neurotic feelings of guilt are very painful and very similar,” said one of the participants in the conference “Patristic Psychology and Modern Practice of the Church” Dmitry Sergeevich Drozdov- Master of Psychology, President of the Association for Understanding Psychotherapy. But there is, according to him, a significant difference: a healthy feeling of guilt is directed at the act, while a neurotic person directs it at himself.
Sin, of course, responds to us with guilt. But if a person does not have mental pathologies, his conscience not only points out what is wrong, but also shows how the situation can be corrected. If the personality is neurotic, then the person immediately moves from a specific situation to blaming himself, which is not related to individual actions. His entire life and activity are connected with the constant experience of shame, but not for something that he can definitely say, but it is not clear what. It seems to him that he is always to blame and therefore it is impossible to correct the situation. A neurotic feeling of guilt gives rise to passivity in a person - this is its characteristic external sign.
But perhaps, by constantly berating ourselves, we will get closer to the spiritual heights of the Apostle Paul, who quite sincerely believed that he was the most sinful person on earth? Alas, this is not true. The feeling of our own hopeless “badness,” oddly enough, does not make us more humble. On the contrary, a person tormented by a feeling of neurotic guilt is very often unable to respond adequately even to mild criticism. He is so tormented by internal self-loathing that he craves external praise and support. Such people are terribly afraid of the evaluation of others; they always feel that they are not appreciated enough - and this, in turn, leads to an increase in anxiety, tension and, ultimately, to clinical depression.
Neurotic guilt is illusory, and it - like any illusion - closes a person’s path to true repentance. It is exhausting, and the person who is tormented by its manifestations spends on fighting ghosts those forces that he could direct to overcoming himself, his real sins and their consequences. Confession in such cases, if it gives relief, is only for a short time. A suffering neurotic may understand perfectly well that his painful self-recriminations have nothing to do with reality, but understanding alone is not enough. This feeling cannot be overcome by persuasion and other methods of rationalization.
What to do? Dmitry Sergeevich Drozdov demonstrated to the audience several techniques for working with obsessive feelings of guilt, which allow the patient, if not to free himself from it immediately, then at least to look at his torment from the outside.
“To do this, you need to take a pose of guilt, as if putting a mask of guilt on your face,” he explained. - How do we feel? Probably pain, maybe fatigue, despair... Now mentally draw a picture of your guilt. What do you see? What's happening to you?
During psychotherapy sessions, the patient, with the support of the therapist, tries to mentally move from a state of guilt to a state of freedom. There are various techniques to help do this. This kind of exercise helps you distance yourself from obsessive thoughts and take the first step towards mental health.
Fear of God and fear of man
“Fear of God,” noted Metropolitan Ignatius of Argentina and South America, is the state of the soul of a highly spiritual person. This is a spiritual gift that is given by the Lord in the same way as the gift of repentance and other similar gifts. The purely human fear of punishment should be distinguished from the fear of God.
The Bishop invited those gathered, in the form of a free discussion, to speculate on whether it is true that for the majority of modern Orthodox Christians, faith is associated with the fear of hellish torment. And if so, is it good?
Listeners expressed different points of view. For some, the appeal to the fear of punishment turned out to be unacceptable even for educational purposes; others, on the contrary, expressed the conviction that the fear of punishment for sin is a natural component of the spiritual life of a fallen person.
“If a person has any psychological problems, neuroses,” Metropolitan Ignatius summed up the discussion, “then he can easily accept the fear that accompanies them as an indispensable condition of spiritual life. To overcome their anxiety, such people try to fulfill all church instructions, down to the smallest. They become hostage to their fear.
However, fear as such is not always a negative phenomenon. This is a danger signal placed in us by God, which, among other things, helps us avoid sin. At the same time, we must remember that the fear of punishment is the fear of a slave, the fear of not receiving one’s reward is the fear of a mercenary, and the true fear of God is higher than all this. It combines reverence for the greatness of God and an understanding of how small and weak man is in comparison with His power. This is the fear of offending God, of losing His love, to which a person has already responded with all his heart.
Where do desires go?
“It often happens like this,” a psychologist, psychotherapist, member of the Russian Society “Person Centered Approach” shared her experience of her observations. Marina Sergeevna Filonik- that a person himself does not know what he wants - neither in spiritual life, nor in general. He does not strive for anything, does nothing, but at the same time he feels a catastrophic loss of strength. The reason for such a painful condition most often lies in the fact that a person does not build relationships with his desires correctly.
We all know that our wishes may not come true. When we don't get something we want, we experience mental pain, frustration, disappointment, and embarrassment. This kind of experience is inevitable in our lives. They help a person grow up and enrich our spiritual experience. However, a neurotic person can solve the problem of non-fulfillment of desires in another way: simply get rid of them. No desire - no disappointment. However, the paradox is that our desires are at the same time a source of energy that helps us achieve our goals. Look, for example, with what reluctance and weakness a careless student wakes up in the morning to go to the first class - and with what zeal the same student, who barely sat through the lecture, runs on a date with his beloved girl... Where did the strength come from! Of course, desire is different from desire, and sinful aspirations must be destroyed in the bud. But seeing your desires and realizing that they exist and what they are is absolutely necessary. Then we can build the right relationship with them.
This relationship begins with the understanding that our desires stem from our needs. Needs vary, but in general this is what we need to live a full life. If ignored, health problems and various psychological disorders may arise. However, while paying due attention to your desires, you need to learn to distance yourself from them. That is, we should have the attitude not “I am my desire,” but “I have a desire.” Then we will be able to deprive harmful desires of influence on us, and use useful ones to the maximum to achieve good goals.
Newspaper "Orthodox Faith" No. 05 (601)