Guilt and gratitude

Being a Catholic (baptized and raised, anyway) and a mother, I have more than my fair share of guilt. It's actually ridiculous how much guilt I carry around with me. The objects of my guilt range from the most trivial and benign to the more substantial and significant. For example, here are a few things I feel guilty about almost daily:

- Watching bad (but oh so good!) reality TV
- Reading blogs about bad reality TV shows
- Procrastinating at work with said blogs and other equally escapist online materials
- Eating meat
- Binging on chocolate or chips, or both
- Not working out
- Skipping my home yoga practice
- Choosing light, escapist literature instead of spiritually uplifting books and articles
- Not meditating enough
- Choosing to meditate instead of cleaning the kitchen, all the while thinking about the dirty kitchen and other tasks to be completed instead of finding my bliss or whatever
- Not feeding my kids enough vegetables
- Working part-time, yet paying for full-time child care
- Paying someone to clean my house
- Judging people
- Not finishing my son's first year scrapbook before his 4th birthday
- Not calling my Mom every day
- Having so much when so many in the world have so little

And the list goes on... Crazy, isn't it? I truly believe that the majority of our guilty feelings are completely useless and a waste of energy, and yet, I can't seem to shake all this guilt. Just the other day, I reluctantly agreed to play hockey in the basement with my sons (Mom, you be goalie!), and felt guilty that I wasn't enjoying it more. After dutifully standing in net for a respectable amount of time, trying not to yawn uncontrollably or pass out from sheer boredom, I escaped upstairs to wash the dishes. And of course, I felt guilty about that. After all, only a bad mother would choose housework over spending time with her kids, right? Especially after blogging a few months ago about leaving those dishes behind!

So what is to be done? Guilt, it seems, is my constant companion. Like tight hamstrings and frown lines. But I digress.

I guess this is where gratitude comes in. I've been thinking a lot about gratitude lately and reminding myself to be grateful for even the small blessings in my life. Several times a day, I stop the steady stream of thoughts to consciously say thanks for my family, my health, my job, my home, my friends, the sunshine, the silence, my morning cup of tea, my car's heated seats. And when I notice that unmistakable feeling of pointless guilt rising up in me, I try to replace it with a feeling of gratitude. So when I start to feel guilty about that scrapbook, I remind myself that I wouldn't have a first-year scrapbook to work on if I didn't have my two awesome boys. And the only reason that scrapbook isn't done is that I am busy taking care of my boys and watching them grow. When I miss a yoga practice, I remember to feel grateful that I am healthy and able to practice yoga at all, and then I cut myself some slack. Gratitude is so much kinder than guilt. Yes, guilt does have its place when it alerts us to immoral or harmful behaviours and encourages us to be better human beings, but so much of our guilt is the pointless kind that just makes us feel needlessly bad about ourselves. Gratitude, on the other hand, makes us feel good, and also attracts more good things to us.

Gratitude doesn't always get rid of guilt, but it does help. So I'm working on the guilt thing. And the gratitude thing.

Now pass me my hockey stick.