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Is there a master guilt-tripper in your life?
While almost no one enjoys a guilt trip, we all have found ourselves on a one-way ticket to feeling down about ourselves. For those who are lucky enough to not know what a guilt trip is, let’s get into it. A guilt trip is an indirect approach to communication.
Your mother insists you don’t love her because you don’t call enough.
Your boss suggests that you’re not as committed to the team because you decline happy hour invites.
Your best friend makes a sarcastic quip about you missing her birthday party when you were sick.
According to Healthline, “The other person might imply the situation is somehow your fault. They make their unhappiness clear and leave it to you to find a way of fixing the problem. It can be pretty effective, too. If you feel guilty about their suffering, you’re more likely to do what you can to help.”
When we’re being guilt-tripped, we’ve essentially handed the reigns of our emotions over to someone else — oftentimes, someone we trust, who knows us very well. But why do they happen at all? Because they know which buttons to press to evoke a reaction.
Whether it’s your mother, boss, or best friend, those closest to you know what insults or insinuations are going to hit below the belt. And when something pains us — it stays with us. We want so desperately to not be seen as the “unloving daughter” or the “non-commital employee,” that we’ll compromise our boundaries and cave into guilt trips.
So how do we stop ourselves from experiencing a guilt trip? We stop giving the guilt trippers what they want. In today’s video, we’ll explore what it looks like to take our power back during a guilt trip.
