In this interview, Dr. Chuck asks author Kathy Carlton Willis about the different types of guilt and how to identify them.
False Guilt and Forgiveness
Dr. Chuck: Guilt from a Christian worldview is real. None of us measure up to our own expectations, let alone God’s perfect standard. We’re here with Kathy Carlton Willis, who is going to give us some tips on distinguishing real guilt from false guilt, a burden that we sometimes place on ourselves, which is not from God. Kathy also encourages us to have those “ah ha!” moments and not let our guilt define us. Join us on Spoonful of Courage, I’m Dr. Page.
Kathy, there are so many people out there that deal with guilt, those “would’ve, should’ve, could’ves”. You say there are three different types of guilt: true guilt, false guilt and residual guilt. Tell us a little bit more about this and how we move forward to experience peace and wellness.
Kathy Willis: Well, you know, true guilt is the conviction from the Holy Spirit when we have done wrong and we have rebelled against what God would have for us, and that guilt we need to deal with, because it’s there and we need to confess our sin, repent of it, desire to go in a different direction, not just any old direction, but God’s direction. And when we get that in place, the next thing we need to do is receive his forgiveness, because if we don’t receive the forgiveness, that guilt can hang on, and so that’s the residual guilt. It’s when God has already forgiven us. We’ve already repented of it, we’ve talked to him about it, but for some reason we can’t let go of it.
Dr. Chuck: Accepting our acceptance.
Kathy Willis: Yeah, I mean God has let go of it. His forgiveness is as far as the east is from the west, but for some reason we just keep it in our heart. We keep it in our head and it messes us up big time, and we are derailing any effort God has of restoring us and redeeming us and moving forward. If we don’t receive the forgiveness, and we’ll know we have it when we have peace, and when we can think about that incident, of whatever it was that we did wrong, and see that, that was wrong but I’m growing from it and God has forgiven me from it. But, there’s also false guilt, which is the opposite of the Holy Spirit, when the Devil is accusing us, because that’s one of his things, he loves to get us on the defensive. He loves to accuse us and we need to identify that for what it is and basically call him out and say, “Hey, I know that is a lie. That’s not in the Bible, that’s not in my life, and I’m not going to listen to that.” And then ask God to help us and empower us to get over that. So, really we need to just have a come to Jesus moment. Is this true guilt? Is it something that I need to deal with? If so, let’s get busy, let’s deal with it. Why would we want to hang on to that one more minute, you know? When we can get past it.
Dr. Chuck: So, Kathy, you are the author of The Grin Gal’s Guide to Wellbeing and also there’s a workbook that goes with this. Tell us, what is your spoonful of courage? That one thing you would want to tell someone who is experiencing guilt.
Kathy Willis: I think there’s a place in the book to talk about your struggles, but then also your “ah ha!” moments, and a lot of us hang on to the struggle away too long. And so I just want to encourage people: get your spoonful of courage by having that “ah ha!” moment where you can say “I’m not going to let this define who I am, one more minute and I’m going to move forward.”
Dr. Chuck: Now, Kathy, you do a lot of coaching. Pretty much the majority of it is in groups online, and that can be found at kathycarltonwillis.com. What kind of services do you offer people for coaching?
Kathy Willis: I really want them to see what are the things that are holding them back and identify those, so that they can experience the joy. You know, I talk about the joy ride of life. When we kick-off those training wheels, we don’t need them any more because we’ve got God in our lives, and so I try to help them identify “what is holding you back? Let’s get rid of those, kick-off the training wheels, and let’s experience that joy.”
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