(ThySistas.com) Oprah Winfrey scored huge points in our community with giving away cars at her show. I still remember her screaming those words: “You get a car! And you get a car!…” She was giving cars away like peppermints from grandmothers in a traditional baptist church during service. Guilt can work the same way. It can be transferred to us as easily as germs with a cold. Unfortunately, there is no cure for guilt. There are remedies, however, to help us not feel guilty when we choose to make choices.
First, we have to understand that caring for ourselves helps us to care for each other. Think about it: can you give someone a ride to a location if YOU do not have a mode of transportation? The same applies to how we live our lives. We have to come to terms with the fact that we are doing is a form of self-care and selfish. Society makes it very difficult to see the differences in those ideas because they are very often put together. They also have negative connotations attached to them as well. They are nowhere near the same. 
Self-care involves doing things for ourselves that increase our positivity and our well-being. Selfishness, on the other hand, is usually when we do for ourselves because it is a last resort before we start to damage ourselves physically, mentally, and/or emotionally. Come to terms with the facts that doing things that can solely make us joyful is not a sin. It actually helps us to help our community and environment.
Second, we have to be ok with being vulnerable. This word is usually connected with weak, and they are nowhere near the same. Weakness is a cop out so-to-speak that demands us to surrender our power to another. Weakness is defeat. Brene Brown does a beautiful job of explaining vulnerability: “Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.” Vulnerability give us the energy to bounce back from losses way more. It allows us to see defeat, know it exists, and still press forward after learning a lesson from it. Guilt will have you believing that you have to put on a very strong face if you want to survive. This is completely false. Allow yourself the chance to enjoy victory and defeat effectively.
We learned as kids that every choice has a consequence. It can be amazing. It can be detrimental. It is our job to accept the consequence with the choice. Guilt is an emotion that will have you believing you are the WORST person in the world. You are not. You are a great and valuable person to this world regardless of your choices. NEVER let anyone force you to be guilty about choosing you. That is a gift you can live without.
Staff Writer; J. W. Bella
May also follow this talented sister online over at; JWB Writes.