SENSE of FAULT

Writing by bwerner on Thursday, 24 of July , 2008 at 4:09 pm

It passed by some time since my last post and therefore I have a sense of guilt

PSYCHOLOGY - Defeating the sense of fault - The value of repair

We all make mistakes and we can all make errors. However, if it is true that in a real culture of tolerance errors can be repaired - in our daily reality - dominates the culture of an overwhelming sense of guilt. The sense of guilt comes from a rigid education, hard, blunt, and often hypocritically violent. The archetype of the wise Father, bearer of wisdom and sense of limit, is often far from our hearts and our thoughts.

However, in a world without fathers, violence can only grow without limit and the individuals tend to remain eternally adolescents, eternal Peter Pan, capricious and always looking for something that they not even know how to define. Therefore, we must learn to repair errors. The error is always human and not supernatural: when we commit an error – how serious ever – there were not violated any deity. The mistake should not be brought in celestial spheres of Judgment, but must remain on earth, concrete, real - albeit painfully - human and therefore forgivable. In this way, it - however difficult - is always an error to which you can repair.

This mechanism is of enormous value for the soul of people and in particular for children.
Being aware that our mistakes are repairable (through a gesture, a ritual, a job) allows any person who has committed it not to feel terribly guilty, because this would give rise to a spiral of guilt (the culprit unconsciously always tries to atone and in so doing he is likely to be again in circumstances where he commits more errors, remaining trapped in a vicious diabolical circle).
If our errors are in some way to repair, then we can grow in us the hope that the misdeed can be dissolved, that the fault is not an indelible stain that weighs during the course of our life consciences. Instead of being crushed by the condemnation of guilt we can:
1) take note of the error
2) can assume the responsibility to the bottom
3) we can stop imagine ourselves perfect
4) we can ask forgiveness and forgive ourselves
5) we can then repair and we can devise systems to dissolve the guilt and refuse to stifle forever in our hearts.

The repair is never the total cancellation of an error. The repair does not rewind the tape of life and cancel the error as if it had never been committed. Just as the error is human, even the repair is human and therefore imperfect. Taking up at the bottom of responsibility for our mistakes - in an adult and father manner - means being aware of the pain that our repairs will not be a total cancellation. The error should make us grow; we must mature and evolve through the pain of an imperfect repair, but at the same time, sincere and authentic. Where then we fail to get the repair, can we always get forgiveness.