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On Feeling Guilty Politicians often say that they are ‘concerned’ about an incident. This concern is often political speak and means that they haven't done anything about it and don't intend to, but they don't want to convey the impression that they don't care. This syndrome is not confined to politicians. There is a subconscious tendency in some people to concentrate on destructive emotions. This is referred to as feeling guilty but in reality it is often a subconscious desire to stymie themselves. Here's how it works. We do something that we feel we shouldn't, and that therefore there will be repercussions. Somehow, we feel, by feeling bad about what we have done we can prevent these repercussions. It's as if we can circumvent a disaster by bringing about small problems. We feel we deserve it and subconsciously make bad things happen. We are doing in private what politicians are doing in public. When they say they are concerned, and demonstrate it, they are hoping to prevent a more serious result, that is, that people will see them as uncaring and consequently withdraw their support in the polls. These subconscious tendencies run very deep. Another example is people who stymie their efforts to get rich because they feel they don't deserve it. Someone brought up in a poor household may have the idea that wealth is an impossible aim. Their parents were always short of money and they have no understanding of how money works. Wealth is something that always eludes them so even where there are opportunities they frustrate themselves. They have an impression of themselves that they are poor. Similarly, some men have problems with women, and women with men, as they see themselves as being single. They may not be happy with it but, like a married couple who have familiarity in their ongoing quarrels, they always return to the familiar. Some men are so over eager to be friendly with women that women run from them. Another example is obese people. There was a documentary on a woman who was severely obese. She had a daughter and she said that her one desire was to be thin enough to run and play with her, and to not be embarrassed simply to be out in public. She wanted to be normal and so she had a stomach by-pass operation in order to thin her down. It worked, but rather than making her happy she started excessive drinking, taking drugs and sleeping with the wrong people. She said that she had discovered something from the operation and that was that her obesity was something she was able to hide behind. It was her excuse for not participating in the world and after the operation she realised that she couldn't escape from herself. Getting what she wanted didn't make her happy. However, it gave her an opportunity to get an insight into herself that otherwise she would probably never have seen.