A few weeks ago I was tag team interviewed by two men for a new DVD series on how to become a millionaire.
Everything was going fine until one of the interviewers asked me, “Is guilt necessary?’
I almost spit out my teeth, which aren’t false.
I was surprised by the question.
It seemed to come out of nowhere.
He went on to say, “You have a rare car, so do you feel guilty driving it?”
That really made my head turn like a confused puppy looking at a foreign object for the first time.
“I don’t feel guilty at all,” I said. “I love my Francine and love people seeing me drive her. I’m hoping people get inspired when they see me drive my Panoz. They can go for their dreams, too.”
As I asked a few questions of my own, I learned the man with the guilt question owns a brand new Porsche 911 luxury sports car and only drives it at night, when the neighbors can’t see him.
Turns out he felt guilty about owning such an expensive car.
I wasn’t sure why he felt guilty about it.
Did he steal it?
Did he flaunt it?
No and no.
I chewed on the subject of guilt for some time, though, not knowing how to answer this man with his sincere question. I asked if I could get back to him.
I reflected on it all that night. It seemed to me that anyone who had to hide his wealth didn’t feel guilt but shame.
He somehow felt he didn’t deserve it.
He somehow felt others opinions of him were more important than his own.
He somehow felt out of alignment with his own desires.
What about guilt?
Was guilt even necessary?
I went to my friend Mandy Evans, author of Emotional Options and Travelling Free. She’s a belief clearing expert. I asked her what she felt about guilt. She wrote —
“I do NOT think guilt is necessary. In fact eventually it usually leads to resentment and justification of whatever people feel guilty about as often as it works for whatever they brought it into play for in the first place. You really have to want to correct your ways already to be willing to feel guilty in the hope that it will help you to do that. Awareness and desire are stronger by far than guilt — which feels really awful and rarely works. When it does, the price is too high.”
In other words, awareness of what you are doing and desire to do something different are far better and healtheir than guilt or shame.
But does having a really nice car require any change at all?
Randy Gage (who owns a very expensive car and is proud of it) is a prosperity guru who says watching television and movies programs us to think rich people are bad. A nice car might push your buttons about wealth. He writes —
“Is it any wonder that you grow up hating rich people and unconsciously not wanting to be like them? Once this is ingrained in you, the guilt starts. And it is that guilt that can stop you from accepting the abundance you are meant to have!”
Anyone who feels guilt or shame hasn’t gotten clear within themselves. There’s still a tug of war inside.
The part of them in touch with their pure desire is saying “drive the car” but the part of them feeling beliefs of lack or deservingness is saying “hide the car.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, once you get clear inside, you can have, do, or be virtually anything.
The Divine may be offering you a new car.
Who’s to say It isn’t?
It’s your beliefs that make it right or wrong.
Walk, take the bus, or drive your Porsche 911.
It doesn’t matter.
Just do whatever you do with clairity and love.
Ao Akua,
Joe
www.mrfire.com
PS — For help in getting clear, which I regard as the missing secret to success, consider Miracles Coaching. I always use a Miracles Coach. Mandy is one of mine, but she no longer takes clients. That’s why you might consider www.miraclescoaching.com
PPS – A great article by Randy Gage on prosperity thinking is at www.prosperityuniverse.com/lack_program.html Anything by Randy or Mandy is worth reading.
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21 Comments
Great one, Dr. Joe!!! Why haven’t I seen you much on Web 2.0 networks like Myspace and YouTube? I’d like to get your opinion on the following Web 2.0 software at the link below. It appears to be generating a ton of buzz among internet marketers. Please let me know your thoughts… Thanks.
– http://freeyoutubefriendadder.com/
This is my take on that crap – couch in religious tones for fun: http://blog.jonolan.net/ethics/the-8th-deadly-sin/
I never could understand falling for the whole guiltism thing, though I do understand why some groups try to push it on people.
Hi Alexis. I am on youtube (with clips getting thousands of hits) as well as myspace, which I regard as a waste of time. But I’m certainly on both.
Thanks
joe
Hi Joe
You make some good points here with this post.
And I’d like to thank you for telling us about your friend Mandy, I visited her website and she really makes alot of sense to me.
While I was reading this I just had to think of what Shakespeare said;
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
bye for now
Chris
Now that I know that your beautiful car brought up this question about guilt, I have something to add.
The only Rolls Royce I ever saw just drivng around town (Palm Springs) said on the liscence plate WSH14U2!
I’d pick that over guilt anyday!
To Your Happiness and Guilt-Free Success!
Love,
Mandy
“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.”
– Aeschylus (525 BC – 456 BC)
Sadly, probably not too much has changed since the days of ancient Greece.
A vehicle is nothing more than a possible indicator that is way too much of an unreliable variable that you shouldn’t really use to judge anyone by.
And…you probably shouldn’t be sitting in judgment of anyone else anyway (especially someone you don’t even know).
We must each of us cultivate our own garden.
Money is nothing more than an energy source. It’s fuel for life. It gives you the ability…and the mobility…to truly live in this world, and also to help others.
Work = payment…which is in most cases in the form of money (energy). That’s the system we have.
Until it changes, wealth developed and kept while conducting yourself with integrity, good moral judgment and honor is nothing to be ashamed of.
And most wealth is developed through many years of hard work. If it was easy, everyone would be wealthy.
So what’s wrong with a reward for your hard work done in an ethical manner?
Why feel guilty about it?
Silly, isn’t it…
My first and most prominent thought is HOW DID HE GET THE BEAUTIFUL CAR IN THE FIRST PLACE???? I thought if one was vibrating from guilt how did the Universe then supply the car?
Hi Lorraine. Guilt doesn’t stop attracting, especially since guilt doesn’t appear until AFTER you attracted the item. Of course, if you’re clear, you won’t have guilt, period.
Blessings,
joe
Lorraine,
I think that it’s quite clear that people have the power to attract things that they are ashamed of and feel guilty about…whether they are seemingly good or bad things is only lies in perception. It is only man who attaches ideas of worth and value to an object.
The car could have manifested to enforce this man’s inner vision of himself which included the shame and subsequently the guilt.
Or-
On the flip side, he could have chosen it and allowed it to come into his life because he really desires to be free of his shame and having the 911 is a step in that direction…
I could be wrong, but it seems more logical to me that the guy really wanted to be free of the shame and guilt…or else he wouldn’t have asked that question to Joe.
When the student is ready…the teacher appears…and vise versa…:wink:
As I thought about the feeling of guilt, I kept asking myself why we feel guilt. It occurs to me that it really isn’t a “bad” vibe. When we feel guilty that we have something that others don’t, isn’t that really our way of trying to love others? We feel guilit because we care about them and don’t want them to feel badly, right? So, in a weird sort of way, guilt is about loving others…not wanting to harm them. I think the same holds true if we are feeling guilty about something we did in the past. We are reflecting on something and wishing we had not hurt either someone else or ourselves, and we don’t want to revisit it because we no longer have a desire to harm; rather, we are trying to protect ourselves or another. Just my few pennies…
Guilt is an emotional pain that reminds us to make a better desicion in the future. People should feel guilty if they hurt someone – physically or emotionally – at least until they make the effort to correct the situation.
But the question is if people should feel guilty for having more than others – a nicer car, bigger house, etc. That depends. If you aren’t giving back to the world with your talents, time or money, I suspect you will feel guilt. But if you are living authentically, sharing your gifts with the world, then you will naturally feel freer to display your riches with guilt-free pride. You are feeling grateful for your blessings and displaying them. I think this man’s guilt is a little reminder from the universe that he’s been blessed, and that he has the power and responsibility to reach out and help others improve their lives.
IMHO he has no responsibility to help others. He may choose to – and bless him if he does – but he has no obligation to help others.
He should, of course, pay any debts he has to anyone who helped him achieve his wealth. This might mean people who went “above and beyond” any agreed upon action-for-compensation they were hired to perform.
In logic, in order for there to be any real guilt, there has to be something intrinsically bad about wealth or money itself.
This is a such a great topic…I just posted about it over at my blog-
http://www.focusedexistence.com/blog
Who else wants to be free from externally imposed shame and guilt?
She’s kidding right? Guilt is necessary.
You do something wrong and wrong being the keyword and you have not made amends for doing something wrong guilt is supposed to help bring you to a place of making amends.
Guilt is a yellow or red flag that something is not right.
On the other hand is Peace which is a good indication of why to do or buy something.
Hi Joe,
Great article on guilt. Have you ever read the books by Jane Roberts and her husband, Robert Butts? Jane (now deceased) wrote a series of mind-blowing books (with Rob) when in trace with the non-physical entity “Seth” (plus a bunch on her own). Anyway, Seth dictates that the purpose of guilt is to remind us not to do whatever-it-was-that-we-just-did-that-made-us-feel-guilty, ever again. Guiltly feelings are to remind us — DON’T DO THAT AGAIN! He goes on to say that in today’s world, we feel guilty all the time, and that’s not good and not what guilt is all about. The only reasons to feel guilty are if you: (1) harm or kill another human being; (2) harm or pollute the planet; and finally (3) harm or kill animals.
Kindly,
Jane
I could say a lot about guilt. I believe that guilt can cause a person to do the very thing that causes guilt. For instance, if guilt is your motivation to change, then what do you have to do to get your motivation? You have to do the very thing that causes guilt! What a trap to be caught in.
Thanks for the topic of guilt.