Exercise: Self-Assessment for Religious Guilt
The purpose of this exercise is to help you identify and understand your religious values. If you are a member of an organized religion, some of these values are available in written form or you may hear them articulated when you attend meetings of your religious group. Some of you may not be a member of an organized religious group, however you may have been raised in a certain religion, and even though you no longer formally adhere to that religion, some of the values may still be important to you or may still influence you. It is often the case that even though certain religious values have been rejected, they become part of the psyche, especially if others who are important to you still adhere to those values.
Some of you may have changed faiths or adopted spiritual values that are not unique to or particularly identified with any religious group. Regardless of the origin of your religious or spiritual values, it is important to be aware of these values because they can form the basis of guilt when you transgress those values.
Open up your journal and on a fresh piece of paper, write the heading "My Religious/Spiritual Values" at the top of the page. Then answer the following questions:
If you belonged to an organized religion as a child, what values were you taught? How did that religion define "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "evil"? You may need several pages to answer this question, or you may simply make a list the values of your religion.
Looking back over what you have written, ask yourself which of those values you truly believed in? All of them, some of them, none of them?
Were you ever scolded or chastised for not obeying one of the rules of the religion or for violating one of the religion’s codes? What values or codes did you violate? At the time, how did you feel about being chastised? Did you feel guilty, or not? If you felt guilty, how guilty did you feel? Just a twinge of guilt? A moderate amount of guilt? Profound guilt?
Were you conflicted about your guilt? In other words, did a part of you feel guilty but another part of you feel justified or not guilty at all?
What happened when you felt guilty? Did your mood change? Did your attitude towards yourself or others change? Did your lifestyle or daily habits change? Did you become angrier or more destructive to yourself or others? Did the guilt result in any changes which you today, in retrospect, see as positive?
At the time, were you given means to make amends for your errors, were you punished in some manner, or both? How did you feel about being punished or making amends at the time?
How do you feel about being scolded or punished today, years later? If your religion provided a means of atonement, what is your opinion about the methods of your faith today? Did punishments or means of atonement help relieve any guilt you were experiencing in the past? Did the feeling of relief carry into the present?
If you have changed religions or adopted a different spiritual approach to life, what would you say are the values of your new spirituality or religious outlook? How do you feel when you violate one of these values? Is it part of your current spiritual or religious program to punish yourself in some way or make amends in some manner? If so, please describe in detail.
As the result of the stresses or traumas you have experienced, have you come to doubt some of the tenants of your faith and perhaps rejected your faith altogether? If this is the case, do you feel guilty about having moved away from your original faith? Write two or three sentences about any such feelings of guilt.
Do your close friends or family members accept your change in beliefs or withdrawal from your original faith? How does their response to your change affect your sense of guilt?