Tatiana Khodakova

“Guilt is just a reminder that somewhere you’ve betrayed yourself” (modern aphorism)

Why is apologizing painful? When we feel guilt, we often believe it’s the voice of our conscience. However, modern science asserts that guilt is not a moral compass but a signal of physical trauma.

Recent research in the field of neurobiology shows that when you feel guilty, your brain activates the same areas as when experiencing physical pain. This discovery fundamentally changes our perspective on self-blame.

1. Guilt = Trauma: The Brain Sees No Difference

Researchers from the University of Erlangen (a team led by Ulrich Michal) demonstrated a remarkable fact using MRI:

– During intense feelings of guilt, the anterior cingulate cortex and insula are activated.

– These same areas are activated when, for example, you cut your finger or hit your elbow.

In simple terms: Your brain literally perceives guilt as a physical blow or trauma. Therefore, when you experience guilt, your body instinctively reacts: your breath catches, your muscles tense, and you feel “bad”, even if you haven’t objectively done anything terrible.

For instance, remember how you feel when you let someone down:

– You unconsciously hunch over as if carrying a heavy burden.

– Your stomach may tighten, creating a sensation of a “stone” or nausea.

– You start to speak more quietly and avoid eye contact, trying to become invisible.

These are all physical manifestations.

2. Survival Trap: Guilt Instead of Action

Scientists explain that guilt is not “conscience” but a mechanism of control and survival.

When you make a “mistake” (or believe you have), your brain feels it has lost control over the situation. To regain a sense of control, it initiates an endless cycle of self-blame.

Guilt is not about conscience; it’s about survival. The brain triggers self-accusation to feel as though it’s doing something to rectify the situation.

For example, you failed to submit a report on time. Instead of immediately writing an explanation (an action), you spend two hours replaying in your mind: “I’m irresponsible! I always mess everything up”!

Result: You are not fixing anything, but your brain gets the illusion that it’s “doing something” — analyzing, suffering, searching for a reason. In reality, it is just expending a huge amount of energy on mimicking action.

3. “Self-Punishment Loop”: From Guilt to Chronic Stress

Ulrich Michal called this process the “self-punishment loop”

The longer you analyze what went wrong, the stronger the anxious response becomes. Your stress hormone (cortisol) is released even though there is no real danger. The amygdala continues to operate even when it’s time to take action. Thus, guilt turns into chronic stress, and you become your own “overseer”, constantly draining your own energy.

Example (Chronic Effect):

A person who constantly analyzes past failures in relationships essentially artificially maintains a pain signal in the brain.

Each time they recall a mistake, the amygdala releases a new dose of cortisol. 

Result: Constant fatigue, poor digestion, and insomnia. Guilt literally transforms into physical discomfort.

4. How to Break the Vicious Cycle?

The good news is that the brain is capable of neuroplasticity — it can change old, harmful connections. To break the “self-punishment loop”, you need to stop analyzing and start feeling.

Neuro-disconnecting the Chain:

– Shift your focus from thoughts to the body. Ask yourself: “Where exactly do I feel this guilt right now”?

– Feel the reaction. You may notice that something feels “tight”, “burning”, or “pressing” somewhere (this is the activation of the insular cortex).

– Just notice this sensation without judgment.

Result: When you stop arguing with the feeling and simply start to listen to it (focusing on the bodily sensation), the same insular cortex activates. But this time it sends a new signal: “The danger has passed. Everything is under control”.

The self-punishment chain is broken, and the energy that the brain was expending fighting a phantom returns to you. You step out of survival mode with a simple and clear feeling: “I am okay”.

In summary:

Guilt is not an enemy, but a navigator. It simply shows where you have lost contact with yourself and got stuck in the past. There’s no need to forgive yourself; you just need to feel your fear that resides in bodily sensations. Under your observation, the sensation changes — your body relaxes. You emerge from survival mode and begin to act.

Controlling Question:

After learning about the traps of guilt and the power of your brain, take a moment to pause. Here’s a controlling question directed specifically to you, the reader of this article, urging immediate action: If you were not afraid of being “bad”, what would you do differently today?

Photo Getty Images For Unsplash+
Translated by Maria Zayats

Read also:

Don’t search, but live: How to leave the waiting room of meaning and return to the body

Uncertainty: the choice between freedom and prison

The best version of yourself: Exiting the race of improvements

Tatiana Khodakova

“A person thinks he is seeking awakening; in reality, he is seeking a more comfortable sleep” (Georgy Gurdjieff)

According to modern psychological research, the millennia-old leader among human fears — thanatophobia (fear of death) — has unexpectedly given way. Now, reigning on the pedestal is a new, more insidious, and ubiquitous horror: the fear of losing meaning. This is not the fear that life will come to an end, but the fear that it never mattered. How does this global shift in priorities affect each of us?

The Main Trap: The Question “Why Am I Living?”

The question “Why am I living?” is currently at the forefront of relevance. And within it lies a huge trap: the more a person seeks an answer, the deeper he gets stuck. But if there is a question, there must be an answer, right?

The Waiting Room of Life

What do we do when seeking meaning? We rush to read motivational books, sign up for coaching courses, look for our “calling”. And therein lies the catch. Our mind sets a hard condition: as long as I do not find meaning, I will not be able to live truly.

Thus, a person sentences himself: true life will begin after the answer, after I understand myself, after I find my purpose. Meanwhile, he sits in the “waiting room”, not living life but merely waiting it out.

Happiness is Not in Reflection

Scientists from Harvard have uncovered a key paradox: people are unhappy not because they do something unpleasant. They are unhappy when they think about themselves and their future, presupposing in advance that it will be unpleasant.

That is why a person is often happier when washing dishes than when sitting and thinking about the meaning of life

Why? Because our mind does not have a “department for seeking the meaning of life”. There are only neural networks that, upon receiving this “request”, start circulating the same thoughts in circles, like a frozen computer. The longer you sit and wait for this “computer” to produce an answer, the more you strengthen the neural pathways of inaction and anxiety.

And this paradox, discussed by modern scientists, was known long before Harvard.

Ancient Sufis knew the secret: “When you seek the Truth, it runs away from you. When you stop searching, it finds you”.

The mystic Georgy Gurdjieff expressed it even more harshly, calling it a form of self-deception: “A person thinks he is seeking awakening; in reality, he is seeking a more comfortable sleep”.

It turns out that our active, sometimes agonizing, search for meaning is not a quest for an answer, but a sophisticated justification for not living in the present.

The Collector of Answers Effect

The paradox deepens: the more actively you seek, the worse you feel. Each new motivational book you read does not bring clarity; it only adds more questions. Every expert, coach, or guru presents you with their unique, often contradictory, version of the “correct” meaning. As a result, you begin to collect answers like stamps, while within you, uncertainty and noise only grow.

Foreign Words Cannot Fill the Void

And the more foreign answers you collect, the less your own understanding becomes. Why? Because these are not your own answers from within. They are merely someone else’s words, which you, like patches, try to quickly and painlessly use to fill your existential void. But these foreign concepts cannot take root in your life. They only create the illusion of progress while you postpone the most important thing: to live now.

The Escape into Depth: The Trap of Spiritual Search

So, we have figured out: the very search for meaning is an escape from life. Trying to find the answer solely in the mind leads away from living life itself.

But if not in the mind, then where? In meditations? In retreats? In spiritual practices?

And here one can fall into an even more sophisticated trap.

Euphoria and New Chains

You dive into the “depth”: retreats, yoga, vipassana, ceremonies. The first weeks bring euphoria. New states, insights, powerful sensations — seems like this is it! I have finally found what I was looking for, and life is about to begin.

But a week, a month, two pass, and you find yourself in the same place again. Now you have certificates of completing retreats, a new set of spiritual concepts, but inside — a persistent dissatisfaction. What happened?

The person simply changed the place of imprisonment. Before, they chased money, status, and success to prove their worth. Now, they chase high vibrations and enlightenment. Previously, the person compared themselves to society by the brand of their car, and now — by the duration of their daily meditation or the complexity of the practice they’ve undertaken.

The game remains the same — the search for external validation of one’s value. The scenery has just changed from material to spiritual. It is still a chase that distracts from the main thing:

THE MEANING IS NOT IN ESCAPING, BUT IN PRESENCE

The Shadow Side of Spiritual Breakthrough

Research conducted at Brown University revealed alarming statistics: up to 30% of people experience what is traditionally called the “dark night of the soul” after intensive meditative retreats. This can manifest as severe depression, increased anxiety, or even a sense of disconnection from reality.

Why Does This Happen?

Spiritual practices provide a powerful, but often temporary, experience of “enlightened” or “expanded” consciousness (the Spiritual Self). Then, a person returns to regular, everyday life (the Ordinary Self) with its routine, bills, and imperfections.

At this moment, a gap is created:

• The Ideal Self (gained during the retreat) demands high vibrations and tranquility.
• The Real Self is forced to battle once again with traffic and everyday problems.

Instead of harmony, these two parts of the personality start to fight each other. A person rejects their ordinary life as “unspiritual”, while the spiritual experience cannot be integrated into reality.

The Lesson of Buddha

Let us turn to the story that forms the foundation of one of the greatest world philosophies.

Buddha himself (Siddhartha Gautama) spent six years on extreme spiritual experiments, practicing the harshest asceticism. He renounced everything, fasted, and pushed himself to physical exhaustion, believing that the truth lies beyond the physical body and comfort.

However, enlightenment did not come at the moment of maximum suffering. It arrived when he stopped fighting and searching: he accepted a bowl of rice from a girl he met, regained his strength, sat under a tree — and simply stopped searching. Only then, in a moment of balance and letting go, did the revelation come.

The Lesson of the Masters

Ancient masters demonstrated this not in words, but in action.

– Rumi wrote his divine poems while also trading in the marketplace.

– Kabir created his mystical songs while weaving carpets.

– Jesus worked as a carpenter before beginning his preachings.

They did not seek the Creator somewhere out there — in the heavens, in retreats, or in Vipassana. They found Him in engaging in the most ordinary activities. The ancients said:

ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT ESCAPE FROM THE WORLD, BUT FULL PRESENCE IN IT.

The most toxic aspect of spiritual searching is the artificial separation: the idea that the material is something bad, dirty, and base, while the spiritual is pure and elevated. The body becomes an enemy, money is deemed evil, and simple pleasures are viewed as “low vibrations”. However, as we’ve seen, spirituality without the body creates a new cage, even more sophisticated than the previous one, because it seems virtuous.

So where is the way out? If it’s not found in endless mental reflections or in disconnected spiritual practices?

The way out is in the very place where a person has been running away from: in the body.

Meaning is not sought “above” life. It is born within it: in the very simple, bodily sensations of ordinary life. In the warmth of a coffee cup, in the freshness of the water used to wash dishes, in the feeling of tired muscles after work, in the touch of a loved one.

Meaning is not something to be found. It is something to be felt. And for that, a guru or a book is not needed.

ONE JUST NEEDS TO BE HERE

System Reset

Here’s an interesting scientific fact that flips our understanding of stress: 80% of information flows from the body to the brain, not the other way around.

When our body is in chronic tension (due to tension, poor posture, old injuries), the brain receives a constant danger signal. We call this stress. In response, the brain is forced to generate anxious thoughts, seek threats, confirm them, invent problems, and even create them in real life. We think we are the ones thinking about this, but in reality, it’s the body manifesting through our thoughts.

Polyvagal Theory: The Noise of Compensation

Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory explains this: as long as the body remains in chronic stress and harbors negative emotions and programs, the mind is forced to create constant noise and chaotic thoughts to somehow compensate for and understand this internal tension.

Practice: Returning to Yourself (1.5 minutes)

Right now, without delay, let’s do a simple but powerful practice.

Position and Support: Sit comfortably. Feet on the floor, back relatively straight but relaxed. Find and notice three points of support: your feet, your pelvis, and the crown of your head. Direct your attention there.

Breathing (about a minute): Begin to breathe by counting. Don’t try too hard — just count. If you lose track, start over.

– Inhale: for 4 counts (1, 2, 3, 4)

– Hold: for 2 counts (1, 2)

– Exhale: for 6 counts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Breathe like this for about a minute.

Feeling in the Center: Then place your hand on your chest, in the center. Feel the warmth under your palm, or the beating of your heart, or just the sensation of touch. Direct your attention there. Without changing anything, simply observe the feelings in the center of your chest. Allow something new to arise that you haven’t noticed before. Feel it without judgment, without analysis.

Action: From this feeling — not from your head, but from the sensation — name one simple, specific action out loud that comes to you right now (for example, to go, to call, to go out, to write).

Do that action. And that’s it.

This practice does one very simple but very important thing: it switches us from “thinking and reasoning about life” mode to just “being present and living” mode. You’re not looking for meaning. You’re returning the sense of yourself.

If you don’t believe it, try it: rate your state before the practice from 0 to 100 and simply compare the difference afterward.

Why Do We Fear Simple Things?

Why does our mind stubbornly avoid simple actions? Because the mind is very afraid of the body. The body holds a lot of old, suppressed pain. Most importantly, in the body, the mind loses control.

Through the body, you cannot ask the question “Why?”. There are only simple, clear signals and answers: cold, warm, hungry, tired, rested, want to go, want to do. No philosophical reasoning. The mind hates this simplicity because in this clarity, it finds itself unnecessary.

Seven-Day Protocol: 90 Seconds to Clarity

If you are ready to regain control over your life—not your thoughts—try this simple protocol. Just one week will give you your first taste of results.

For 7 days, daily:

1. Practice “90 Seconds”: Three times a day (morning, afternoon, evening), do the breathing and attention practice to your chest (described above).

2. Walk: Take one 10–15 minute walk without your phone.

3. Have one meal without a screen. Just eat and taste.

4. Action: Perform one simple action in the material world that you want to do (a meeting, a call, a letter).

Check-In: Every evening, record your assessment on three parameters from 1 to 100: Energy, Clarity, Level of Calmness.

Resistance of the Mind

Your mind will want to pull you back onto old tracks. It’s been tested. It will always devalue everything; it will start whispering: “You have to work hard, you have to pull through, there’s no time to feel!” These beliefs have governed your life for years and won’t give way in a week or two. You will want to jump back into thoughts, analysis, into your head.

But don’t give up. Do the daily practices (just 10–20 minutes) so that contact with yourself returns and becomes a new useful habit, rather than a one-time experience.

Meaning Does Not Come from Understanding; It Comes from Living

Meaning does not come from understanding. It comes from living life. You can search for ten years for the answer to why you should cook, or you can start cooking, prepare something delicious, eat it with awareness, and feel the state. This will give you more meaning than any reasoning because your body has always known all the answers.

Now you have a simple and effective tool: 90 seconds to clarity.

From “Why?” to “How?”

You have traveled a long way: sought meaning in achievements and found emptiness; sought it in spirituality and found a new prison; sought it in thoughts and found an endless maze. And suddenly it turned out that the exit wasn’t where you were looking. It was where you were running away from.

Your life was never broken. It was the way you looked at and lived it that was broken.

• If you are bored, it’s not about life; it’s about the fact that you stopped feeling it.
• If you are tired, it’s not about your workload; it’s about acting against yourself.
• If you say, “There’s no meaning”, it’s about waiting for permission to live and suppressing your true desires.

Life happens every second, right now.

The Main Revelation: The answer is not in the question “Why?”. The answer is “How?”.

• Not why you breathe, but how you take each breath.
• Not why you work, but how you spend your day.
• Meaning is not in a distant goal; it is in the quality of being present here and now.

Your Choice

Research confirms that people who focus on the process rather than the ultimate meaning (the Japanese ikigai in its original, simple sense—small daily joys) live longer, healthier, and happier lives.

Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Ask yourself in the morning what you need to do today to be a human”. Not why to be, but how to be one today?

Life is not an exam where you need to find the right answer. It’s a dance where feeling, rhythm, and harmony matter.

Right now, there are two paths:

1. Continue Waiting: waiting for answers, waiting for meaning, waiting for life to finally start.

2. Just Start Living: imperfectly, without answers, but with feeling. 

Perform the practice, go for a walk, prepare yourself a delicious lunch, and eat it mindfully.

It’s not that you broke. It’s that you simply forgot how to feel life.

The only question is: are you in it, or still in your head? The choice is yours, and it has always been yours.

Photo Getty Images For Unsplash+
Translated by Maria Zayats

Read also:

Uncertainty: the choice between freedom and prison

The best version of yourself: Exiting the race of improvements