Guilt is one of the heaviest things a man can carry, and most of the time, no one even knows it’s there. We don’t talk about it, we don’t admit it, and we definitely don’t ask for help with it. Instead, we drag it through life like a shadow. Guilt for what we didn’t do, what we should’ve done, what we said, what we never said, who we used to be, and who we think we should be by now. It builds quietly until it feels like a second skin.

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The strange thing is, research shows that men are far more likely than women to internalise guilt, to turn it inward, to let it shape their identity instead of their behaviour. We grow up believing we should be strong, steady, controlled, unbothered. So when we make mistakes or fall short of our own expectations, we carry the weight alone. It becomes this private punishment we think we deserve.

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I’ve lived that way for years. I spent a long time feeling guilty for things I had no control over, guilty for the times I wasn’t the best version of myself, guilty for letting people down, guilty for not living up to some impossible standard in my own head. And the truth is, guilt nearly swallowed me whole. It drained my energy, chipped away at my self-worth, and made even the smallest decisions feel heavy.

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But somewhere along the way, I realised something that genuinely shifted my perspective:
most of the guilt we carry isn’t ours to keep.
It’s a distorted memory of who we were, filtered through shame, exhaustion, fear, or confusion. It’s us judging ourselves by standards we’d never apply to anyone else. It’s the past holding the present hostage.

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Letting go of guilt doesn’t mean pretending mistakes never happened. It means understanding the difference between guilt that grows you and guilt that destroys you. One teaches you something. The other keeps you stuck in a life you’ve already outgrown.

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The moment you allow yourself to step back and see things with compassion, real compassion, the kind you’d show a friend, everything changes. You realise you weren’t weak; you were trying. You weren’t failing; you were learning. And you weren’t a bad person; you were a person who deserved support long before you ever asked for it.

Forgiveness isn’t something you receive. It’s something you allow yourself to claim.

And when you do, the weight shifts. Your shoulders lift. Your mind clears. The world gets a little quieter, a little lighter. Letting go of guilt doesn’t erase the past, it simply stops the past from owning you.

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The challenge for today: think of one thing you’ve been punishing yourself for. Just one. Say out loud, even if softly, “I forgive myself for this.” You don’t need to believe it fully yet. You just need to start the conversation.

“You can’t move forward if both feet are stuck in yesterday.”

Tom Gosling 6/12/25