Guilt is the emotion that you feel when you believe you have failed to live up to your own moral standards. It is perhaps the most enervating emotion. It makes you want to curl up in a little ball to block it out and avoid it.

~ Jean Moroney from, https://www.thinkingdirections.com/dealing-with-earned-guilt-loops/

This raises an interesting question for me. There’s a lot I’ve considered in how I think when I’m depressed. (I mean, thinking when I’m not depressed, about how I think when I am depressed.) There are a lot of valuable ideas and actionable things in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. For all my efforts though (including professional therapy), I’ve never thought that guilt might be a source. I’ve surely considered it in passing. That phrase up there, “your own moral standards,” however slaps hard. Because I have insanely (using that word in the literal sense), high moral standards for myself. Seems to be that notching down to extremely high moral standards, and paying close attention to adding a modifier, “aspirational,” might be a wise maneuver.

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