Confronting Guilt

Guilt is a useless emotion if left to hide and fester, but can be a powerful self-improvement tool if confronted. Most of the time, the things we feel guilty for are things we think we should or shouldn't do but that may or may not matter all that much. When I am feeling guilty about something, I try to become really aware of the guilt and take the time to determine whether the guilt is either:

1. telling me something I haven't been able to see yet
or
2. telling me something I see that isn't real

In my never-ending quest to improve the quality of my life and help others do the same, I am always searching for inspiration. I love learning and reading and gathering information. I'm not as good at choosing what I should focus on when it comes to creating information for other people.  I changed the name of this blog to "Health Metamorphosis" because I thought I should focus more on the health, nutrition, and exercise, but now I find myself feeling boxed in by that self-imposed niche. I feel guilty that I don't feel like writing about food. That guilt is something I decided to think about some more in order to determine whether it is #1 guilt or #2 guilt (you can flush #2 guilt -it's crap). 


The answer to this question came to me when I examined my RSS habits. I have 142 subscriptions in my RSS feed in 20 categories. The largest categories are Health, Paleo, and Exercise. But when I open Google Reader, I don't read those categories. I read Mentors, which is the category I created for the blogs I follow that inspire me to live a life closer to my own ideal. They include:

The Happiness Project
Zen Habits
Marc and Angel Hack Life
Tim Ferriss
The Art of Non-Conformity
Man vs. Debt
Peace and Projects
Becoming Minimalist


So out of 142 subscriptions, the ones I read the most can be counted on 2 hands. I still love all the rest and think are incredibly valuable but I just don't feel inclined to read them right now. And I feel guilty about that. But the thing is, too much information can be really paralyzing. I am in the exercise and nutrition field as a career. I need to be well educated, and I am. But there comes a point where you need to focus on what you already know and learn from the people right in front of you every day (my clients) rather than worrying about what you don't know. 

Long story short, my guilt came from thinking I should learn as much as I could about one thing and only blog in that category. I am going to use my analysis of that guilt to inspire change because the guilt showed me something I wasn't yet fully aware of: I want to blog about every aspect of healthy living, from eating paleo to exercising wisely to living debt free to living a life outside the mainstream to creating multiple streams of income. And I will. Because it's my blog. 


So what are YOU feeling guilty about? Is it #1 guilt or do you need to flush it?