I enjoy walking labyrinths. Labyrinths are maze-like structures that have been used as spiritual tools for centuries. There are many of them around, and I am in the habit of trying to visit a lot of them. For more information about labyrinths, check out The Labyrinth Society. Find where labyrinths are in your area at the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator.

In the center of Bloomfield, a wooden arch welcomes anyone in town to walk this well-maintained labyrinth. It’s an 11-circuit Chartres replica, with grass path and inlaid brick walls. It was drizzling slightly as I began to walk. The question I brought into the labyrinth was the same as the last one: “Why do I always feel guilty?” At my last labyrinth, I received a wonderful wink from God, telling me that God is always with me even when I make a mistake, even when I’m feeling guilty. But here, in this much longer labyrinth, I was ready to learn some more about where my guilt seems to come from.

First, I pondered that I can’t be all that different from other people. People are a complicated mix of good and bad, saint and sinner. I am not an outlier – I’m not a great and perfect person, but neither am I a heap of filth. I am like everyone else – someone who makes mistakes sometimes, and someone who does great things as well. So why do I so often feel like an outlier? Why do I experience guilt so frequently, feeling like I’ve done something terribly wrong?

Second, I thought about the Enneagram. I’ve read that Enneagram Fours (like me) feel like they’ve always been “missing something,” that from our childhood we’ve felt like something has been lost. I have resonated with that since I read it, and perhaps for me what I’m missing is a feeling of innocence. I have always been guilty. When I think back to my childhood, I can’t find a time “before” I felt guilty. In my own head, I’ve been causing trouble and problems for people since I was able to walk. (It was a common saying in my house growing up that “when Michael learned to talk, he learned to talk back.”)

Third, I thought about whether I’ve been misinterpreting emotions as guilt for a long time. I wondered if I take any strong emotion that I experience, and label it as “guilt,” because it’s easier to do that than to feel the emotion. Sadness? I deserve it because I have done something wrong. Anger? I have no right to be angry, because I deserve whatever happens to me. Anger on behalf of someone else? That one is really hard for me to process – but there are times I can be angry because of something someone else is going through, and then turn it into guilt. “This must be happening because I failed to do something.”

Even positive emotions can do this – pride at some success? I can’t hold onto that for very long because I start to feel like an impostor, and that leads to more guilt. I wonder if deep down I just don’t want to take the time and energy necessary to understand and experience my emotions. Perhaps it hurts less to be guilty than to live in the confusion of the strong emotions I so often experience.

And maybe that’s the big one: confusion. Maybe confusion is so painful that I automatically sublimate it into something I do understand, a pain I’m familiar with (“the devil I know”) – guilt. Maybe that’s a really important thing for me to explore – something I should definitely talk with my counselor about. When I don’t understand something, including my own emotions, then my gut reaction is that I should have known better – so instead of trying to learn, my instinct is to go straight to guilt.