Chapter 13 • Guilt and Shame: Letting Go of Fault, and Holding On to Love

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Return to Week 13 Resources • Releasing Guilt

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Guilt and shame are part of being human, it’s what we do. We stumble, we blame, we forget our innocence. But maybe we were designed this way so we could experience what compassion really is. So we could discover the power of forgiveness, and remember the Love we’re made of.

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The Hidden Guilt Ellie Helped Me Heal

Guilt is one of the most misunderstood emotions, especially around grief. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that guilt is also associated with something very different, the notion of being condemned or labeled for doing something wrong. So I want to be incredibly transparent here and share about the guilt I felt for not saving Ellie, and how having the courage to feel this kind of guilt has been profoundly healing. But first, it’s important to distinguish these two very different experiences.

The emotion of guilt is an inner feeling. It can hit us hard in the lower chakras, drain our energy, and leave us feeling sad, heavy, or depressed. Sometimes it isn’t even tied to a specific event, it’s simply an invisible ache holding us back from feeling lovable, whole, and enough. Left unaddressed, it begins to bubble up into our conscious thoughts, whispering that we didn’t do enough, didn’t love enough, or that we are somehow darkly at fault.

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The notion of guilt, on the other hand, is a label—a social judgment. It’s what society assigns when someone is declared “guilty” of a crime or wrongdoing: You are at fault. You caused harm. You deserve punishment.

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In grief, we often confuse these two. We can see logically that we’re not guilty of anything, and so we try to deny or suppress the very human emotion of guilt. But that emotion doesn’t need to be reasoned with, it needs to be loved. Like all emotions, guilt simply wants to be picked up, seen, heard, and held. Once it’s acknowledged and embraced with compassion, it begins to soften. It releases. And in that release, we rediscover our innocence, our worth, and our capacity to love without condition.

In the first few months after Ellie crossed the rainbow bridge, my feelings of guilt were debilitating, compounded by the reality that I chose not to keep her. My mind knew I had done right by her in every way, but in my body I didn’t feel right. I felt bad. Wrong. Beyond sad and ashamed.

As I had the courage to give that guilt a voice, to authentically face the pain buried deep within, I unearthed old, deep-seated experiences from childhood. Experiences of guilt and shame that had been quietly waiting to be seen.

The most healing of these moments came when I released myself from the misbelief that I didn’t do enough to save Mum. This realization emerged while I was writing in my healing book one day. I had been expressing how sorry I was to Ellie that I couldn’t save her, and suddenly I felt like I was fourteen again, flooded with the same sorrow and shame I’d carried for not being able to save Mum all those years ago.

Of course, I know I had nothing to do with her dying and was not at fault in any way. And yet a part of me still felt responsible, still wondered if I could’ve done more, if I should’ve been more loving, if somehow, I could’ve been enough to make her stay.

That’s the tricky thing about guilt: it doesn’t respond to reason. It lingers beneath the surface, often without us realizing it’s there. And because humans are often wired more for self-criticism than self-compassion, we tend to focus on what we didn’t do rather than all that we did.

The truth is, I was just twelve when Mum got sick. And I loved her so much. I did so much. I went vegan with her. I helped her juice and cleaned the juicer. I got her pills most days. I baked for her. I tried to meditate with her. And through it all, I loved her deeply and fully, with the whole of my little-girl heart. But guilt has a way of narrowing our vision. And despite all the love and care I gave my mum, two specific and painful memories were unearthed in this process, memories that hadn’t seen the Light for thirty years, but were finally ready to be released.

The first was that I didn’t find enough pawpaw (papaya) leaves for her. We were trying so many alternative therapies after chemo didn’t work, and one of them was pawpaw leaf tea. As I allowed myself to deeply mourn Ellie, to give that unbearable pain a voice, I found a well of guilt and shame for not getting Mum more pawpaw leaves. I felt like I should have somehow been able to walk the streets and find them, and that maybe they could have saved her. Of course, as soon as I wrote it down, it felt so ridiculous, and it was so easy to let that one go.

The second memory that spilled from my pen during those months was of going to Year Seven camp, the same year Mum was diagnosed. I chose to go have fun with my friends instead of staying home with her. Of course, she emphatically urged me to go. The thing she wanted for me more than anything was to be happy, to be a kid, to enjoy my life. But that’s how guilt works. It turned the ordinary decision of a twelve-year-old into lifelong emotional weight, quietly pushing me to do more in an effort to finally rid myself of that constant, unnamed feeling of not-enoughness.

And I know so many of you can relate to that feeling of never quite being enough, no matter how much you do, achieve, or experience. That’s why I’m sharing these very personal experiences with you. Yes, they’re examples of how pet grief can become profound, life-changing healing. But I also want to highlight something important: while these memories may seem small or even inconsequential, so what if I felt guilty about pawpaw leaves or about going to camp? What could that possibly have to do with my life now?

Well, our mind stores these experiences, and the judgments attached to them, as evidence that we are bad, wrong, or not enough. Over time, those judgments become the unconscious proof for an ongoing belief: I’m not enough. I don’t do enough. And that belief, until it’s acknowledged and released, can quietly color our entire lives.

In relationships, it can show up as always feeling like we have to do more to be loved. At work or at home, it can drive us to over-perform, to never rest, to feel like we can’t stop. I exaggerate the dynamic here only so you can see it clearly, but this is exactly how grief, especially pet grief, can bring up old shame and guilt from the past for profound healing. It gives us a chance to release the judgments that we’re not whole, lovable, or worthy just as we are. And as we let go of the misbeliefs that have been holding us back, we begin to experience our own innocence, wholeness, and inherent lovability. That growing self-worth and self-love help us show up in braver, more confident, more life-affirming, and love-affirming ways, in every area of our lives.

We all have moments throughout our lives that get stuck in our unconscious and nervous system, innocent moments when we did our best, yet somehow they get filed away as proof that we didn’t do enough, weren’t lovable, and weren’t enough. Because pet grief connects us with such a pure and innocent place inside ourselves, these early experiences often rise to the surface for healing. And while those moments aren’t easy, they are more valuable and transformative than any moment of pleasure.

I didn’t go searching to heal the past while I was grievealing Ellie, mourning her, missing her, feeling a myriad of emotions about her, myself, and the world. But when we’re willing to deeply feel and love ourselves through our pain, these profoundly miraculous moments of healing find us.

Releasing the Weight of Guilt and Shame

When our beloved animal passes, it’s not uncommon to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt, whether for decisions made at the end of their life, things we wish we’d done differently, or simply because they’re no longer here.

Even the clients who tell me they don’t feel guilty, who know they did everything, that their animal was old and had a full, beautiful life, almost always encounter moments when guilt begins to surface from the unconscious into conscious awareness. Maybe they can’t let go of their animal’s favorite chair. They feel a wave of paralyzing guilt for giving it away. Obviously, the guilt isn’t about a chair—it’s about their beloved animal.

It’s always so incredibly empowering and beautiful to move from guilt into forgiveness into truth. As we release the misbelief that we did anything less than love them wholeheartedly, we begin to embody and experience the Love that is the truth.

Our emotions of guilt aren’t rational. They don’t follow logic. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you might know and feel deep down that you gave everything you had. And yet still, some part of you wonders:

Did I do enough?

What if I missed something?

Was it my fault?

I could’ve hugged them more that day.

I could’ve tried that treatment.

I could’ve…

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This feeling is heartbreakingly common, and deeply human. The more we can talk about it, the better.

The Sensitive Heart Carries More Guilt

Sensitive, empathic, deeply loving humans tend to carry more guilt than others, not because we’ve done more wrong, but because we’re so deeply connected to your Huge Heart, your Soul nature, which feels oneness with all beings.

One of the great opportunities for sensitive hearts is to grow in awareness, to recognize where we end and another begins. We often absorb others’ pain, internalize their struggles, and when something goes wrong, our first instinct is to look inward and wonder: What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently?

This can feel especially true with pet grief. We were their caregiver, their voice, their everything. So when they pass, even if we did absolutely everything we could, some part of us still feels like we failed.

The good news is that pet grief offers a clear and purposeful path to deepen our relationship with our Huge Heart. As we awaken self-love, self-compassion, and self-forgiveness, we no longer need shared suffering to feel connected to our beloved animals. We begin to release the weight of unnecessary guilt and instead experience a living oneness with them, a love that is real, present, and ongoing.

From this place of wholeness, we can live and love more fully, from the freedom and fullness of our Huge Heart, and enjoy the sacred, ongoing connection with our Rainbow Ones.

And while I wish the process weren’t as painful as it is, for us sensitive, empathic beings, the rewards are even greater. As we grieveal, we awaken into Phases 3 and 4, where the experience of feeling and being with our Rainbow One becomes so real. And in that connection, we realize this journey has been more than worth it.

The Burden of Fault

One of the biggest shifts in my healing came when I realized something radical: fault is irrelevant to healing. It doesn’t matter whose “fault” something was. Ever. And I know that can be hard to hear, especially if your beloved animal’s death was unfair, or caused by someone else’s negligence or cruelty. My Huge Heart holds so much compassion for those navigating the pain of deep injustice. There is absolutely a time to act in this world, to seek truth, to protect the innocent, to demand accountability. But there is also a sacred time to heal.

The truth is: if we don’t feel and heal first, our actions will be fueled by pain rather than love. And pain-fueled action, no matter how righteous it feels, often creates more suffering, for us.

So if your animal’s passing involved injustice or harm, I invite you to take this to heart: heal first. Feel your pain fully before you rise to take action. Let your grief be the fire that purifies your heart, not the fuel that burns it down. When we give ourselves permission to grieve, to rage, to sob, and to fall apart, something miraculous happens, our hearts soften, and we become capable of acting from love rather than againstness. From that place, our compassion becomes the change we want to see in the world. The energy of blame, whether toward others or ourselves, is never effective. It’s fueled by the nervous system’s survival impulse, not the heart’s wisdom. And psychology shows this clearly: the more we focus on fault, the less capacity we have for responsibility, which is the only place healing and true change begin.

So let’s be clear: Blame and fault-finding are distractions from feeling. We want to blame because it gives us something to do instead of something to feel. It’s a way to avoid the unbearable truth that we are hurting. That we’ve lost someone we love. It’s easier to focus on the mind’s question, “Whose fault is this?”, than to face the body’s truth: I’m in agony. But freedom begins when we stop fighting the pain and start feeling it.

Responsibility, on the other hand, is a path forward. It’s not about making ourselves wrong. It’s about acknowledging our capacity to choose how we meet this moment, with honesty, with compassion, with love. We can take full responsibility for our lives, our healing, and even our impact, without carrying the weight of fault. Because in the end, being “at fault” doesn’t heal anyone. But taking responsibility for our experience does. When we feel and heal first, we can rise in loving, not in hate. We can become a powerful, peaceful force for change. And from that place, the world doesn’t just change, it transforms.

Guilt and Shame

Pet grief often brings guilt and shame to the surface, not to harm us, but to help us heal what’s been buried for years. When we meet these feelings with curiosity, compassion, and truth, they become powerful portals to freedom, self-love, and emotional wholeness (see References: Guilt, Shame and Grief).

While guilt and shame are connected, they aren’t the same. But trying to distinguish between them isn’t always helpful when it comes to healing, especially in grief.

Guilt often says, “I did something bad.” Shame says, “I am bad.” And the truth is, they often show up together. A client might say, “I feel guilty I didn’t do more for my dog,” or, “I feel ashamed that I didn’t handle things differently.” But underneath both, there’s usually a sense of unworthiness, a feeling that something inside is “wrong.” That’s the part that needs our compassion and love.

Shame distorts our reality. It tells us we are the problem. It convinces us we must fix ourselves to be worthy of love, when in truth, there’s nothing wrong with who we are.

During grief, shame often rises not to punish us, but to be healed. It whispers thoughts like:

I should have known.
I didn’t do enough.
I messed everything up.
I’m always at fault. </aside>

One of the bravest things we can do is to meet these thoughts with gentleness instead of judgment. Even if there’s something you wish you had done differently, that reflection can come later, after your heart has had time to grieve and breathe again.

For now, what your grief needs most is pure self-compassion, the kind that gives you the benefit of the doubt, sees your innocence, and remembers: You are lovable. Even now. Especially now.

Rewiring Guilt and Shame with Self-Compassion and Self-Forgiveness

No matter what the negative emotion, pattern, or belief says, if it feels harsh or hurtful, painful or pitiful, if it’s guilt or shame, or some confusing combination of both, bringing that emotional experience into the Light using the Feeling for Healing method can begin to resolve our grief and emotional challenges.

This work isn’t just about coping. It’s about rewiring. When we meet these feelings with presence and compassion, when we let ourselves actually feel what’s in our body, instead of bypassing or judging it, we start to shift the emotional imprint. We begin to offer safety where there was once shame. Truth where there was once distortion. Gentleness where there was once self-punishment.

Because here’s the thing about shame: it requires silence, secrecy, and isolation to survive. That’s the soil it grows in. It thrives in the shadows, where no one can see us, where we feel too afraid or too unworthy to speak the truth of our pain.

So when we bring our guilt and shame out of hiding, when we speak it aloud to someone safe, or even just to our own heart, we begin to take its power away. When we let ourselves be seen in the places we feel most unworthy, and we aren’t abandoned, we start to rewrite the story we’ve been carrying for years. The story that says: I’m not enough. I’m the problem. I don’t deserve love.

You don’t have to be perfect to be lovable. You don’t have to have done everything right to be forgiven. And you certainly don’t have to carry this alone. Your Rainbow One doesn’t want you to suffer. They don’t want you stuck in cycles of self-blame. They want you to live with the same love you gave to them—fierce, pure, unconditional. They want that love turned inward now. Not because you need to “earn it,” but because it’s already yours.

So if guilt is still lingering… if shame is still whispering… this is your invitation. Bring it into the Light. Feel it. Forgive it. And let yourself return to the truth of who you are, innocent, worthy, and completely lovable.

Great Job! That’s Week 13 Reading Complete 🏆 🎉 😁 🙌

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