The mind – Mentally, Mom

There are two types of guilt. Functional guilt and dysfunctional guilt

Functional guilt serve the purpose, it makes you feel bad – guilty – when you have done something wrong. It urges you to do the right thing. For example if you lashed out at your coworker or spouse because you were in a bad mood; Or say as a child, you stole something from someone. In this case, guilt is functional and helps you think about what you did wrong and how to make it right and what to try not to do in the future.

Dysfunctional guilt does not serve a purpose. Like when you feel guilty for something happening that was out of your control or beyond your circumstance. This type of guilt just makes you feel bad without a solution. People dwell on the feeling and allow it to bring them down despite the situation not being a result of the “guilty person’s” direct intent or action. For example, kids often feel bad or guilty when something happens to their parents – like if they lose their job or have no money to pay the bills. As adults we sometimes feel guilty when we have friends or family in bad situations and cannot help them. We feel guilty because we think we SHOULD be helping them, or fixing their situation. The reality of it though, is that you are not the cause of their situation, you don’t have intentions to make them endure a hard time, and this type of guilt does not serve a helping purpose.

You can let go of dysfunctional guilt and accept the situation as is while still showing empathy and compassion.

In my last section on parenting kids, seriously, I explained the left and right brain. Now I will explain the upstairs and downstairs brain.

The downstairs brain controls: emotions, bodily sensations and actions i.e., anger, breathing, blinking, fear, fight or flight

The upstairs brain controls: thinking, planning, imagining, processing, self understanding, control over your body, morals

The brain works best when it is balanced – or ‘integrated’. To vertically integrate the two, we want to work from bottom to top. We want to be able to take the natural, nature instincts from the bottom, and evaluate and control them with the upstairs brain; To think about our emotions and physical feelings from the downstairs and make the right decisions with the upstairs.

With in mind, there are two type of tantrums: upstairs brain tantrums and down stairs brain tantrums. But remember, its not just kids who have tantrums – adults flip their lid too.

Learn more about how these two types of episodes vary inside your brain, and how best to handle them, on my page!

When we handle our own and our kid’s emotions, feelings and actions correctly, we help curb future meantal health struggles and increase emotional intelligence.

https://thejudgementalmom.com/kids-seriously/3/