What If Feeling Better Makes Us Worse?

In 2022, Andrew Hafenbrack, Matthew LaPalme and Isabelle Solal published a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Across eight experiments, they found that focused-breathing mindfulness meditation could reduce guilt.

That sounds great until you remember that guilt has a job.

When people had done something wrong, feeling calmer made them less likely to want to repair the harm they had caused.

I am not against self-care. I meditate. I believe in therapy, rest, paying attention to the body, and occasionally the very good cheese.

But a tool is not a moral framework.

A breathing exercise can help a frightened person stay alive. It can also help a guilty person avoid remorse. The tool is not the moral center. The person using it is.

We have built a culture that is very good at asking, "What do I need?" That can be an important question. But when the self becomes the highest good, every duty starts to look like oppression. Every criticism becomes harm. Every person who needs something from us becomes an inconvenience to our healing.

Self-care can help you get through a bad day. It cannot, by itself, tell you what a day is for.

For that, we need three things in balance. Duty: what keeps the world inside your front door working. Purpose: what moves you to make the world outside it better. Self: what you must protect so you can keep doing both.

Sometimes the feeling is real and the conclusion is wrong. Sometimes guilt is asking us to repair. Sometimes discomfort is asking us to grow. Sometimes a demand from another person is not a threat to our peace.

Sometimes it is our duty.

Emily Hunt-Adiletta OBE is a bestselling author and keynote speaker.

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