CBT Responsibility Pie: Stop Feeling Guilty

Do you ever feel overly responsible for other peoples feelings or struggle with a high degree of guilt or shame? In this video I will discuss a CBT technique called the responsibility pie, which helps reduce feelings of guilt and shame.

Let's start by looking at an example, Mary works full time and also cares for her disabled husband, Kevin. Due to chronic pain Kevin is usually low. After a stressful day at work Mary arrived home and noticed Kevin looked low. Mary shouted "I've had enough, I can't cope anymore?" Kevin started to cry. Mary felt tremendously guilty that her husband cried and believed she was 100% responsible.  To help Mary gain some perspective she made a responsibility pie. She make a list of all the things that might have contributed to Kevin crying for example:

* Kevins in chronic pain
* He doesn't have any interests or hobbies
* Adult children never visit
* I work long hours and I'm tired all the time
* I shouted at Kevin

Mary then assigned slices of the pie to each identified person or factor that could have contributed to Kevin crying. For Kevins chronic pain Mary allocated 30%. For the fact he has no interests or hobbies 10%. For their adult children never visiting 10%. For Mary working long hours and the associated tiredness 20% and finally Mary's shouting (30%)

Via completing a responsibility pie Mary could see that she was not 100% responsible for Kevin crying but 30% responsible. She could she that she was trying her best in very difficult circumstances, with no help or support from others. So this exercise enabled Mary to see the bigger picture and disrupt the cycle of guilt and blame.

The responsibility pie exercise is not designed to always reduce guilt. Sometimes it's healthy to feel guilty about what you have done. But if you find yourself frequently feeling overly responsible for the feelings or actions of others this exercise can be helpful.

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🔵 ABOUT TERESA LEWIS

Teresa Lewis is the founder and Director of Lewis Psychology and a Senior Accredited psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP Snr. Accred). Qualified in 1995, Teresa has been providing counselling and psychotherapy treatment for nearly 30 years. Teresa holds a masters degree in counselling and psychotherapy and is a qualified EMDR Practitioner having completed training accredited with EMDR Europe. Teresa is also a qualified adult educator and an accredited Mindfulness teacher As a recognised expert in her field Teresa is frequently asked to conduct editorial reviews and endorse counselling and psychotherapy books for international publishing houses.

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[Pinpilinlique]

I rationally know I’m not guilty but I need people to say it’s okay in order to not feel it, to know I’m with safe people. When people make me feel guilty on purpose and manipulate me I get angry and shameful and feel a sense of helplessness you cannot believe… it’s like I know I’m being attempted at being manipulated and that just makes me feel so unsafe that it disappoints me but also weirdly, makes me feel like I can’t do anything because the other person will believe whatever they want and I no longer can show what the truth is. Ahhh.

[IONov]

Thanks for this. I like that you mentioned it is okay to feel guilty sometimes. It is important to remember you are not responsible for other people's feelings, but sadly I met people who say the harshest things and yell and take no responsibility. I suppose that is manipulation.

[EvilAntic]

I wish I could have the way things were a year ago back again.

I completely messed up my life situation. Now I’m wallowing in guilt. It happened many months ago, and at the time I was confident in my ability to bounce back. I sort of did, but I did it at a huge step down in my career. I feel so much guilt because I blew up my life. I affected so many people negatively now. For a few weeks it’s been the first thing that comes into my mind when I wake up in the morning. Immediately I’m having flashbacks and feeling guilt. It’s like a nightmare, I don’t enjoy my life like I did. I don’t believe in myself. The energy I had felt like it came from my work and the structure of my life. It all worked and I felt freedom. I don’t feel that anymore. Working a job I don’t like and don’t see myself pursuing long term is killing my soul. I don’t feel comfortable in my own life. I am depersonalizing instead of just living the dream. I have been trying to get a similar position but the location was perfect too. The nearby places are options but I haven’t gotten far yet.

[sosvdqz]

I'm Sorry

For many years, I carried deep feelings of guilt with me. Which have shifted again and again, as soon as I apologized to a person, for something. I carried the guilt with me and tortured myself, for many years. Until I realized that the one I really needed to apologize to was myself. I tortured myself the most. So I apologize to myself for what I did to myself. And the intention to apologize is everything. So I find my innocence, which I had once lost; again. And by apologizing to myself, I release my guilt. And thus I do no harm to others. Because I am at peace with myself and thereby with the world. Therefore, apologize to yourself if you carry feelings of guilt with you. Because you can't torture yourself and apologize to yourself at the same time. Tormenting inflicts suffering and apologizing takes away suffering. "Anyway" and "Yes" are the words that enable me to apologize to myself. Because I get impulses to get back into the hamster wheel of apologizing or torturing myself for certain things. But I say, "Yes, I'm apologizing to myself anyway." And I apologize to others when it's my free choice. And I use these two methods to do that. By either apologizing to people personally or apologizing to people within myself, if I don't want to make it personal. Because the honest intention is enough.

[paranoidgenius]

The feeling of guilt started when I was watching TV cop show episodes & body cam footage of officers engaging in various arrests. It got me thinking about my record because I most likely will have a criminal record.
The feeling of guilt, putting other people through misery because of my actions.
As far as I know, I haven't committed any crimes since my mid teens & I'm 41 now, but the feeling of guilt persists.

[KingdomKeys]

I can relate to this very much, let me tell you something It is okay to feel guilty sometimes including when you get in trouble when you know you did something wrong, now here's the thing about it I think some people when you're in trouble get a kick out of you being sad so they tell you to keep being guilty that is my theory with me my guilt can stay for a very long time Then afterwards people ask me what's wrong with me. I cannot express myself because I don't know how to tell them that the guilt inside of me is hurting me a lot. Still, afterward After I think about it I remind myself that life moves nobody is going to care about the problems That you committed in the past and along with that I move away from that guilt as well because I'm not going to kill myself with sadness I am not going to give up on my life like that I'm going to continue to keep going I see things From a different point of view, I got a message for those that Are overly guilty and apologetic I wanna tell you your strong your special and you are cared about I promise you.
God bless all of you who are feeling hurt or have any issues god will protect you and guide you no matter what you're going through😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

[sngfrx]

I moved out and my mum has been terribly sad and lonely. I feel horrible. I still help pay for rent and groceries but I feel like a terrible son. She has few friends. My father was abusive. Shes now very fearful of others and believes everyone is out to get her. It makes me feel so guilty and hopeless. I feel like I betrayed the only person in the world who will ever love me unconditionally. She always says she isn't angry at me or that she doesn't blame me but all our phone calls make me feel so guilty when I hear how she's doing. I will make this pie to cope. Thanks

[zataiyo]

The example hits home
My boyfriend has a bad case of scoliosis, no parents and lives in what is basically an orphanage
I try to help where I can, in housework and with mental health
But each time I say something negative, for example this one time we went cycling, he almost crashed and it got me worked up, he asked me how it was cycling with him and I said stressful
This made him go silent...And I felt guilty, started crying and then felt guilty again for making this about me again
I feel guilty from feeling guilty

[PowellTracey]

Being 30% responsible would still have a negative affect on me. Like that 30% of me shouting & 20% of me working too many hours is 50% me affecting someone else's low mood. My over thinking mind is better not dealing with percentages and just generally telling myself that many factors resulted in both our frustration & upset.

[g.ctheweebbecomefat]

My dad bought an old doll, and I have an extreme fear of dolls to the point I literally had a panic attack over it. So I binned it but now I feel so guilty.

[Imbetterthanpaulallen]

My thing was always karma. I feel guilty so I must be wrong and if I don’t do what they ask I’m the bad guy and karma will get me. I always hated that. On top of that fact they always make me feel bad about it and everyone tells me how I should be doing what they want even though I have the right to stand up for myself and say no

[silencenhikes]

It's so weird also that I think about a future possible success I might have through my endeavors and I feel guilty about it, like how could I be this rich while my other family members are not. How weird right?

[xoguzatayx]

this video really good and definitely understandable, thank ya

[artimaibam]

I dont know but felt like ranting out a bit.... I sometimes feel guilty about what horrible things i have done in the past.... though right now I have changed a bit but the feeling will always be there always and always... But i do wish is that i could get better with time as deep down how guilt I may feel but i know that it was not my mistake, yes what i did was wrong but it was never my intention and right now I just want to lead a happy life.... And ill like to think of that phase as a teaching phase which taught me many things and I hope things get better in the future

[NAME]

A baby sparrow fell from our roof it was found by my mother and our roof is too high and we dont have a ladder to put it back to the nest its strong enough to eat but too young to fly so i take care of it for about 3days i dont know but i just love feeding him his name is jack by the way and just this afternoon our house cat eat him😢 its holy week so i can guard jack because i thought he would get eaten by our cat and i left to go to the batroom i thought jack would be fine because i thought our cat is with her kitten and my mom told me that she found our cat eating jack andi just froze and i cant accept it and a few minutes gone by i started crying i dont know why i cried so hard hes just a bird and i want to beat up our cat but my sister would get angry and now i cant sleep i feel sad angry i regreted going to the bathroom because i always imagine jack being grown up and flying im guilty that jack must have feel so bad getting eaten i wish my mom just never shown me that bird i wish that bird never fall in our bed and i cant even remove this feeling i watch this it relive me for a bit but i still feel terrible

[once]

my girlfriend is the one i am scared of disappointing or making upset. nothing too bad has happened. Its such small things but i feel immensely bad. We played a video game and our team did bad. She was frustrated. And i said sorry. She does this thing where she doesnt reply, but makes a sound in response to it. Like a small sigh mixed with a “ha” idk how to explain. But it makes me feel like even saying sorry annoys her. I know sometimes she has said sorry doesnt mean anything. And that also makes me feel really bad sometimes. Because i am immensely sorry but i know it doesnt do anything. And i feel at fault. It eats me up sometimes, over such silly things. i feel better when i explain why i feel sorry. And she assures me its okay. But when im really guilty i tell her to give me a minute to decompress, and i lay in bed and cry a lot. As im doing right now, and watching this video. Ive never told her how i feel, and she doesnt know by “decompressing” im just crying my eyes out. I feel like its something i need to fix. Because i dont want her to feel like its her responsibility when im the one thats ultra sensitive and scared to disappoint or upset her. I really want to overcome this and stop feeling guilty

[theclimbingchef]

My partner tells me to stop guilt tripping him but i feel like hes guilt tripping me by saying that....

[raykos]

Very interesting. I'm used to thinking about guilt in binaries.

[emilystardawnn]

This has helped me with my moms partner

[cstrosetta]

I can relate to this concept as an analyst