Lessons in Letting Go: Guilt Isn’t Guidance

Guilt is sneaky. It disguises itself as responsibility, love, duty, and “being a good person.” But for years, guilt ran my life—and I didn’t even realize it. From the guilt of my childhood to mom guilt, military guilt, and creative guilt, I carried weight that was never mine to begin with.

In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I open up about the emotional and generational guilt that shaped me, the guilt that almost kept me from writing The Ordinary Bruja, and the moment I realized guilt is not guidance—it’s fear wearing a mask.

I share the lessons that helped me release guilt in motherhood, military life, and creativity, and how letting go of that weight finally allowed me to stand in my own voice again. You’ll also hear how guilt shows up in The Ordinary Bruja, how Salvador weaponizes it, and how Marisol breaks free from an inheritance of emotional burden.

The Ordinary Bruja is officially out now! If you’re ready for a story about identity, magic, and releasing what no longer serves you, order your copy here:

haveacupofjohanny.com

https://haveacupofjohanny.com/product/the-ordinary-bruja-book-one-of-las-cerradoras-series-j-e-ortega/

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Theme: Letting Go
• 0:47 Naming Deep, Generational Guilt
• 2:40 Childhood Roots And Early Messages
• 5:38 The Sneaky Disguises Of Guilt
• 8:20 Creativity Versus The Voice Of Should
• 11:05 Mom Guilt And Giving Grace
• 14:45 Military Life, Presence, And Seasons
• 18:10 The Ordinary Bruja: Guilt As Inheritance
• 21:15 Three Lessons: Love, Responsibility, Growth
• 24:05 Closing Reflections And Book CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

It's about coming to your stuff. To your point. To your breath. To the point you're starting. And when I'm starting up, you're starting again. This is your space to reflect, respect, and remember how you fly. So pour your cafecito and let's begin. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Have a Cup of Johnny Podcast. We are continuing our November theme, Lessons in Letting Go. And today we're talking about one of the heaviest emotions we carry without even noticing. And that is guilt. Are y'all ready for this? Alright, let's go. So when I'm talking about guilt, I'm not talking about the oops, I ate the last cookie guilt, or oops, I made that error guilt. I'm talking about the deep generational soul level guilt. The guilt that shapes your choices, steals your joy, and convinces you you're falling even when you're doing your absolute best. That's the kind of guilt that I'm talking about in this podcast episode. Because for so much of my life, guilt has been my shadow. But here's what I've learned, and that is that guilt is not guidance. It's not. And letting it go has been and it continues to be, and I think it will forever be the hardest thing to do. But once it's done, once I've done it in certain aspects of my life, it has felt to be the most freeing thing to do. Now let's talk about where this guilt begins. And I don't know if this is a Latina thing, a daughter thing, a first gen thing, a military thing even, or maybe it's just all of that combined. But guilt has always sat in my chest like a cement block. Growing up the way I did with parents that weren't there, being raised by my grandmother and carrying responsibilities way beyond my age, I learned to feel guilty for needing anything. Guilty for wanting to do my own thing and having certain freedoms. Guilty for even being tired and not wanting to do certain things. Guilty for dreaming bigger than the life that I knew. And for wanting to leave as well. I felt guilty over all of that. And without realizing it, I carried that into adulthood. And then when I became a mom, guilt just amplified that. When I went into the military, also, I mean, it just evolved. When I became a writer as well, it just resurfaced in new ways. So it's like just guilt turning over a new leaf and all these different facets of my life. And it will feel like this, right? Am I doing enough? Am I writing enough? Am I growing fast enough? Am I burdening people to I had to sit with myself on that one? I carried this guilt, and it was so weird. And I think I got it from my mom when she chastised me, my biological mother. I remember this. Like I said, I don't remember a lot of things about my childhood, but there are certain things that just stick. And this was one of them when my biological mom was like, why are you harassing them? I was trying to call my cousin to tell them something. And she was like, they don't care about you like that. You're you're bothering them, you're burdening them with your want to wanting to talk to them. And in that moment, I kind of shrugged it off, but I'm the kind of person that I hold on to things that people tell me. And that's what happened in this instance. I held on to that. And I theorized that, oh my God, in that moment, I was like, oh my God, my mom is right. Why am I burdening my cousin with whatever it is, it's the cheese, you know, whatever achievement I want to talk to her about. You know, why am I doing that? And and I believe that. And that has been something even to this day. I have to get out of the mindset that I'm not burdening people just because I want to connect with them. But you see, guilt is sneaky, it disguises itself in a lot of things, in a lot of different things. It disguises itself as responsibility, as humility, as being realistic, as being this helpful person that doesn't want to burden other people. But all it really is doing, and think about this when it comes over you and over your shoulders and just sits there so heavy. Think about it. Because guilt really what it does is it robs you of peace. Okay? It robs you of peace. Because let me tell you what guilt often sounds like in my life. You heard me saying, Am I doing this enough? Is this enough? Is this enough? But it also sounds like the voice that says, I should, I should, I should have done this, I should have thought of that, I should have been further along in my writing career. Oof. That hits deep. So just today, just today, not too long ago, I was counting in my head the things that I've written, and I'm like, it hasn't been five full-length novels. No, it hasn't. And you know what? Even in me trying to down myself, I wasn't even taking into consideration the full-length novel that I have on Wattpad. Go figure. You see, this is how guilt is. It kind of robs me of my joy as well, not just my peace. It robs me of my truth. Because in my head, I'm like, I've only done two. Ugh, what a chump. You know, that's what went through my head without even taking into consideration the one, the very first one that I did, and I put on what pad? A witch fit to be a queen, the various short stories and novellas, the three anthologies that I've been part of. But my brain didn't think about that. My brain was just like, oh, you've only written two full-length novels. What a chump. Can you imagine that? Like, I can't believe I'm talking to myself like that. But that's what it sounds like. It's like that voice that criticizes me for not doing enough for these should've, could've, would have. I'm not posting enough, not marketing enough, not networking enough, even though it's not taking into consideration that I have all these other things that I'm also juggling. Military motherhood, writing, publishing, and life and family in general as well. But this voice is a liar. It's a complete lie because this is telling me that I should have handled all these things better, even though I was doing the best that I could in that moment with the resources that I have or I had in that moment. But the voice sticks in my head because it's something that I feel guilty about deep inside of dropping balls while trying to juggle everything perfectly. So because I have that fear, that deep-seated fear, then that voice sometimes can get traction inside my head, even though the truth is that no one should be juggling that much in the first place. And the truth is that I should give myself grace because life happens, and dropping a ball or two here or there is bound to happen when you're trying to juggle so many things at once. But this also happens in my creative life, folks. It's not immune to it. I think creativity and guilt have like this toxic relationship, especially if I'm not careful, because creativity requires space, mental, emotional, spiritual space, but guilt tells you you don't deserve space, you haven't earned that rest. You should be productive right now. Even though I have proven to myself that taking rest and taking a break in between phases of the manuscript makes the story better. But you have this guilt coming in. Like I have this guilt coming in, this voice that it's like you're not doing it fast enough. Other people are publishing more often than you or faster than you, and here you are taking breaks, you know. So it's like it almost carries that comparison trap as well. And we talked about that, right? How we shouldn't be comparing ourselves because that is thoroughly for sure the thief of joy. And that's why, like, guilt is so toxic, it's so counterproductive, because it brings all of this into the forefront. It taps into those deep-seated fears, those shames that one has to get a grip in the psyche is super pervasive, as well as all the other ones we have talked about during the month of November. But the more that you listen to it, to that voice, though, the smaller your creative world becomes. There were days drafting the ordinary Bruha when Gilda made me stop mid-sentence, days where I think, like, how dare you, Joel, doing this when there were like other things you could be doing around the house. When your email inbox is full, when you have a laundry to do, when you have a bathroom you can be cleaning, when you could be putting away some clothes. And I had to learn that guilt is not a compass, it's not something that I can look toward for direction. It's more like a cage that is trying to trap me. And nothing, absolutely nothing magical, grows in that entrapment, in that captivity. And then guilt also shows up in good old-fashioned mom guilt. If you're a mom, you know. You just know. You can do 99 things right, and the one thing you miss will keep you up at night. And even now that my son is grown, I it is still there. I carry that guilt. Oh, I should have told him that when I saw him in person. I should have instead of using that tone, I should have used a different tone. And it's it's these should have, could've, would have were dissecting moments that I missed. And it's so exhausting. It is so exhausting. But here's what I've learned, and here's what I remind myself, which is more important, because all these things that we're talking about in the month of November, this is nothing that I have miraculously overcome. These are things that I will continue to overcome and I will continue to be cognizant of so that way I don't let it cage me or entrap me in my own mind. But here's what I've learned and what I remind myself, and that is that my son doesn't need a perfect mom. My stepchildren don't need a perfect stepmom. They just want somebody who tries, somebody who shows up, somebody who keeps moving forward even when life is heavy. So that way they can see that as an example of someone not giving up, of someone giving themselves grace, of someone admitting when they're wrong, but still pushing forward, still trying. That's what kids really need. They don't need perfection, they just need someone who tries. And when I remind myself of that, it releases that guilt in me. But it also shows up in my military life.

SPEAKER_00: 14:45

The guilt of being pulled in thousand in a thousand directions, the guilt of giving so much of my time and energy and patience in this one aspect of my life while missing moments in my other aspects, in my other phases of my life.

SPEAKER_01: 15:05

It's that is constant. I want to say, like, that is a continuous push and pull that I have. And I will never forget this. Someone explained it to me, one of my old commanders in one of our counseling sessions. He was like, You're the military and your family will never have equal spacing in your life. It was something like that. It's not verbatim. Okay, don't quote me on this. But he explained that it's more about the quality of the time that you give to your family when you're there. Because he was like, There's gonna be some seasons in your life when the military is gonna hold a lot of your time and your family won't. But when you show up with your family, what are you doing when you're with them? Are you present? Are you fully engaged? Is that is that your focus? You see, and that's something that I feel guilty about because I also have my writing career as well. And when it comes to the time that I'm home, I split my time between family and writing career as well. So that is something that I carry kind of like on my neck a lot of the time. So that way, so that's one of the reasons why like I try to be as present as possible when it's family time and try my hardest to not think of marketing or what I can be posting, so that way I can be fully in, because I know that my free time, I divvy it up between writing and my creative life as well as my family. But when this commander in a counseling session explained that to me, I was like, it makes sense because I think I was feeling guilty of things not adding up. I tend to get very analytical where I want things to add up perfectly. Like I spend all these months overseas without my son. So I wanted like give him that same exact time back. And when that doesn't equate, it frustrates me. It makes me feel even more guilty. And then I have a reaction over it at home as well as in at work. And when I heard this in the counseling session, it kind of like put things in perspective and it gave me something that I can do, that I can control, and it eased that anxiety in my head of not having things adding up. So if you find yourself in a predicament where, and I think we all are, you don't have to be in the military for this, that you are dividing yourself between the different people in your life or the different facets in your life. Think about it this way. When you are there, are you fully there? How can you be fully there so that way you can give yourself fully to the family, the person, the project, or whatnot? And how do you come off of that as you go into your other facet or as you go from work to family, or you go from family to a project or to a volunteer organization or whatnot. But as you move around in your life, just think about that. How can you be present in what you're doing? And I think that will help you out a lot. It may ease up on that guilt. I know it did for me. Of course, because this is something that I tackle and I created the ordinary bruja. I also have a theory that artists cannot separate themselves from their creation. And this is a great example of it because guess what? The ordinary bruja is filled with guilt, ancestral guilt at that, which then evolved into silence that carries from generation to generation, which becomes like a curse in the ordinary bruja. So guilt is a quiet theme in there. Marisol carries guilt. She can't even name it at the beginning because guilt has just become who she is. You know, it's just it has become her identity, it is so pervasive. Josefina, her mom, carries guilt for what she didn't say to her daughter while she was alive, what she didn't explain, what she didn't pass down, and you get to see that. Mama Belén also carries guilt for not protecting her daughter, who is Josefina. And Salvador is the most toxic of them all because while he feels guilt, he weaponizes that. And his guilt turns into anger and manipulation. And that's what he uses as an ancestor and a ghost to kind of like hover over these people's lives and manipulate them into doing things that they shouldn't be doing. And in essence, that's exactly what guilt does in real life when you think about it. That's why I wrote it the way that I wrote it. It drains you, it distracts you, it makes you do things that you wouldn't normally do, and it for sure steals your clarity, and it for sure steals your joy and your peace. In the book, The Ordinary Bruja, Marisol grows when she realizes that the guilt is not her inheritance, and she stops taking that as her inheritance. Instead, she realizes that her magic is, and that's the moment that Marisol is binal becomes unstoppable in the book. But some of the lessons that guilt taught me are three things. I will say three things guilt taught me, and that is that guilt is not proof of love, and that goes with the whole mommy guilt thing, it's not proof of love, presence is you don't love people better by punishing yourself. That's something that I had to remind myself. Like, I'm not a better mom because I am punishing myself, I'm lashing at myself over what I should have done or what I missed. But instead, when I give myself grace, when I am a happy person, I can also be a happy mother, and I can be a more present mother as well to my child, to my stepchildren. I also learned that guilt is not responsibility, it is not it dresses up as it, but it's not, it's actually fear. That's what it is, because you're so fearful of something happening, or someone not liking you, or like someone thinking that you're a burden, or you're like bothering them with this phone call, that you think that you're being the responsible individual, and you allow guilt to kind of like tell you what to do. But that's fear, and fear is a controlling emotion, it controls you into doing something, or it controls you into having limits that you wouldn't otherwise have. So think about that. Whenever you're stopping yourself from doing something, and and you're seeing it, well, just being a responsible individual, or this is my duty, this is responsibility, kind of assess that and investigate it. Get curious a little bit with that and think about it. Do I feel guilt? Is there fear underneath this? You know, is that why I'm not doing this thing? And then once you figure that out, then you would know whether it truly is that you're being a good, responsible person or you're just being fearful of something, and that's why you're doing it. And I go back to my example of not calling people, not reaching out because I thought I was being a good person by not burdening people. I thought I was being responsible. But instead, I was just fearful that I was inhibiting people, that I was burdening people, as opposed to just me trying to connect with them or just saying something as simple like, hey, I wanted to chat with you about this. Do you have time to do that? And if they say no, they say no. But me not doing it, period, it was just me being fearful of it. And it wasn't me being like a good responsible person, a good responsible cousin, or anything like that. It wasn't that. I also learned that guilt is not growth. It is not, it is not, it is not, it is not. Guilt just robs you of things, it keeps you from doing things, it keeps you from being fully joyful and fully peaceful. You know what growth is? Growth is reflection. Reflection. That's what growth is. When you get curious about the things that you do and why you do it, and you reflect on that either through journaling, voice journaling, whatnot, whatever, however, it is that you can do your reflections, that's true growth right there. Not guilt. Guilt is not growth. You know, you learn more by being gentle with yourself than by tearing yourself down. I'm telling you, every time I've released guilt, something beautiful took its place. Self-respect, clarity, compassion, and joy, or simply the energy to keep going, to keep moving forward. Because when you stop beating yourself up, you leave room to build yourself up, you know, because you're not smashing yourself down. So, in closing, y'all, if you're carrying guilt today, guilt as a mom, as a creative, as a daughter, as a partner, as a friend, as a husband, whatever, I want you to take a breath with me and know that you're doing your best. You're learning as you go, you're allowed to be human. I need to remind myself of that. You're allowed to be human. Letting go of guilt doesn't mean you don't care. It just means that you care enough to grow. You know, I'm gonna tell you about my amazing book because speaking of growth, we gotta talk about the ordinary bruja. It's officially out. It's a story about confronting guilt, breaking spiritual and emotional chains, and choosing yourself even when it scares you. I am currently doing the audiobook recordings. Yay for me. So be on the lookout for that. But if Muddy Sor's journey resonates with your own, I'd love for you to read it. Get the ordinary brew hat today. It is in my website at have a cup of johnny.com. If you're an art reader on that galley, it is also there. It will be there until December 17th. But nevertheless, if this episode touched your heart, email me at Joe at HaveacoupJoani.com or you can connect with me. I'm on TikTok with two profiles. One is a cup of johnny, and the other one is the bookbruja. Don't you just love that? I'm also on Instagram threads and Facebook with one name, one name only. At Have a Cup of Joani. All right, until next time, y'all. Release what isn't carrying you forward. Release it, release it, release it so that way you can walk a lighter. Okay. Alright. Talk to y'all next Wednesday. Bye. Oh, we could we could fly. If today's episode spoke to you, share with somebody who's finding the way that food. And if you haven't yet, visit have a cup of johnny.com for more stories, blog posts, and let's start it at all. Thank you for being here. Until next time, peace someone, be bold, and all the way.