So much surrounding living the life you want in midlife is about not giving in to the guilt for doing what you want. You’ve “done your time.” You’ve raised your children. You’ve lived your life for damn near everyone else except yourself. 

Now, it’s time to do for you. And you do it . . . without the guilt.

It’s not as if you’ve lived your life all willy nilly, without regard for anyone or anything within your sphere and not caring about a single person that wasn’t you. No, that likely wasn’t you. You cared about others. You put everything and everyone ahead of you.

Make no mistake about it: guilt is a real emotion. However, unfortunately, we sometimes hold onto the manufactured burden of false guilt and we inevitably place the blame on ourselves for things or situations when we haven’t done anything wrong. Yes, it’s a thing.

When we hold onto guilt, we feel remorse, we punish ourselves and we apologize (perhaps overly apologize). In time, we come to terms with what led to our feelings of guilt. We deal with it and we move on.

But you? You’re at a point in life now where you don’t have to feel guilty about taking time out for yourself, going on that cruise you’ve always dreamed of, telling people “No!” because you’re done with being the people pleaser, or anything else.

You’re living life . . . guilt-free.