No one enjoys feeling guilty. However, many clergypersons and other in positions of authority i.e. parents and teachers, use guilt as a powerful tool of persuasion. It does work, but I believe that the success is short-lived and comes at a high emotional price. The psycho-religious experience of guilt and self-blame, so pervasive in Western religious thought and behavior, should, I believe, be replaced by the cultivation of the inborn capacity to live, feel, and act on the basis of gratefulness. Instead of guilt, why not gratefulness as an impetus and psychological motivation for right and moral behavior?

Thomas Merton understood our approach to ourselves and to others this way: “Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths where neither sin nor desire can reach, the person that each one is in god’s eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way, there would be no reason for war, for hatred, for cruelty…”

Many argue that guilt is necessary if we are to maintain a moral society and a moral life. One who does not feel guilt presents us with the terrible risk of anti-social behavior that can have devastating results. Indeed, at times it is both healthy and necessary to feel guilt. Not to sense responsibility for a wrongdoing or any inner discomfort attached to misbehavior is a sign of emotional immaturity and human callousness.

Yet, I have become more and more convinced that guilt arising out of fear of punishment is less and less an effective moral instrument for the realization of goodness and justice in our society. Guilt lessens and damages the integrity and wholeness of the ego while gratefulness nurtures and endows it with a greater capacity to live compassionately and caringly. Human relationships, especially the more intimate ones that affect members of a family, when influenced by guilt, create an exacerbation of negative and painful experiences, often contributing to a family environment of tension and the desire to either hurt or escape. The parent who conveys an honest sense of gratefulness for her children, with all their shortcomings and failures, has a much greater likelihood of successful child rearing than a caregiver who persists in punishing and inflicting guilt as an “educational” tool.

Guilt is grounded in narcissism. Guilt suggests,” I feel bad.” When one is guilt-ridden and decides to change his behavior, often the motivation is to remove the feelings of discomfort that one feels; it is a selfish response. In contrast, when one feels grateful for life and for others, the need to change or improve is centered on the feeling and awareness that the other person feels badly as a result of one’s misbehavior or wrongdoing. Thus, this feeling is outer-directed and very much connected to the sensitivities of another human being, reflecting a sense of greater altruism, emotional maturity, and social responsibility.

“…Gratitude functions as a moral emotion. Like guilt and empathy, a feeling of gratitude and thankfulness may serve as a moral barometer, a moral motive and a moral rein forcer. As a barometer, gratitude provides a reading of the moral significance of a situation, signaling a perception that one has been the beneficiary of another person’s moral action. As a moral motive, gratitude urges the grateful person to respond in a gracious and pro-social way. As a reinforcer, gratitude functions as a social reward to continue to encourage moral action in a social community.”
If, as suggested above, we feel undeserving of happiness and therefore feel persistently ungrateful, would not the shift away from guilt enhance a more positive feeling about ourselves, allowing us to feel better about who we are and thus discover the inner resource of gratefulness? In other words, guilt can be a serious hurdle on the path toward gratefulness and should be removed to clear the way to greater self-realization that comes with the fundamental awareness of the gift of life in all its myriad manifestations.

When one experiences gratefulness for a particular gift-life, nature, loved ones, health or material possessions – one is strongly motivated to care for and cherish those gifts. Admonitions and threats of punishment or pain fall considerably short as moral rationales for furthering proper, positive and life-enhancing behavior. Greater awareness of the giftedness of what we are and what we have, generating a sense of gratefulness, engenders a response of concern and respect for one another and for our world.

One of the major preoccupations of contemporary life is the well being and care of our natural environment. This attention is dominating our lives, from young to old, from the highest level politician to the average person on the street, with no regard to race, gender, religion or creed. Its arching embrace is obvious; this is our only home and we need to take care of it and sustain it. The ways by which we are educated to higher environmental consciousness are myriad. Perhaps the cultivation of gratefulness that carries with it a renewed sense of the importance of all aspects of life as expressions of gifts bestowed upon us, will remind us and future generations that sustaining life is based on our gratefulness for it.

In his discussion on the meaning of praise during the celebration of Passover, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchick, perhaps the most outstanding Orthodox thinker of our time, understands the natural and organic connection between praise i.e. gratefulness, and ethical conduct. When one celebrates the Passover holiday the liturgy reminds us that the purpose of Passover is to ‘”Remember the Exodus from Egypt.” This act of remembering is a spiritual invitation to elicit a deep sense of gratitude for the liberation from slavery and link that inner perception to an external act of compassion and goodness. In other words, memory is summoned in the service of ethical behavior. “Why are we permitted to say “shir va-shevah”- songs of praise – to God? True, we cannot help ourselves. But there is another answer. To praise God means that whatever we say of God becomes a guiding principle for our actions. Whatever God does to us, we are supposed to do to others. Since God feeds us, we must feed the hungry and the destitute. Since God is “malbish arumim,” since He clothes people, we must buy clothes for those who walk around in rags…. Since God visits the sick, we are called upon to do likewise. Every praise, every attribute that we ascribe to God turns into moral law, an ethical principle.” 

Each morning, upon rising, we are enjoined to recite the “modeh ani “- “I am grateful in Your Presence”. This prayer, uttered with eyes lids still heavy with sleep, holds out a psychological reality not based on the approval or accolades of others, but rather on the awareness of – “lefanecha” – before You. I am alive because I am in Your Presence, You, the gracious and generous Giver. Consequently, the “I”, one’s sense of  self, who one is, is derived essentially from the recognition of receiving an immeasurable gift, that of all of life and the capacity to be thankful for it. 
My urging would be to help others feel grateful, not guilty, in our efforts to bring about the necessary changes in our lives and to care for ourselves, for others and for our planet.