This morning, I passed by a new Tasti D-Lite ad promoting a new store location. In hot pink letters, the ad read, “Dessert Your Guilt.” I said to myself, ‘Is that for real?!’ I thought we’d found every escapist method for dealing with our issues, but Tasti-D-Lite had proven me wrong. Now, our society has kicked it into high gear by promoting four ounce, chemical-filled Styrofoam containers to help us avoid discomfort!

This sent me into a tizzy. I work very hard to help myself and many other people to stop drinking, shopping, having sex, desserting, etc. over feelings of guilt. Now, Tasti-D-Lite is combating my self-love movement! Instead of fighting back, I chose to shine some light on the subject. Really, any sensation as good as a donut or a pizza, or, maybe even a Tasti-D-Lite will soothe the garden-variety guilt. But, true happiness comes from something much deeper, and will save you the cost of the confection as well.

Why all the guilt? And, where did it come from?

You think you feel guilty because you lied to a friend, ate too much ice cream, or because you drank too much last night. But, from the metaphysical standpoint, you feel guilty because you’ve chosen to think with fear over love. From A Course in Miracles’ perspective, guilt is the affect of choosing to identify with the voice of fear (the ego), rather than your true inner voice of love. You experience this guilt because you’ve turned your back on your loving truth and chose the ego’s fearful attack. Whether you know it or not, you feel as though you’ve committed a crime against yourself by turning your back on love. Then, unconsciously, these negative feelings are reflected in nasty beliefs about yourself and others. The Course describes this feeling as guilt. This guilty feeling then leads you into self-sabotage mode. For instance, if you feel funky because you hate your boss, you might turn to Tasti-D-Lite for some comfort. This knee-jerk reaction to grab fro-yo instead of forgiveness is how the ego convinces you to “dessert your guilt” rather than address it.

So, instead of piling on the empty calories, let me offer you some healthful tips for relinquishing guilt.

Tips On How To Choose Love Over Dessert:

Tip One: Laughter. This is a tool directly from A Course in Miracles. It is suggested that we do not take the ego’s fear seriously. When we listen to the ego we make it real in our minds. Instead, the Course suggests that we laugh gently at the ego’s tiny, mad idea. Laugh at your ego’s mischievous thoughts and guilty attacks.

Tip Two: Stop Future Tripping. Future illusions are of the ego. When you start focusing on the future, you eventually get tripped up. It’s super easy for the ego to make you feel fearful and guilty when the future is involved. Remember, that all future projections are situations that do not exist. When you find yourself getting heady about the future, take a deep breath and say out loud, I’m right where I need to be.

Tip Three: Smile. When your ego’s got you in a headlock, break out with a long EEEEEEE. It sounds super silly but you can’t help but smile. Smiling leads to laughing and laughing shines light on the ego. Keep it simple with a smile.

Tip Four: Forgive. Given the fact that the ego loves to attack others when it feels threatened, the best way out of this spiral is through forgiveness. Take daily inventory of who your ego has judged (including yourself). At night, review the list of those you have attacked and release these thoughts and actions with a forgiveness prayer. Simply say out loud, I choose to forgive this person as I know my attack was merely a projection of my ego. For further protection from the ego’s attack, make a point to forgive others and yourself all day long.

Tip Five: Serving. One of the best ways to step out of the darkness and back into the light is through service. Helping others immediately gets you out of your own head and away from the ego’s tricky guilt spiral. By bringing love to others through service, you amplify the light inside yourself. Being of service can be as simple as picking up the phone to check in with a friend, or helping an elder cross the street. If you are a woman reading this, you can create a profile on my site www.Herfuture.com, (a social network for women to find mentors and be mentors) anytime to help another woman. There are thousands of women on Herfuture helping each other daily. I receive feedback from great woman saying that they always feel better after they’ve reached out to help someone through kind words, sharing a quote or a simple responding to a message board. Shine light on others and reignite the light in you.

This week, shine light on your guilty thoughts by test-driving one of the tools above.. By taking fearless action to shift your guilt to love, you’ll put down the yogurt, stop desserting and start living!

**For more tips and tools from Gabrielle Bernstein join her on GabbyB.tv to get her latest lectures, videos and more!**