Guilt as a Barrier

I have been thinking recently about guilt and its pluses and minuses. Having a healthy sense of guilt, like shame, can be a very good thing, because it helps us to steer clear of behavior that is not helpful or compassionate. On the other hand, too much guilt can be toxic. It can lead to the mistaken view that in order to truly be responsible, one must always take into consideration everything a person wishes for, and never say no to them. Such an attitude can lead to a blurring of boundaries, where the sense of what could benefit everyone starts to blur, and one begins to wonder to whom one is serving by always saying yes.
  I am reminded of a story in which a family or group of people ended up going on some ordeal of a trip, thinking that the other party was interested in going on this long trek. Later, they realize that the other persons were not at all interested in going to this particular place. In fact, they were motivated to go because they were under the impression that the former had wanted to go to this intrepid place! What can one learn from this? It's that what I think is the case (or assume to be so) is really only my own experience, often projected onto others. Sometimes when I say, "I feel bad if I don't do this", what I really mean is that if I don't receive the thing I am expecting myself to do to someone else, I would feel bad for not receiving it (assuming I were that other person). But this doesn't mean that it's even desirable to have done this even for myself, and nor does it mean that I have the other person's interests in mind. In fact, I may never have even asked the other person what they really want, instead only assuming based on what I like.  Compassion is complex and tricky in this way, because it's not just about what I would like. It has to be about listening to the other to know what they like as well.
   Sometimes, saying no to one thing might mean being able to say yes to things that matter, not just to me but to others as well. For instance, I have always had difficulty saying no to things when the rationalization is that I should be a good team player. But simply putting people together as part of a big whole doesn't necessarily guarantee that this group will somehow congeal together or communicate with each other. It's a bit like family photos: the group is all in one place and smiling, but we don't really know what each person is thinking and feeling. This is why the idea of simply bringing people together is not sufficient for unity. There often needs to be something that people mutually care about that they are actively involved in or can play a part in. People want to feel basically needed, so putting people in one place is not in itself sufficient for a "team" to be a "team." There needs to be more mutuality and a sense of people really appreciating each other.
  Feeling "guilty" might just be a conflict between wanting to help and realizing that one doesn't have the means to help in an impacting way, given the current situation and causes. In this case, it might be better to sit with the guilt for a while until better circumstances arise for real help or growth to happen.