May 9th 2026
–
WellBeing Magazine
–
In Going Deeper, Rachel Samson shares how to hold joy and relief at the same time — without feelings of guilt.
Dear Rachel,
I’m in remission after cancer treatment and feel deeply grateful to be here. But lately I’ve been overwhelmed by guilt when I hear about others who didn’t survive the same diagnosis. How do I hold joy and relief for my own recovery while carrying the weight of those who didn’t get the same outcome?
Dear reader, what you are describing is often called “survivor guilt”, and it is a common human response to having lived through — and survived — something that others did not. When we confront suffering so directly, our hearts may widen. Gratitude may deepen but so may awareness of loss. The very capacity that allows you to feel relief and joy also allows you to feel grief and sorrow. The depth and complexity of the emotions survivors often experience is what it looks like to remain tender in the face of loss and life.
From the perspective of traditional Buddhist approaches and modern therapy approaches, such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), painful thoughts and emotions are not problems to eliminate but experiences to make space for. Your mind is trying to make sense of survival in a world that can feel painful, unfair and unpredictable. Thoughts such as “Why them and not me?” or “I don’t deserve to feel happy” can arise because the human brain is wired to search for meaning and, for most people, justice. Acceptance approaches invite us to notice our thoughts as thoughts, not truths or facts we must take direction from, but transient, passing mental events. You might gently say to yourself, “I’m having the thought that I shouldn’t feel joy” or “Others should have got the same outcome” or “This isn’t fair”. This small shiftcan create space between you and your thoughts, allowing you to approach them with curiosity. I often ask people I sit with in clinic to picture their mind as the sky and their thoughts as the changing weather patterns or clouds. The sky is the space where the rain or clouds come and go, but the sky is not the clouds. Like this, you are not your thoughts, your mind is simply the space where your thoughts come and go.
Acceptance also encourages us to be willing to feel what arises. Grief for others and gratitude for your own life are not mutually exclusive states. They can co-exist in the same day, minute and moment. A survivor’s relief or gratitude does not betray those who did not survive. Feeling empathy and sorrow does not diminish gratitude for being alive. Psychological flexibility is the capacity to carry difficult emotions while continuing to live in alignment with what matters most. Your gratitude, your sorrow and your guilt can be present while you live a rich and meaningful life. The work is not to eliminate these emotional experiences but to learn how to walk life alongside them.
Compassion-focused therapy, developed by Paul Gilbert, offers us another lens to look through. Our brains have evolved with threat systems designed to detect danger and prevent harm. After serious illness or loss, that system can remain sensitised, scanning for signs of loss, unfairness or vulnerability. At the same time, humans possess a great capacity for empathy, love, compassion and caregiving. Survivor guilt often emerges when our compassion is activated without a clear place to direct it. Our heart asks, “What do I do with this love and compassion that cannot reach them?”
Rather than turning compassion inward as self-criticism — for example, “I shouldn’t be alive when they aren’t” — Gilbert encourages cultivating self-compassion: responding to our own suffering with the same warmth we would offer a friend. You might place a hand over your heart and acknowledge, “This is painful. I am grieving. And I am allowed to be here.” Compassion is not a finite resource, your survival does not diminish your care for others. In fact, caring for yourself helps keep compassion alive in the world.
One of my own Zen teachers, the late Thich Nhat Hanh, wrote that joy and suffering “inter-are”. One cannot exist without the other. When we drink tea mindfully, we are aware not only of its warmth and fragrance but also of the rain, soil and hands that made it possible. Similarly, your recovery exists alongside the reality of illness and loss. To reject your joy is to reject life itself. To ignore suffering is to turn away from our shared humanity. The practice is to hold both.
Mindfulness offers a gentle way to do this. When gratitude arises, we can allow ourselves to feel it fully — the breath entering our lungs, the quiet ordinary miracle of being alive. When grief arises, we can allow it to move through us like the weather. Neither state is permanent, they are both visitors. Thich Nhat Hanh often taught: “Breathing in, I know I am alive. Breathing out, I smile to life.” This smile is a beautiful and simple act of reverence for life.
Finally, consider that guilt often arises from compassion and love. If you did not care deeply, you would not feel this tension. Sometimes guilt is sorrow and love. Rather than viewing guilt as negative, you might thank it for revealing your humanity and gently make space for it to move freely, while also allowing yourself to move and live freely.
The post Guilt often arises from compassion appeared first on WellBeing Magazine.
Read the full article here:
