An important skill associated with regulating your emotions is developing your awareness and understanding of emotional opposites; for example: helpful/helpless, good/bad, guilty/forgiveness. The first two pairs were clear and obvious; the third was a little more difficult to see. If I am guilty the emotional opposite is clearly forgiveness. However, if neutralizing my guilt requires forgiveness from someone else, I may be powerless to obtain it. Stuck? Not really, you just have to work through another set of emotional word pairs: false pride/humility.
First, if you’re feeling guilty about something that requires someone else’s forgiveness, you have already accepted responsibility for screwing something up. So, why try to defend yourself? Acknowledge to the person you offended that you screwed up. Counter-balance your false pride with humility and you can forgive yourself! Trying to defend your actions often causes more problems than acknowledging your mistakes. Yeah! I screwed up!
Choice Counseling Blog 