I want to talk about the difference between shame and guilt. In one of Brené Brown’s books, The Gifts of Imperfection, she talks about the difference between shame and guilt. Brené provides the following examples to illustrate the difference between the two.

Let’s say it’s a Thursday night and you go out after work with some friends. You enjoy having some cocktails and you stay out past your bedtime on a school night. The next morning you wake up late for work. Guilt is that feeling of having made a bad decision and now feeling the consequences of it, i.e. being late for work and feeling badly. Shame on the other hand is the feeling of not only having done something wrong compounding feeling like you are wrong or bad. I think of guilt as this internal compass that guides us to make better decisions where shame just makes us feel bad for who we are.

So let’s make this distinction between what is shame versus what is guilt. Guilt is an emotion that shows up when we have done something that is either out of our character or wrong. It's this feeling of discomfort that we’ve done something we shouldn’t have. Healthy guilt leads to changed behavior . Healthy guilt helps us to make better decisions as we move forward through that discomfort of feeling bad, for acting out of alignment with the true self of who we are and moves us in the direction of becoming more Integris and Whole.

Shame on the other hand is an incredibly different emotion.

Shame happens when we are feeling badly about something or somethings we’ve done but shame is more complex that guilt. Shame is not simply that I’ve done something wrong, but that the essence of who we are is wrong. I feel like the way to best describe shame is it’s like slime all over us. Shame is a breeding ground for self loathing, low self-esteem and self worth. Shame also leads us into making more poor decisions. When we feel badly about who we are and we make decisions from that place they’re likely to be wrong decisions.

So many of us have merged together guilt and shame as being the same thing and we’re operating from that place. We’ve got to be able to separate healthy guilt versus toxic shame. Guilt is a feeling that we need to pay attention to for us to learn from. In shame there is no learning, there is no growing and there is nothing good that comes from shame.

Let’s talk about some examples of how people shame us as well as how we shame ourselves.

This is a story that I’ve shared with many clients to illustrate the difference between shame and guilt. My oldest daughter was in fifth grade and she was struggling with this teacher who was a first year teacher at her school. Sometimes when going back-and-forth to her locker she might forget one of her school books. Her teacher gave her an assignment to write all the reasons she kept forgetting her books. This wasn’t a lesson in how to remember, it was a lesson in shame. The teacher was asking my daughter to explain why she was not bringing her book to class. Which, by the way, she did not know why she wasn’t doing it. Instead of just simply feeling bad and being allowed to go and get her book, the teacher would point her out and make an example of her. This resulted in her carrying a lot of shame and harming the teacher-student relationship that hindered her learning. Shame hurts, it injures us and makes us feel less then.

Here’s some examples of things that people say when they’re shaming us. Let me know if some of these sound familiar to you:

Why did you do that? What were you thinking? What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you…?

Over the years I would study and pick up on people when they would make shaming statements. It’s really fascinating to see how many people are unconscious of the ways in which they shame others. Shame causes us to question ourselves, and everything about the way we show up in the world. It makes us feel small, and often leads to a distorted sense of ourselves.

Shame is such a toxic emotion that it can take us spiraling down word into self-pity, self loathing, and hopelessness. There’s nothing good that comes from shame. Shame breeds more shame.

So how do we heal the shame? One of the first things in healing is being able to share our stories with people who over time have earned the right to hear them and can hold space for us. Another way that we can heal our shame is by recognizing the difference between the thing that we did that we feel badly about versus the whole of who we are. All of us throughout the course of our lives are going to do things that we are going to feel bad about. We’re going to say the wrong thing, we're going to make mistakes, we're even going to do things where we hurt other people or ourselves. If we can separate out the doer from the deed, or the sinner from the sin, we can begin to reframe our shortcomings as being areas for growth.

We all are a whole mixture of light and dark, good qualities and not so good qualities. In essence, it’s the dualistic nature of our being. I think it’s only when we can really honor all aspects to ourselves, and be able to share those with others that we begin to heal the shame and release it.

The next time you make a mistake, say the wrong thing, or do something that you don’t feel good about, focus on separating the act from who you are. You are not your thoughts, beliefs or behaviors. The essence of who you are is love. And anything that blocks that is a distortion.

Lastly, I think one of the things it’s so powerful about healing shame is taking radical responsibility. Radical responsibility has nothing to do with blame or shame, it is this idea that we are all responsible for our lives to move past the paradigm that has so many people stuck. By taking responsibility for yourself, you take back your power and fight for the solution to your issues, instead of allowing outside forces tell you what to think, feel or do. In taking radical responsibility we begin to empower ourselves to make new choices that result in better outcomes for our lives. If we are carrying shame that is almost an impossible task. You can’t take radical responsibility to change your life and feel horrible about yourself. It doesn’t work.

So remember guilt is understanding that you’ve done something wrong. Shame is believing that you are wrong. Guilt is healthy, shame is toxic. Give yourself some grace.

With love,

River