The Difference Between Guilt and Shame
If you asked most people when they first learned to drive, they’d probably tell you about the first time they actually got behind the wheel of a car under the supervision of either an instructor or family member.
Personally, I think we only really start to learn when we get out on the open road on our own after we have passed our driving test. Prior to that, sure we re picking up some basic skills, but we’re also in a protective bubble.
Life Coaching is a bit like that. Getting to be a certified Life Coach is all well and good, but you can’t really learn the craft until you get in front of clients and listen to real world issues and concerns.
It really doesn’t matter how many books you’ve read, courses you’ve attended or workshops you’ve taken, nothing fully prepares you fully for working one on one.
I’ve learned more from my clients and writing this blog then I have from any training.
Sure the tools I have are useful, maybe even crucial, but they’re also useless without the practice needed to understand when/how/if to implement them.
Last week I was talking with a client about guilt and shame and it started to dawn on me I’d never stopped to think about the difference between the two, and there really is a huge difference.
I never tire of saying the two most worthless human emotions are guilt and worry. They’re different sides of the same coin and although we all experience them from time to time, they really serve no useful purpose.
We cannot change the past so rather than feeling guilty we can resolve not to replicate the behavior that caused the guilt in the first place. And then use it as a learning process offering valuable feedback that can be translated into future change.
With worry I like the Wayne Dyer approach and I paraphrase.
“You can worry about two things. Those things you can control and those that you cannot. If you can control them, don’t worry, just act. If you can’t control them then there is little use in worrying.”
I understand that simplifies things incredibly and I must confess I was worried sick when one of our dogs got really sick recently. It was out of my control yet I was still struggling to sleep, so I understand this stuff isn’t easy even if it makes sense at a rational level.
Guilt or Shame?
As I was discussing guilt with my client and I was delivering my usual “It’s a waste of emotion” speech, but this time something unusual happened. He disagreed!
That’s right, a client had the temerity to disagree with me. The bastard! Not only that, but he made an excellent point and his take was simply this:
“If I am guilty of doing something wrong, then guilt is an appropriate emotion to feel”
It’s difficult to argue with that statement, but I think it’s also important to put it in context.
Sure if you’ve robbed a bank, beaten somebody up or taken the last parking space just as I was about to pull into it, then you’re guilty of doing something wrong and I’m ok if you want to feel some guilt.
But feeling sick with guilt because you drank one too many beers, didn’t lose the 10lbs you promised yourself or nodded off in Church is a different matter altogether and simply not necessary.
Also, feeling guilty for something that happened 5, 10 or even 25 years ago is equally pointless.
How many times can you beat yourself up before it’s time to say enough is enough?
I know for many people enough is never enough. They will keep dragging themselves through a Court in their mind mentally torturing themselves and pronouncing themselves guilty over and over and over again.
Where’s the justice in that?
We would denounce a country that treated its citizens like that, yet many people seem ok with treating themselves in such a manner.
If only there was an Amnesty International for the Mind
Maybe I got it wrong and short-term guilt isn’t pointless, maybe it can remind us to act differently next time to avoid the negative feelings associated with it, but we must guard against it running rampant to the point when it turns into shame.
Feeling guilty for any length of time is bad enough, but allowing those feelings of guilt to turn into shame just pours gasoline onto a roaring fire.
Whereas you can disassociate yourself from guilt by seeing it as an event, you cannot do that with shame and it becomes less transitory and part of who you are.
I am guilty of ‘X’ is not the same as saying I am ashamed of what I did. The former presupposes you have recognized your error and hopefully you can move on.
The latter is the same as saying I am ashamed of who I am because of my actions.
Nobody should be ashamed of who they are.
And that’s the reason we should never tell a child we’re ashamed of them.
At the time it may feel like an appropriate way of voicing our displeasure, but unless we want to help them adopt shame as part of their identity and an emotion they may well carry round with them for life, we shouldn’t do it.
I’d like your take on this, are you the kind of person that feels guilty a lot or are you able to move on from your mistakes realizing you’re human and shit happens?
Guilt is a usually a negative focus upon oneself, while shame is an emotion in which the self is perceived as defective,unacceptable. Shame often leads to negative behavior and guilt can cause positive and constructive changes in the way people act.
I really liked this Tim.
I’d never really considered difference before. I really liked Wayne’s ideas on worry. I might use that in my own life.
(Sorry about that first paragraph being so convoluted. I think the point is made: IMHO, shame is not internalized guilt we’ve wallowed in, but rather comes whole to us from what is said and done.)
@ Tim – I believe that’s part of my existence, to share my experience of being wounded by abuse and shame, healing what I could, and giving myself permission to move on, living with the leftover scars. In fact, I believe that’s been “Plan A” for my life all along: to help others see that not all the effects are negative because they can change our path to where we’re meant to be. (Working on a website right now.) :)
@ LaShae –
“For those of us who go on to carry the shame around, we’ve internalized that pure guilt, wallowed in it and turned it into more shame intentionally and against ourselves as a way to receive contrition from an external source. Or acceptance. Or conditional love…etc.”
I *absolutely* disagree! I don’t believe at *all* that we “intentionally” use shame as “a way to receive contrition from an “wallow” in guilt, which then turns to shame. In my personal experience that my shame came directly to me from my abusers, both in what they said and did.
Additionally, my healing didn’t have anything to do with gaining something from an “external source.” It’s been my experience that what was necessary was an *internal* letting go of having any responsibility for the abuse, using the tool of forgiveness that doesn’t require the abusers’ involvement.
While all of the effects are not necessarily negative, the shame we are given by others is.
Annie
Guilt in it’s purest and unaltered state is simply an internal indication that you’ve misrepresented/ignored/crossed a value, either one you hold or one you know others to hold and you’re aware of the misstep.
As Alisa Bowman said, “take action to fix it: apologize, make it right, whatever. Then I learn from it. Then I breathe out the guilt and breath in compassion.”
That’s alleviates the guilt and the shame that comes later by allowing guilt to fester. There are no underlying mysteries.
Shame comes at the hands of those who don’t want to feel guilt, nor take responsibility for it. We place it on ourselves and others because of beliefs, upbringing, misinformation, conditioned responses, a need to gain authority, misuse of our power, etc.
For those of us who go on to carry the shame around, we’ve internalized that pure guilt, wallowed in it and turned it into more shame intentionally and against ourselves as a way to receive contrition from an external source. Or acceptance. Or conditional love…etc.
So guilt has it’s role in self-awareness, responsibility and acknowledgment of the sovereignty of others, we just don’t always use it to that benefit.
@ Roger – Does cope mean the same as move on from? I’m not sure, but I am sure that sometimes we have to move on and recognize that the past is gone and there’s nothing to be gained from trying to live there.
@ Tracy – Haven’t you just summed up conditional love that so many kids grow up being taught, albeit usually tacitly?
@Tim the funny thing is, aside from the odd jr. high bully, I don’t think anyone ever told me horrible things about myself to get those ideas implanted.
I think it was actually a case of a very cute and precocious small child not being taught that it’s okay – no that it’s valuable to fail – and not knowing what to do when the gawky years set in and not every subject in school came easily.
I think so many parents, out of love, are giving their children the message that:
Success equals people being proud of you and all the good things that come with that.
Failure is okay but we will try to gloss over it and try not to make you feel too bad that you didn’t succeed and assure you over and over again that you will next time, because that’s the goal.
No wonder so many of us grow up to try and play it safe!
Listening to our clients and understanding their guilt is not that easy. Explaining how they may be able to somehow forget their past experience and focusing on the present…. learn how to forget and forgive themselves of the past experiences that cause them guilt or shame until now. The important thing is they cope with those previous experience and that experiences they grow and build themselves of what they are today.
@ Bud – Yeh we’re strange and illogical fish humans.
@ Tracy – Stupid, clumsy and ugly? Who can I take a baseball bat on your behalf to for implanting that crock of shit? ;-)
@ Annie – I hate to hear about stuff like that, but glad you at least did realize it wasn’t your fault, many do not.
@ Alisa – You don’t need a coach, but I do, so we’ll speak later.
@ Tony – Yeh I like that too and it has a large element of truth to it.
The Thais have an interesting saying:
“If you think too much you will get a headache.”
When they talk about “think too much” they are talking about what we would call worry.
The point is – if you worry you *will* get a headache – and most importantly – that’s *all* you will get!
I really like that. :)
I used to wallow in guilt. It was the skin I wore. Now whenever I feel badly about something, I take action to fix it: apologize, make it right, whatever. Then I learn from it. Then I breathe out the guilt and breath in compassion. I move on. It’s odd how easy it is. It’s just a matter of giving myself permission to let it go.
Hey, Tim!
Thank you sooo much for pointing out what shame can do to a child. I was abused as a kid, and spent the next 30 years tring to understand I had nothing to be ashamed of. It’s also why I always made the distinction with my stepsons in telling them what they were *doing* was bad, not that *they* were.
Great job. Keep on learning and growing! :)
Annie
Hi Tim!
How funny, I was thinking of something along this lines today. When I was younger I somehow got into the habit of feeling guilty & shamed when I wasn’t automatically good at something.
You know, like as if it were a character flaw and something to be deeply embarrassed of to be clumsy at skipping rope or not getting a math concept on the first time.
It’s really sort of bizarre and surreal to think that I went the first 20+ years of my life feeling stupid, clumsy and ugly.
I guess it did shape who I am today and having that problem to overcome in the first place has given me a lot of perspective, however, it’s not something I’d wish to put any of my kids through.
Shame and guilt can be huge motivators and I’m sure there are a lot of very accomplished people who have been propelled by these emotions. I mean, I was so ashamed of feeling stupid, ugly and clumsy that I hid it by having a very outgoing personality! There’s a lot folks will do to keep people from finding out these sorts of secret emotions.
However, it’s no way to live. No matter how much you accomplish, if you do it because you’re running away from something or trying to hide, you’re going to feel uneasy and unable to relax.
Great post!! It came at the perfect time for me. ;)
In all seriousness: this is something that we all deal with from time to time and is important to think about. For whatever reason we tend to be hard on far to harsh on ourself, when others are generally happy to forgive. Forgiving yourself and your mistakes is essential in finding contentment.
P.S Excited to see what will happen with HTBRAH
@ Eduard – Hmm, not sure if I agree about guilt being constructive. I think it can be, but often it can be destructive. I have had a lot of clients really worn down by the amount of guilt they are carrying round with them.
Hey Tim,
I see guilt and shame as different faces of the same coin. But guild is the constructive one, which helps us stick to our high values, and shame is the un-constructive one which sabotages our lives.
I think that once we learn to see and interpret things in a rational way, it becomes much easier to get over shame.
Cheers