Dealing with Guilt and Shame
Guilt and shame are both important emotions to the human experiences. Both guilt and shame shape our behaviour and are related to morality. From an evolutionary perspective, both these emotions are essential to ensuring that society functions in a cohesive manner.
Though these emotions are important, they are emotions that are tremendously painful to experience. Therefore, it's necessary to learn to move through them in a conscious way. Depending our early interpersonal experiences, the frequency at which we experience these emotions can get out of hand and no longer be adaptive.
Differentiating between guilt and shame.
Guilt says : “I did something wrong/bad”
Shame says: “I am wrong/bad”
It’s important to understand the difference between guilt and shame.
Guilt tends to feel like tension, regret, remorse. When we feel guilt, generally we are able to define a specific action we are evaluating as having been bad or wrong. We are concerned about the impact of our actions on others.
Generally, guilt serves to move us closer to others as it allows us to make a decision of how we want to move forward to correct the action we are evaluating as not having been in alignment with our morals. We may decide to apologize, repair in some way or decide that we will not act that way again in the future.
Shame tends to feel like worthlessness, feeling small, wanting to shrink into oneself.
When we are in shame we tend to have a globally negative evaluation of ourselves (“I am a bad person”). This leads us to want to hide, to move away, to avoid, to defend our actions. Generally, this moves us farther away from others and encourages less pro-social behaviour.
Like guilt, shame has us concerned about the impact on others, but it also has us concerned with how we are viewed for having impacted others in this way. Therefore, generally shame tends to keep us stuck.
Managing guilt and shame
If you are someone who experiences these emotions in high frequency, here are a few first steps for managing them.
Differentiate between guilt and shame. In any given moment which one are you experiencing?
If you are experiencing guilt, understand that this emotion is telling you something. Allow this emotion to lead you to action. What is this guilt telling you? Did you do something that didn’t align with your morals, values or how you want to live? How will you repair?
If you are experiencing shame:
Name the action linked to your experience. (i.e. I didn’t do my homework, I failed..).
Ask yourself if this action is objectively “bad” or “wrong”.
Ask yourself if this is linked to a past experience of having gotten in trouble, perhaps as a child.
If you are having the urge to hide away, to curl up in your bed, try doing what we call “opposite action” - share your feelings with a trusted friend or partner. Shame lives in the dark, it continues to eat away at us if it is kept secret.
If these emotions are impacting your day to day life and are creating barriers to you achieving your goals, please reach out to a mental health professional.
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Written by : Tara McRae MSW RSW, Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist.
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Sources:
Shame and Guilt By June Price Tangney, Ronda L. Dearin
SHAME AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY: FROM RESEARCH TO CLINICAL PRACTICE by Diana-Mirela CÂNDEA* & Aurora SZENTAGOTAI Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj Napoca, Romania