Guilt vs Shame: How To Tell Them Apart
Guilt vs shame, these are the two emotions that come up throughout the course of our lives as we grow and develop. They often come up together and may even be felt in response to the same scenario. We often associate guilt and shame with each other, and while they may overlap or intertwine, they do also have some major differences that can impact how we think about how to manage them.
Photo by Sasha Freemind via Unsplash
How Do we Define Guilt?
Guilt is related to our conscience, how we judge our actions based on what we believe is right or wrong.
Guilt comes from the sources that mold and shape our beliefs, like family, religion, culture, and society. We internalize beliefs throughout development and judge our own behaviors off of this code.
Guilt often comes down to a personal sense of control—as the individual you have the knowledge that you can take steps to make up for your actions and put the event behind you. This can lead to taking responsibility for making amends and changing actions, but it can also lead to feelings of inadequacy, anger, self-doubt, and avoidance.
How Do we Define Shame?
Shame is the internalized feeling that who you are, at your very core self, is bad or wrong.
Shame is related to the lack of control, as the individual feels they have no way to come back or make up for what has happened and cannot control whether or not it happens again. This leads to the desire to hide, shrink, run away, avoid, or escape.
We are taught what to feel shameful about from those around us as we make our way through life. The things we feel shameful about most often come from the environment we grew up in. Parents or caregivers may actively or inadvertently teach shame through their actions and reactions, such as punishment, self-talk, and discussions of values. Shame is also taught through school, peers, religion, and social media—really anywhere that a child will pick up what others feel shameful about. Shame is considered a landfill emotion, which means that it is “dumped” onto you by others instead of something you innately have. Shame only comes from shame—meaning if someone is shaming you about something it is because they feel shame about it themselves.
Shame may result from the awareness of guilt or as a feeling following guilt. Sometimes this shame can come from feelings of guilt with no amends or changes made. Other times, it can be difficult to truly differentiate between the feelings as they just end up funneling back into each other.
Guilt vs Shame
Photo by Karl Fredrickson via Unsplash
how to deal with Guilt
Guilt can be a very powerful emotion. It can be both motivating and debilitating, depending on how you manage and move forward with it. To start to manage guilt, consider the following:
Name and Explore:
Acknowledge the guilt, whether that means internally, allowed, or written. Allow yourself to feel the emotions that come up with that acknowledgment, however uncomfortable they may be. Explore those emotions without judgement, ask yourself where is this emotion coming from? How does this relate to your values and beliefs?
Next steps:
What your actual next steps are or how they occur may depend on your present situation. As a whole, general next steps often look like apologizing, making amends, and intentionally committing to changing your behavior.
Practice self-compassion:
You can’t change the past, you can only learn from it. Remind yourself that a mistake doesn’t make you a bad person. Find a balance between holding yourself accountable and punishing yourself for what is now out of your control.
How to deal with Shame
A beginning step in undoing your own shame work is figuring out where your feelings of shame come from and if you even really believe what those sources are saying. If it feels right, try it yourself. Think about a behavior you think is shameful, and ask yourself:
Why is that behavior shameful?
Have you always believed this?
When did it begin?
Do you remember learning this from someone else?
Do you feel the same when others do it?
Is it actually something you think is bad or is it a belief you have repeated to yourself after hearing it over and over?
What do you think it says about you as a person for doing that behavior?
Do you feel like you have control around what you do or don’t do?
Shame vs Guilt, they are both powerful feelings that are going to come up for most of us at some point—if not multiple points— in our lives. We may not be able to stop ourselves from experiencing them, but having a better understanding of where they are coming from and how they are impacting us can be the first steps in learning to manage them.
Meet the author: Abby Smith, LGPC
Abby is a Licensed Graduate Professional Counselor at Space Between Counseling Services. She is currently accepting new clients for Thursday afternoons. Abby works primarily with LGBTQ+ individuals and couples with concerns around identity development, emotional intelligence, sexual health, intimacy, and connection. Abby takes an eclectic approach to counseling—drawing on techniques from theories such as Dialectical behavioral therapy, Instinctual trauma response, and Attachment theory. She believes that therapy isn’t “one size fits all” and that each individual’s unique situation needs to be taken into account.
When Abby isn’t working, she can be found caring for her many house plants, playing with her greyhound and baking as many muffins as her oven can handle. She has recently been stuck between re-watching Lie to Me and playing Lego games on Switch.