Shame versus guilt is hard. Some say that the differences are obvious one is good, and the other is bad. Many institutions, denominations, organizations, parental figures from your childhood, teachers, coaches, friends, family, romantic partners, and even some religions are using these two strong feelings to your disadvantage without you knowing it.
Once they can ignite guilt and shame inside you, they can then justifiably ask for the keys to the car of your life – after making you voluntarily admit that you are unfit to drive (which you are ashamed of having to admit and which relieves them of empathic guilt that they cannot even feel/admit).
This is done in a brief attempt to break off relations from the anchors of their shame and guilt. This can also be done to assert authority. For them, the fact that you are now handing over your keys gives them immunity (although it is rooted in illusion).
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This “immunity” could not exist though, without emotional unavailability, narcissism, gaslighting, and in some cases, pathological lying and sociopathy.
There are a lot of things that I am ashamed of myself for doing, not doing, feeling, not letting go, saying, not saying, struggling with, etc. And the tangled guilt that comes with each of these things made it difficult for a long time…
I even managed to use these ordinary human feelings of guilt, shame, and guilt for shame for my own good.
Here’s what I know about shame versus guilt now that I’ve found my way out…
Both of them made me feel lonely and worthless enough to commit emotional suicide (while I barely survived physically). Both kept me in limbo from being too scared to end my own life but also, too scared to live on other terms than anyone else. They both directly ruined my confidence, power, luck, and relationships, and made everyone and everything pillars my default position. Both enabled me to put up with a very hurtful excuse, and nonsense * t behavior of toxic people. This did nothing but confirm my wildness in allowing guilt versus shame to take over and therefore, giving up the car keys of my life since I was obviously, unfit to drive. Both of them prevented me from taking action in my private life. And on the few occasions when I took action, the shame bothered me internally until I gave up.
It has also been proven that guilt and shame are the reasons why I was able to completely turn my physical, emotional, relational, professional, and financial life around. Hurry up.
I was able to get back my car keys that shame and guilt had convinced me that I could not drive.
Shame versus guilt
I can’t talk about shame versus guilt without raising Bryn Brown. If you haven’t heard of Brin, she is a bestselling author and a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work. I have studied shame for the past two decades.
According to Breen, the feeling of guilt is ” I did something bad. I’m sorry, I made a mistake. And the shame is” I’m bad. I’m wrong.”
For me, because my self-esteem was very low, whenever I did something that triggered very normal and healthy feelings of guilt, shame would immediately creep in.
Soon I began to feel guilty about everything.
This led to my illness to please. I have become a professional, overly apologetic doormat.
Guilt was this unbearably painful wound. Because of that, the shame then became novocaine, which I had to shoot.
I held myself to a level of perfection and because of that, I lacked confidence. I can never be perfect; no one can be.
And because I didn’t love myself and had no sense of identity to back away from…
Whenever I did or didn’t do something that triggered guilt-my low self-esteem disabled it from becoming an experience to learn from / an opportunity to develop and enabled shame to do nothing but reaffirm how worthless I am. Writing that makes me tear up. It makes me feel terrible that I did it myself after surviving a childhood even though it was cool-there were many times it was done to me.
It’s not that I look back now and think how lucky I am that I got” past ” this kind of debilitating shame.
I’m not in the past and I won’t ever be. And that’s okay.
I still find myself walking into certain situations I hear a voice telling me:
“You are not good enough. What makes you think you can do this? Don’t remember, you’re not good enough for some of your closest family members to even admit you exist? You have no family besides your mother. Who cares that you have a blog and you don’t have a degree in psychology? Who do you think you are? You are not enough and you will never be. You should be very embarrassed hard. You’re not pretty enough. You still haven’t launched your podcast and you’ve developed more courses. What a failure. You never said goodbye to your mother God and grandfather before they died and they were nothing but incredible to you. They were all you had and you chose not to say goodbye. You’re ungrateful. You probably won’t get that book deal. You didn’t earn that. You’ve done some terrible things and embarrassed yourself. You don’t deserve anything good.”- Alas, this is not even his half.
Does reading those feelings regarding my shame versus guilt make you feel less alone? Less ashamed of yourself? Less guilty? Less of an outcast?
That’s the thing with shame versus guilt. Sunlight and garlic for vampires from shame and guilt are:
Unjustified weakness and possession of your truth. It’s that simple.
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I know that when someone opens up to me and dares to be vulnerable…
Calling and asserting that none of us is alone (or judged) is too bright a light for the darkness of guilt or shame to survive.
I train some of the best athletes, models, men and women, celebrities, surgeons, lawyers, artists, politicians, etc., In the world and let me tell you something-there is not one of them who does not feel or deal with this kind of shame (and shame versus guilt). She’s not one. We all feel shame and guilt no matter who we are or what we do. Especially when it comes to the pain, heartbreak, and insecurity that we feel from toxic relationships.
I also find that the more functional our families and our lives are, the more we feel shame because of the dysfunction that occurs behind closed doors.
You are, too. A lot.More than double your family.
The only thing that separates the winners/developers from mop / Devolvers is the ability to be vulnerable. You own your truth.
Shame needs secrecy, judgment, prioritizing the facade over authenticity to spread.
Feeling guilty can become a catalyst for the best. Shame can be the one who kills (instead of your emotional body) and you can revive just as quickly as he brought you down.
The biggest mistake is trying not to feel guilt and shame. That’s what makes us human. This is what can connect us, develop true intimacy, and facilitate healing like nothing else can.
That’s why I say that this blog (which would be nothing without each of you), saved my life.
We have all been hurt and we all feel ashamed. Especially from the things that happened in our childhood when we were in the most voiceless and helpless places.
Shame makes us feel that we have a psychic body odor and because of that, we get addicted to making those who have no sense of smell confirm that we smell like a bouquet of roses.
People who make you feel ashamed in life, do it because of their unrelenting shame. Don’t let anyone else cast shame on Jock. Instead, allow all the shame that you feel to be a beacon of light to someone else’s darkness. The darkness you know well or you will no longer read these words.
This is what vulnerability is all about and why only the strongest, the most beautiful, and the strongest are capable of it.
That’s what makes you real.
One of my favorite quotes of all time from one of my favorite books:
“The real one is not how it’s made,” said the leather horse. It’s something that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long time, not just to play with him, but loves you, you become real.’
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‘Does it hurt? The rabbit asked.
‘Sometimes,’ said the leather horse, because he was always honest. When you’re real, you don’t mind getting hurt.’
‘Doesn’t it happen every time, like being wound,’ he asked,’ or little by little?’
‘This doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the leather horse. ‘You’re getting. It takes a long time. That is why it does not happen very often to people who break easily or have sharp edges, or who must be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most have taken your hair off, your eyes will leak and you get loose at the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you become real, you can’t be ugly, except for people who don’t understand.”
- Margery Williams, The Velvet Rabbit
And given my upcoming birthday next week, this is exactly how I want to grow old, if I’m lucky enough to do so.
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