You may be familiar with the saying that guilt is tied to something we’ve done (or failed to do), while shame is about who we feel we are. In other words, as the saying goes, guilt tends to manifests as the feeling, “I’ve done something wrong,” while shame manifests as, “I am wrong.”
Do you feel, as many do, that guilt is a “healthy” emotion, and that “shame” is not? Well, if you do, in some ways I agree! In another sense, however, I think it’s important to take a more nuanced approach.
I believe shame (and the capacity to experience it) can be healthy, or at the very least adaptive, when it’s not about feeling inherently flawed or essentially defective, but instead is experienced as bashfulness, modesty, shyness, or chagrin. Shame can also be manageable if we know how to cope with it, allowing it to co-exist with other feelings inside of us with a sense of acceptance.
Sometimes shame can even be self-protective, acting as a shield when facing something even worse, like entering situations where we might repeatedly get hurt, or confronting our helplessness when we don’t have the resources to face our reality.
On the other hand, shame becomes harmful as an emotion when it starts to define us, hijacks our ability to think clearly or regulate our emotions or behavior, or causes us to live in constant fear of being exposed for who we really are. Feeling like a fraud or impostor are often byproducts of shame, along with social isolation and/or unhealthy accommodation to external expectations, alienating us from our true inner selves with “false-self” adaptations.
Guilt is different from shame, and trying to avoid guilt at all costs precludes healthy risk-taking and the mourning of our regrets. Guilt can be constructive when it motivates us to make amends after mistakes or to reflect on our actions and ideals. And guilt and grief often go hand in hand, leading to psychological capacities such as: Internalization (of traces left over from past experiences); Identification (with things or people we’ve lost due to missed opportunities); and Reparation (of that which we’ve destroyed).
Yet guilt can also become unhelpful when it paralyzes us from taking action or traps us in cycles of endless rumination. Guilt is also detrimental when applied to situations beyond our control or when it allows others to manipulate us.
Unhealthy guilt can arise from various sources, such as past trauma or a strict upbringing that conditioned us to feel guilty for not meeting certain standards. Cultural or familial expectations, as well as an internalized fear of disappointing others, can also lead to unhealthy guilt, such as for taking time off time when we need rest, believing we should always be productive, or speaking up in a disagreement.
In truth, all emotions we experience are ultimately signals—responses to stimuli or conditioning we’ve internalized. By questioning whether these emotions truly belong to us (or if they’re introjected, i.e. alien aspects from others that don’t align with our true selves); assessing whether they’re helpful and appropriate to the context we’re experiencing them in; and recognizing them as acceptable parts of ourselves, we increase our agency and autonomy. Moving away from reflexive, automatic beliefs and reactions to our emotions towards more reflective and constructive ways of relating to them can help us engage with them in ways that align with our true selves.