In my life, I hear the words shame and guilt being mixed up with each other all the time. The only other words that get mixed up that much are the words “complimentary” and “complementary” and I will probably never actually remember which one is correct in what situation.

But when it comes to shame and guilt, I hear these words used interchangeably, and they really need to be separated because there’s a big difference between the two. Guilt is a feeling of regret after having done something wrong, while shame is a state of self-deprecation and self-hatred. While these one can lead to another, one is generally helpful and one is not.

After you make a mistake, you should feel guilty. Guilt can motivate us to change, try new things, apologize, and repent for our mistakes. But, guilt doesn’t make us think less of ourselves, because we’re saying to ourselves, “I made a mistake doing this thing, and I would like to handle it differently next time.”

Shame, on the other hand, is never, absolutely never helpful. Shame is paralyzing, rather than motivating. Shame motivates us to fear, rather than love. When we experience shame, we think “I am less valuable as a person, I am terrible, and if anybody saw who I truly was then they wouldn’t love me.”

While guilt focuses on the regret of an action, shame leads us to regret our own existence.

This distinction is crucial in how we think about ourselves, because if we shame ourselves when we make mistakes, we’re trying to use fear to motivate ourselves to change. “If you keep gaining weight, nobody will want to be with you.” “If you can’t graduate and get a high-paying job, they’ll all know that you aren’t very smart.” “If you can’t keep your marriage together, your family’s going to know that you’re a failure.” All of these statements are brutal condemnations of the self, and they leave no room for grace, growth, or self-acceptance.

This distinction is also crucial in how we talk to others. If we’re parents, then when we discipline our children, it’s so important that we identify what actions are wrong, while continuing to build up their view of themselves. If your child breaks a window playing baseball in the house, like you’ve asked them not to, it can be so easy to speak out of our emotion and shame them in that moment. So, if we aren’t careful, we might shame them and say “Why would you do that? You always break the rules and don’t think about anyone but yourself, and you’ve turned into a vandal and monster.”

In that last statement, there’s some intense all-or-nothing statements, and unhelpful comments on the child’s character. In contrast, an appropriate use of guilt would be to say “We’ve talked about how dangerous it is to play baseball in the house, and I’m sad and angry that you disobeyed me. I still love you, and we’re going to get through this, but we’re going to have some consequences for your actions that might include helping us replace that window.” In this example, we aren’t shaming the child for who they are, but we are identifying what they’ve done as wrong.

And, when we start speaking to others in a kind way, not shaming them, we’ll find it easier to speak kinder words to ourselves and not shame ourselves. It’s only a one word difference, but the life-changing difference between guilt and shame is crucial to us growing into the people we want ourselves to be.

So when you do make a mistake, keep the focus on the action being wrong, not the person. The goal is that you would be able to say “I did make a mistake here, and that isn’t okay, and I’m going to do my best to change and grow from this.” Just remember that no matter how many flaws you have, you are not less of a person, and you are not defined by your mistakes.

Thank you for reading my practice’s blog, my library of all the random thoughts that would make a terrible book but make
a halfway-decent blog. To request a session or contact me, head to my Scheduling page to get in touch with me today!