Beyond Shame and Guilt
I have a vivid memory from my first position as a licensed psychologist. I was several months into the job and I had woken up with a temperature. It was fall in California, the morning air was cool and I was pacing my backyard trying to will myself to be better. I wasn’t deathly sick, but I certainly wasn’t well. When my child was sick it was a no brainer to call out at work. However, when I was sick… I felt enormous pressure to show up for my colleagues and patients because there was no other psychologist to cover for me. I felt so guilty and awful to leave everyone at the clinic hanging. After going back and forth in my head for far too long, I eventually concluded I could not function like this at work and I must call in sick.
Months later I was telling this story to a colleague who had decades of experience as a psychologist. I told him I felt so guilty in these situations. He taught me something that changed my life! He taught me the difference between shame, guilt and regret.
On the surface shame, guilt and regret look very similar. They are uncomfortable feelings that come up when we are not living our values, but they have key differences.
Shame is global. You’re a bad person and you’ll always be a bad person. Shame is NEVER adaptive because if you’ll always be a bad person, you can never change and there is no hope for you.
Guilt is more about the behavior. You have done something not in line with your values, but guilt is there to motivate you to do better or make amends. If you’ve actually done something against your values, guilt is actually very adaptive. It’s like when you tell a lie to someone,you can go back and tell the truth or promise to never lie again.
Regret is about your situation. You have tried living your values to the fullest, but your situation is such that you will not be able to do so. You are sorry, but it’s not your fault. You didn’t mean for this to happen. It’s like trying to get to your sister’s wedding but a storm is coming in and all the airports are shut down. You’re not going anywhere.
Far too often my clients are acting out of what they think is shame or guilt, but they are not bad and haven’t done anything wrong. They are just in a bad situation. This is particularly true when your body is changing or dealing with something and you can’t fulfill all your usual obligations. Just because your mind has the will doesn’t mean your body will find the way. Framing these situations as regret can take a significant burden off of you. We all hurt when we don’t live in line with our values, but we deeply suffer when we punish ourselves with shame and guilt when regret is more fitting for the situation. Regret allows you to feel the pain without being overwhelmed by it.
Feeling guilty much of the time could be a sign of depression. If your life has been overrun by guilt, speaking to a mental health professional can help. E-mail me today at srizvi@sarahrizviphd to schedule a free 15 minute phone consultation. It’s time to move beyond guilt.