Recently a client asked me, “What’s the difference between guilt and shame?” It’s a good question, if only because so many of us experience both of these emotions. Here’s my take on it.

Guilt is the emotion we feel when we have done something we regret, something that we think (or know) was not a good thing to do. Guilt is about things we do that we aren’t proud of.

Shame is different. Shame is the emotion we feel when we think there is something about ourselves that is fundamentally bad or wrong. Shame is about things about ourselves that we aren’t proud of.

Sometimes we feel guilt that is really over the top—excessive, even obsessive guilt. Maybe we are involved in an accident, and someone else is hurt or killed, and we feel what’s called “survivor’s guilt”. That’s an example of unjustified guilt, or guilt that isn’t really about a conscious choice we made. It’s guilt run amok.

Shame (I think) is humility run amok. It’s taking humility so far that it becomes its opposite. Here’s what I mean: a person with healthy humility often feels very good about herself. Unlike shame, healthy humility is not self-deprecating or self-denying. Healthy humility is simply an outward orientation, a way of living that is other-directed. But shame is self-directed, and self-destructive. Unlike guilt, I think shame is a useless emotion. It’s a way to shut yourself down, to withdraw from relationships, to step back from your life.

Shame leads us to forget that each human person has intrinsic value, and no matter how much sorrow (and guilt!) we feel about the choices we’ve made, we are not fundamentally broken.

Bottom line: guilt—most of the time—takes us somewhere. Shame—not so much! Both have a way of getting into our lives. Counseling helps you sort all this out, look at yourself with compassion, and respond to these difficult emotions in a healthy way.

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For a good laugh, click here. It’s a hilarious take on a client who’s trying to end a therapeutic relationship. But before you read it, please understand: I do not act this way in my work with clients! I normally save fun things like this for Friday blogs, but I couldn’t wait. Enjoy!

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I sometimes wonder if the one thing I deal with in my work and in my own life—the one dragon I keep slaying, and helping other people slay—is fear. I’m not a big-theory-to-describe-anything kind of person, but consider some of the evidence:

—An individual comes to counseling because he’s feeling lonesome, unloved, even unloveable. “I don’t know,” he might say, “maybe I’m depressed.” But as he talks about the difficulty of being on his own and ‘unlucky in love,’ he starts seeing how scared he is—scared to approach others, much less ask them out. Or scared to face his own demons, the thoughts and beliefs that keep him stuck, and maybe keep him single. Our work together helps him do the things that scare him, and find the love and intimacy he longs for.

—A couple comes to counseling because they’re screaming at each other and don’t know how to stop. Turns out they’re both afraid, maybe even terrified: afraid to tell the truth to each other, or say what’s really bothering them. Afraid to be honest with each other about their own contribution to the problem (”If I tell him I know I’m a part of the problem, I’m afraid he’ll just walk all over me!” one of them might say). Our work together helps the couple talk honestly, listen carefully, and—scary as it is—ask each other for what they really want.

—An adolescent comes to counseling because, well, usually because some adult who’s able to make life hard for him told him he had to! But he comes, and it sounds like the topic is behavior problems, truancy, impulsive (and maybe illegal) behaviors, unsafe sex, you know the story. But it’s not a cliche to say that this is a really scared kid, scared and maybe even panicked, trying to make some sense of his life, gain some sense of control. Our work together helps him breathe, learn how to calm himself down, and learn how to navigate his complicated life.

Right now, if you’re thinking about getting some counseling, you might feel (in no particular order) angry, upset, enraged, sad, confused, or just plain exhausted. You’re probably a pretty resilient person—after all, just thinking about getting counseling takes a little grit, to say nothing of coming in! You may be highly accomplished in your life, or feel pretty secure in general. But it’s highly possible that there’s something going on right now that frightens you. The area of your life that brought you to my site, whether it’s a relationship problem, career angst, grief, or something else entirely—if you reflect on your feelings about it, I’ll guess that fear is in there somewhere.

I help people notice their fears, understand them, and respond to them in new and life-changing ways.

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Do you feel caught in an endless loop of fighting with your partner? Is it hard to get out of it once it’s started? You’re probably right about a lot of things that make you mad. But then—and just stay with me here for a minute!—so is your partner. When two people are arguing, most of the time they are both right about something, even if one of them is only 0.01% right!

Let’s assume it’s your partner who is right only 0.01% of the time. (I’m guessing you’re OK with that!) If you’re fighting, consider this: tell your partner that he/she is right about that one little tiny thing. Your partner says, “You didn’t support me last night when I was telling you about my bad day!” You could say, “You’re right. I wasn’t supportive the whole time we were talking. I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.” Then you could just stop talking, and let your partner take in the fact that you didn’t defend yourself. You acknowledged the 0.01% thing that your partner was right about. (Maybe you were supportive 99.99% of the time, but you just chose not to point that out!)

Your partner is stuck now. How can I respond when someone agrees with me? Attack again? Most people won’t attack again, at least not right away. Agreeing with your partner—just a little bit—can open a moment of silence in the middle of a fight. It could get you talking again, but this time without shouting.

Therapist and author David Burns came up with this technique. He calls it the “disarming technique.” It can be a simple way to change the way you communicate in your relationship. It could stop the fighting. (Just be sure that you’re agreeing with something that’s true! Be authentic!)

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A good friend of mine introduced me to a poem by David Ray called “Thanks, Robert Frost.” I share it with you because so many clients of mine (and friends, too—and myself!) often have regrets about the past. We get angry at our past selves, frustrated that we didn’t do this, didn’t accomplish that, didn’t say or think or do the right thing.

The Buddha said that to practice compassion, one must first be compassionate toward one’s self. A major part of being compassionate toward yourself is forgiving yourself for the mistakes, shortcomings, and failures that clutter your past. I don’t think it’s right to call it “letting go of the past,” because the past is always with us, always shaping us. I think instead that it’s making sense of the past, and making peace with the past. It sounds funny to use the future tense when talking about the past, but I’ll do it anyway: the past will be all right. It’ll be all right. Here’s the poem:

Thanks, Robert Frost
by David Ray

Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought…
The future, yes, and even for the past,
that it will become something we can bear.

… Hope for the past,
yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage,
and it brings strange peace that itself passes
into past, easier to bear because
you said it, rather casually, as snow
went on falling in Vermont years ago.

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I blogged yesterday on the glass-half-empty worldview, and—strange but true—several people, without reading my blog or knowing I wrote it, used the half-empty glass to describe their situation! So I thought I’d say more about it.

Here’s an example of how the half-empty/half-full glass doesn’t help someone deal with a problem: imagine you hate your job. (Some of you might not have any trouble imagining that!) Your boss drives you crazy, or you don’t fit in with your co-workers, or your work is underwhelming (or overwhelming)…these are just a few of the reasons why someone would be unhappy at work. The last thing you need is a counselor telling you to be chipper about your situation!

If “there is no glass,” that means you can look at your job problem from lots of different angles. Your boss is driving you crazy? We can talk about how this situation can be an opportunity for you to develop better personal boundaries, or better strategies you can use when working with difficult people. Or we can talk about how you deal with authority, how you handle someone who has more control or power than you. Your job duties are beneath your abilities? We can look at this as a sign that you’re ready to do some career development work, or even think about switching careers. Or we can talk about how you can re-invest in your current work in a new or creative way. You don’t fit in with your co-workers? We can discuss friendships in your life, or the concept of friendship itself, and how you can find ways to get closer to these people in your daily life, and get to know them better.

This is just one example of how counseling can take you in lots of different directions. If you feel “chipper” about something in your life, great! But counseling is about more than that—more than just adopting a positive attitude. It’s about your own growth and development. It’s about how you can make real changes in your life, and find deeper satisfaction in your career and relationships.

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When people say, “The glass is half empty,” you know what they mean. They’re adopting a negative view of their situation. Most people assume that counselors are in the business of convincing people that the glass is half full. Not me. I think my job is to invite people to imagine that there is no glass.

Huh?

What I mean is that it’s easy for people to look at a problem or issue in two opposing ways, and to assume that there really are only two ways to look at it. Problem is, it’s all too easy to see the downside when we’re talking about relationships, workplace challenges, even the weather! (By the way - did you get out in the sun today??) Another problem with the simplistic, half-empty/half-full views is that positive views often seem sappy or shallow, like painting a clown smile on your face.

In our work together, I’ll help you explore perspectives and approaches to your problem that you’ve never thought of. I’ll help you see yourself and your relationships in ways you might never have imagined before. Our work will always be more complex (and exciting!) than that half-filled glass of water.

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A few weeks ago I recommended a great book on forgiveness. This book talks about forgiving those who have hurt you, but it also talks about forgiving yourself, especially if the person who hurt you is unwilling (or unable) to work things out with you.

This is important because most of the time, when people are angry or bitter—or just deeply sad—because someone hurt them, they are also angry with themselves for being vulnerable to the hurt. “How could I have been so stupid?!” I hear clients say. And it’s easy—when you’re really upset—to forget that you didn’t know then what you know now. Most of the time, you couldn’t have protected yourself from being betrayed, or lied to.

So one of the most important tasks before you in your recovery from a hurtful relationship—or a relationship that ended in a way that was hurtful—is to look with compassion on yourself, to reconcile yourself to yourself … to give yourself a break. When it happened, you did what you were able to do. You thought and felt and acted with all your might. Now that it’s over, you might be kicking yourself for not doing this, not saying that. I encourage you to notice this (understandable) self-scolding, and treat yourself with more compassion, more understanding, and yes—more love.

Click on the image below if you’d like to purchase Janis Abrahms-Spring’s great book on forgiveness:

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