Guilt vs. Shame

Guilt vs. Shame Guilt is the emotional signal that says, oops I messed up, I did something wrong, I made a mistake, I need to clean that up or walk it back. Shame, on the other hand is the core belief that says, you are not good. It’s that subconscious feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. It’s says “you are bad”, “you are a mistake”, “you are less than” or “you don’t belong”. Shame is the fuel of addictive behaviors. It’s the thinking that says “you need to outdo everyone else or don’t even bother trying”. Shame is low self-worth hiding behind an over inflated ego, it’s “better than — less than” thinking. Shame robs us of the ability to like or love anything about ourselves because we are conditioned to believe we are fundamentally flawed and therefor unlovable. Intimacy is impossible because if we get too close, you might see those flaws. Shame keeps us from being able to be happy for others or even recognize our own achievements. Shame is that subconscious voice that says things like “It’s never enough”, “life isn’t enough”, “It’s not good enough”, “I’m not good enough”, “I’m not enough” or “I’m too much”. It keeps us wrong, isolated and different. Addiction is that hunger for something outside to fix the feelings inside. Shame is that critical voice that can’t allow us to actually own our human failings or even acknowledge a simple mistake. The weight of a simple error is too heavy for a shame based person. Shame comes from a family system that likely created roles that included a Scapegoat. The Scapegoat is to blame for all that was wrong. I, like most of the people I have met on my recovery journey have played this role and adopted this role as an identity. We tended to act out who we believe ourselves to be adding more “shameful” behaviors and consequences to the pile. An important part of my recovery was when I started learning that first and foremost, I am a human being not a human doing. I’m not my mistakes nor am I my accomplishments. I am much more than that and so