Oh my gosh, I am such an idiot.
I don't know about you, but I used to throw out that sentence all the time.
You stub your toe on something - Gosh, I'm such an idiot.
You accidentally say the wrong name to somebody - oh my God, I'm so stupid.
And I think, you know, sometimes we say those things really jokingly
but sometimes we also say it quite seriously, especially maybe if we've failed at something
and failure is just part of the human experience.
But how we respond to it, and each of us responds so differently,
how we respond to it, I think, really affects our psychological health and well-being.
So today I really wanted to chat about the critical difference between two different terms,
one is shame and one is guilt and even though sometimes we use these words interchangeably,
they are really quite different.
We want to experience guilt more than we experience shame.
And I think understanding *why*, understanding the difference between these two
is the difference between feeling more connection and less depression,
more trust, less anxiety, more love and belonging, less loneliness.
It's really quite simple, but it's so powerful and profound
The inspiration for this topic came from an audiobook I listened to recently that's easily become one of my new favorites.
It's called "The Power of Vulnerability" by Brené Brown
She's a PhD, a researcher in the field of shame and vulnerability
and in the audiobook she makes an incredibly important distinction between shame and guilt.
As I said, we want more guilt and less shame, but why?
According to Brené shame is highly correlated to things like addiction, depression,
suicide and bullying, aggression, violence and eating disorders,
whereas guilt, on the other hand, has the opposite effect.
So let's first talk shame, what is it?
Shame is an intensely painful feeling of being fundamentally flawed,
feeling defective, unacceptable
we often feel shame when we feel that we aren't something enough - fill in the blanks there:
beautiful enough,
thin enough,
smart enough,
strong enough,
privileged enough,
perfect enough..
So then what's guilt? Guilt is also a feeling of discomfort,
but it's about something that we've done or something we think we've done that's objectively wrong.
So where shame is "I am bad", guilt is "I've done something bad"
and that distinction is so incredibly important.
Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior -
something is wrong with me versus I have done something wrong.
So let's say for example that you've single-handedly just polished off an entire bag of chips just to yourself.
Shame in this case would be self-talk of "I am fat, I am pathetic".
The focus is on self
You can especially see it in the "I am" statements like "I am disgusting".
Whereas in the same scenario guilt would be if we had said to ourselves
"It was really stupid of me to eat mindlessly",
"It was silly of me to grab the whole bag instead of pouring it into a bowl."
The focus here is on behavior.
So why is this distinction important?
I think because on the one hand with Shame it makes us feel that we are truly flawed
and that makes us feel broken, that we don't belong, that we aren't worthy of love.
whereas with guilt on the other hand it gives us the ability to take a step back, to observe the situation
and to take perspective.
In a research paper that I read they had set it like this:
They said shame is characterized by the desire to hide and escape, guilt by the desire to repair,
It's a simple distinction, but the impacts of this are huge I think in two ways
For one - now that we can understand the difference between the two - we can really start to see when we
identify with our shame triggers and again to start out looking for those "I am" statements might help
and then we can see if we can switch the dialogue,
switch that internal dialogue from self to behavior,
so instead of saying "I am such a bad daughter", we might instead say
"hey mom, I'm sorry I feel bad for not having called you back sooner".
From self to behavior.
Instead of saying something like "I am so stupid, I've forgotten your name",
instead we might say "hey how silly of me, I'm sorry. What's your name again?"
From self to behavior.
It's a simple switch, but it changes our whole perspective
when we recognize that it's not us who's flawed but that the behavior is
then we can start to make steps to repair it.
Now for some of us, and I've definitely lived through this a few times,
for some of us we are too wrapped up in the shame talk.
So much so that a simple switch in language just doesn't and isn't going to cut it.
And I think that's the second importance of recognizing the distinction
between shame and guilt because if you know
you are someone who lives in shame, then you also know how absolutely toxic it is
and how it needs to be addressed.
So Brené Brown, she says it like this:
if you put shame in a petri dish, it needs only three things to grow exponentially:
secrecy, silence and judgment.
And the problem is that so many of us have shame, but we don't talk about it,
we keep it to ourselves and that makes it so much worse.
So when we're feeling genuine shame, we essentially just need to practice one thing
and that is vulnerability and this is the premise of Brené's entire audiobook,
but essentially it means that we need to step into our stories,
we need to share them with someone as raw and uncomfortable as it can feel sometimes,
and I think also vulnerability - there's this feeling that it's a weakness,
but really it's one of the strongest things that any of us can do.
What's important though is that we do share our story, our struggle, with someone who can empathize with us,
someone who can provide empathy and that means they can step into the discomfort of our situation
and feel it with us, be there with us through it without judgment.
Now, I'm just scratching the surface here
I really recommend Brené's audiobook "The Power of Vulnerability"
and even though it's a bit of a heavy topic to discuss,
she's really, really funny, which I think breaks the ice a little bit,
she's an incredible public speaker and storyteller
and in the audio book she's speaking to a live audience,
so it's really interactive, you get to hear people laugh and
communicate with her as she shares her stories, her research and her insights.
And I do want to thank Audible as always for partnering with us on this video and videos like these,
it means so much for me to be able to share some of my favorite books with you guys.
So if you're interested you can get this audiobook completely for free or any other audio book of your choosing
plus a 30-day free membership by visiting audible.com/pickuplimes,
receive the link in the description box below.
Audible members also now get one free audiobook per month plus two free audible originals.
And I do have an exercise for you before we sign off:
if you're willing, maybe share in the comments below
one common shame trigger that you've identified with
and try to see if you can switch your wording away from self towards behavior, just give an example there
I think shame is really muted when we realize we're not alone in what we're feeling and experiencing,
so maybe what you have to share is going to help other people relate.
So I hope to maybe see you in the comments.
Thanks a lot for watching. Hope you enjoyed today's video
and if you did, it always means a lot when you give it a thumbs up
and that's it for today.
Pick up limes signing off and we'll see you in the next video.