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- Good morning, Believe Nation, it's Evan,
my one word is believe,
and I believe that you have a special ability to
create something amazing that can change the planet.
So, to help you on your journey, today, we're going to learn
about how to overcome guilt and shame.
Rule Number Four is my personal favorite,
and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best.
(bright, energetic music)
(bright, mysterious music)
- That living guilty doesn't
do anything productive.
It doesn't help you to do better,
it causes you to struggle more.
Guilt drains you emotionally.
Physically, it will wear you out.
When we're guilty, we don't pursue dreams,
we don't believe to overcome challenges,
we get stuck.
This is why the enemy
works overtime in this area.
He knows guilt will keep you from your destiny.
There's nothing he would love any more
than for you to go through life against yourself,
focused on your failures, feeling unworthy.
- Shame is far more likely to cause destructive behaviors
than it is to cure it.
What we know
is that shame is highly correlated with addiction,
violence, aggression, bullying.
Um, it's not helpful to be ashamed,
for this reason, and I think this is really a core thing
that we need to get our heads and hearts around,
as a culture.
Shame corrodes the part of us that believes we can change,
so to shame someone into changing,
is like saying to them,
you are horrible, and worthless,
and you're not capable of change.
Get better.
(bright, mysterious music)
- The best way to deal with shame,
for people, is to find what you're most proud of.
You can't...
You're never going to deal with shame.
You have to overwhelm it with the good.
It's kind of like,
if every day of your life
you look around and you let it happen.
News comes in,
and it's almost always, these days, something to scare you.
If it bleeds, it leads,
they say in the newspaper business, right?
So, something to jar you.
If you're going to have your life,
you have to do what I call
stack the good.
You have to flood yourself with the good.
You have to say,
what am I proud of in my life?
What am I grateful for?
And you've got to literally think of
three or four or five things, people, experiences...
It could be something little you're proud of,
When you were a kid, something today.
But, if you do what I call
an emotional flood,
when you flood yourself with all the beautiful,
proud things, things you're grateful for in your life,
you'll find that'll overwhelm that feeling of shame,
and the shame feeling will disappear.
But, it won't disappear by analyzing it.
- Right, right, right.
- Then you just get more in your head.
- No, I like this idea of flooding.
- Yeah, you flood it.
- So, a lot of people confuse guilt with shame.
You say they're cousins.
- I say they're cousins, kissing cousins.
Shame says there's something wrong with who I am.
It's intrinsic.
I can't do anything about it.
Guilt says, there's something wrong with what I've done.
- [Oprah] Or am doing.
- Or am doing.
Yeah, so I feel guilty about it.
Even people now feel guilty about what they think.
You know what they say.
Both of them, well, shame is a little deeper.
Guilt, however is a wasted emotion.
- Yeah, that's what I say.
- It's a wasted emotion,
because the minute you find that
there's something wrong, or out of alignment,
and you're out of order,
in what you're thinking or doing,
do something else!
But we know we cause
hurt, harm, danger, to someone.
- [Oprah] Yeah.
- That will lead us guilt.
We look at what we did, and how it hurt somebody.
- [Oprah] Shouldn't you feel guilty about that?
- Well, no, I think you can make amends.
- [Oprah] Okay.
- And you can do better next time.
What does guilt serve?
It doesn't serve anything other than the ego.
- [Oprah] Okay.
- Which is to take you out of the--
- So, the acknowledgement,
that you cause hurt, harm, or danger,
- Acknowledgment, that's it.
- Acknowledgement that you caused that to somebody
is not the same thing as feeling guilty about it.
- No, acknowledge it, ask for forgiveness,
of yourself, first,
and then of other people, if you can,
and if you can do something to make amends,
- [Oprah] Yes.
Then, that will
release you from the karmic tie to that action.
- I have interviewed
over 600 men and women, now,
across the country about shame,
and, across the interviews,
men and women with high levels of resilience to shame
share four things in common.
Um, the first is,
they physically recognize when they're in shame,
and they know what triggered it.
So, let's say something happens at work,
I make a mistake, or something happens,
and that warm wash comes over me.
You know that feeling, yes, yeah.
We all know it.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, yeah.
- If I can physically say,
oh my god, I know that this is shame, I'm in shame,
it's very helpful, because,
we are not fit for human consumption
when we're in shame.
We need to pull away, and get regrounded,
take some deep breaths,
and figure out how to respond.
One of the things that makes shame worse
is normally, when we're in it, we act out.
For example, the mother that I interviewed,
she fills her car up, she goes into the gas station.
She goes to pay, her credit card's declined.
The man shames her in front of the other patrons,
makes her leave her wedding band and her wallet,
and leave with just an ATM card.
So, she's filled with shame.
She gets in the car, she slams the door.
When she slams the door,
it wakes up her
three-year-old toddler who's in the backseat,
who starts screaming.
What happens next?
She starts screaming back,
shut up, shut up.
So, now she's in the shame of having this
credit card declined, being belittled in front of people,
and now, having to deal with the struggle of
I'm a horrible mom,
and why am I taking this out on my child?
So, men and women with high levels of resilience
will recognize physically when they're in shame,
and what triggered it.
- Okay.
- Then, they practice critical awareness.
How realistic are the expectations and messages that we
put on ourselves, or that others put on us,
that tell us who we're supposed to be.
The third thing is,
men and women with high levels of resilience reach out.
We've got to share our story.
- [Interviewer] So they talk about it.
- They talk about it, you know.
We breathe through it, we recognize we're in it,
and then we call and say, hey, Patricia, it's me,
you're not going to believe what happened.
Can you listen?
It's hard.
And then, we speak shame.
You know, it's...
I try to explain to people
the importance of using the word shame.
And this is not just laypeople.
This is mental health professionals.
You know, we've got to use the word.
It's different, if I were to call you and say,
uh, Patricia, it's Brene, I'm so embarrassed.
That would mean one thing, right?
But, if I were to call you and say,
Patricia, it's Brene,
and I'm really struggling with some shame,
that's different.
- [Interviewer] Uh huh, it's a different conversation.
- Right, shame cannot hold on when we name it.
- [Interviewr] Right.
So, it's not just, you know, an academic pet peeve.
I want everybody to get the semantics correct.
Men and women with high levels of shame resilience
use the word and talk about the emotion.
- Someone wrote in saying that
they wake up in the middle of the night, saying,
I shouldn't have done that.
They feel guilty about
eating that whole chocolate cake.
They feel really bad
about certain career choices,
about certain clothes choices,
food choices.
Water, those kind of choices, right?
And, they are now turning on themselves.
They say it's easy to forgive other people,
but when it comes to themselves,
they have a really hard time.
What should they do?
What's helped me along my journey, is,
♫ If I could turn back the hands of time
Right?
If I could turn back the hands of time,
ask yourself,
would I change my past?
I'll give you five seconds to answer.
Okay, that's great.
So, you've said yes.
(scoffs gently)
You said yes.
You would change your past.
Okay, let me ask you this.
If I could take away all the lessons learned from your past,
would you allow me to?
Five seconds.
Okay, great.
You said, no.
So, you want the lessons
but you don't want the experiences.
Oh boy.
Can I get a hello there?
Okay, okay.
Okay, this is what's helped me.
To realize there are lessons learned, right?
Everything happens for a reason.
(imitates fist striking)
The next person that tells me that...
What happens?
When people say that,
sometimes it feels really cringe-worthy.
Right? Really cringe-worthy.
Right?
Do you know what happened to me in my past?
Everything happens for a reason.
Can I get a hello there?
No.
It really doesn't have to.
It really doesn't have to be like that, right?
That's what we tell ourselves.
(gentle, mystical music)
When I realize lessons learned
was about not judging our past.
Right? When you don't judge your past,
it's a lot easier to accept
what has taken place.
We are in disbelief.
I can't believe it happened.
I can't believe I got a scratch on that new car,
on the first day, in the first hour,
when I was listening to
♫ Let's party
Can I get a hello there?
Not my favorite song, for goodness' sakes.
It could have been the other crap one.
But yeah, sometimes your house gets robbed on your birthday.
Sometimes, you buy a new dress,
and then, you trip up, and,
mud goes everywhere, and,
now you feel like
it shouldn't have happened,
but it did.
In dealing with self-forgiveness,
which really is the gateway, the
passage to becoming your greatest version,
you've got to lose saying
it shouldn't have happened.
Instead, say, it did happen,
and I'm going to change how I respond to what happened.
- It's hard to defend yourself when
the murmuring of the voice of accusation is
stronger on the inside
than the voice of all the critics on the outside.
Guilt is not just about what others are saying about you.
It is what you are saying about yourself.
It is, it is the condemnation that comes upon you.
It is the struggle that lives down inside of you.
That you say...
Have you ever said,
what was I thinking?
Have you ever looked back at somebody,
and you just wonder,
what was I on, to do that?
What happened?
Did somebody put something in my coke?
What happened, that I went that far,
you may not...
See,
this, this, one of the things that we do with guilt,
because it is such a heavy burden to carry.
It's a heavy burden,
because it can only exist in places where you care.
(audience member clapping)
It can only exist in places where you care,
so, it becomes a heavy burden to carry.
So, what we do is
we change the narrative
of what happened,
to make the memory more palatable.
- [Woman In Audience] Hmm, wow.
- We change the narrative of what happened,
to make the memory more palatable.
We block out the parts we are ashamed of,
and we remember how people responded to us,
without remembering how we elicited
or initiated the response.
Selective amnesia.
(audience cheering and clapping moderately)
Until you own what happens,
until you take responsibility for it,
until you stop hiding from the guilt...
See, because you're trying to tranquilize the guilt...
You know why your daughter disrespected you.
You know why she cursed you out.
You know what she saw
about you and the neighbor across the street,
but you blocked out what happened between you
and the neighbor across the street, and talked about,
I ain't gon let that girl disrespect me,
she just lost her mind.
When in reality, you...
Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh,
you told me to go deep.
You told me to go deep.
You know, I'm not thinking about them haters.
I'm not a hater, I'm hurt,
'cause you beat me like a dog,
and I'm telling the truth.
That's not a hater, but you changed the story,
because the weight of the matter
might mean you admitting
my son is acting crazy
because I wasn't a good father,
and I really wasn't there for him.
And, he sought things out of me,
that I wish I hadn't done,
but at that stage of my life I didn't.
You have to stop telling yourself,
I don't know why that boy acting crazy.
You do.
You do know why he's acting crazy,
and you're the only one who can fix it,
because you do know what's wrong with him,
and you can't, you can't get healed, brother,
as long as you're telling yourself,
well, somebody's got to get away with it,
it's not my fault.
He could've done...
You know what the problem is,
but the weight.
(audience members jeering lightly)
The weight of the guilt.
You know that you cannot heal it
if you weren't on it.
Are you angry about something you could fix?
Guilt that leads to a change of behavior
is a powerful thing.
Guilt that grabs you by the throat,
and makes you call me on the phone,
and say, look, I'm sorry,
is a powerful thing.
It's a wonderful thing
for you to be guilty enough to humble yourself,
to pull your pride down,
pull your images down,
and pull all the lies you told to yourself down,
and say, look, I miss you,
and I'm tired of us fighting like this,
and whatever I did to hurt you,
I'm sorry.
I'm man enough to look you in the eye,
and say I was wrong,
and I'm sorry.
You'll never be healed,
(audience members hollering and clapping)
'til you can fix it.
- Thank you guys so much for watching.
I'd love to know, what did you think of this video?
What was the rule that
most applies to you,
that you're going to immediately implement somehow
into your life, or your business.
Please let me know, I'd love to hear from you,
leave it down in the comments below.
I also want to give a
quick shout-out to Clark Kegley.
Clark, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book,
Your One Word, and doing an interview on your channel.
I really, really, appreciate the support,
and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the book.
- How do you find your passion,
make money doing what you love,
and stand out in an ever-growing noisy world?
You distill everything down into one word.
- So, thank you guys again for watching.
I hope you have an amazing day.
I believe in you,
and hope you continue to believe in yourself,
and whatever your one word is.
Much love,
I'll see you soon.
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