Guilt & Shame "Not the Same"

“You broke that glass! What is wrong with you?” Perhaps you have heard something like this when you were a child. Or what is worse? Perhaps you have said it as a parent. It is not uncommon that, in our attempt to chastise someone for doing something wrong, we actually deliver a message that is both confusing and even painfully destructive.

Wow! So what is the problem? The peril is that we have accidentally wandered into territory that can be emotionally and even psychologically destructive to someone who is immature and vulnerable. What we have done is to confuse two words that we think may mean the same thing, but they do not mean the same thing, even a little!

Let me explain.

First, guilt is a doing word and shame is being word. The doing is that I broke the glass. The shame is that I am a useless defective person because I broke the glass. Guilt is, “I made a mistake.” Shame is, “I am a mistake.”

If you experienced the confusion of mixing guilt and shame in your childhood, then you can rapidly regress backward to the vulnerable child who “made a mistake” and now “is a Mistake.”

“So what is a person to do?” The logical answer is simply to BE AWARE and STOP, and when you slip up, explain and apologize for the mistake you just made.