Shame- The Trickiest Feeling

Shame is a word that we have all heard before, but rarely hear talked about. Oftentimes shame gets mistaken or used in place of the word guilt. I think it is important to first make a significant distinction between these two. I once read in a book called “Shame and Grace” that guilt is when we feel bad about something we have done, and shame is when we feel bad about who we are. The emotion of guilt can actually be of service to us. If I say something or do something that hurts someone and I feel bad about it or feel guilty, it is a cue to myself that I was possibly wrong and perhaps need to apologize or make peace with that person whom I hurt. In other words, guilt signals that I may be feeling bad for a reason. Guilt is more short-lived than shame, and often dissipates once we have apologized or made peace with something that we have done.
 
This is where shame is different. Shame does not serve us one bit, but instead often lives deep inside of us, rearing its ugly head right below our level of awareness. We can feel guilty about something we have done, but that can turn into shame when we start to use our actions to define our character- for example, I have done something bad, therefore I am bad. We can also be shamed throughout our lives in many ways- by parents, teachers, significant others, friends, etc., but since shame is so rarely talked about in an open way, it gets easy to bury these feelings deep down and avoid dealing with them. Shame can be very difficult to talk about, contributing to why we may not do it often.
 
Therapy is a perfect place to start to explore and unpack this shame so many of us feel. I believe that shame is something that most of us deal with in solitude, often leaving us feeling unworthy and undeserving of so many things in our lives. How powerful it would be if we were able to acknowledge our own shame and talk about it with others who feel it as well. In order to first begin to deal with it, we need to admit that it exists in us.