I was talking to my friend the other week, and they described how their therapist explained the difference between guilt and shame. They said that guilt is feeling bad about an action that you’ve taken (or not taken), while shame is feeling that you are bad.
I think that it can be good to feel guilt for some things as motivation for positive change so long as that does not turn into shame.
That is tough, and I want to agree but maybe this is an indication of how much work I have to do.
I feel guilty for having been a republican, I feel guilty for having picketed abortion clinics when I was a child, I feel guilty for not appreciating what systemic racism is until embarrassingly recently, and I feel guilty for all of the blind spots or reflexive bad thoughts that I still have in spite of my highly evolved intellectual positions.
Now most of those things were almost preordained by my parents, so I appreciate the guilt but don’t feel shame.
But, I do feel shame for all the years of moral failure; for suppressing all of the niggling discomfort at the logical conclusion of my beliefs at the time.
It’s funny they say this about sin but is actually true of real evil: you know when something isnt quite “right” about what you’re doing or believing.
I don’t live in that shame, but I am motivated by it.
I was talking to my friend the other week, and they described how their therapist explained the difference between guilt and shame. They said that guilt is feeling bad about an action that you’ve taken (or not taken), while shame is feeling that you are bad.
I think that it can be good to feel guilt for some things as motivation for positive change so long as that does not turn into shame.
That is tough, and I want to agree but maybe this is an indication of how much work I have to do.
I feel guilty for having been a republican, I feel guilty for having picketed abortion clinics when I was a child, I feel guilty for not appreciating what systemic racism is until embarrassingly recently, and I feel guilty for all of the blind spots or reflexive bad thoughts that I still have in spite of my highly evolved intellectual positions.
Now most of those things were almost preordained by my parents, so I appreciate the guilt but don’t feel shame.
But, I do feel shame for all the years of moral failure; for suppressing all of the niggling discomfort at the logical conclusion of my beliefs at the time.
It’s funny they say this about sin but is actually true of real evil: you know when something isnt quite “right” about what you’re doing or believing.
I don’t live in that shame, but I am motivated by it.
💜💜💜