Shame shapes how we think, move, and act. In this post, Emma discusses how to heal from toxic shame and regret.
Guilt is the emotion that comes up when we think “I’ve made a mistake” guilt is an uncomfortable emotion, but it’s not a negative one. That’s because all pure emotions serve a function – and guilt can motivate us to fix it when we’ve hurt someone. More on this later. But if guilt says “I made a mistake” Shame says “I am a mistake”.
Shame is more than feeling like you messed up, it’s believing that you’re irrecoverable, that what you’ve done is so bad that if people really knew you they’d attack and reject you.
Shame shows up in our:
Mind: “I’m worthless. I’m bad. I’m never good enough. I’m a failure. I’m a loser. I’m broken or defective. It’s all my fault.”
Body: Slumped posture, downward gaze, turning away, withdrawing, hiding, shrinking, freezing
Actions: Giving up, hide our true selves and people please, poor boundaries, perfectionism, isolation, self-sabotage
In other videos I’m going to talk about how shame shows up in each of these three areas, but today we’re going to talk about the choice you can make about shame, guilt and regret. And how you can get to here- fueling the cycle of healing, confidence, and connection.
So let’s define regret. Regret is when you think “I wish I had done things differently, now that I know differently.” It’s usually looking back on something further in the past than simple guilt, and longing to be able to change what you did. And people often get stuck ruminating or overthinking their past mistakes.
OK so if we start at square 1 “I feel remorse, shame or guilt”.
The very first step is to clarify “Did I do something wrong?”
This is super important because victims of trauma frequently blame themselves. I made an entire video about this, but let me summarize. Due to the intense, overwhelming emotions that come up after trauma, the brain often takes a shortcut to self-blame. This might even have a protective factor to it.
There’s 3 common ways victims blame themselves
- They take full responsibility for every situation “It’s my fault my parents got divorced” “It’s my fault my brother died”.
- They believe they should have seen it coming: “I should have known that it would rain on my wedding day.”
- Or they make it about their own personal deficiencies: “I’m just so _____.” (lazy, stupid, inconsiderate, idiotic, clumsy). It can be surprisingly easy to fill in that blank.
So this is the first way that shame can be really toxic, when it convinces you that the horrible thing that happened was your fault. Rape victims believe it was because they wore certain clothes. Victims of a mugging think that they should have somehow known not to walk to work that day. A husband whose wife cheated on him believes it is because he wasn’t attractive or loving enough.
Here’s the exercise I do to help my clients clarify
You take a piece of paper, fold it in half. You write down the choices and actions you took on one half. You write down what they did on the other half. Then you tear it in half. Your choices didn’t cause their choices. You are responsible for what? Wearing clothes. Walking to work. You are responsible for whether you are loving toward your spouse. And them? They are responsible for Rape. For Violence and Theft. For breaking their marriage promises. You are only responsible for your side of this. They are 100% responsible for their side of this. You are not responsible for their choices. Of course you can change what you wear, where you walk, or how much you love your spouse. But none of these things are crimes. Rape is a crime. Violence and Theft is a crime. And you didn’t cause them to do those actions.
But what about the husband? He didn’t cause his wife to cheat, that was her choice. But he knows in his heart that he didn’t treat her with as much love as he truly wanted to. And he regrets that. So when we go to clarify- Did I do something wrong. With the first two examples, there’s a clear “NO” Actually, I did nothing wrong. I have nothing to be ashamed of.
And gaining that clarity helps us fuel a cycle of healing, reparation, and compassion. We’re going to treat ourselves and others with love and reach out for support and love from people who truly see you.
And, going back to the husband, it’s a clear “No, I did not cause my wife to cheat, that was her decision. AND “I truly want to love better” is a regret. That specific area is a YES. Again, he didn’t cause the cheating. He’s not responsible for that. And, deep in his heart he knows that he should have taken out the trash more. Now I want to be really clear here. I am not saying this caused his wife to cheat. I’m just saying, we all have a deep sense of what is right, and when we go against that conscience, we can take accountability for ourselves, even when others have harmed us greatly. We just have to be really honest and not take accountability for them.
If we want to fuel cycles of healing, growth, connection, and honesty in our personal lives and society in general, we have to know what to do with a yes answer.
So let’s say you ask yourself “Did I really do something wrong?” and you answer “Yes” right here, here is your CHOICE. This is super important. This is the deciding point of whether you are going to let shame and regret poison you, or you are going to heal.
If you face it, and you make repairs, you are going to fuel a cycle of healing. More on this later.
But the most natural thing to do with shame, guilt and regret is to “Hide” in one of the oldest stories, after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit two things happened in quick succession- Adam and Eve tried to Hide from God, and when God found them, Adam blamed Eve for his choice. This story has been passed down for thousands of years because it resonates with each of us. When we mess up, when we feel shame, the most natural thing to do is hide.
And our clever brain can be very creative in how we try to hide from others and from our own sense of responsibility. It can look like:
- Covering up your mistake
- Blaming others
- Making excuses (Everyone else was doing it)
- Seeking any form of emotional numbing or distraction
- Screens
- Detachment from others
- Drug use
- And- a really common, but strange form of self-protection- labeling yourself as broken. “Well, I just suck at relationships. I’ll never be any good” with the implied “So it’s not my fault and it’s not worth the energy to try to fix it” this is a super common form of self-justification, it feels vindicating, it feels better than taking responsibility (at least in the short term) but it fuels toxic shame. “There’s no hope for someone as broken or bad as me, so I’ll just keep doing destructive stuff” “I let my old boyfriend keep mistreating me, I didn’t set good boundaries. So no one would want a healthy relationship with someone as flawed as me. I guess I’m just doomed to settle for crappy relationships” This is one of the most pervasive forms of toxic shame. All of us have made some mistakes in our lives. All of us can say “Yes, I’ve messed up” but when we label ourselves as broken, bad, defective, that’s when we cross the line from a mistake we can fix, to fueling shame.
Shame is a liar. It’s a distortion of guilt. It takes you from something actionable (I should fix that) to a hopeless place with few options.
To heal from shame, we need to catch ourselves in this form of hiding, of self-justifying, and constantly make the choice to shift our attention back into making repairs. Usually the biggest obstacle is the label we give ourselves. I’m going to say it bluntly. If you keep labeling yourself as bad, broken or defective, it’s because believing that is doing something for you. It’s helping you avoid the vulnerable work of taking accountability and making repairs. I know that it feels like you’re taking too much accountability, but if it doesn’t lead to helpful action, it’s just a mental habit that’s actually comforting and avoiding accountability.
And when we do any of these things: Blaming others, covering up our mistakes, making excuses, detaching, numbing or labeling ourselves as broken, we’re fueling a cycle of hurt- for others and ourselves.
I watched an incredible TED talk the other day, a woman named Thordis was date raped by a man named Tom, when they were both teenagers. She had gotten drunk, he took advantage. Afterwards, she blamed herself, and shame fueled depression, it was years before she even identified the situation as rape. And years before she realized that “The only thing that could have stopped me from being raped that night was the man who raped me, had he stopped himself”. This realization helped free her from false shame.
Meanwhile, Tom didn’t mentally acknowledge that what he’d done was rape. He justified it by trying to convince himself that it was sex. He said “What followed was a 9 year period that can best be titled “Denial and Running” distraction, trying to convince himself that he was a good person.
During these years, Thordis took out her anger and fear on herself. And shame isolated her from real relationships. One day she shakingly wrote Tom a letter, telling him how she had been affected and telling him “I want forgiveness” because she deserved personal peace. And Tom, surprisingly, courageously, replied. He owned up to what he’d done. For 8 years they wrote to each other, and worked through their pain and responsibilities. And each of them listened to each other and shared. Eventually they met in person, and they wrote a book together- to help people from both ends of the perpetrator survivor scale.
When you own something, and bear up the responsibility…
What they did took incredible courage. Honest accountability is hard. But living a life where you’re running from the truth is harder. This is how we heal from shame.
Many people simply don’t know how to make repairs.
Making repairs looks like
- Take accountability: “I made a mistake”
- Empathize: “That must have hurt/scared/inconvenienced you.”
- Listen: (How did that hurt you?)
- Make repairs: What can I do to make it right? Ie if you stole something, repay it
- Learn from the experience: What do I need to learn to prevent this from happening in the future? What skills do I need to develop? Tom had to learn about respecting women and seeing them as equals. A thief might need to learn new job skills so they can feed their family.
- Try not to do it again: This isn’t just white-knuckling, it’s building up the skills and resources through practice and action and support to prevent yourself from choosing to act that way. I like the Content Creator Jimmy on Relationships, he cheated on his wife, and then spent the next years learning the skills to have a deep and fulfilling relationship- how to listen to and support his wife, setting healthy boundaries, and asking for your needs. He channeled that guilt and regret into action, that helped his marriage and now he’s helping others’ too.
Making repairs is hard, but when you’ve started to practice it, you can start to feel this incredible energy and peace that comes from it.
And when you fuel this cycle of healing and reparation and compassion, you’re going to start to feel differently, you’re going to feel a clear conscience. You’ll feel more confident. You’ll feel like you can truly show yourself to others. You don’t have to keep hiding. Your relationships will become more real and deep.
But what do we do with old hurts? What do we do with Regret? Especially when things happened so long ago?
With regret, our brain has a sneaky way of avoiding and hiding- it’s called rumination. You think and think and think about the mistakes you made, and your brain pretends that this is helpful, so you keep doing it. But dwelling on the past actually perpetuates the hurt. You’re making yourself miserable and you’re not helping anyone else either.
You’ve got to go right back to THE CHOICE. And choose to make repairs. It’s the same steps. But how do you make repairs for something that happened so long ago or impacted people so much. A common example is a parent who looks back and wishes they’d been more loving or supportive.
The holistic psychologist made a great post the other day.
And you’ll notice the comment that says “they’d rather die on the hill of “I did the best I could” or “You weren’t exactly an easy child” which is why going no contact was in my best interest”. Excuses and self-justification fuel shame and distancing, accountability fuels connection.
Instead of regretting the past, learn to make those changes in the present moment. If you can’t connect with or talk with the person who you’ve harmed, perhaps you take action by going to therapy to learn new skills, practicing compassion in the present moment, sharing your story with others so they can avoid making the same mistakes. There is always an action available here in the present movement to line your life up with your values. We constantly shift our attention and our efforts toward honesty, accountability and healing.
And I think it’s important to note that shame is like black mold, it thrives in the dark, hidden places. And it dies in the sunlight. We heal shame in connection with other people. This is why confession and connection is essential. As long as you’re hiding yourself from others, you’ll never feel truly safe and loved because you’ll think “If they really knew me, they’d despise me” but the shocking this is, when people humbly, truly show themselves, take accountability, people tend to be way more generous and accepting than you’d ever believe when you’re hiding in shame. You really can’t do this work alone. Do it with a therapist, a support group, write a letter, write a book, tell your closest friends. Shame isolates. Connection heals.
Summary
OK, so to summarize. When we feel regret, guilt or shame, we have a choice. First we have to clarify, did I actually make a mistake? Trauma can make us falsely blame ourselves. And if the answer is yes, we want to shift away from shame-fueled labels “I’m just a bad person” to action words “I made a mistake”. Shift away from labels to action. Take steps to make repairs. Admit your faults, empathize with their hurt, and learn from the experience.
Here’s my last thought, you may be thinking “But what I’ve done is so hurtful, that I can never repair the harm I’ve done.” That may be true, as humans we often make mistakes that we cannot fix on our own. But I personally believe there’s a natural force of grace, light and healing- in the universe. I attribute it to God, you can attribute it to whatever you’d like. But if you carefully observe, life gives opportunities to heal over time.
One time I was in an ancient cave in Great Basin National Park and we were walking through these amazing formations, stalactites, stalagmites, cave bacon and just gorgeous formations. These formations had taken hundreds of thousands of years to form, drip by drip, a tiny molecule of mineral gets left on the end of the drip. And over thousands of years, the gorgeous formations are made. But a few decades ago, humans found the cave and thought “This is neat, I want to take this home with me.” and they broke off some of the formations. I can still feel the pain of that damage, damage they couldn’t repair. And now the formations are protected, we aren’t busting them off any more. But one little broken stalactite had started to heal, on the stump of its little broken off end, it had already started to grow a new formation, a little nub. And even though it hadn’t fully repaired, the universe is patient, eternity is a long time, and I believe the force of healing is strong and with time, all things can be healed. Little by little, the stalactic will grow long and beautiful again. If you look around you, you can see glimmers of this everywhere, the drive toward healing, and love and connection. I hope this helps you fuel it.
