Guilt Is About Your Behavior, Shame Is About Who You Are

People often confuse guilt with shame, but there’s a big difference between the two feelings. Guilt is all about your behavior. Shame is about who you are, your very being. In other words, guilt tells us that something we’ve said or done is hurtful or wrong. Shame tells us that we are inherently bad or unacceptable in and of ourselves.

Let’s look at how guilt and shame work. There is a difference between behavior and being. For example, I’ve never liked using the term “sinner” to describe a particular person, or the human race in general. It’s offensive and its intent is to make people feel shame for being human, for simply being who they were created to be.

As humans we all make mistakes that we are not proud of having committed. This does not make us “sinners.” It simply means we are imperfect and our imperfection provides us with the opportunity to grow into being better people. Being sinful is NOT our nature. It is not the totality of who we are. It is simply an aspect of our nature. Yet it is the one aspect of our nature that has been used against us for centuries because it elicits fear. And fear is a powerful weapon for controlling people. (Notice that if we “sin” there is a self-demeaning term for that, “sinner”. But when we do good there is no self-affirming equivalent, with the exception of “do-gooder,” which is in itself derogatory and far from affirming. Why is that?)

Everyone commits sins (or mistakes, or errors or whatever we choose to call them). Sometimes we tell lies, or we withhold the truth. Sometimes we manipulate others to get what we want in a way that is abusive and harmful to them. At other times we may steal, gossip, commit sexual indiscretions, or physically hurt people. All of these “sins” are forms of bad behavior. These behaviors are bad, but it doesn’t mean that the people who commit them are inherently bad.

When we commit “sin” it eventually catches us with us through the feeling of guilt. Guilt kicks-in naturally once we come to the mental awareness that what we have said or done something that has harmed someone else. Thoughts lead to feelings. Guilt is there to tell us we have done wrong and that we need to take responsibility for it. Guilt helps us to make things right again through love. Shame, however, tells us we ARE defective in some way that is inherent and unchangeable. We can’t take responsibility and change the very fibers of our being. We feel stuck, trapped inside the genetics of being unacceptable. We can't change who we are and this is why shame is so devastating.

Here is a concrete example of how guilt and shame differ. Let’s pretend we were running late this morning and we were rushing around to get ready for work. Little Mikey was making things difficult by refusing to eat his Honey Bunches of Oats. We maxed-out on anxiety overload and told Mikey “Sometimes you are so bad I think you are the devil. I don’t love you when you’re bad.” Mikey hung his head (in shame) as we stormed off mumbling about selling him to the gypsies. He didn’t say a word to us the rest of the morning. We didn’t even get a “goodbye” when we dropped him off at school.

Once we arrive at work, we eventually calm down and start to realize that we overreacted when Mikey refused to eat his Honey Bunches of Oats. We made him into his sin. We made him bad, instead of emphasizing that his behavior was bad for refusing to eat his breakfast. We now feel guilty and our guilt exists for one reason only. It does NOT exist so that we can spend the rest of the day beating ourselves up. It DOES exist so that we can apologize to Mikey when we pick him up at school. Guilt helps us to right a wrong and that’s it’s only purpose. It helps to reunite us to others in love and it thus helps us to grow into being better people.

Shame is a different creature all together. Shame is not about our behavior. It’s about us. Let’s focus on Mikey. For whatever reason, he didn’t want his cereal. A frustrated mom or dad tells him he is “bad” for not wanting his cereal. He is then told he is a devil and he is unlovable because he’s bad. Mikey gets the message that he is lovable only when he is good. He is not lovable when he is bad. A child cannot be good all of the time. It’s impossible.

Now that Mikey has been branded as “bad,” he is officially no longer lovable. He believes what mom/dad said: He is unacceptable as he is, just being Mikey. He is flawed in ways that he is powerless to control. Mikey knows he can’t change into being God. He can’t be perfect all of the time, and so he becomes disillusioned. He feels shame for simply being Mikey. Eventually he may also begin to feel guilt for disappointing Mom or Dad by not being good enough to be loved unconditionally by them. He has been shamed into believing that he is inherently “bad” in some way. There’s no self-realization (regardless of how wrong it is) that is more devastating.

All of this could have been avoided if Mom/Dad had emphasized that Mikey’s behavior was bad for refusing to eat his cereal. It wasn’t appropriate to make Mikey “the devil” or bad in and of himself. Certainly parents should teach their children that wasting food is wrong. Across much of the world, food is indeed a precious commodity. Children need to learn to value food. If the emphasis had been on his behavior being bad, it would have been completely natural for Mikey to have felt guilt—not shame-- over refusing to eat his breakfast. He might then have been better motivated to eat his breakfast in the future, but he wouldn’t have had any reason to feel unlovable, or bad about himself.

No one is inherently bad. Anyone who claims that a certain person is inherently bad is guilty of dehumanizing that person. Everyone is created in the image and likeness of God, and as a result, everyone is inherently good. Our behavior is sometimes bad, and we have the emotion of guilt to help us correct that bad behavior and to make amends. A little guilt is good for the soul. But shame is never good. No one should ever feel shame at being who they are. If we feel shame about ourselves-- be it our gender, body, sexual-orientation, ethnicity, physical characteristics or personality—we need to surrender that shame to our Higher Power and ask for help in overcoming our shame. God sees nothing shameful about the way He created each of us, and so there’s no reason why any of us should feel shame about being who we are. Learn from the guilt to be a better person and surrender the shame to God. Set yourself free and allow your soul to shine!