In the new Apple TV series, Margot has money problemsMichelle Pfeiffer, in a returning performance, plays Shiyan’s mom, who becomes pregnant after a one-night stand with a married man. Now her daughter Margot, whom she raised on her own, has given birth to a child by a married man who is not in the picture.
At one point, in the parking lot of the chain restaurant where Margo works, Shiann has a complete breakdown. After failing her first babysitter with a grandchild, she hands the boy over to Margot and screams that she’s a terrible grandmother, just as she was a terrible mother: “I wish I was a better person, but I’m not!…and I won’t be judged by him or anyone else.”
As much as we feel shame and guilt, these emotions are part of being human. However, many of us, maybe most of us, do very poorly with them.
It’s a classic shame spiral. We start to feel bad about what we have done or can’t do, and then immediately jump to evaluating ourselves, not our fault or incompetence, but ourselves: we are bad and want to hide because of it so as not to be judged even more.
Guilt and shame are dirty words, painful words. Although we may push away from them, these emotions are part of being human. Yet many of us, perhaps most of us, do very poorly with them. We beat ourselves up psychologically. We beat others verbally (and in extreme cases physically) to induce feelings of guilt, shame, and retribution for wrongdoing. Globally, wars are fought and people die out of revenge – simply because we have so much trouble knowing how to respond when we do something wrong or are offended.
A closer look at guilt and shame
Yes, it’s a tricky emotion, and it’s probably not the first time you’ve thought about it, but it never hurts to reflect on the more complex aspects of life with a fresh mind. When you meditate, you spend your life doing it. Each time, hopefully, with a more open mind.
For starters, it helps to distinguish between guilt and shame.
Meditation teacher Caverly Morgan makes the difference succinctly in her book The heart of who we are: “When you feel guilty, there is a belief that what you have done is wrong. When you feel shame, you believe that you are all wrong.”
Is it realistic to think that an emotion that has existed for as long as anyone can imagine will simply be removed from the human toolkit?
Brené Brown, author of a groundbreaking book on human vulnerability, Brave Big, it says on its website that while guilt is “adaptive and helpful” and can encourage accountability for our actions, shame, “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are defective and therefore unworthy of love and belonging” is neither helpful nor productive. She goes on to “call for an end to shame as a tool for change.”
I’m a huge Brene Brown fan, so I understand where she’s going. Shame hurts so much. It destroys entire lives and families (witness Shiyan’s breakdown in the parking lot). And quite often it is very ineffective in bringing about change. I’m sure we’ve all tried to shame someone into behaving better, only to have it backfire.
However, is it realistic to think that emotions that have existed for as long as anyone can imagine will simply be removed from the human tools?
If they don’t go anywhere… How do we learn to live with them?
Other researchers are not quite ready to eliminate shame entirely from the spectrum of human reactions. Rather, they are simply alerting us to the fact that our responses are very often maladaptive.
In his recent book The power of guiltdevelopmental psychologist Chris Moore says that we first have a sense of guilt that motivates us to repair harm and heal relationship. In contrast, shame, he continues, causes people to avoid interacting with others, causing relationships to crumble, perhaps forever. This tendency to descend into deep darkness makes shame a dangerous drug.
Psychologist June Tangney, co-author Shame and guilthowever, admits that she herself is prone to shame and advises that it is possible to be resilient in the midst of shame and pull yourself back from the spiral. In other words, we may be better off accepting that shame will arise and figuring out how to work with it more effectively.
So our problem with shame may not be that we, as a group, don’t need it, but that we have a bad habit of taking it too far.
Evolutionary psychologists such as Dacher Keltner view shame as part of a family of human responses known as self-conscious emotions—guilt, shame, pride, and embarrassment—all of which play a role in regulating social behavior. According to these students of human behavior“…shame has an important function of calming observers of social disorder, a function that restores social harmony.” In other words, publicly blushing when you’ve done something wrong signals to others that you know you made a mistake and you care. To say, for example, that someone has “no shame” means that he doesn’t care what others think of his behavior. Consider some of the world leaders who seem to do and say whatever they want, no matter how immoral or illegal, without worrying about the harm these actions cause.
So our problem with shame may not be that we, as a group, don’t need it, but that we have a bad habit of taking it too far. A little bit of shame can make a big difference. Even too much can be destructive. The lesson seems to be: Shame is likely to be a part of life, respond appropriately and proportionately to this feeling and fully focus on future actions.
In other words: don’t beat yourself up. Meet the feelingbut do not build a house there.
Emphasis on repair
Knowing how guilt and shame tear at the heart and tear the bonds that bind communities together, spiritual traditions have developed forms of atonement—honest acknowledgment of harm, repair of harm when possible, and a promise not to repeat it.
Catholics have a confessional and Great Lent. Judaism has Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In Islam, repentancerepentance, practiced constantly, but especially during the last ten days of Ramadan. Twelve-step programs devote several steps to redemption and atonement. While the place of confession in Buddhism is little known, the ancient code of monastic discipline requires regular confessions of guilt, including in some traditions of collective guilt that has occurred “since time immemorial.”
It is not necessary to follow one of these traditions to develop a healthy relationship with guilt and shame, but it can certainly help to examine our own experiences to see how we can be easier on ourselves and others, while still addressing the feelings that arise when things go wrong.
Guilt is the unsettling feeling that you are doing something wrong or not showing up to your full potential –it is possible to be a motivator. But as all the researchers, teachers, and commentators here point out, it can also gnaw at us and turn into shame. Fortunately, a practice how mindfulness can help interrupt the immersion in unnecessary shame and help us focus on our future actions. In the practice of mindfulness, we can begin to see more clearly what is happening and, as the ancient prayer says, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
