NATURE’S ORIGINAL PLAN B FOR GUILT
A group member breaks a written or unwritten group rule:
Of course, we all know that nature’s plans (like our own) do not always work. If they did for guilt, I wouldn’t feel the need to write this book! But it is important to remember that, in its essence and when well managed, guilt is a good and useful emotion for both the individual and any group to which he or she belongs. It is there to ensure the healthy survival of the group. This is why positive guilt is one of ten categories of guilt that I have chosen for us to discuss and work on in this book (see Chapter 2).
At some later stage in human development individuals began to formulate their own moral codes. At first, their personal rules for living a ‘good’ life would be shaped to a large degree by their country’s culture and laws. But today, in our global world, people are also internalising moral influences through travel, the Internet and the media. The problem is that this ad hoc absorption of so many differing philosophies, religions and laws has sent our moral compasses spinning. We either feel guilty about whatever course of action we take, or we give up on guilt because we think, I’ll be damned if I do and damned if I don’t. The psychological effect of this moral confusion is bad news for the individual’s mental health and bad news for any group or society to which they belong.
The good news, though, is that you will find many of the tips and strategies in this book will help with these tricky contemporary moral issues.
The difference between guilt and shame
These two emotional states are often referred to interchangeably in everyday language. It doesn’t help the confusion that they are also often experienced together. But there are some important differences between them. The simplest explanation of the difference that I have heard came, surprisingly, from a comedian:
Guilt is feeling bad about what you have done; shame is feeling bad about who you are – all it is, is muddling up things you have done with who you are.
MARCUS BRIGSTOCKE, BRITISH COMEDIAN
But if you wish to have a more academic evaluation, Christian Miller from Wake Forest University, USA, did an interesting summary of the differences that have been found by researchers.3 Below, I have selected a few of the points she made that are relevant to our work in this book. Remember, these are only some of the differences that have been found through research.
• Guilt is a private emotion, whereas shame usually develops as a result of disapproval – real or imagined – from others.
• Shame can be triggered not just by moral wrongdoing, but by failing to abide by certain laws, rules or usual etiquette that do not have a moral base, e.g. wearing the wrong kind of dress to a wedding, forgetting to brush your hair before going to work or failing an exam.
• Guilt relates to wrongdoing that has been done. Shame concerns how you feel about yourself. You don’t like yourself at all, or you don’t like an aspect of yourself, rather than you don’t like what you have done.
• Shame makes you feel helpless, but guilt doesn’t always do so. In fact, guilt often prompts you to try to make amends or makes you wish that you could. Shame makes you want to hide yourself away so you and your failures are not noticed.
• When we are ashamed, we are less likely to feel empathy with anyone else who might have suffered as a result, e.g. people who put a lot of time and money into helping us with a project that we failed to deliver. With shame, we might be feeling so sorry for our failings that we cannot feel sympathy for anyone else who has suffered. With guilt, our focus might be on how we have let people down.
• Guilt is more likely to make us want to get into action to help others in some way. Shame doesn’t do this because it makes us feel useless.
As this kind of information always makes more sense when we apply it to our own personal experiences, try this exercise:
EXERCISE: CLARIFYING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GUILT AND SHAME
The purpose of this exercise is to help you judge which aspects of your response to a past wrongdoing indicate whether you were feeling shame and/or guilt. Being aware of roughly to what degree you felt each emotion will help you to decide the kind of action you need to take. As you know, this book is largely about dealing with guilt, but we will also deal with one kind of guilt that has a large element of shame mixed in with it. I call this Shameful Guilt. My two examples here illustrate how a wrongdoing can trigger both emotions.
Think of a time when you felt guilty and/or ashamed and ask yourself these questions:
a) Did I feel that I wanted to hide away or did I want people to know how bad I felt?
b) Did I do something that was morally wrong or not (as opposed to just breaking a rule or law that many people think is daft or out of date)?
c) Was my focus primarily on myself or on others?
d) Did I feel bad because I had done something ethically wrong (e.g. I wish I hadn’t done that) or did I feel bad that others would judge me as stupid/inept/inadequate/too ugly, etc. (e.g. I’m such an idiot).
e) Did I do something to repair my wrongdoing or did I do nothing?
Using a scale of 1–10 (10 being the highest amount for either feeling), score yourself separately on the amount of guilt and/or shame that this aspect of your response indicates you were feeling.
Example 1
Wrongdoing: I was unnecessarily cruel to say what I said in that meeting – he was only a trainee. I was so shocked by my behaviour that I was speechless.
a) a) I only wanted to hide away. I didn’t consider acknowledging my guilt to others.
Shame 10/10 Guilt 0/10
b) Morally, I was totally in the wrong. The trainee was trying and I was unnecessarily aggressive about his naïve suggestion.
Shame 0/10 Guilt 10/10
c) My focus was largely on myself – I hardly thought of what he must be feeling.
Shame 8/10 Guilt 2/10
d) I knew what I had done was very wrong, but I was more worried about how others would judge me.
Shame 9/10 Guilt 5/10
e) I didn’t even apologise.
Shame 10/10 Guilt 10/10
Example 2
Wrongdoing: I lied to Mum in my message. I told her I had to work all weekend. I just couldn’t face driving all the way there – she’s such hard work these days. But I did worry about her and rang her on Sunday for a chat.
a)