What is Toxic Shame?

Is it Guilt or Shame?  What’s the difference?

Guilt and shame are two emotions that nearly all human beings experience.  They show up in every culture and in all parts of the world.  Yet, surprisingly, most people are unclear on how the two emotions are different.  As a result, the two terms are often used interchangeably, but in reality, they are very different.

What is Guilt?

You feel guilt when you do something you know you shouldn’t do or you fail to do something that you know you should do. 

For example, you buy an expensive set of golf clubs that is clearly outside of your family budget, and then you lie to your partner about how much they cost.  You then feel guilty about your behavior. You cringe every time you think about it, and it pops into your mind when you’re feeling loving and close with your partner. And you berate yourself for your behavior. 

 Your internal guilt voice might sound something like: “I can’t believe I bought those clubs.  It  was a stupid thing to do.  I feel terrible about it.   I broke my promise to my wife. I feel like such a jerk.  Why did I do that?  I know I have to tell her, but I’m dreading it.”

You can also feel guilt when you don’t do something.  For example, you feel like an idiot when you don’t send in your taxes on time.  Either way, you’re experiencing guilt.  Your experience may be a little different, but I’m confident that you recognize the feeling.  We’ve all felt guilty at one time or another.

What is Shame? 

Shame is very different. Shame is not about what you’ve done, or not done. Shame is not about an action you’ve taken.  Shame is a reflection of how you feel about yourself.  This sense of shame is something you carry inside you. Most of the time, your feelings of shame are quiet. But they can erupt when they’re triggered by certain situations or relationships.

For example, you’re having a great day and all of a sudden you have an intense wave of shame when

• Your partner wants to talk about your sex life

• Your brother buys an expensive car that you can’t afford

• Your young daughter complains that you’re on your phone and not paying attention to the game you’re playing with her

These feelings of shame suddenly take over your life and plunge you into a bath of self-hatred. And you are consumed by the knowledge that you are a disappointment. These intense feelings of shame may be restricted to one or two parts of your life (being a parent, financial success, sex, etc.), or they may show up in most areas of your life.

Your Shame Voice

The most common expression of shame is a feeling that “I’m not enough,” “I’m not good enough,” “I’m a disappointment,” or “I have let them down.”  Again, your exact experience may be different, but your shame experience probably contains something like “I’m not enough”.

Unlike guilt, shame isn’t about your behavior; shame is a reflection of how you see yourself in your life.

For example, if you were to discover that your partner has made plans with his/her friends for Saturday night without talking to you.  You might first respond with anger or disappointment and then feel sad at being left on your own. But if you carry feelings of shame around relationships, then those feelings of anger might morph into feelings of shame.  Your shame voice might sound something like: “I’m just not enough for her.  No wonder she doesn’t want to spend time with me.  I can’t do anything right.  No matter how hard I try I can never get it right.”

Shame is not about what you’ve done, its about how you see yourself in relation to others.

What makes shame so hard to deal with? 

We all experience many different feelings throughout the day . We feel happy, sad, proud, discouraged, grateful, angry, jealous, and many more. 

Sometimes, we even experience multiple feelings at the same time.  For example, you get a promotion at work, and you might simultaneously feel happy, proud, and worried about doing a good job.  Or, you watch a movie that triggers the memory of a bitter divorce you went through 20 years ago, and you feel sad, angry, and hopeless all over again.

When we experience any of these feelings, we recognize them as feelings.  And we know that feelings are transitory; they come, and they go.  How many times have you said to yourself “I’ll feel better in the morning”.  Or you feel intensely sad for no apparent reason, and then an hour later you notice that you’re no longer sad.  That’s very common.

But the experience of shame is very different.  While we talk about shame as being a “feeling” we experience shame as a fact. You don’t just feel unworthy, you know you are unworthy.  You believe it.  You know it in your bones. 

This is what makes shame so hard to escape.  You understand that sadness or joy are temporary and that you’ll feel differently tomorrow.  But shame  isn’t something you simply feel, shame is something you genuinely believe about yourself.  It feels permanent. You can’t imagine it going away. 

The feelings that go along with shame

As if shame isn’t bad enough, when you feel shame, you also feel a host of other feelings.  These are the feelings that drive what I call the Shame Narrative.  That’s the story we tell ourselves about our shame.   A shame narrative might go something like: “I’ve always been a disappointment to my mother.  She likes my sister so much more than she likes me.  And why shouldn’t she, my sister is good at everything she does.  I’ve always been a loser.”

 Here are some of the words I’ve heard clients use to describe the “feeling of shame”.

• Humiliation

• Disappointment

• Emptiness

• Worthlessness

• Embarrassment

• Self-loathing

• Inadequacy

• Inferiority

• Ridicule

• Regret

• Worthlessness

• Disgrace

• Weakness

• Helplessness

• Defeat

• Powerlessness

• Unlovable

• Broken

• Garbage

What is Toxic Shame?

People often use the term Toxic Shame.  There is no exact definition for Toxic Shame; it’s more of a descriptive term than a diagnosis. 

In my work, I distinguish between shame and Toxic Shame based on the depth and/or breadth of the impact that shame has on the individual’s life.  For most people, deep feelings of shame only emerge around a few specific areas of their life.   Perhaps they experience deep feelings of shame when they have to deal with issues around money, how they feel about their body, or sex and intimacy. 

Shame becomes Toxic Shame when their feelings of not being enough show up across many, or most, parts of their life. They frequently experience the paralysis that comes with shame.  They feel like they are constantly struggling to make progress in life while pushing against the headwind of shame.  I have clients who go through their daily life feeling a deep sense of shame. Shame becomes a part of their identity; it is how they see themselves in relation to their family, friends, work, and life.  They become their shame. They don’t just feel not enough, they know they are not enough.  They know they are a disappointment.

It is Toxic Shame when it’s hard to see the boundary between yourself and your shame.  Dr. Brene Brown, a famous psychologist who studies shame, talks about Toxic Shame as a deep sense of being unworthy.

“I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging...”

Listening to your Shame Narrative.

Take a minute to think about your relationship to shame.  Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help you think about your feelings of shame.

• How do you feel about yourself when you feel shame?  Do you feel like you’re not enough, you failed, you’ve let someone down, you’re a loser, etc.?

• When do you feel shame most?

• What are the other feelings you have when you experience shame (e.g., worthless, broken, unwanted)?

• How do you feel shame in your body?  Do you get headaches, stomach aches, depression, anxiety, etc.?

• How do you talk to yourself when you feel shame?  What are the words you use?  How do you describe yourself? 

 We’ll explore the origins of shame in the next article in this series.