This is Hello Freedom and I'm your host Terry Cole.

For almost two decades I've been a licensed psychotherapist and transformation coach, and on this show I will bring you simple strategies based on practical psychology, inspiring expert interviews, and my own insights and observations

from my time on the front lines of the fascinating worlds of entertainment,

empowerment, and mental health.

Now let's get going with today's episode. Well, hello and welcome to Hello Freedom. I'm your host Terry Cole.

It's a good day to talk about everything and anything that has to do with self-love and being healthy

attracting real love keeping real love fixing love if it's on the skids but today I want to be talking about the

difference between healthy guilt which might sound weird, and toxic shame.

Because I find in my therapy practice

that there's confusion about these two things and they can feel similar but

they're actually completely different.

So let's first start to establish what are some behaviors that indicate

that you may be experiencing a lot of toxic shame or even a little bit of toxic shame.

So we'll start with the difference between the two. What is healthy guilt?

Healthy guilt is when we feel bad because we believe we have done something wrong, right?

So if healthy guilt could say something it would say,

I think I did something wrong.

That's what healthy guilt would say.

Toxic shame is a different story.

Toxic shame feels like you are something wrong.

So toxic shame would say, I am wrong. I am incorrect. I am

monumentally broken. That's what toxic shame says. It doesn't decipher between behavior, which guilt is talking about a behavior. You feel bad about something you did. Perhaps a wrong choice or a mean thing that you said to

...