Hey there, Jen here. And this is a happy bit. I want to talk about the difference between guilt and shame.

We interchange them sometimes more than we should and sometimes we don't understand the difference between them.

Guilt is essentially when you know you've done something wrong that hurts another person or it hurts society. It's focused on

others. It's focused on behaviors and it has an empathetic component. Shame, on the other hand,

is focused on yourself. I am bad. It focuses on your identity of not good enough. So guilt can be constructive.

It can help us to have a safe family, a safe society, healthy interactions, whereas shame

focuses on your identity of being not good enough. So shame happens all over, all the time, more than you know.

Bray Brown said, we live in a world where most people still subscribe to the belief that shame is a good

tool for keeping people in line. Not only is this wrong, but it's dangerous. So where do we see this happening? You know, we try to keep our kids in line. Not only is this wrong, but it's dangerous. So where do we see this happening?

You know, we try to keep our kids in line. Some people spank and yell and threaten and punish.

And, you know, I'm not going to speak about the good or bad of those. But, you know, are you using shame in the process of your

punishments? Maybe you shift that to discipline, which focuses on the behavior and changing

behavior rather than shaming your child's identity. We see shaming in the grocery store checkout line. You see that mom with her child crying

and you give her a disapproving look or you sigh or you click your tongue. Shame is everywhere.

You might shame your spouse by criticizing how they handle something or asking the question of,

oh, what are you doing? You know, with that tone, that tiny bit of tone, or correcting them and

telling them, oh, you need to do it this way. Maybe when you're fighting, you slip into shame

and you do some name calling and some yelling and some threatening. All of this

kind of attacks the other person's identity and is in an attempt to control other people's behavior.

At a deeper level, I think it becomes an attempt to validate ourselves.

When we're critical of other people, we tend to be seeing the same flaws we don't like in ourselves, whether we admit it consciously or not.

Brunay Brown said, we judge people in areas where we are vulnerable to shame, where we don't feel good enough.

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