I think it's important to distinguish between healthy guilt, unhealthy guilt, and shame. A better word for healthy guilt is remorse.
Remorse is our conscience trying to get our attention, that our choice wasn't optimal, and there is something to be learned from it. Remorse plays a very important role in our spiritual evolution, for it provides a context with which to evaluate our responses to catalyst, as well as providing opportunities for self-reflection, contemplation, and forgiveness of both self and other-self.
In contrast, unhealthy guilt could be defined as hanging on to what started out as healthy guilt, but well past the point of it being useful. Unhealthy guilt occurs when we fail to learn from our perceived mistakes and fail to forgive ourselves.
When I was in the 4th grade, I betrayed my best friend's darkest secret. I immediately regretted my action, but didn't apologize at the time. So I experienced healthy guilt - remorse. To this day, I continue to seek that long-lost friend, because I want to tell her I'm sorry. I may never see her again in this life, but I'm going to try. I have forgiven myself as best I can at this time, and yet it is important to me to reach out to her now, more than 4 decades later. Does this mean I am still carrying guilt? Yes. Is it unhealthy? At this point, I don't think so. I don't think having unresolved remorse for something I did that hurt someone, is unhealthy. On the contrary, I think it's my conscience letting me know that there is something I can do to make amends. That's healthy guilt.
Maybe a good way to distinguish healthy guilt from unhealthy guilt is whether we can do anything about it or not. If my friend from 4th grade was No longer incarnate, thereby making it impossible for me to ever find her, then I'd have No choice but to let it go. But since we have the internet, and facebook, there's a very good chance I might still find her. I already did that with an ex-boyfriend's ex-wife, whom he broke up with in 12th grade to date me, and I inadvertently hurt her. I found her on facebook and apologized. Turns out she never blamed me, and we had a good talk and cleared the air! That was healthy. So it would be cool if I found my friend from 4th grade too. But I might not, so I'm going to forgive myself anyway, regardless of whether I find her, because I know in my heart that I have done my best. If I did my best but didn't find her, and still carried that burden, then it would be unhealthy, because what is the point of carrying guilt when there's nothing to be done about it? Guilt is healthy only when it triggers an opportunity for action on our part. I'd say that is its purpose: to prod us into some sort of choice or action which will make amends, or at least make better choices in the future.
Then there's shame, which is often confused with unhealthy guilt. Shame isn't guilt. Shame is imposed by others, whereas guilt comes from within. Also, shame has to do with self-worth, whereas guilt has to do with remorse over mistakes. Shame is when a parent tells their child that normal exploration of their genitals is 'dirty' for example, or when a child is molested and, in her confusion, feels ashamed of what happened, Not understanding that she was a victim and therefore blameless. Shame is when a mother tells her teenage daughter that she is a slut for wearing a binkini, and the daughter absorbs that into her psyche. Then the girl grows up with body issues and can't enjoy sex, all because her parents were uptight. That's Not guilt; it's shame. All of these are imposed by others - others who are unhealthy themselves - and bear No resemblance to healthy remorse, or even to unresolved, yet-to-be-forgiven guilt for inefficient use of catalyst or for unintentionally (or intentionally) harming another.
Awareness of guilt might be triggered by others, such as when my friend told me I had hurt her when I betrayed her secret. She got angry at me and then I felt guilt. But I felt guilt because I really did do something to hurt her. Whereas, when a pastor tried to tell me I was 'living in sin' for letting my boyfriend spend the night, I laughed at her. She tried to shame me, but I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong, so her efforts to shame me failed.
But that's because I had a healthy conception of sex by that time. Whereas, a child or even a teenager might not, so when their parents, teachers, or religious leaders try to shame them, they might succeed. Then the child or teen gets it all wired up in their heads that they did something wrong, when they really didn't. They think they are unworthy, or dirty, or slutty, or stupid, or whatever, which are all self-worth issues, and have very little or even nothing to do with any mistakes they may have made.
There are many layers of psychological nuance.
7 Differences Between Guilt and Shame
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Remorse is our conscience trying to get our attention, that our choice wasn't optimal, and there is something to be learned from it. Remorse plays a very important role in our spiritual evolution, for it provides a context with which to evaluate our responses to catalyst, as well as providing opportunities for self-reflection, contemplation, and forgiveness of both self and other-self.
In contrast, unhealthy guilt could be defined as hanging on to what started out as healthy guilt, but well past the point of it being useful. Unhealthy guilt occurs when we fail to learn from our perceived mistakes and fail to forgive ourselves.
When I was in the 4th grade, I betrayed my best friend's darkest secret. I immediately regretted my action, but didn't apologize at the time. So I experienced healthy guilt - remorse. To this day, I continue to seek that long-lost friend, because I want to tell her I'm sorry. I may never see her again in this life, but I'm going to try. I have forgiven myself as best I can at this time, and yet it is important to me to reach out to her now, more than 4 decades later. Does this mean I am still carrying guilt? Yes. Is it unhealthy? At this point, I don't think so. I don't think having unresolved remorse for something I did that hurt someone, is unhealthy. On the contrary, I think it's my conscience letting me know that there is something I can do to make amends. That's healthy guilt.
Maybe a good way to distinguish healthy guilt from unhealthy guilt is whether we can do anything about it or not. If my friend from 4th grade was No longer incarnate, thereby making it impossible for me to ever find her, then I'd have No choice but to let it go. But since we have the internet, and facebook, there's a very good chance I might still find her. I already did that with an ex-boyfriend's ex-wife, whom he broke up with in 12th grade to date me, and I inadvertently hurt her. I found her on facebook and apologized. Turns out she never blamed me, and we had a good talk and cleared the air! That was healthy. So it would be cool if I found my friend from 4th grade too. But I might not, so I'm going to forgive myself anyway, regardless of whether I find her, because I know in my heart that I have done my best. If I did my best but didn't find her, and still carried that burden, then it would be unhealthy, because what is the point of carrying guilt when there's nothing to be done about it? Guilt is healthy only when it triggers an opportunity for action on our part. I'd say that is its purpose: to prod us into some sort of choice or action which will make amends, or at least make better choices in the future.
Then there's shame, which is often confused with unhealthy guilt. Shame isn't guilt. Shame is imposed by others, whereas guilt comes from within. Also, shame has to do with self-worth, whereas guilt has to do with remorse over mistakes. Shame is when a parent tells their child that normal exploration of their genitals is 'dirty' for example, or when a child is molested and, in her confusion, feels ashamed of what happened, Not understanding that she was a victim and therefore blameless. Shame is when a mother tells her teenage daughter that she is a slut for wearing a binkini, and the daughter absorbs that into her psyche. Then the girl grows up with body issues and can't enjoy sex, all because her parents were uptight. That's Not guilt; it's shame. All of these are imposed by others - others who are unhealthy themselves - and bear No resemblance to healthy remorse, or even to unresolved, yet-to-be-forgiven guilt for inefficient use of catalyst or for unintentionally (or intentionally) harming another.
Awareness of guilt might be triggered by others, such as when my friend told me I had hurt her when I betrayed her secret. She got angry at me and then I felt guilt. But I felt guilt because I really did do something to hurt her. Whereas, when a pastor tried to tell me I was 'living in sin' for letting my boyfriend spend the night, I laughed at her. She tried to shame me, but I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong, so her efforts to shame me failed.
But that's because I had a healthy conception of sex by that time. Whereas, a child or even a teenager might not, so when their parents, teachers, or religious leaders try to shame them, they might succeed. Then the child or teen gets it all wired up in their heads that they did something wrong, when they really didn't. They think they are unworthy, or dirty, or slutty, or stupid, or whatever, which are all self-worth issues, and have very little or even nothing to do with any mistakes they may have made.
There are many layers of psychological nuance.
7 Differences Between Guilt and Shame
...