Shame
Guilt is different.
If you saw me you would not mistake me as being anything but Caucasian. Any more white and you might think I’m albino.
My melanin count growing up was so low that I had just two colors - white and burnt red. This so horrified my mom, who discovered deficiency when I was a baby, that it resulted in her arranging for me to live most of my early life, when not inside, under umbrellas and awnings or protected by hats, dark glasses and the white man’s face paint of the 50’s and 60’s - zinc oxide paste.
Growing up with three siblings who had the miraculous ability to tan, I thought being too white was no sign of privilege, it was an embarrassing physical defect to be ashamed of.
Which brings me to my topic SHAME.
Guilt is different.
Guilt has to do with something someone does. It’s a judgement of action.
Shame is about who you are in your core.
Now I’m not talking about how shame and guilt feel to people.
They may feel the same or different, and it is possible with some, especially over time and with practice, to lose emotional feelings altogether.
Keep this in mind if you are trying to become more authentic, less compartmentalized.
People who are working toward being the same at home and at work, on Monday and Sunday, will quickly find themselves facing their old guilts and shames.
Why is this?
Because they are stepping out of hiding and turning back to face head-on the shaming words from their past. The ones once innocently accepted as true.
Looking back now, well past my season of skin-tone embarrassment, I now better understand that shame is close to a universal malady.
My secret skin color flaw, which was one of countless imperfections and foibles that haunted my childhood, (not that adulthood has been a cakewalk of psychological soundness), is like the ones that probably created shame in you.
It could have been your weight, your poor eye sight, your hair, your acne, your trouble learning.
It’s an endless list.
And what is so interesting now looking back, is that it didn’t matter about how many gifts and talents I might have had, one exploitable weakness, and that’s all that was needed to keep me distracted and disturbed .
Recovery from shame usually involves a journey toward a loving God.
It also likely involves the love of others who can love while not excusing or condoning bad behavior.
These are our truest friends. And yet they may not be the ones we are spending time with right now.
They are usually older and more stable than we are at the moment of our deep need. They usual behave like people we wish to become.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.