Overcoming Toxic Guilt & Shame with CBT Techniques

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to today's video on toxic guilt and shame signs, causes and some solutions. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this video, you're going to learn about guilt, toxic guilt and shame, identify causes and effects of them, and explore ways to let go of that toxic guilt. So let's start out at the beginning. Guilt and shame are both forms of self anger, kind of semantics for a lot of people. A lot of people use guilt and shame interchangeably, but they're different. Guilt is a feeling you get when you did or you think you did something wrong, all right? So you do something that you shouldn't have done, you feel guilty for it, all right? That is anger at yourself for a behavior that you did. Got it? Shame, however, is a feeling that you are bad, not your behavior. Guilt is about a behavior. Shame is about you. Shame says, I'm a bad person. And it's really important that we separate behaviors from people because good people make bad choices sometimes, and I believe or I wouldn't be able to be in this field, that most people are inherently good people that are doing the best they can with the tools they have. Now let's talk about the difference between healthy guilt and toxic guilt. Healthy guilt motivates you to look at what you did and grow, make changes so you behave more in line with your values. And guilt can be healthy. Guilt can be anger at yourself for something that you did that you shouldn't have done or something that you didn't do, an omission, something that you didn't do that you should have done. Either way, you need to learn from that situation, from that behavior and say, okay, if it's something that I didn't do that I should have done, how can I make sure I do it in the future? If it's something that I did, but I really shouldn't have done, how can I prevent myself from doing it in the future? Use that energy. Remember, anger is a feeling that your body causes your body to release stress chemicals to prepare you to fight or flee. It doesn't say there is a problem. It says, here's a bunch of energy. Use it to evaluate the situation and react as appropriate. So with healthy guilt, you evaluate the situation, use that energy, evaluate the situation, learn from it, use that energy to learn and then move forward. Holding on to guilt, continuing to, as my grandmother would say, lash yourself with a wet noodle doesn't solve anything. It's just using energy. And it doesn't move you forward. It you just keep punishing Yourself. Now, toxic guilt drains your energy and erodes your self esteem. Toxic guilt is not teaching you something useful. Toxic guilt is ongoing anger at yourself where basically you see yourself as a threat to yourself. You see your behaviors, whatever you're doing, as not in line with your values and you feel guilty about it. But you just sit there and stewing the guilt instead of saying, all right, I don't like how I'm behaving, I need to change my behavior and I need to use my energy to change my, my behavior. Toxic guilt, you just sit there and you feel guilty about it and you feel bad about yourself and you tell yourself you're a bad person. And toxic guilt and shame often go hand in hand. And let's go back to healthy guilt. Healthy guilt and shame don't go hand in hand. Healthy guilt is I made a mistake, I'm a good person, but I made a mistake. I'm going to learn from it. I'm not going to do it again. Okay? So shame and healthy guilt don't go hand in hand. Toxic guilt causes ongoing activation of your stress response. So if you're constantly feeling bad and about yourself and angry at yourself and ashamed of yourself, then those stress chemicals are just coursing through your veins. This leads to desperate attempts to prove to yourself and others that you're worthy and a good person. It's so with toxic guilt, a lot of times you're like, okay, yes, but let me see, let me fawn. Remember, in the fight or flight response, there's fight, fight, flee, freeze, fawn or forget it. And this is the fawn response with toxic guilt. A lot of times we see people fawning to try to prove that they're good people. My mother, God bless her, was probably one of the queens of toxic guilt and not giving it, but feeling it. And she was raised in a very, very poor family and she managed to go to college, first one in her family to go to college and be very successful in her career. And because of her success, she felt guilty. She felt guilty that she was successful and some of her friends from the neighborhood weren't successful. And as a result, she spent a lot of time fawning and volunteering and just using untold amounts of energy to, to try to basically apologize and make up for the fact that she was successful. And, and that's kind of toxic guilt because it took her away from other things that were important in her life to try to give her energy to others to try to help them be as successful as she was and don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with volunteering, but it's all on a scale spectrum. It's a matter of degree. It's a matter of amount. When you feel guilty, identify and evaluate the shoulds. When you feel guilty about something, there's a voice in your head saying, you shoulda or you shouldn't. Okay, who's saying that? Is that you? Is that something you believe, saying, yeah, that's not something that's okay? If so, okay, take action. If it is a teacher from your past or your parents or the media or somebody else telling you you should or you shouldn't, you need to step back and go, okay, that's your opinion. What do I believe? What is important according to my values? And what is the best way to use my energy to move toward my rich and meaningful life? There's a lot of things I would love to do, however, and I can't do them all and use enough energy, Divide my energy efficiently to nurture the things that the other things that are important in my rich and meaningful life, like my relationship with my kids and my husband and taking care of the farm. Ask yourself, is feeling guilty a good use of my energy? I can't think of a time when the answer would be yes. You know, feeling it for a second and then saying, okay, how do I fix this? That's one thing. But sitting there just stewing in guilt and beating yourself up for it, I'm not seeing where that would ever be a good use of energy. I could be wrong. How else could you use your energy to move toward your rich and meaningful life? Maybe you did something that you think, in retrospect, maybe that wasn't the best idea. Okay, you're gonna learn from it. And how can you use your energy to move toward your rich and meaningful life? In addiction recovery, one of the steps that a lot of people go through is making amends. Instead of holding on to guilt, instead of beating themselves up and feeling ashamed of, you know, nurturing that toxic guilt, they admit what they've done wrong and they make amends whenever possible. That is a way for them to effectively use their energy to start moving toward that rich and meaningful life. Causes of toxic guilt. Well, toxic guilt, like I said, just drains your energy. Sometimes it's a should or a shouldn't that you're holding on to and you're just refusing to let go of. Other times, you feel guilty about things you have no control over. How is that a good use of your energy? Remember, guilt is a form of anger. Anger bathes your brain in excitatory neurochemicals that when they stay there long enough, they're kind of like battery acid. They eventually start killing off brain cells. Okay, so that's how guilt can be toxic if it is unfounded or if it sticks around for too long. Feeling guilty about things you have no control over. You survived a tornado and your neighbor didn't. Okay, then we call that survivor's guilt. It's a real thing. It sucks. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying up, move on. However, I think it's important to, if you're feeling survivor's guilt, to reflect and process that and not be holding on to it 10 years later. You feel guilty about other people's feelings, that's toxic, too. That ain't your business. If you do something that hurts somebody's feelings, apologize, make amends, address the situation, but feeling responsible, continuing to feel guilty and responsible for what they do with their emotions after that, it's not healthy. If they choose to stew in their anger, it's on them. If they choose to hold on to resentments, that's on them. You can't change that. You're not responsible for that. They're responsible for how they react to their feelings. If you feel guilty about things you already made amends for, or some of those things you. Things you can't make amends for but have learned from, maybe you can't make amends to somebody because they've passed on or they're just no longer in your life and they don't want to be okay, you can't fix that. That's one of those things that's going to be stay broken. But holding on to that guilt, holding on to that anger at yourself, does that help you in your recovery? Does that help you stay healthy? Does that help you move toward your rich and meaningful life? If they choose not to accept your apology, not to hear you out, whatever, or if there's not a way that you can make amends, okay, you have no control of that. So how are you going to move to acceptance of that situation so you can free up that energy to do things that are in line with your values? Feeling guilty because you're not perfect or as good as somebody else. You know what? We all have different skills, talents, and abilities, and you are probably not going to be the best at everything all the time. You are probably not going to be perfect at anything any of the time, and that's okay. I don't think many people, if anybody actually is, but Feeling guilty because you fail to achieve this unachievable goal, how is that a good use of your energy? How is that a good use of your resources? Remember, when you feel guilty, you're actually harming your body. When you feel guilty for being successful, and I mentioned my mother earlier, that's toxic guilt. Now, if you became successful by stepping all over other people and being generally nasty, okay, there are some things you could probably address there. But if you worked your butt off and you became successful, all right, you did. Be happy about your guilt, be happier about your guilt. Be happy about your success. And instead of feeling guilty because other people, for whatever reason, we're not able to do the same thing, okay, you can share, you can support, you can encourage, you can mentor. Use your energy as you feel appropriate. But also remember to set those boundaries. You can't rescue anybody if they don't want to be rescued. And even the people who want to be rescued. One person can't rescue everybody. So maybe choose a person to mentor or one thing that you're going to do, but don't devote 80% of your life to making up for feeling guilty. The other 20% of your life to working. And there's no time for rest, recovery, recuperation, family, friends, or anything else. Oh, toxic guilt for taking care of yourself. How many people have been told that it is not okay to take a day off? It's not okay to take care of yourself. It's not okay to take a break. It's not okay to set boundaries. You have to give till it hurts. Let's think about that. If you give to the point that you're burned out, to the point that you're exhausted, then you're no good to anybody. And. And you need other people's help now. So not only can you not give, you're now also draining other people's resources. That doesn't make any freaking sense. Sorry. So it's important to look at taking care of yourself. And if you look at the seven habits of highly effective people, Covey talks about sharpening the saw. And it's important to take care of yourself so you can do the job effectively and efficiently so you can be there for your friends and your family. If that means you need to take. Take some time every day for meditation or to go to meetings or to church or prayer or whatever it is that you do, well, by golly, that's what you need. We all need to rest and recharge. Just like your phone, you need to plug it in probably every day in order to charge up the battery or it ain't going to work for you. Your body is the same way, your brain's the same way. And finally, a cause of toxic guilt is feeling guilty because others tell you you should feel guilty. You should feel guilty because blah. You should feel guilty for blah. And it's important for you to hear that, but then to say, okay, do I agree with that? Sometimes people have a point and they say, you, you. That's probably not a nice thing to do. It's probably something you might feel guilty for. I'd feel guilty for it if I did it. Okay. You know, that gives me some pause, makes me think, but if I look at it and I go, no, I don't agree that that's my responsibility or that that is even the right thing to do, then you've got to figure out how to deal with that. And some people feel guilty for disagreeing. Oh my gosh, how bad are your boundaries? If you feel guilty for saying, these are my beliefs, you don't have to agree with me, but there are my beliefs. I'm not going to tell you to change your beliefs, but I'm not going to change mine because they're mine. They're my beliefs and they're in line with my values. If the videos on this channel have been helpful for you, please support us in our mission to make high quality practical content available. You can join Docsnipes.com to access worksheets and self guided classes, sign up for concierge coaching with Doc Snipes Me or purchase a super thanks on any videos that are particularly helpful. So what do you do? We've talked about what toxic guilt is. We've talked about the effects. How do you overcome it when you feel guilty about things you have no control over? Write down the situation. A lot of times I know it sounds weird, but when you say something, it goes in one ear and out the other. And that's one of the reasons that I put the PowerPoints here. I know some people just like, oh my gosh, PowerPoints, death by PowerPoint. But there's been research that's found that people tend to ponder information more and manipulate it in their head more. Think about it more. If they see it, if you say it, it's there and gone. It's just, you know, in never never land. But when it's written down, you see it. When it's written down, it's not bouncing around in the walls of your head anymore. So your brain says, oh, I don't have to Think about that. That's a good thing. Write it down. Okay, so now it's down and you can actually see it in blue and white. I prefer blue. It's just a more cheerful color. Identify all of the aspects of this situation that you cannot control, and then identify all of the aspects of the situation that you can control. Because guess what? In any situation, there are things you can and things you cannot control. And it's important to take a look at those and not feel guilty for things that are out of your control. You know, and that may mean doing some cognitive restructuring and coming to acceptance processing. And then the things that are in your control. What? How can you use your energy instead of just stewing in your guilt and self anger? How can you use your energy to use your in a positive way to address the situation in line with your values and then evaluate whether you've done what you actually can, not what you should be able to do, but what you actually can do? So in this situation, have I done everything possible that I can do? And after that some things are out of your control. Whether that means a friend still won't forgive you, whether that means you got a job or didn't get a job or whatever it is. If you did everything you needed to do and everything that you could do within reason and it still didn't work out, then it's important to reflect on how you feel about that. And it's important to reflect on accepting powerlessness over some things. And in recovery. I know I keep going back to that, but this is true for mental health and addiction and everything else in between. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. If you feel guilty about other people's feelings, well, become mindfully aware that you have control over your behaviors. How you feel and how you react is within your control. Other people have control over how they react to your behaviors. Other people's reactions to your behaviors are based not only on you, but on their prior experiences. So if you come from a background where people raised their voices and it was about to get ugly, then some. When somebody else raises their voice, you may start feeling afraid. Now, should they feel guilty for, quote, making you feel afraid? Well, the should in there probably gives it away. No, they can. They may not even realize. So it's important to know that you're feeling afraid because of your past has nothing to do with this person. Now let's just turn the tables and say you raised your voice and your friend got afraid and you know, you were just, you got excited about something and you started being loud. I do that a lot, so I know what I'm talking about here. But it's important to recognize with these things that if your friend gets frightened, gets scared, gets stressed out because you're getting loud, okay? It's important to recognize that and go, oh, you know, my friend seems to be getting a little edgy. I need to tone it down a little bit. You have control over your behaviors. If you continue to do that, that's disrespectful and mean. But they start getting upset, they start feeling fearful. What they do with their fear is their responsibility. They can say, hey, you know, I'm feeling uneasy. Be assertive. Imagine that they can excuse themselves from the situation, that's an option. Or they can sit there and feel afraid and get really, really, really upset and get feel even more scared. Well, that's on them. If they choose, they can choose their reaction. You can empathize and support someone, but only they can change their feelings and their reactions. Your initial feeling, anger, fear, happiness, curiosity, discussed, whatever it is, that's a natural and automatic reaction based on your learning and your prior experiences. Okay, so that's not something you can really change, but how you continue to feel. You have a choice. How, what you continue to deal with your energy. Whether you choose to nurture that feeling or address it, that is your choice. When you feel guilty about things you've already made amends for or can't make amends for, but you did learn from, remind yourself that you made amends. Continuing to be angry with yourself just drains energy you could use to move ahead. Holding on to toxic guilt is a huge relapse trap. Ask yourself if you would continue to hold a grudge if somebody did this to you, would you continue to hold a grudge after they apologized? Recognize that whenever you did this thing you did, you were a different person. And note how you've grown from the experience and changed for the better. And finally, consider all of the factors that were going on at that time. Have some compassion for yourself. If last week you were just having a God awful week and you were stressed out and you had too much going on and you bit somebody's head off, figuratively, of course, and you feel guilty for that, you feel bad about that and you apologize to the person, I'm sorry, having a bad day, I need to get it in check. Okay? If you continue to feel bad about that, you know, two, three, four days later, it's important to look back and say, okay, did I make a mistake? Yes, I did. I apologize for it. And honestly, truly apologized. Yes, I did. What else was going on in that time? You know, thinking about all the things that you had going on and think, was it the best reaction? Probably not. Would I blame somebody else for having a similar reaction in that situation? Probably not. So cut yourself some slack and remember that Hindsight is like 2010. It's better than even 2020 because you can step back and see so much more. When you were in the moment, it felt overwhelming. It felt like the world was crashing down around you. Yes. A week later, you can look back and go, I was really kind of, you know, overreacting there. Okay, maybe you did. But at the moment, at that time, you felt like you were completely overwhelmed. If you feel guilty about not being perfect or as good as somebody else, you probably grew up in an environment in which you were only loved for what you did and only if you did it perfectly. So you've gotten the messages since you were little that it's you're only okay. You're only acceptable if you're perfect. And in the addicted family, this could be the hero. In other dysfunctional families, sometimes love is only doled out. Even if there's no addiction, sometimes love is only doled out to people who uphold the family image. And that is so damaging. Be mindful of those that you love and your mentors. Think about them. Are they perfect? I would challenge any person who says yes. You know, my mentors, they're pretty darn good. But do I think they make mistakes? Yeah. Do I think that they're human? Sometimes, Believe it or not, yeah. Another way you could approach it is to ask yourself, would I love my child any less? Or be angry with them if they weren't perfect? And hopefully you can say, no, of course I'd love my child. Even if they're imperfect. If you feel guilty about being successful, remember you're successful because of hard work. Your success can serve as a model for others, like my mother. I mean, she didn't have. They didn't have money at all when she was growing up. You know, onion and mayonnaise sandwiches were like a delicacy. So remember that what you came from. Remember your struggle. Remember how hard you worked. You don't know how hard other people are working now. Some of them. Some of them may be working their butt off and just not be able to catch a break. I get that. And that's where we offer a hand up your Success can give you resources to help people less successful, but you don't need to take a vow of poverty. And finally, explore your relationship with jealousy. Are you angry at others, like your mentors for being successful and what success means to you? So if you feel guilty about being successful, you know, that's kind of a twist because there may be some people who are jealous of you and kind of putting yourself into that position. If you feel guilty about taking care of yourself, Self care ain't selfish. Evaluate. Go back to that. Who says evaluate where you got that message and whether you agree with it. Do you guilt children for playing? Do you guilt children for relaxing after school? If you're burned out, you ain't good to anybody. Explore if you're getting the must dos done. All right. Did I get all the things that had to be done to today or this week done? All right. Are, are the baseboards going to get done today? No, but that's not a must do. That's a. It would be ideal. What's more important than spending time and energy cleaning the baseboards is to take a break to rest and recuperate. So I'm ready for the next week. View self care as modeling healthy boundaries for other people, for your children, for your family, for your friends. If you say, you know what, no, I need some me time. I need to take a break, I need to go on vacation. I, I had employees when I used to work in community behavioral health that, that literally went years without taking any time off. And you can only carry so much time from year to year. And at a certain point I'd have to be like, if you don't take this time that you h you've earned, you're giving it back to the company. And I'd have to force them to take time off. And I wonder, you know, yes, it's great that they love to be there and they love their job and they were passionate about it, but I wonder what message that sent to their clients and their subordinates about taking time off and taking care of themselves. And honestly, being lazy is needed for recharging. Your phone doesn't charge up nearly as quickly if you've got the brightness turned all the way up and you are just tip, tip, tapping and listen, watching a video at the same time, it's going to take a lot longer to recharge. So it's likely when it's time to unplug and, you know, move on with your day, it ain't going to be fully recharged. So it's not going to be as effective as it would have been if you just left it alone and let it recharge. There's a concept called bed rotting right now, and I did a video on it. But in and of itself, as long as it is limit time limited, there is nothing wrong with saying, you know what? I'm going to pull up the covers and I am going to camp out in my own little blanket fort for the rest of the day. If you feel guilty about what other tell others tell you to feel guilty about. Oh, listen for that litany of shoulds when you say to yourself, I should do this or I shouldn't have done that, stop. I believe it was Albert Ellis, but it could have been Carl Rogers. I'm sorry for not remembering, but one of them used to talk about shoulding yourself and when you should yourself, it just creates a bad environment. And I shoulding sounds a lot like something else. And they did that on purpose. It's important to look at it and say, what do I believe I will do? What do I believe I won't do? Not I should clean the windows. Well, there's a lot of shoulds in life, but you need to commit, I'm going to do it or I'm not going to do it. It's going to happen or it's not. There's no in between. You're not going to spray the windows and then not wipe them down. There's no halfway. I will or I won't commit to it. The shoulds just linger out there and weigh you down because you're in limbo land. Evaluate shoulds for their accuracy. Number one, who told you or taught you or where did you learn that you should or shouldn't do this? And do you agree? I know I've said that a bunch of times today, but it's really important when it comes to toxic guilt, because healthy guilt, again, means doing something that goes against your firmly held beliefs and values. Toxic guilt means doing something that may be in line with your values but goes against somebody else's values. Or feeling guilty for not doing something that goes against your values because somebody tells you that that's what you should do. And I know there's a lot of negatives and hijinks in there, but it's important to remember healthy guilt helps you be the person you want to be and learn from your mistakes. Toxic guilt, it does everything else. Recognize that using guilt to manipulate someone violates their boundaries. If you try to guilt somebody into doing something, you're violating their boundaries. You're telling them what they should or shouldn't be doing or thinking or feeling. Likewise, when somebody uses guilt to manipulate you, that's violating your boundaries. Think like a marionette, like Pinocchio. You know when people are shooting you, they've attached the little wires to your limbs and they're trying to control you. And instead of letting you control yourself, when you feel guilty about what others tell you to feel guilty about, practice assertiveness. Tell them how you feel. If the person says, you shouldn't do this because let's say you shouldn't use plastic because it's bad for the environment, all right, you can say, I hear your concerns. However, I believe, blah, blah, if they say you should feel guilty for this, because what they're really saying in most cases is, I'm feeling angry or threatened by you because you're doing this. They are trying to control you because they feel threatened. So their reaction is to be aggressive in their response and try to guilt you, try to manipulate you, try to violate your boundaries. You can say, I hear that you're angry about this and I am sorry for that. However, based on my knowledge, experiences, beliefs, whatever, I did the right thing. So I hear that you think I should feel guilty for doing this. However, I don't. It's in line with my values. And I'm sorry you disagree. And that is a really hard thing to say. I know when we made the decision to homeschool our children, we had this discussion with our parents and it went about like, that, you shouldn't do that. That's not the right thing to do. And we said, well, based on our children and this circumstance, in this context, we respectfully disagree. So it can be. It's an uncomfortable conversation. Don't get me wrong, it's not comfortable. But it's important to recognize because if you do things that go against your values just to appease someone else, then you're going to feel guilty anyway because you're going against your own values. You're going to be angry at yourself for what you're doing. Guilt is a normal and necessary emotion. We have to have a little Jiminy Cricket cons in there that helps keep us on the right path. Toxic guilt comes from messages you receive from others about what you should do or what makes you lovable. The media, your communities, and your family all shape your beliefs and telling you what you should do to be good and lovable. So again, thinking about those messages, they may not have come from mom or dad or grandma. They may have come from packaging on a toy that you used to play with or a show you used to watch, but you got the message from somewhere. Okay, you got it. Evaluate in this context at this time based on your knowledge and your values. Do you agree with it? Pretty straightforward. Sometimes, especially as a child, you may have believed that you were responsible for things that were out of your control. And that really can contribute to toxic guilt. For example, if you feel guilty, you feel responsible for your parents getting divorced. You know, a lot of kids take on, take that on themselves and have a lot of guilt about that. When in reality it wasn't them, it was the grown ups that couldn't figure out how to make it work for whatever reason. But the child internalizes that, and the child may hold on to that and be trying to make amends to their caregivers for the rest of their lives. Toxic guilt for something that wasn't even their fault. Overcoming toxic guilt requires evaluating those beliefs and whether you agree with them in the current context. Remember, your behaviors and the behaviors you expect of yourself may change over time. And that's okay. Your values are going to evolve over time. But ultimately guilt comes from behaving in ways that go against your values and learning to love yourself, even if you don't always like your behaviors.