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| Letting go |
The Need to Be Free
In the right amounts, guilt and shame
can serve a healthy purpose, but as with anything else; too much guilt and
shame is harmful and dangerous.
Guilt
happens when a person feels responsibility or remorse for an offence or
wrongdoing either real or imagined. (We’ll come back to the real or imagined in
just a bit.) Shame is the painful feeling that arises from the consciousness for
having done, participated in or watched something that is dishonorable or
improper.
I can still
remember my first real encounter with guilt and shame. I was about 12 years old
and had checked a few books out of the library. (Yes, I’ve been a nerd for a
long time now.) A girl who walked to school with the gang of kids from my
neighborhood borrowed one of them to read. By anyone’s standards, this girl was
a bully. For some reason though, she never bullied me. When it was time to return
the book to the library, I was afraid to ask her for the book back. I had seen
her fight and beat up bigger boys; I was not going to get on her bad side.
When the
book was way past due, I got a letter from the library asking me to return it.
A few weeks went by and I got another letter telling me that I had better get
it back. Another week and I was looking at losing library privileges, being
fined and in my mind I was going to jail.
My mother
could barely feed her seven children; she didn’t have the money to replace
books that I had checked out of the library. I sat up wondering and worrying
what I would do. I cried and cried. Whenever I saw a police car, I knew they
were coming for me. My guilt for not
returning the book had turned to shame and I was a prisoner.
It is important to point out that
your brain does not know the difference between what is real from what is imagined. The body responds to all of the
signals our brain sends as if every alarm is real. Nowadays, I use this to my
advantage by meditating a full nap in bed, even when I am sitting upright on a
loud airplane.
But back to
the library book---My shame started to eat me up and I was afraid to go
outside. I went out for school, but then ran home to more threatening letters
from the library. Now, to be fair to the nation’s wonderful library system and
the brilliant folks who work there, I am certain that these letters were not
threatening at all, but back then, my
little mind had responded with the necessary guilt, but then the guilt became
shame and took over my thinking.
I believe
that in the right amount a little guilt and shame are helpful. In fact, we need
a little more of it. We should feel shame when seniors are mistreated. We should feel
guilt when we take what is not ours. We should be moved to do something when
any child is bullied, but when we hold
on to the guilt it will become shame and that shame will eat away at your
esteem.
I finally
did get that book back from that girl. Her entire bully family had tried to
read it and she had to fight an even bigger sister to get it back. The book was
worn and torn and so that summer, I got a job to pay for the damage.
I worked at
the library.
·
Shame
is like a vampire; it has to be invited in, but once it comes inside, it will
take your life away.
·
Guilt
serves a purpose for the guilty.
·
Even
if we watch a wrong doing we will
feel guilt; if you don’t feel guilty then you have been watching too many.
Love yourself enough to forgive and let go of your shameful past.
Be you, be well, BE
FREE
Bertice Berry, PhD.
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