Healthy shame is the ability to feel remorse for our negative actions.

If we can’t help, we shouldn’t harm. Yet, we’re human, so sometimes we do hurt those closest to us without necessarily wanting to harm. We’re human, so we can feel when we do this, and we’re capable of feeling remorse, being accountable, apologizing and making a commitment to do better going forward. Those actions are what constitutes healthy shame.

And there’s more to healthy shame than just self-accountability and self-awareness, because we still have to know how to handle the harmful behaviors of others. If our own actions and intentions are pure, we don’t benefit the collective if we enable abuse or harm around us.

A father can love his family, and when his spouse cheats and abuses the children, if he says nothing and pretends it isn’t happening, or feels ok within because he is loyal and loving – he is then an enabler to harming himself and his children. In this case, he is not practicing healthy shame, he is practicing denial. Practicing healthy shame would look like acknowledging and recognizing what is truly happening and taking actions to end the cycle of abuse.

Shaming another is a lot like judging, damning and condemning. Shaming someone else doesn’t feel wonderful, and in most cases it is a form of abuse and bullying. So how do we enact healthy shame in a situation where we witness abuse? Compassion, boundaries and education are imperative.

How to Use Healthy Shame to Set the Example and Be the Change

First, we must have compassion for others even when they are at their worst. Most abusive types have experienced abuse in their life or directly witnessed it. No matter the level of evil or harm, every being is a part of the collective. The only thing that can heal a person subjected to harm is love. Healthy shame means not being angry and hateful toward perpetrators. It involves having the strength and courage to stand up to them with a sense of compassion.

Second, we must establish healthy boundaries with those around us who enact harmful behaviors. Parents are constantly establishing healthy boundaries, or rules, for children in order to keep them out of harm’s way. No matter how bad a parent or loved one feels when they have to say, “no” or when they have to point out the bad behaviors and deliver consequences – it’s a personal responsibility that comes with doing what is best for everyone. Putting up boundaries to abuse and harmful behaviors is what’s best for everyone.

Along with the boundaries comes the responsibility of bringing awareness and education to the situation through an explanation of why the boundary is being put in place. There is a level of awareness that can be brought to bad behaviors any time there are harmful words, actions and intentions. A few simple sentences can deliver the main point, such as, “We don’t talk to others that way. You must be respectful with how you communicate if you want to be respected. I see that you’re making yourself look bad by acting this way, and you’re harming those around you. This is not acceptable or healthy and must stop.”

If we allow abuse to happen around us, we enable the abuse. We don’t have to be angry or resentful in order to stop a cycle of abuse. We can use a healthy sense of shame to inspire us to confidently end cycles of abuse while offering compassion and alternatives. Saying something like, “I will not allow myself to be abused, we will have to go to counseling and work on communication in order for me to continue this relationship” is an example of communication that is compassionate, puts up a boundary, and seeks to bring awareness to the situation while offering the alternative path.

If the person on the receiving end of this boundary becomes enraged and/or indignant and refuses to stop harming, this indicates that healthy shame is not a part of their emotional vocabulary. If a person can’t communicate respectfully, be accountable and be willing to engage in their own personal growth – there’s really nothing that can be done. When it comes to the abuser that refuses to change – healthy boundaries look like a total disconnection from the person, or at the very least, an emotional detachment from taking the behaviors personally. This is where education of self is important.

How to Use Self-Care to Handle Abuse and Heal from Hurts

Self-care and self-help are essential when we’re dealing with abusers we can’t disown, like our parents or our children. When a person is under the age of 18, they have no choice but to endure what their guardians serve up on a daily basis, and the guardians have a personal obligation to care for and tolerate what the child brings to the scene. It’s challenging and can be emotionally damaging when one or both are abusive. In the absence of remorse, it’s harmful to all involved. The only way we can transcend this kind of dynamic is to make time and space for self-care, self-help and self-nurturing. We must invest in our own health and empowerment.

Going within is where we find our true self. For those of us who are willing to grow, we must first take all blame out of our being and see what is there once all others are removed from our mental playground. A benevolent therapist, guide, coach or healer can help to steer us in the right directions. We can commit to ourselves here by just considering what is the best and most purehearted path forward. In this moment, we may feel very alone, because there’s no one else inside of us to blame or to rely on.

When we feel alone, we can remind ourselves that we’re connected to every other living being on the planet and we are a tiny fraction of a huge collective consciousness. We would not survive and thrive without others – when we go within to heal, we are helping to heal our entire world. Healing is by proxy. When we engage in self-care and set the true example of wellness for those around us to see, the benefits cannot be denied but are witnessed. This is where we are being the change we want to see in our world. It will inspire others, even if they are begrudgingly admiring us, we will still add a tremendous amount of healing and light to those closest to us when we embody it ourselves.

We can heal through the acknowledgment of our own mistakes and missteps in life. The accountability piece is necessary if we want to move forward with peace of mind. Peace of mind is kind of like your credit score – if you have debt showing that you’re unwilling to pay and clear, the credit score will not go up to the status of excellence. If we can’t recognize mistakes, feel a sense of remorse or healthy shame, we can’t correct behaviors to move into a clear conscience. Without it, we’ll remain stuck in certain areas of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual life.

The thing to remember here is that no one is perfect, everyone has made mistakes and unintentionally caused harm to others. That means no one gets out of accountability in this life. Those who won’t, and seemingly can’t, admit mistakes, and who very rarely apologize for bad behaviors are those who choose to remain self-absorbed and potentially harmful to everyone around them. Those without empathy and remorse will always be members of the collective, and without setting an example for them but instead enabling their bad behaviors, we also add something negative to our world.

Guilt and Shame are Not the Same

Healthy guilt and healthy shame are not the same thing. There isn’t really a healthy angle to guilt, because the presence of guilt means that something is not cleared. When there is no clearing of the guilt or healthy shame, there has been no accountability, no apology, no boundaries in place and no alternative paths being explored. Guilt comes from repeating mistakes and missteps without correction. It is an experience of disrespecting self and others when we stay in guilt and refuse to change. We become a victim of sorts. We become a victim of our own bad choices.

Guilt has no benefit to anyone, and that is why there’s not really any form of healthy guilt. Any guilt inside of us is a lasting residue of repressed remorse. Remorse becomes repressed when we don’t take accountability for our actions. This kind of repression is toxic, and it is something that can result in mental and physical illness over time.

Shame is something that happens in the moment, lasting shame becomes guilt. Shame is something we take on as an immediate response to a betrayal or mistake that has harmed us or someone we know. As soon as we are made aware of the harmful action, we feel shame of self or toward the other person who committed the harmful behavior. Shame is recognition of the bad choice, guilt is stuffing that recognition down to the point of denial so that we are then carrying around the constant reminder that the shame is still in us, and we’ve not taken action to heal. Shame is an awakening, guilt is an unneeded weight.

Healthy Shame Versus Abusive Shame

Most forms of shame are verbally and emotionally abusive. Fat-shaming, body-shaming, sex-shaming, religious shaming and so many others forms of shaming are a form of bullying and hate speech. Saying, “Shame on you!” is not a form of healthy shame in most cases. Judging another and telling them that they are going to have bad Karma or that they will end up going to Hell after death, is a sure way to generate more bad Karma for ourselves.

It’s like a riddle in that if we’re shaming others we need to implement healthy shame upon ourselves to understand that our self-righteousness and judgements toward others are harmful for all and we should take accountability for it and change our ways. There’s no place for anger with healthy shame, when we are angry we often shame out of the spirit of hate and fear rather than love and light. There are times when anger is needed and harsh shaming is benevolent, and an example of that would be when we have to interfere in child abuse, sex abuse or any form of abuse that is happening in front of us in the moment. Health anger can help us to stop the abuse and scare the abuser. Healthy anger can save lives.

There are many examples in the media of people who make “the news” shaming others. Shame is constantly sensationalized and normalized in the modern era of social media. It’s extremely popular and extremely unhealthy for the collective. We should have some healthy shame about this normalized abuse and its popularity. We should set the example to de-normalize it by speaking up and out against it, turning off the media, building new algorithms of respect and compassion for all living beings, holding others accountable, putting up strong boundaries to abuse and disconnecting entirely from abusers for the benefit of all.

Healthy shame is when we put good moral choices first and we move forward with self-accountability and self-awareness so that we don’t harm others mindlessly and thoughtlessly. The healthiest and most high choices require a dose of humility and healthy shame.