There are only 2 good reasons to think about the past:
· To remember good times and enjoy and appreciate them again.
· To remember when we made a mistake, for the purposes of not making that mistake again.
However, remembering the past to beat yourself up and feel ashamed for mistakes in the past is not a good reason to think about the past. But many people who are depressed do just that-they spend a lot of time remembering every large and small misstep in their lives and feeling ashamed for them. By the way, depression wants you to continue to feel ashamed so you can stay depressed.
I put negative feelings about the past on a continuum like this:
regret <--------------------------------------> guilt <-------------------------------------------->shame
I made a mistake. I did something bad. I AM BAD.
There are times when we need to feel regret in order to do something different. If we never regretted anything in life, we would continue to make the same mistakes over and over. Most of us have at least a few regrets because no one has everything figured out.
There may be times when we need to feel guilt. If we have wronged someone else or done something that is against our value system (lying/cheating/stealing), we need that uncomfortable feeling of guilt when we think about the past behavior so that we decide not to do that thing again. That’s what guilt is for.
But if we are feeling shame, that is a problem. It’s a problem because unlike regret and even guilt, shame leaves no room for doing better. There is nowhere to go. If we ARE bad, then there is no point in trying to do better because we can’t do better because we’re bad. We are stuck. Some people try to relieve feelings of shame through drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, busyness, and even self-mutilation, but those things don’t make the feeling go away and actually end up making us feel worse.
So, what do we do about shame? Shame is a feeling, and the only way to change a feeling is to change what or how we’re thinking. So, you think about the past behavior in a different way. One of the best ways to think differently is to test or challenge certain thoughts, and change them if they don’t pass the test. Here are some ways to test and change thoughts of shame:
· We can think about past experiences as lessons that taught us something that we needed to learn. Sometimes we can’t learn something unless we have an experience with it.
· If we are feeling guilt or shame we are probably “shoulding” on ourselves. “I shouldn’t have done that”, “I should have been more careful”, “I should have known”, etc. We can begin to think about that past decision as the best one we could have made at that point in time. Most of us don’t intentionally try to mess up our lives, so decisions we make at any given time appear to us to be the best one at that time. We can change that thought to something like, “That was not a good idea, but I can choose to do differently now”.
· If we are feeling guilty or ashamed for something, we can try to make up for it in some way. This may not be possible, but sometimes it is possible to make amends for past mistakes or if we have wronged someone.
· We can imagine that one of our friends did the dreaded past behavior, and what we would say to that person about it. Often, we can be kinder and more constructive with others than we are with ourselves. If you can be compassionate with someone else, then try to be compassionate with yourself.
· We can consider the idea that the responsibility for the past behavior belongs to someone else. This is not about blaming someone else for our behaviors. Sometimes we take on guilt or shame that belongs to others. We need to acknowledge our responsibility for our behaviors but also hold others accountable for theirs.
I know that it is possible to heal shame and depression because I have helped many clients do just that.
“Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement”
---------Rita Mae Brown
“I never lose. I either win or I learn”. -------------Nelson Mandela
Commentaires