How do I get better at managing guilt and shame?

I've been someone who was raised with unreasonable expectations. And have always felt nothing I do was ever enough. My supervisor at an undergraduate college recognised that I took things too seriously and would often end up crying at a slight criticism. He suggested to go counselling and I was told I have characteristics of avoidance personality but not disorder. And it was dealt appropriately 3 yrs back. I was taught coping skills as well as skills to be assertive. However while I'm able to execute the skills I still struggle to be okay with them. I still struggle with guilt and shame internally and it affects my mood for atleast 2-3 days. How do I get better?
Asked by Dolly
Answered
09/25/2021

 

Yes, triggering thoughts and feeling emotional can feel very vulnerable! Breathe through it. You are not your emotion, it can be important to observe our emotions and acknowledge they exists. Try to experience your emotions like wave, coming and going. Notice how the water is calm, you begin to see the wave building (that is the emotion/feeling). What happens after the wave passes? (Water is still and calm). Recognize that the emotion will pass, it won’t last forever. You may find it helpful to concentrate on some part of the emotion, like how your body is feeling, or what the emotion looks like. Don't try to push the emotion away - This makes the emotion stronger, and increases our suffering.

 

Emotions are neither “good or bad”; it’s just there. Remember, we label our experiences as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Anger, fear, sadness are all painful emotions, but they are not bad.  We all experience these feelings.

 

Here is a strategy that can help us create distance between our thoughts/feelings and our personalities. Remember - You are not your feeling. Your emotion is part of you, and it does not define you

Practice creating distance by saying “I am having the Feeling _____” or “I am having the thought____” versus “I am angry” “I will fail”.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

It can be helpful to first learn about what worry/anxiety is, when it comes up, and to be more aware of the 'worry process'.  These thoughts can get in the way of what we want, and can impact our confidence, self-esteem, and overall well-being. Worry is like a rocking chair - it gives us something to do, but does not get us anywhere (fun, but also realistic quote!). Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are SO connected. When we experience a particular thought, it can trigger a feeling and lead to a behavior.

For example: thought (I can't do this/I'm not good enough) leads to feeling (anxious, sad, depressed) which leads to behavior (isolate, withdraw). The reason I share this, is because when we shift the way we think, it will shift the way we feel and behave. Which gives us more control of our emotions.

For example: thought (it is going to be okay) leads to feeling (calm, relaxed) leads to behavior (engaged, motivated).

It is important to stay grounded in our thought patterns. Often times, "worry" is about the past or the future, and with that - we completely miss the present moment. And this impacts our emotional control!

 

- it may be helpful to reflect on what exactly feels triggering in those moments. Is it the core beliefs of 'not being good enough' or irrational thoughts of 'what could happen' (things that actually have not happened, worst case scenario) Some thoughts like predicting or assuming what is going to happen - these are known as 'fortune telling' basically assuming the outcome of the future…without evidence, this is actually not happened AND it takes you away from enjoying the present moment. I'll share some more worksheets on these particular thought patterns (core beliefs and cognitive distortions) which will help you gain more awareness into what is triggering some of the feelings you experience.

 

Even this thought of "not good enough" is another judgment or opinion we might have of ourselves which adds to feeling upset, bothered, or insecure. We can challenge this thought by reflecting on 'what is good enough'. Make expectations of yourself more realistic, you are Human, you are allowed to make mistakes and there is no such thing as perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

Cognitive distortions are irrational thoughts that we can get stuck in. They are common, yet unhelpful 

 

Cognitive distortions are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t really true. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions — telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but really only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves 

 

 

 

ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING

·       You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

 

OVERGENERALIZATION

·       You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

 

MENTAL FILTER

·       You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.

 

DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE

·       You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

 

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS

·       You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusions.

 

Mind Reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.

 

The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.

 

MAGNIFICATION OR MINIMIZATION

·       You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement). Or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections).

·       This is also called the "binocular trick."

 

EMOTIONAL REASONING

·       You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."

 

SHOULD STATEMENTS

·       You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders.

·       The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

 

LABELING AND MISLABELING

·       This is an extreme form of over-generalization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to them: "they are annoying."

·       Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

 

PERSONALIZATION

·       You see yourself as the cause of some negative event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                  

 

 

 

Core beliefs are the very essence of how we see ourselves, other people, the world, and the future. Sometimes, these core beliefs become 'activated' in certain situations. This is where the automatic thoughts/cognitive distortions can stem from

 

 

 

 

Just because we have thoughts does not mean they are 100% true. We can work towards challenging the self-talk into something more healthier and rational. We can challenge the thoughts by asking ourselves questions…

 

Some examples:

·       What negative thought about a situation/incident/experience am I having?

·       How is having this thought helping me?

·       How is having this thought hurting me?

·       What evidence/facts support my thought? Is there evidence contrary to or against my thought?

·       Am I interpreting/judging/labeling the situation or experience without examining all of the evidence?

·       How would a friend think about this situation? What would a friend say?

·       How can I think about the situation/incident in a positive way?

·       What else can I tell myself in this moment?

·       Will this situation or experience matter six months from now? How about one year from now? Five years?

 

 

 

Cognitive Therapy Techniques/Skills to Change Your Thoughts

  1. Identify Distortions in automatic thoughts.
  1. Examine the Evidence - Instead of assuming that your negative thought is true, examine the actual evidence for it.

 For example, is it true that I never do anything right? What are some things I do well? What are the things I'm not so good at?

  1. The Double-Standard Method - Ask yourself, "Would I say this to a close friend who was very much like me and had a similar problem?" "What would I say to a friend?" Practice saying that to yourself.
  1. The Experimental Technique - When you have a negative thought, ask yourself if there is a way you could test it to find out if it is really true.
  1. Thinking in Shades of Gray - (useful for all-or-nothing thinking) Remind yourself that things are usually somewhere between 0 and 100 percent.

 Instead of insisting "I am perfect and never make a mistake" or "I am a horrible person, I messed up/I'm giving up…."

 acknowledge a mistake, forgive yourself, and move forward with your life

  1. The Survey Method - Ask yourself "Would other people agree that the thought is valid?"

 Or ask people in your life you trust questions to find out if your thoughts and attitudes are realistic.

  1. Define terms - (useful if you are labeling yourself). Instead of putting yourself down as "a failure" or "a loser" or "a fool." Ask yourself:

 What does failure mean? What is a loser? What is a fool?

  1. The Semantic Method - (useful for "should statements"). Substitute a phrase like "it would be nice" or "it would be preferable" in place of "I should."

 This may help you look at the thoughts without having expectations, and decrease times of being too self-critical.

  1. Re-attribution - (useful for personalization). Ask yourself what other factors may have contributed to this problem.

 Focus on solving the problem one step at a time, instead of using up energy towards feeling guilty or blaming yourself.

  1. Cost-Benefit analysis. Ask yourself, "How will having this thought/belief help me, and how will it hurt me?"

 You can also use this question on negative behavior patterns (i.e. lying in bed, spending too much time on social media) or self-defeating beliefs like "I must always try to be perfect."

 

 

 

Each of us has a set of messages that play over and over in our minds.  This internal dialogue, or personal commentary, frames our reactions to life and its circumstances.  One of the ways to recognize, promote, and sustain optimism, hope, and joy is to intentionally fill our thoughts with positive self-talk. 

Too often, the pattern of self-talk we’ve developed is negative.  We remember the negative things we were told as children by our parents, siblings, or teachers.  We remember the negative reactions from other children that diminished how we felt about ourselves.  Throughout the years, these messages have played over and over in our minds, fueling our feelings of anger, fear, guilt, and hopelessness. 

That voice inside your head has a huge impact on who you are and how you live your life. You may not think so, but with practice you can change your self-talk. Why wouldn’t anyone want to develop a habit of positive self-talk? It uplifts you; it helps increase your confidence, it enables you to attract what your heart desires, it allows you to adopt a healthier lifestyle and it helps reduce stress.

Try the following exercise.  Write down some of the negative messages inside your mind that undermine your ability to be the best version of yourself.  Be specific, whenever possible, and include anyone you remember who contributed to that message. 

Now, take a moment to intentionally counteract those negative messages with positive truths in your life.  Don’t give up if you don’t find them quickly.  For every negative message there is a positive truth that will override the weight of despair.  These truths always exist; keep looking until you find them. 

You may have a negative message that replays in your head every time you make a mistake.  As a child you have been told, “You’ll never amount to anything” or “You can’t do anything right.”  When you make a mistake—and you will because we all do, and we are allowed to make mistakes, we are Human—you can choose to overwrite that message with a positive one, such as “I choose to accept and grow from my mistake” or “As I learn from my mistakes, I am becoming a better person.”  During this exercise, mistakes become opportunities to replace negative views of who you are with positive options for personal enhancement. 

Positive self-talk is not self-deception.  It is not mentally looking at circumstances with eyes that see only what you want to see.  Rather, positive self-talk is about recognizing the truth, in situations and in yourself.  One of the fundamental truths is that you will make mistakes.  To expect perfection in yourself or anyone else is unrealistic.  To expect no difficulties in life, whether through your own actions or sheer circumstances, is also unrealistic. 

However, it can easily slip your mind to regularly practice positive self-talk if you don’t make it a habit. And yes, it might sound and feel ridiculous at first, but if you keep going with your positive self-talk it will become natural to you. To help you stay on track, you may like to put some post-it notes wherever you'll see them: on the bathroom mirror, on your computer screen, inside of your wallet, in your car — wherever works for you. It’s important to constantly remind yourself to speak kindly to yourself until it becomes a habit.

 

Bring your awareness to your self-talk when you wake up, when you’re driving to work, waiting to be served at a restaurant, exercising, or lying down; use it every day, in all situations.

When negative events or mistakes happen, positive self-talk seeks to bring the positive out of the negative to help you do better, go further, or just keep moving forward.  The practice of positive self-talk is often the process that allows you to discover the obscured optimism, hope, and joy in any given situation. Your self-talk creates your reality.

Some examples of messages you can remind yourself of:

·       I am capable.

·       I know who I am and I am enough.

·       I choose to be present in all that I do.

·       I choose to think thoughts that serve me well.

·       I choose to reach for a better feeling.

·       I share my happiness with those around me.

·       My body is my vehicle in life; I choose to fill it with goodness.

·       I feel energetic and alive.

·       My life is unfolding beautifully.

·       I am confident.

·       I always observe before reacting.

·       I know with time and effort I can achieve.

·       I love challenges and what I learn from overcoming them.

·       Each step is taking me to where I want to be.

Notice Your Patterns

The first step toward change is to become more aware of the problem. You probably don’t realize how often you say negative things in your head, or how much it affects your experience. The following strategies can help you become more conscious of your internal dialogue and its content.

·       Journal Writing: Whether you carry a journal around with you and jot down negative comments when you think them, write a general summary of your thoughts at the end of the day, or just start writing about your feelings on a certain topic and later go back to analyze it for content, journaling can be an effective tool for examining your inner process.

·       Thought-Stopping: As you notice yourself saying something negative in your mind, you can stop your thought mid-stream my saying to yourself “Stop”. Saying this aloud will be more powerful, and having to say it aloud will make you more aware of how many times you are stopping negative thoughts, and where.

·       Rubber-Band Snap:  Another therapeutic trick is to walk around with a rubber band around your wrist; as you notice negative self-talk, pull the band away from your skin and let it snap back. It’ll hurt a little, and serve as a slightly negative consequence that will both make you more aware of your thoughts and help to stop them! (Or, if you don’t want to subject yourself to walking around with a rubber band on your wrist, you’ll be even more careful to limit the negative thoughts!)

 

 

Replace Negative Statements 

A good way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with something better.

Once you’re aware of your internal dialogue, here are some ways to change it:

·       Milder Wording:  Have you ever been to a hospital and noticed how the nurses talk about ‘discomfort’ instead of ‘pain’? This is generally done because ‘pain’ is a much more powerful word, and discussing your ‘pain’ level can actually make your experience of it more intense than if you’re discussing your ‘discomfort’ level. You can try this strategy in your daily life. In your self-talk, turning more powerful negative words to more neutral ones can actually help neutralize your experience. Instead of using words like ‘hate’ and ‘angry’ (as in, “I hate traffic! It makes me so angry!”), you can use words like ‘don’t like’ and ‘annoyed’ (“I don’t like traffic; it makes me annoyed,” sounds much milder, doesn’t it?)

·       Change Negative to Neutral or Positive:  As you find yourself mentally complaining about something, rethink your assumptions. Are you assuming something is a negative event when it isn’t, necessarily? (For example, having your plans canceled at the last minute can be seen as a negative, but what you do with your newly-freed schedule can be what you make of it.) The next time you find yourself stressing about something or deciding you’re not up to a challenge, stop and rethink, and see if you can come up with a neutral or positive replacement.

·       Change Self-Limiting Statements to Questions:  Self-limiting statements like “I can’t handle this!” or “This is impossible!” are particularly damaging because they increase your stress in a given situation and they stop you from searching for solutions. The next time you find yourself thinking something that limits the possibilities of a given situation, turn it into a question. Doesn’t “How can I handle this?” or “How is this possible?” sound more hopeful and open up your imagination to new possibilities?