Shame vs. Guilt
“We all like sharing scars received in battle, the wounds of ergastulum, less.” An ergastulum was a Roman underground building with long, dark, dreary corridors used to house and work slaves. The wounds and scars received while in the ergastulum filled the enslaved with a grave sense of shame. ‘
C.S. Lewis speaks of his own life in his book Surprised by Joy and while sharing his childhood, mentions that each person goes through experiences that form them into the person that they become. Lewis explains that in his life he had a combination of scars from battles (the death of his mother for example) as well as scars from the ergastulum (whether that be his boarding school run by an “ogre” of a headmaster or the home he lived in with his emotionally inept father). He comments that he was not afraid to tell others of his battle scars that the scars received in the ergastulum filled him with shame for fear of being thought a “coward” or a “crybaby.” Battle wounds are empowering; they express heroism and victory, but, on the other hand, scars from a shame-filled experience etch a sense of failure and fault. Shame thus becomes a matter of identity.
Shame, according to Brene Brown (a leading research professor at the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work), is a focus on self where guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame will tell us, “I am a mistake.” Brown states, “Shame is highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders, etc.” When we allow shame to color the lens of our lives, we begin to live outside of the realm of truth. Regardless of what we have done or what has been done to us, we are always worthy of love.
Pope St. John Paul the Great mentions that “we are not the sum total of our mistakes.” It is crucial to change our perspective. This does not mean that we do not take responsibility for our actions and the consequences that follow, but instead saying “I have made a mistake, but I am not defined by the mistake that I have made or its consequences.” This is where the guilt comes in. Guilt is inversely correlated to shame. When we can differentiate making a mistake with being a mistake, we open the canal to receive the floods of mercy. Secrecy, silence, and judgment (minus chemical X) are the only necessary ingredients for shame to fester, grow, and devour any positive sense of self we have. Engulfed in the lies and darkness of shame, we lose sight of our identity as sons and daughters of a Merciful and Loving Father.
How do we combat shame? Empathy and Vulnerability. We can not wait to make it to the finish line where we have finally overcome the struggles and become walking saints. Believe it or not, we will struggle until the very moment we take our last breath. We need to not be afraid to encounter each other in the messiness and there is no better time than the present to face our ergastulum scars.
