Embarrassment vs. Guilt vs. Shame vs. Humiliation
Embarrassment, guilt, shame, and humiliation - also known as the four emotions of self-conscious affect.
We’ve all felt each of these uncomfortable feelings, but so often we use the words interchangeably to describe our experiences. However, these feelings are actually quite different and so is the way we can most helpfully respond to each of them.
Embarrassment tends to be the least harmful in the long-term, because it comes with the sense of common humanity–meaning that we have an awareness that others have had a similar experience. That’s why we ask “What’s your most embarrassing moment?” as a silly icebreaker and not “What do you feel the most shame about?” It’s also an experience that’s witnessed by others, which makes it more external rather than internal.
Guilt is more internally focused and related to our actions and choices when they don’t align with our values. Guilt is how we feel after we’ve “messed up” and we know it. While there are times we feel misplaced guilt about something, or guilt about something that is related to a value that isn’t ours, generally a true experience of guilt means that we made a mistake and we didn’t like our behavior in a particular moment or scenario.
Shame is different from guilt. We recognize a mistake we made and instead of thinking “I did something wrong”, our thoughts become “I am wrong. I am bad. I am the mistake.” Guilt is about our behavior, while shame is about ourselves and our character.
Humiliation is a similar feeling to shame, however, we believe that the feeling is undeserved. It is also most often experienced in an external way, like embarrassment. If we are criticized by our boss at work in front of others, if we don’t believe they’re correct, we might feel humiliated. However, if we believe they were right, we might feel shame.
Shame is the toughest of these four emotions because it is the most deeply rooted and usually the stickiest to extricate ourselves from. It does not motivate us to change. If I believe I “messed up”, I can learn from that and change my behavior. If I believe I am messed up, I’m much less likely to try to change, because what would be the point?
Once we recognize which emotion we are experiencing, then we have a sense of how to respond.
If you are experiencing embarrassment, find ways to normalize your experience, recognize the common humanity of it, and try to keep yourself from ruminating on the unhelpful aspects.
If you are experiencing guilt, ask yourself what repair would look like. If there is no opportunity for a fix, reflect on how you’d like to behave differently in the future in a way that’s more values-aligned for you.
If you are experiencing humiliation, consider where you might need to set some boundaries. Find some self-compassion techniques that might help you navigate the experience.
And if you’re experiencing shame, remind yourself that it isn’t as useful of an emotion as your brain would like you to believe. It’s not motivating and it’s not helpful. This is another great place to rely on those self-compassion techniques–we can’t shame ourselves into not feeling shame! It can also be helpful to find safe connections to share with. To quote Brene Brown, “It [shame] cannot survive being spoken and being met with empathy.”
We all experience each of these emotions (even if the distinction between them is hard to discern) and we will continue to feel them. However, if we can more readily identify them, we will learn how to move through them more quickly and skillfully.
