How to Overcome Guilt & Shame | Dr. Becky Kennedy & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | Let's talk about guilt and shame.

00:00:04.120 | Yes.

00:00:05.120 | I've heard some kind of catchphrase-y stuff, not from you, but like, oh, you know, guilt

00:00:08.840 | is about the thing you did and shame is a feeling about who we are.

00:00:12.720 | And you know, while I'm not against those sort of 1990s, early 2000s kind of psychology-isms,

00:00:20.760 | I feel like they're not very useful.

00:00:23.280 | How do you define, no pressure here, but how do you define guilt versus shame and what

00:00:31.920 | about guilt and shame?

00:00:32.920 | Great.

00:00:33.920 | Two of my favorite topics.

00:00:34.920 | I have a couple of different ways of defining things.

00:00:37.600 | Unlike you, to me, I like defining things in ways that are very concrete and very usable.

00:00:43.040 | That's all.

00:00:44.040 | And if there's multiple ways of doing that, that's great.

00:00:45.480 | So the way I think about guilt, and this will probably set us off in a direction about what

00:00:49.580 | is not guilt also, is guilt is a feeling I have when I act out of alignment with my values.

00:00:58.440 | And in that way, guilt is a really useful feeling, real useful, because it makes me

00:01:04.440 | reflect on, wait, I didn't act in line with my values.

00:01:08.080 | I wonder why.

00:01:09.920 | What would I have had to do differently?

00:01:11.240 | What got in my way?

00:01:12.240 | Well, I'm so glad I have that information from my body to have this deeply uncomfortable

00:01:16.320 | feeling to set in that process, right?

00:01:18.800 | So if I yell at my kid, I'm going to feel guilty, right?

00:01:23.040 | I think about a time when my kid told me, "You know, I lied to you.

00:01:27.620 | I did take that eraser from that kid in school, and I feel really guilty."

00:01:31.360 | And I said, "First of all, I'm so glad you told me that.

00:01:36.040 | I'm so glad you're feeling guilty.

00:01:37.520 | That's the right way to feel.

00:01:38.520 | Now, there must have been something so hard about seeing something so shiny and fun that

00:01:43.440 | you don't have.

00:01:44.440 | I totally get that."

00:01:45.880 | And you're right.

00:01:47.240 | It's not in your values to take it.

00:01:49.160 | So that's a useful feeling.

00:01:50.600 | That feeling is going to help you not do something like that again.

00:01:53.520 | Let's figure out what you can do, not just to say, "Sorry, this is what parents miss.

00:01:57.640 | You know what's going to happen another time?

00:01:59.640 | You're going to see something else pretty cool, someone's cubby, and you know what most

00:02:03.520 | people think?

00:02:04.520 | I'm going to take that."

00:02:06.040 | You're going to have to think again.

00:02:07.040 | I would too.

00:02:08.040 | What can you do the next time you have that thought, right?

00:02:10.440 | All of this comes because of guilt.

00:02:12.640 | Useful feeling.

00:02:13.680 | Guilt is a feeling you have when you act out of alignment with your values.

00:02:17.920 | Now, to me, guilt is one of the most misunderstood feelings because what you hear all the time

00:02:23.120 | -- and you'll hear how much it kind of conflicts with this definition -- is something like

00:02:27.040 | this.

00:02:28.040 | "I haven't seen my friends in years.

00:02:32.320 | There's finally a dinner, but it would require me not to put my kid down to sleep."

00:02:38.720 | You know?

00:02:39.720 | And if I'm talking to someone, I'd say, "Okay, well, I'm guessing you're not leaving your

00:02:42.920 | kid alone."

00:02:43.920 | Now, again, my husband or my mom, someone who's a totally safe adult.

00:02:47.920 | "But, Becky, I told my kid, and she was clinging to me like, 'No, Mommy, I needed to be you.

00:02:54.680 | I needed to be you.'

00:02:55.680 | And so I'm not going to dinner -- do you know what I'm going to say, Andrew?

00:02:59.320 | -- because I feel so guilty."

00:03:02.440 | This is -- right.

00:03:03.680 | "Oh, someone asked me to be in the PTA meeting, and I'm so busy, I can't, but I can't do it

00:03:08.800 | because I feel so guilty."

00:03:11.960 | Okay.

00:03:12.960 | Again, I'm just curious -- I say, "Well, it sounds like you really want to go to dinner

00:03:18.480 | with your friends."

00:03:19.480 | She's like, "Oh, I do.

00:03:20.960 | All I do as a parent these days, I literally haven't seen these friends in years.

00:03:23.440 | They're in town."

00:03:24.440 | And I said, "Tell me about your friendships.

00:03:25.560 | I mean, you value my --" "Yes, I know that I'm kind of more than just someone who puts

00:03:31.520 | down my kid for bed, and I love doing that, but this matters, too."

00:03:34.320 | So I said, "This is really interesting.

00:03:35.520 | You really value your friendships.

00:03:39.520 | Your life right now feels out of balance in that your friendships, that part of your burner

00:03:44.040 | of your stove is, like, really low, okay, and you're not going because you feel guilty.

00:03:48.040 | I just want to share an idea.

00:03:49.040 | Guilt is a feeling you have when you act out of alignment with your values.

00:03:52.400 | It seems like going to dinner would be in line with your values."

00:03:56.880 | And almost -- it's like, "Yeah, that's true.

00:03:58.400 | So what is this feeling?"

00:04:00.200 | And here's what I think the feeling is.

00:04:03.120 | I call it "not guilt" just because I haven't figured out a more sophisticated term, but

00:04:06.840 | here's what I think is happening.

00:04:08.480 | A lot of us, especially women, when we were growing up, we learned to notice everyone's

00:04:15.920 | feelings around us, and we learned that our value, really, and our worth, really, and

00:04:24.600 | we were kind of best and good girls when we took care of everyone else's feelings except

00:04:32.400 | for our own.

00:04:34.080 | I think so many young girls, especially, become expert at what people need of them

00:04:41.920 | by becoming distant from what they need for themselves.

00:04:46.120 | The picture I get in my mind is sort of like having an antennae cast in every direction

00:04:50.640 | except perhaps at the exclusion of paying attention to the antennae that are inward.

00:04:57.800 | And we are -- you know, attentional resources are finite.

00:05:00.480 | I mean, we just don't have the capacity to, like, respond to other people's emotions and

00:05:06.120 | feel at the same time to the same degree that we would if we just concentrated on theirs

00:05:09.760 | or our emotions.

00:05:10.760 | I mean, that's just a fact of how humans work.

00:05:12.280 | Yeah, and kids are oriented by attachment.

00:05:14.120 | They have to learn with their families, "How do I become the most lovable, safest version

00:05:18.600 | of myself?"

00:05:19.600 | So I have a friend who -- it's true.

00:05:20.600 | I remember her.

00:05:22.120 | Even in middle school, I can't come.

00:05:23.920 | My dad's traveling, and my mom really needs me to stay home and watch a movie with her,

00:05:28.440 | right?

00:05:29.440 | And I know this mom well.

00:05:30.440 | "Oh, you don't love me.

00:05:31.860 | You don't --" right?

00:05:32.860 | I mean, this was -- so she became expert at always noticing other people's emotions and

00:05:38.720 | not only noticing them, taking the emotions from them, kind of like taking them into their

00:05:44.800 | body and almost metabolizing them for them.

00:05:51.080 | That's not guilt.

00:05:52.800 | That is taking someone else's emotions and taking them into your body at the expense

00:06:00.340 | of taking care of your own needs.

00:06:01.900 | And so I have a visual for this, because I think it's really powerful, where -- let's

00:06:05.200 | say it's the situation where a mom is saying, "I really want to go out to dinner, but I

00:06:08.480 | feel so guilty."

00:06:09.480 | First thing, it's just powerful to say, "That is not guilt.

00:06:11.880 | It is something else, and it is real, and it is powerful, but it is not guilt."

00:06:16.600 | What is happening?

00:06:17.600 | I'm on one side of a tennis court, like me and you, Andrew, but let's say it's a tennis

00:06:20.920 | court, and you're on the other side, or even -- and like in between, instead of a net,

00:06:24.840 | it's like a glass table.

00:06:27.060 | Over here, I am here in my desire to go out with my friends, because I do value my friendships.

00:06:34.180 | Over there is you're upset about it.

00:06:37.540 | And let's say instead you're my daughter, you're like, "No, no, don't go.

00:06:41.860 | No one else can put me to bed."

00:06:43.100 | That is definitely hard to deal with, but that is your daughter's feelings.

00:06:47.440 | Those are not your feelings.

00:06:48.560 | Those are your daughter's feelings.

00:06:49.980 | And some of us, slash a lot of us, have developed this tendency where we're on this court, and

00:06:54.500 | all of a sudden, all those feelings from your side somehow go through that wall, and they

00:06:59.080 | come to your side, and you call it guilt.

00:07:02.140 | It is not guilt.

00:07:03.140 | And to me, one of the most liberating things -- and this actually relates to empathy -- is

00:07:09.420 | to give that feeling back to its rightful owner.

00:07:13.060 | Because what that means is if I really give it back, now I have a boundary.

00:07:17.980 | That's my kid's feeling.

00:07:19.380 | That's not mine.

00:07:21.020 | And I can now actually empathize.

00:07:23.700 | People said, "No, I was empathizing.

00:07:24.860 | I wasn't going out."

00:07:25.860 | No, no, no, no, no.

00:07:27.460 | That's not empathy.

00:07:28.900 | You weren't going out with your friends because you couldn't handle the distress in your body.

00:07:32.480 | You just made your daughter's feelings your own.

00:07:34.860 | You just engaged in something almost selfish.

00:07:36.900 | This has nothing to do with your daughter.

00:07:38.620 | In those situations, that's why we say weird things to our four-year-old.

00:07:41.420 | Like, "Don't you want mommy to have friends?"

00:07:43.100 | I feel like four-year-olds are like, "Why are you asking me that question?"

00:07:45.700 | It's like a pilot being like, "Don't you want me to make an emergency landing?"

00:07:49.380 | It's like, "If you need to make an emergency landing, don't ask me for permission."

00:07:54.420 | Because once I give it back to my daughter, I can do this.

00:07:56.620 | I can say, "You really wish I would put you to bed tonight.

00:08:00.140 | You're right.

00:08:01.140 | It feels so different when grandma does it.

00:08:02.820 | Oh, it does.

00:08:04.620 | I'm going out.

00:08:06.180 | It's okay if you're upset.

00:08:08.420 | I'll be back and I'll kiss you and I'll see you in the morning."

00:08:11.940 | And then this next part's so important.

00:08:13.840 | When you walk out, I don't want any person having any illusion that the daughter's going

00:08:18.420 | to be like, "Yes, you go, girl.

00:08:22.500 | No, she is going to scream.

00:08:24.300 | That's okay."

00:08:25.300 | Going back to the boundary.

00:08:28.300 | You're allowed to take care of your needs and other people are allowed to be inconvenienced

00:08:35.260 | and upset by it.

00:08:37.020 | It doesn't mean your needs are wrong.

00:08:39.900 | It doesn't mean their feelings are wrong and it definitely doesn't mean you feel guilty.

00:08:45.860 | [Music]

How to Overcome Guilt & Shame | Dr. Becky Kennedy & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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