The Difference Between Healthy and Unhealthy Shame
By: Jordin James
Tags: Relationships, Love, Life Lessons, Mental Health, Life

The Difference Between Healthy and Unhealthy Shame

YES — there is a healthy type of shame and it’s not what you think.

Photo by Max Brown

The subject of “healthy shame” might be touchy for you (because no shame is healthy shame, gaddamit!), but please don’t jump to conclusions.

I’m only using this terminology because I honestly can’t find a better word for it. If you think of one — please let me know.

What I do know, is the “healthy shame” I’m about to describe is not guilt, it’s not embarrassment, and it’s not even something that can be used to “motivate” someone to do better or be different.

But it is something that could change the course of your entire life.

I know it did for me.

Healthy shame is our humanity, really, but that’s super vague so let’s unpack it together and you can tell me what you think.

The nature of your humanity is…

Vulnerability.

We’re all vulnerable as fuck, people. You’re kidding yourself if you think otherwise or if you think you can outrun or get rid of your vulnerability.

Case in point: One cell in your brain can randomly go haywire and you’re donesies, man.

Another case in point: People do weird things to you and you do weird things to other people and sometimes this breaks you.

You can’t protect yourself from death or heartbreak, darling. This is the epitome of vulnerability.

The difference between healthy shame and unhealthy shame lies in how we interpret our vulnerability.

Mkay, cool. Can we get to the difference between healthy and unhealthy shame already?

Healthy shame is believing your vulnerability is beautiful and needs love. Unhealthy shame is believing your vulnerability is a flaw that needs fixed.

Healthy shame is the humility, compassion, and tenderness you tap into when you get in touch with your vulnerability.

Healthy shame is the wisest version of yourself, wooing you back to your humanity and vulnerability despite your best efforts to escape it.

Healthy shame is the tender arms wrapped around you when you’re at your most broken, whispering into your hair, “You don’t need to be fixed, darling. You just need to be loved.”

This embrace of healthy shame is so tender, so full — so vulnerable — that we quite often can’t stand it.

This is where unhealthy shame comes in.

Unhealthy shame tells us we are a broken machine to be fixed rather than a human to be loved. It cracks the whip and tells us we’ll never be good enough if we don’t get our shit together.

We prefer this lie, because it offers the hidden promise that one day we’ll get rid of our vulnerability if we just try hard enough.

But of course, we can’t get rid of our vulnerability, so we keep trying and trying, frantically spiraling our way into burnout or suicide.

Don’t let this happen to you, love. You are far too precious.

Healthy shame and unhealthy shame are really just two different lenses looking at the same thing.

The nature of humanity is vulnerability, which means we are all broken in some way.

Whether we use healthy or unhealthy shame to frame this reality has the power to change the course of our entire life.

Do your best to ignore the lie of unhealthy shame that says your brokenness is evidence there is something intrinsically wrong with you that you must fix.

Instead, listen to the heartbeat of healthy shame; let the drum beat lead you back to your broken self in this broken moment where you can finally hear the truest whispers you’ve ever heard: