FiscalDad - How to Overcome Guilt and Shame

Negative Emotions

I often communicate the importance of decision making that is driven by positive emotions and
intention. Making decisions based on negativity often leads to poor money management and can spiral
downward. Two negative emotions that often drive our money decisions are guilt and shame. I often
lumped these two together, but have recently found illuminating definitions for each that have brought
clarity.

Brene Brown “Dare To Lead”

I have been reading Dare To Lead in a business book club at my local community college
entrepreneurship center (Southeast Community College-Lincoln Focus Suites). I have found it full of
great insight and inspiration. She writes about the difference between shame and guilt that made me
pause.

Guilt

Guilt is painful feeling of regretting a past action. She writes that “guilt is adaptive and helpful-it’s
holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological
discomfort.”

Shame

Brene Brown’s definition of shame: “The intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are
flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, connection.” Shame tells us that we are never good
enough and is driven by the fear of disconnection.

Why is this important in money decisions?

I think that guilt allows us to look back at our past mistakes and learn from them…..so maybe guilt
doesn’t always have to be negative thing. Shame, however, keeps us from moving forward and learning
from our mistakes. When we decide that we have self-worth (despite our past mistakes), we can then
commit ourselves to the process and the hard work required for growth. I have to talked to people who
seem paralyzed to move forward because they feel shame from past money mistakes.