Welcome to the Self care with Marissa Radar podcast. I'm your host, Marissa and I am a certified life coach and self care expert. I'm making it my mission to help busy women build a self care centered lifestyle because self care is so much more than just pampering yourself. Society leads us to believe that basic rights like taking a warm bath or having our hair done is self care. But I'm here to change that narrative. I'm going to teach you how I went from overwhelmed, stressed to the max and burned out on life to thriving and loving the life I'm building. And it all started with making a commitment to myself. So what do you say? Are you ready to commit to your own personal development journey? Let me lead you to the path of happiness and contentment. That's right. The one that leads you to a life you truly love. Let's get started. Mm hmm, shame and guilt are emotions that we all experience. But they are often seen as negative in this episode.

I am going to talk about why we need shame and guilt in our lives and how they can actually be helpful emotions. Hey there, Marissa here so many people see shame and guilt as negative emotions but I actually think they're really important for our development and growth as individuals in this episode. I'm going to talk about why we need these emotions in our lives and how they can actually help us become better people. So the first thing I want to talk about is that shame and guilt are feelings that we experience when we do something wrong, we break a moral code of swords or feel like we're not good enough. Sometimes shame and guilt can be a positive motivator leading us to change our behavior for the better. The key to not allowing it to manifest in your life is to understand the process of forgiveness. I am a recovering shopaholic. Yes, I just made that up. I honestly couldn't function without feeling some sort of shame or guilt. It became a real problem for me.

Was I making choices that were unhealthy for me or potentially hurting others in the process, yep. I was that shame I was feeling, told me that it was time to forgive myself for the past, but to move forward making better decisions. There is a big difference between shame or guilt from doing something wrong and shame because of self loathing. Oftentimes they go hand in hand. What I found was that once I started changing my behavior when I was feeling that shame I no longer felt as an adult. Earlier, I mentioned understanding the process of forgiveness a lot of times when we ask for forgiveness or repent our sins, we feel. We need to continually ask for that forgiveness. I know I used to think that how many times I had to ask for forgiveness was based on how bad I deemed my sin to be, but after I learned that this isn't the case my shame and guilt slowly started to take up less space in my life. The most amazing thing about forgiveness, when we have done something wrong is that you only have to ask once and it's forgiven.

Isn't that amazing If you're truly asking for forgiveness? It only takes one time. This was a game changer for me. It allowed me to free up my thoughts might regret shame and guilt that surrounded certain areas of my life because I knew that if God could forgive me, I certainly could forgive myself. The next thing I want to talk about is how shame and guilt are important because they help us to stay in line and behave ourselves. I know that that sounds almost childish, but shame and guilt were created for a reason. They're important because they help us stay on track with our moral compass with our values. Shame is feeling bad about something that we've done. Well, guilt is feeling bad about something we haven't done both. Shame and guilt can keep us from doing things we shouldn't do and both can motivate us to do things that we should do. However, they can also be harmful if they're used to control or punish us if we're constantly being shamed or guilty for our actions.

It can lead to loss of self esteem and even depression, which I will touch on at the end of this episode. Therefore it's super important to use shame and guilt in a constructive way, such as setting a reasonable standard for yourself and for others. You need to be able to recognize when you feel shame and when you feel guilt and adjust your life and your decisions and your choices accordingly, you should not use them to control you in any way. You cannot dwell on it. You have to learn to move past it. But it's kind of like I've talked about in previous episodes, jealousy or things like that. When you have those feelings, they're actually a good thing. They're showing you what you're missing from your life or what what you could use to help fulfill you as a person when you have that jealousy for somebody else and something that they have or something that they've done. It's because you are longing for that in your life and that allows you to take that step forward. Take action on it.

Shame and guilt are the same way we need to be able to use it to take action. They can also motivate us to make things right when we've done something wrong, we all make mistakes. It's a natural part of life and while making mistakes can be frustrating sometimes, it can also lead to great things after all. It's often through our mistakes that we learn the most important lessons in our lives. Imagine, for instance that you've made a mistake at work rather than dwelling on your error. You take the opportunity to learn from it as a result. You become more mindful and efficient in your job and you avoid making the same mistake in the future. In this way, mistakes can actually be quite motivating. That can inspire us to do better and to be better. So next time you make a mistake, don't beat yourself up too much. Instead use it as what it is a learning experience. The fourth thing that I want to talk about when we are talking about shame and guilt is that they can be harmful if they're used too much or in the wrong way. So as a positive, we need to use them to guide us.

But as a negative way and the reason why shame and guilt get that negative rap is when we use it in a harmful way. If you are constantly berating yourself or dwelling on your mistakes, then shame and guilt can become harmful. So it's all about finding that balance when used in a harmful way. It can cause you to feel isolated, anxious. And even depressed shame is often directed inward, leading us to believe that we are unworthy or undeserving of love and happiness, guilt on the other hand, is often directed outward, causing us to feel guilty for things that are beyond our control. Mom guilt is the perfect example of this. Sometimes I feel mom guilt when I don't have as much time for my girls as I would like or they are begging for my attention. But I am in the middle of something when I feel this twinge, I have to take a step back and I have to ask myself, is this a valid feeling? Am I meeting the needs of my kids right now?

If the answer is yes, then I tell that guilt to take a backseat. But if there is some truth to that feeling, I have to acknowledge that I maybe need to make some different changes, some different decisions in this moment in time. If we allow shame and guilt to control our lives, they will prevent us from living our best lives instead we should use them as tools to help us grow and learn from our mistakes. The truth is that we all make mistakes and we all have to live with the consequences of those mistakes. But what if we didn't have shame or guilt, how would we know when our actions are hurting us or the people around us? I recently heard a friend of mine described feelings in a way that I hadn't heard before. So I want to share that with you right now. We all want to believe that our feelings are valid. Whatever that actually means, we're constantly being told that right in the personal development world by all of the gurus that are telling us your feelings are valid.

But what we should understand is that our feelings are real. They may not be valid? Shame and guilt are the same. We may be feeling them, but we have to be able to step back and ask ourselves if there is validity in those feelings. If there's not, you can tell him to take a backseat, move on and continue on with your daily life being the rock star that we all know that you are. If you found this episode helpful, please leave me a review and share with me what other topics you'd like for me to cover in future episodes. I am doing a drawing here at the end of the month for anyone who leaves a review. You're going to get a curated self care gift basket just for you from me. It's going to be amazing. So head on over and leave a review and thank you for listening and until next time I am going to be here, cheering you on. That's it for this week's episode of Self Care with Marissa raider. Thank you for joining me and listen.

If you enjoyed it and thank your BFF or any other woman you know might benefit from it. Send them a link, share this episode or screenshot it and share it on instagram and tag me at marisa dot raider and hey, if you haven't already come hang out with me on the gram where I share all things, building a life you truly love in order to help you be the best version of yourself. Until next week I will be here, cheering you on