254. How Facing the Harm You've Done Can Set You Free

March 04, 2026

In this episode of Joy Lab, we'll explore the Sixth Gate of Grief: the grief we carry for harm done to ourselves and others. We'll draw on the expanded framework of Francis Weller's gates of grief to unpack why this gate is one of the most challenging and most liberating to work with. It's important to note that this isn't about guilt-tripping or self-flagellation. It's about honest reckoning, releasing unconscious burdens, and reclaiming inner freedom. Because grief (not shame) is what actually moves us toward healing, repair, and becoming people who cause less harm.

This episode is part of a 10-part series on grief. You can jump in here and circle back to Episode 248 when you're ready.

p.s. Find a Simple Joy practice for this episode right here at our blog.

About: The Joy Lab Podcast is an Ambie-nominated podcast that blends science and soul to help you cope better with stress, ease anxiety, and uplift mood. Join Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek for practical, mindfulness-based tools and positive psychology strategies to build resilience and create lasting joy.

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Key moments:

[00:00:00] — Sixth Gate: Grief for Harm Done, popularized by Sophy Banks and Azul Thomé alongside Weller's original framework.

[00:01:00] — What this gate includes: harmful thought patterns like corrosive self-talk, choices that felt necessary but caused harm, inaction when we could have intervened, and participation in collective harms like racism, classism, ableism, and environmental destruction.

[00:02:00] — A critical disclaimer: this gate asks us to see these harms — not soak in them. Grief is meant to flow through us, not become a stagnant pool. Henry emphasizes the difference between grieving well and getting stuck.

[00:03:30] — Three reasons this gate is especially challenging: (1) the scope of harm we participate in is nearly infinite; (2) the thin line between acknowledging harm and collapsing into shame and guilt; (3) the defensiveness this topic can trigger — and how to touch that lightly and let it go.

[00:05:00] — This is about inner freedom, not atonement. Genuine inner freedom requires an honest look at how we affect those around us.

[00:05:30] — Aimee and Henry on the word releasing vs. "getting over it." You can leap over a thing and still be carrying it. Releasing requires first being able to see what's there.

[00:06:00] — Quote from Sabaa Tahir: two kinds of guilt — the kind that drowns you until you're useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose. Working with grief can move us from one to the other.

[00:06:30] — Introduction of moral injury: the psychological wound that comes from betraying our own values, or witnessing others do it. Research shows moral injury is more strongly associated with PTSD symptoms than direct exposure to danger.

[00:07:30] — Moral injury shows up everywhere — not just in war. Healthcare rationing, kids being detained, someone cutting you off in traffic. Untended grief in this gate can mean we snap at small things because they echo larger unprocessed wounds.

[00:09:00] — Henry: grief helps us heal these deep, often invisible wounds.

[00:10:00] — How harm to others haunts us for years, even decades. As social creatures, we're wired to repair harm and strengthen bonds. When we don't act, buried harm turns into guilt and shame — and shame isolates. Grief, by contrast, calls us into community and toward repair.

[00:11:00] — Autoimmune disease analogy: shame is the emotional equivalent of an immune system attacking itself. A healthy response addresses the problem; an overreaction causes more damage than the original harm.

[00:13:00] — Turning to harms we cause ourselves: negative self-talk, lifestyle choices, addictions. No matter the cause, we deserve healing from it. The challenge: in this case, we are both perpetrator and victim.

[00:14:00] — Grief opens us up rather than closing us down. It can hold both the hurt experienced and the compassion for causing that pain.

[00:14:30] — Connection to post-traumatic growth: not about psychological comfort, but awakening. Grief is the ride between pain and gain — and there's no bypassing it.

[00:15:00] — Henry on the role of equanimity (this month's Element of Joy): balance is what allows us to hold two seemingly opposing truths at once. You fully acknowledge the harm and hold yourself with compassion. Neither minimizing nor drowning.

[00:16:30] — Quote from Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking): "People are more than the worst thing they've done." The goal isn't no harm — it's less harm. And believing that you are more than your worst moment fosters humility, compassion, and healing that ripples outward to others.

[00:17:30] — Preview of the next episode: the Seventh Gate — Trauma, and how grief and trauma intersect in the work of healing.

[00:17:45] — Closing wisdom from Maya Angelou: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

Sources and Notes for this full grief series:

Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life.
Grief Series:
- The Grief Series: The Wholeness of Being Human [part 1, ep 248]
- Everything We Love, We Will Lose: Navigating the First Gate of Grief
  [part 2, ep 249]
- Welcoming Back the Parts of You That Have Not Known Love [part 3, ep 250]
- Why You Can't Escape the Sorrows of the World (and why that's a good thing) [part 4, ep 251]
- Born to Belong: Grieving What Should Have Been There From the Start [part 5, ep 252]
- Breaking the Cycle: Ancestral Grief, Epigenetics, and the Power to Change Your Legacy [part 6, ep 253]
Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller
Sabaa Tahir's website
Beckes & Sbarra, Social baseline theory: State of the science and new directions. Access here
Beckes, et al. (2011). Social Baseline Theory: The Role of Social Proximity in Emotion and Economy of Action. Access here
Bunea et al. (2017). Early-life adversity and cortisol response to social stress: a meta-analysis. Access here.
Eisma, et al. (2019). No pain, no gain: cross-lagged analyses of posttraumatic growth and anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress and prolonged grief symptoms after loss. Access here
Kamis, et al. (2024). Childhood maltreatment associated with adolescent peer networks: Withdrawal, avoidance, and fragmentation. Access here
Lehrner, et al. (2014). Maternal PTSD associates with greater glucocorticoid sensitivity in offspring of Holocaust survivors. Access here
Hirschberger G. (2018). Collective Trauma an d the Social Construction of Meaning. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 1441. Access here
Sheehy, et al. (2019). An examination of the relationship between shame, guilt and self-harm: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Access here
Strathearn, et al. (2020). Long-term Cognitive, Psychological, and Health Outcomes Associated With Child Abuse and Neglect. Access here
Yehuda et al. (1998). Vulnerability to posttraumatic stress disorder in adult offspring of Holocaust survivors. Access here.
Yehuda, et al. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: putative role of epigenetic mechanisms. Access here

Please remember that this content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice and is not a replacement for advice and treatment from a medical professional. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health professional before beginning any diet change, supplement, or lifestyle program.

Please see our terms for more information.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call the NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264 available Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m., ET. OR text "HelpLine" to 62640 or email NAMI at [email protected]. Visit NAMI for more. You can also call or text SAMHSA at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.

Episode Transcript

254. How Facing the Harm You've Done Can Set You Free
===

[00:00:00]

Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome back to Joy Lab.

Aimee Prasek: And I am Aimee Prasek. So we are in our grief series. We're leaning on, uh, the five gates of grief from the work of Francis Weller with additional gates from other practitioners. And today we are exploring the Sixth Gate, Which is Grief for Harm Done. So this gate was added to Weller's framework, or at least popularized by Sophy Banks and Azul Thomé.

And in this gate we're talking about the grief of being the one who caused pain. Pain and harms that we've caused to ourselves and to others. Probably things we regret and that causes grief. So it can include the decisions, [00:01:00] actions, even patterns of thought, like corrosive negative self-talk, or an overwhelming negative self-focus that have caused harm to ourselves.

It could include the choices that we've made that just felt necessary, things we did because we felt like we had no other option, but that harmed ourselves or someone else. And it includes inaction. The times when we maybe didn't intervene, when we could have, and it includes collective harms we're part of like benefiting from things like racism or classism, ableism , environmental destruction.

So this includes so much, I could continue, but I think you get the, the gist of it. And this gate asks us, to look honestly at the ways we've caused or participated in harm, which takes a lot of courage and a lot of wisdom and a lot of practice. And just a disclaimer, before we do that, before we get into it, [00:02:00] this gate also requires us to not soak in these harms, to over marinate like we've talked about in past episodes. But we need to see them so that we can grieve them and learn from them, and so that we can really stop cycles of harms, as well to ourselves and others.

Henry: Yeah, I, I just really want to emphasize that, Aimee, just what you just said, that the idea is not to soak in these harms. I think that's a often misunderstood approach to grief. I think it happens a lot where we get stuck in it. It's, it's almost as if grief itself can become a way of life, you know, in a, in a sense.

Aimee Prasek: Yep.

Henry: But the way I understand it, anyway, grief is meant to flow right through us. It's not supposed to become like a stagnant pool. So grieving well means that we release whatever we're grieving. [00:03:00] Doesn't have to be immediately, but the idea is to work towards that. But before we can release anything, we have to see that it's there. We have to tell the truth. I think this can be a really challenging gate for a, a few reasons that I can think of. One, if you really think about it, the ways in which we participate in harm are numberless. You know this, this gate is immense. It's almost infinite. So. Let's acknowledge that, but not shy away from it just because it's so big.

Aimee Prasek: Hmm.

Henry: Second, I think for some folks it's a very short step from feeling badly about causing harm to getting really caught by shame and guilt. And we want to be very clear, this is not about wallowing in guilt. This is about releasing the hold that these things have on us. You know, [00:04:00] knowing that for the most part, this is all happening unconsciously. There are exceptions, I'm sure, but very few of us cause harm to others on purpose. It's largely unintentional, but it does happen. And because it happens, it creates this kind of unconscious burden on our psyches. So let's just see if there are ways we can lighten that burden a bit.

And then third, to some, I, I, I realize this might sound kind of woke and so that can raise a little defensiveness, and I get that, really. But if you notice that feeling of maybe irritation or defensiveness, just let it go. Try to touch it lightly and let it go. 'Cause we're not looking at this as something we should do. It's, it's really just trying to give our attention [00:05:00] to this because it's a good thing to do.

Not because we're trying to blame ourselves or seek atonement, but because we are all looking for inner freedom. And genuine inner freedom does require an honest look at ourselves and how we affect those around us.

Aimee Prasek: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. This is about inner freedom. I think that's important. So I like also, Henry, you're noting this word of releasing it's so different than just getting over something, which I think we'll get into more today. Releasing feels a lot better 'cause I can get over something and still be... just stuff it down.

Henry: Still, still hold on to it.

Aimee Prasek: Which maybe I haven't really gotten over it, but yeah, I don't know. You can like, yeah, you can just like jump over something and ignore it,

Henry: Yeah, I'm, I'm over it.

Aimee Prasek: "Would you get outta my face? I'm over it." Yeah. yeah, releasing is, [00:06:00] that's, that's what we're looking for. I think that's beautiful. And we can't do that when we're closed up or unconscious to this stuff. It will, it will bury us. Yeah, we can't release it if we can't see it. Uh, and to note about guilt. I love this wisdom from Sabaa Tahir. She writes that "there are two kinds of guilt, the kind that drowns you until you're useless and the kind that fires your soul to purpose."

Henry: Hmm. I like that. Yeah.

Aimee Prasek: So, that's what working with our grief can do.

I think it can strangely help us to get out of guilt, even when it feels worse than the guilt for a bit of time. And I think I also wanna bring up something called moral injury. I think it relates here, how important it is for us to kind of accept these harms so that we can be free of the wounds and the symptoms that result from this unnoticed and untended [00:07:00] grief.

Then we can rise up with, you know, something more rise out of it with something more. So moral injury is when we betray our own values or see others do it. And it's the psychological wound that really comes from that. And so when we violate our morals, then the wound isn't just guilt or shame, it's shattering of meaning. A loss of trust in yourself or if you witness these harms and a loss of trust in others or in the world. And research has found that moral injury is actually more strongly associated with PTSD symptoms than direct exposure to danger or to that harm. And so this doesn't have to happen in war. It can happen anywhere.

When healthcare was rationed, during COVID, when someone chucks their empty fast food containers out of the car window. When someone is denied lifesaving [00:08:00] care by an insurance company. when kids are detained . When people do not pick up their dog poop in public places. I could go on and on and some are big things,

yes, some are littler, but they both can cause a wound or like pick at one, like the dog poop thing. I'll just say for a moment. Or someone cutting you off from traffic, maybe that's a more relatable one and you just lose it, right? Untended grief in this gate can mean that you just snap at the littlest things.

Because that little thing reminds you of the bigger harm, that bigger moral injury or wound and it's associated grief that you haven't tended to. So, this, this gate speaks to that. It's not just the harm that we witness or commit, it's the betrayal of our human values or morals that is so destructive. So this is complicated.

Henry: Mm. Yes, it is complicated, but I also think this is [00:09:00] quite profound. I really like how you said it, Aimee, describing it as a moral injury. Even if we feel we have little choice in what we do, it still hurts us to go against our own deeply held principles. So I'm really glad we're talking about this. You know, to me this feels like it's deeply embedded. It's like a deep wound that we don't even necessarily know is there. And I believe that grief can help us heal these wounds. And, and even more than that, I think it can help us see what we are doing so that maybe we can stop causing as much harm in the first place.

Aimee Prasek: Yeah. Yeah. That's what grief wants us to do, I think. So let's dig into this more with how this grief shows up. When we harm others, words we've said, actions we've taken ways we've, we've [00:10:00] hurt others. Let's focus there first. So most of us can think of the many times we've lied or betrayed someone or we're cruel that can probably pop into your mind pretty easily. These harms can haunt us absolutely years or decades , and there's a reason why they stick with us. As social creatures, we're wired to repair harms when they happen, to maintain or strengthen our social bonds. And when we don't take any action, I think that's when these kinds of buried harms can turn into deep guilt or shame and they can accumulate and shame just pushes us into isolation, as we've talked about in this series.

Grief on the other hand, invites us into community, so I think that's really important here. When harm has been done, grief is calling us to reconnect and repair the best that we can.

Henry: Okay, so I'm gonna take a leap here, [00:11:00] stick with me for for a minute. 'cause, because this reminds me of an autoimmune disease. Where, you know, with autoimmune diseases, the harm is not caused by something from outside the body. It's the body's overreaction to something where it starts attacking or harming itself.

Okay? So the immune system's job is to try to protect us. It just over does it, and it's that overreaction that causes inflammation, pain, it might even destroy tissue that's otherwise healthy. And I think shame is the emotional equivalent of an autoimmune disease. So a little bit of guilt. I, I forget how that, that was framed in the, the quote you just said.

What was the term for it?

Aimee Prasek: Yeah. Two kinds of guilt, the kind that drowns you in until you're useless and the kind that fires your soul [00:12:00] to

Henry: Okay. Okay. So the firing your soul kind might be really good for us. The other kind. Not so good. You know, it really is harmful to us, and it can send us off into this spiral that the strong overreaction, in itself, becomes what causes the harm.

Aimee Prasek: Absolutely. An overreaction. I, I like that 'cause it reminds me, too, that we're noticing the harm, we're seeing it, right. We're feeling it clearly, but we've just gone too far down the path. It's like a a, the course correction is already given to us, like a car navigation telling us to take a u-turn almost.

I'm switching the metaphor now, but I'm just going with it. Like head back, head back 'cause you missed the turn, but you like, you're, you were going there. It's okay to touch it, like you said. So, I love that. I think that's a really helpful example. We, we also touched on collective harm just a bit [00:13:00] already.

We got into some of that with earlier gates as well. So I wanna also now touch on too, the harms that we cause ourselves. So there are lots of examples here, the way we talk to ourselves, lifestyle choices, addictions, and whether they're unconscious or even caused by disease, like none of that really matters here. I think that's what's kind of interesting about this as well. The point is that the harm has happened or is happening and we deserve some healing from that. And the tricky thing here is that in this case, we are the perpetrator and the victim of the harm. And that's hard. It's hard to recognize both of those roles in a kind of rational way. And we are not rational creatures anyway, so it's just like another burden. That's my perspective anyway. It's not a bad thing necessarily. But that's the [00:14:00] power of, of working with grief. I think it can open us up rather than close us down.

Henry: Mhm.

Aimee Prasek: And it can hold with compassion, your hurt and pain that you experienced, and compassion for causing that pain.

And I think this is also a lot like post-traumatic growth. We've talked about that as well here at Joy Lab. Post-traumatic growth unfortunately is not about psychological comfort. It's about a kind of awakening,a kind of, firing of the soul to purpose as well, but this awakening through something hard. So it's not easy, and that's kind of the point.

I don't believe in a no pain, no gain as like a way of life. But when it comes to grief, pain and gain are kind of the two main locations on the map, and like grief is the ride between them.

There's just no escaping it.

Henry: Well, I think you [00:15:00] nailed it when you said that, you know, really grief is about opening up and, I think, I think that's really the key is to keep doing things that open us up.

Aimee Prasek: Yes.

Henry: So let's, let's talk, a minute about equanimity, 'cause I think that's really relevant to this discussion. I think of equanimity as balance.

And when your mind has equanimity, then you can hold two things at once that might seem completely opposed to one another. So you can fully acknowledge the harm you've caused, and at the same time, hold yourself with compassion. Remember, this is not about blame and shame or concluding you're a bad person. Not at all.

So back to the immune system analogy for a minute , I think of grief, like retraining the immune system to get back into balance, to have equanimity, [00:16:00] to be able to respond to threats, but not with that harmful overreaction, just a normal response that takes care of the problem, but does not leave pain or damage in the process. So Here you have to hold yourself with compassion without minimizing the impact of your actions because both things are true. Yes, you caused harm, and yes, you are worthy of compassion.

Aimee Prasek: Yeah, both things are true. That reminds me of, Sister Helen Prejean's wisdom, she wrote Dead Man Walking. She would say "people are more than the worst thing they've done." I love that. Same for You are more than the worst thing you've done. All of us are. And I think the empowering goal of working with this gate is to be a person, as you said, Henry, who creates less harm. A person who creates less harm. Not no harm, but less harm. [00:17:00] No harm is impossible. It just is, which means none of us are purely good or purely bad. Which again means that you are more than the worst thing you've done. And when we shift into that, like really believe it, it fosters humility and compassion and healing.

Because if you can acknowledge your own capacity for harm, you can extend more grace to others. And that creates cycle of healing rather than harm. And that's huge.

So next week we're gonna enter our seventh gate, the Gate of Trauma. And we'll talk about how grief and trauma intersect and how through that we can create more healing.

So to close our time today, I wanna share some wisdom from Maya Angelou. She wrote, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

Thanks for joining us!: Thank you for listening to the Joy Lab Podcast. If you enjoy today's show, visit JoyLab.coach to learn [00:18:00] more about the full Joy Lab program. Be sure to rate and review us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

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254. How Facing the Harm You've Done Can Set You Free

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