Self Forgiveness: Why You Have to Forgive Yourself Before You Can Forgive Anyone Else

This content is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflects personal experiences and perspectives shared on Sherley’s Show. It is not a substitute for professional therapeutic or medical advice.

---

To hear this conversation in real time, listen to the full episode. Make sure you tune into the show. You’ll get all the raw, unfiltered moments and deeper insights.

Podcast Blog post: Self Forgiveness

---

We give other people so much grace. Somebody hurts us, and if they come back with a real apology, we find a way to understand it. We remember they are human. We remember people mess up. But when the person who did the hurting is us, that grace seems to disappear. Suddenly we are the hardest judge in the room.

On this episode of the Conversations series on Sherley’s Show, Sherley and Kira sit down for an honest, sometimes uncomfortable conversation about self forgiveness. Not the version of forgiveness we talk about when someone wrongs us, but the much harder kind: forgiving ourselves for the moments we were the one who caused the pain.

This episode was originally recorded under the show’s former name, Femme Parler, and it holds up just as strongly today under Sherley’s Show. If anything, it is more relevant, because most of us are carrying something we have never said out loud.

---

Forgiveness Is a Choice, Even When It’s Aimed at Yourself

Sherley and Kira have said it before on the show, and they say it again here: forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling that shows up on its own timeline. You decide to do it, and then you keep choosing it, sometimes daily, until it finally sticks.

That idea gets a lot harder to apply once you turn it inward. It is one thing to decide you are going to forgive someone who hurt you. It is another thing entirely to decide you are going to forgive yourself for hurting someone.

Sherley opens up about a moment from her own healing process that changed how she thought about accountability. She and her husband were sitting with a counselor, working through infidelity in their marriage, when the counselor told them plainly that all three people in the room played a role in what happened. Sherley’s first reaction was disbelief. How could she, the one who had been betrayed, be told she played a role in her partner’s affair?

It took years, not days, for that idea to fully land. Eventually Sherley came to a different understanding of it. She was not being told she caused the affair. She was being asked to look honestly at the full picture of the relationship, including the ways she may not have been showing up the way her partner needed. That kind of reflection is not about blame. It is about ownership, and ownership is the first real step toward forgiving yourself for anything.

---

---

Question One: Can You Accept What You’ve Done?

Kira frames the first step of self forgiveness as a simple but pointed question: can you accept what you have done?

It sounds obvious, but most people skip right past it. It is human nature to look for somewhere else to put the blame. It is easier to say someone else caused the situation, or that circumstances were against you, than to sit with the fact that you made a choice and that choice hurt someone.

Kira points out that when guilt and shame go unacknowledged, they do not disappear. They just sit there, quietly keeping you stuck. If you never face what happened head on, you stay locked in regret instead of moving into growth. Worse, if you never take real ownership of a mistake, there is a real chance you repeat it, sometimes more than once, before the lesson finally sinks in.

Sherley agrees, adding an important nuance. The consequences of a repeated mistake rarely stay contained to the person who made it. They ripple outward to the people around you. That is part of why accepting what you have done matters so much. It is not just about your own peace of mind. It is about breaking a pattern before it costs someone else too.

---

Question Two: Have You Done Everything Possible to Make Things Right?

This is where the conversation gets genuinely interesting, because Sherley and Kira do not fully agree, and they let that disagreement play out in real time.

Kira believes that offering a heartfelt apology to the person you hurt is a necessary part of forgiving yourself. Not because the other person is owed anything by you specifically, and not because their acceptance is required, but because the act of apologizing is part of how you release what you are carrying. She shares her own story of apologizing to someone she had once cheated on. He did not accept the apology. She was at peace with that anyway, because she had done her part. She had reflected, she had prayed on it, and she had said the words. His response was his to have. Her peace did not depend on it.

Sherley pushes back gently, sharing a broader view of forgiveness she has come to over time. She used to believe forgiveness required a conversation, a real back and forth where both people got to say their piece. Now she sees it differently. Sometimes the other person will not speak to you again. Sometimes they want nothing to do with you, and that is their right. Sherley believes forgiveness can still happen without that conversation. It can be internal. You can let go of resentment, wish someone well from a distance, and still call that forgiveness.

The two of them land somewhere in the middle. Kira clarifies that she is talking specifically about forgiving yourself when you are the one who caused harm, not about forgiving someone who hurt you. In that specific case, she still believes a genuine, remorseful apology matters, even if it is never accepted. Sherley agrees that when someone feels truly remorseful, offering that apology can be part of releasing the guilt, regardless of the outcome.

They also talk about what happens when you never get the chance to apologize at all. Kira shares a personal story about a friendship that ended abruptly after she made a poor decision. The other person cut her off completely, with no conversation and no opportunity to explain or apologize. Years later, Kira still carries a flicker of that unfinished business, wondering if she deserved a chance to show she had grown.

Sherley’s response here is worth sitting with. If someone judges you permanently by a decision from a decade ago and refuses any conversation, she asks, what was that relationship actually built on? People are allowed to leave your life. Some relationships are seasonal. That does not mean you failed to make things right. It might just mean the door closed before you got the chance, and that is not the same as being unforgiven.

---

Question Three: How Do You Know When You’ve Truly Forgiven Yourself?

The final piece of the conversation is about recognizing the finish line, or at least recognizing when you have moved into a different relationship with your own mistake.

Kira describes it simply. You know you have forgiven yourself when you can talk about what happened without carrying guilt or shame in your voice. She references the very story she shared earlier in the episode, something that happened almost a decade ago, and notes that she can now discuss it openly, even laugh a little, because she has genuinely moved through it. She acknowledged what she did, she learned from it, she apologized, and she let it go. What is left is not denial. It is peace.

Sherley describes the same marker in her own words. Real forgiveness shows up when you can talk about your story with no shame attached, when you can say plainly, I did this, I know it was wrong, and I am not that person anymore. She is candid that this took her longer than she expected, largely because she was so afraid of how society would judge her. She held onto silence because she did not want to be labeled or reduced to one chapter of her life.

Both women land on an important distinction: society will often try to keep you frozen in your worst decision. Self forgiveness is the practice of refusing to stay there. It does not erase what happened. It does not pretend there was no harm. It simply means you have taken accountability, made whatever amends were possible, and given yourself permission to keep growing instead of staying stuck in shame.

---

What Forgiveness Looks Like When You Can’t Say It Out Loud

One of the more thought provoking moments in the conversation comes when Sherley raises a version of forgiveness that does not require any words at all. She describes something she picked up while reading Think Like a Monk, the idea that forgiveness can happen internally, almost like a private ritual. You do not need the other person in the room. You do not even need them to know it happened. You can stand in front of a mirror, speak the words to yourself, and mean them.

Kira is honest that this approach is not naturally her style. She describes herself as more confrontational, someone who prefers to say things directly to the person involved. Sherley admits she leans that way too, but adds a layer of caution. Forgiveness, to her, also involves protecting her own peace. If reaching out to someone risks reopening a wound or inviting anger back into her life before she is ready for it, she is not always willing to take that risk just to check a box.

That tension between wanting closure and protecting your own peace is one a lot of people will recognize. There is no single right way to do this. What matters more than the method is the honesty behind it.

---

Repeated Mistakes and the People Who Feel the Consequences

Kira makes a point early in the episode that is easy to miss but worth pulling out on its own. She says that until you have truly learned from a mistake, you are at risk of making it again, sometimes more than once, before the lesson finally lands.

Sherley builds on that by noting where the consequences of a repeated mistake tend to show up. It is rarely just the person who made the choice who feels the weight of it. It is the people around them, the ones who trusted them, who end up absorbing the fallout again and again. That is part of why the first question in this episode, can you accept what you have done, matters so much. Acceptance is what interrupts the cycle. Without it, the same pattern keeps finding new people to hurt.

This is also where the conversation touches on something important: a poor decision is not always made from a place of clarity. Kira reflects on her own situation and points out that she was not at her best self when she made the choice she now regrets. She was still healing from a previous heartbreak and was not emotionally ready for what came next. That context does not erase responsibility, and she is careful not to frame it as an excuse, but understanding the conditions that led to a mistake can be part of genuinely learning from it instead of just feeling bad about it.

---

Forgiving Yourself Is Not the Same as Forgiving Someone Else, But They’re Connected

One thread that runs through the entire conversation is this: you cannot fully forgive someone else without first forgiving yourself. Sherley says it directly. If you are holding unresolved guilt about your own actions, it becomes much harder to extend real grace to another person, because part of you is still stuck arguing with your own past.

That is worth sitting with if you are in the middle of any kind of healing work right now, whether you are the one who was hurt, the one who did the hurting, or somehow both at different points in the same relationship. Self forgiveness is not a side task. It is often the actual work.

---

You Are Allowed to Move Forward

If there is one thing to take from this episode, it is this: making a poor decision does not have to define the rest of your story. Growth is possible. Change is real. And the people who insist on only seeing you through your worst moment are telling you more about where they are than about who you actually are now.

That said, working through guilt, shame, or the aftermath of infidelity is not always something you can fully process alone, and there is nothing wrong with bringing a therapist or counselor into that process the way Sherley did. Sitting with someone trained to help you untangle blame from accountability can make the three questions in this episode a lot easier to answer honestly.

Take your time with it. As Sherley says, it takes time, it takes time, it takes time. Do not rush the process. Take the steps that need to be taken, in the order that makes sense for you.

---

Key Takeaways

If you only remember a few things from this episode, let it be these:

• Self forgiveness starts with acceptance. You cannot move past what you refuse to admit you did.
• A heartfelt apology matters, even if it is never accepted. Offering it is part of releasing your own guilt.
• Forgiveness does not always require a conversation. Sometimes it happens internally, and that still counts.
• You know you have forgiven yourself when you can talk about what happened without shame in your voice.
• You cannot fully forgive someone else while you are still withholding forgiveness from yourself.

---

Keep the Conversation Going

To hear this conversation in Sherley and Kira’s own words, with all the honesty, disagreement, and laughter that came with it, listen to the full episode below.

• Listen to this episode: Self Forgiveness  (https://sherleysshow.com/self-forgiveness/)
• Browse more Conversations episodes  (https://sherleysshow.com/category/podcast/conversation/)
• Browse more relationship stories and guidance  (https://sherleysshow.com/category/relationship/)
• Explore empowerment content on the blog  (https://sherleysshow.com/category/empowerment/)
• Visit Sherley’s Show  (https://sherleysshow.com/)

We are rooting for you. We always are.

---

---

Sherley’s Show is learning and growing every single day. We aim to uplift all marginalized voices both on this podcast and in real life. Please note that we are always striving to change the problematic language that society has internalized in us. Thank you for your patience as we aim to strip certain phrases from our vocabulary.

---

Would you like to be a guest

Are you interested in getting your opinion out about a particular topic but don’t know how to do so?  If so, here is an opportunity to do so to share your point of view, PLUS get your message and voice out there.  It is always a great way to know about different perspectives and enrich ourselves through knowledge sharing.

Be a Guest

---

Submit your relationship question.

Sherley’s Show provides an atmosphere where every woman is comfortable growing into their best self. Sherley’s Show is a no judgment podcast where we discuss how to rise strong out of all types of obstacles that come with relationships. Through personal life experiences and discussions ranging from infidelity, trust, forgiveness, sex, heartbreak, self love, therapy and more, we offer words of empowerment as you strive to build and maintain all of the relationships in your life. You may be going through something that is unique and difficult. Sharing your story gives others comfort and could also be helping someone else. Let them know they are not alone. Everyone has a story, do not let fear hold you back.

Listener Stories, & Questions

---

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, I will get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through any of my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.