Shame doesn’t always stem from wrongdoing. Sometimes, it’s born from doing something necessary—or brave.

My dad grew up in poverty and abuse in New Jersey. He clawed his way to the top of his class, became valedictorian, and earned a full ride to the University of Delaware. It should’ve been a triumph. But accepting that opportunity meant making an impossible choice: placing his sisters in foster care and institutionalizing his mother, who was battling severe mental illness.

He did it. And he was judged for it. But no more than he judged himself.

That’s the thing about judgment—it’s not always external. Sometimes it’s internal, relentless, and unforgiving. He carried that decision like a scar, even though it led to healing. His sisters finally experienced stability and love. His mother, most likely for the first time, received the care she desperately needed. It was, in hindsight, the best-case scenario. But he couldn’t have known that then. And for years (maybe still), he tortured himself with the weight of that choice.

Choosing yourself—especially when it feels like it comes at the expense of others—isn’t easy. It’s not clean. It’s not celebrated. It’s often misunderstood. People will call it selfish. Cold. Unforgivable. But sometimes, choosing yourself is the only way to break a cycle. To rewrite a legacy, to survive.

As someone raised Catholic, I remember going to confession every week. I’d tell the priest how I called my brother a troll in front of my CCD class, and I’d be given certain prayers to right the wrongs. But who is your absolver when the wrongs you’ve done begin to feel like you just are wrong? When guilt (“I did something bad”) turns into shame (“I am bad”)? I keep thinking about judgment—from others, yes, but more insidiously, from within. Because external judgment you can ignore. Internal judgment lingers. Ironically, it was my dad who introduced me to Dr. Kristin Neff’s groundbreaking work on radical self-forgiveness. 

My dad has wrestled with shame his whole life. No priest or prayer could absolve what he felt about himself. With shame, who is our judge and jury?

You are.

You are the only one you’re waiting for forgiveness from. Radical self-forgiveness asks us to seek the truth of any situation and lay down the judgment we carry. Remembering that we are all always doing the best we can with what we have at any given moment. And hopefully, that best is always evolving.

Shame and judgment are loud. They echo through generations. But self-forgiveness is quiet. It’s a whisper that says, “I matter too.” It’s a defiant act of self-respect in a world that demands self-sacrifice.

My dad’s story is proof that choosing yourself can be both painful and powerful.  And that sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is walk away from what’s breaking you. And finally, that healing doesn’t always look heroic but is always an inside job.