How to forgive yourself

0:00 Do you think much about the distinction between guilt and shame

0:04 and and sort of like how that relates to forgiveness?

0:09 With guilt, we're disappointed in what we've done.

0:11 Not necessarily who we are.

0:13 We won't be ashamed for who we are.

0:15 Ashamed of who we are.

0:16 Right?

0:17 It's kind of an assessment of of of who we take ourselves to be.

0:21 If you if you are, you know,

0:23 have a kind of negative response based on who you are,

0:27 then there's no way out of that, right?

0:29 Because you've already accepted who you are.

0:31 You already have this kind of view of I'm a horrible person.

0:34 I'm a bad person.

0:53 Welcome to the Grey Area.

0:55 My guest today is our returning champion, Myisha Cherry.

1:00 She's a a previous guest on the show and she has kindly decided to return.

1:05 Um she is a professor of philosophy at UC Riverside,

1:10 where she studies, among other things,

1:12 the moral psychology of uh anger and empathy, forgiveness,

1:18 which we're going to talk a little bit about today.

1:22 Uh That is how I describe who you are and what you do.

1:25 How do you describe who you are and what

1:27 you do when you're at those uh fancy philosophy parties?

1:31 No, I'm I'm a I'm a philosopher.

1:34 Um I not only do it for a living, but it's just who I am.

1:38 That's how I see the world.

1:39 That's how I view the world.

1:41 Um but also do public stuff.

1:44 Um so I'm interested not only in just teaching in the academy,

1:47 but also sharing all these thoughts that I

1:49 come up with with uh public audiences.

1:51 So that's why I'm so happy to be with you again today.

1:54 Why why the interest in forgiveness?

1:56 Like why did that feel like something

1:57 that like you actually wanted to study seriously philosophically?

2:01 Yeah.

2:03 I mean there's a variety of reasons personally and interpersonally.

2:08 I mean I would say that I got interested in anger first.

2:14 And forgiveness is kind of like that that connected to to to anger

2:18 particularly because people think that forgiveness is the letting go of anger.

2:21 And because I'm just pro anger.

2:24 Of course I'm going to think you know kind of disagree with that particular

2:26 view and try to correct people about what forgiveness is and what it isn't.

2:30 But also you know historically the church shooting in Charleston really kind

2:42 of inspired me to really kind of think about what forgiveness is.

2:46 I felt that people were reading the victims forgiveness

2:50 of a white supremacist in a courtroom very wrongly.

2:55 The questions that was being asked in press

2:57 conferences after the police shooting of of black

2:59 men doing Black Lives Matter this question of can you find in your heart

3:03 to give or you find in your heart to give this all this rhetoric

3:05 about forgiveness in ways that I felt that people were just getting it wrong.

3:09 They were having too much hopes in it.

3:10 They were putting too much pressure on victims to do it.

3:12 And so I was trying to figure out why are people so interested in forgiveness?

3:16 Why are people mentioning forgiveness so much?

3:18 Why are people obsessed with it?

3:19 I feel like they're getting it wrong but what are they getting wrong?

3:21 And so just looking at the world just

3:23 made me have all these all these questions.

3:25 When you were here last time we mostly talked about forgiving other people.

3:31 Yeah.

3:32 And we just barely touched on self-forgiveness.

3:37 And I had a lot more thoughts on that and it just I felt like something I wanted

3:42 to dig into a lot more and that's why

3:43 we brought you back on to talk about that specifically.

3:48 Um do you think of self-forgiveness

3:52 as something different from forgiving other people?

3:55 Is that a different process, a different thing altogether?

3:59 Um do you make a distinction like that?

4:03 No, I don't think I don't think it's different.

4:04 So, for for people who have yet to watch that episode,

4:08 you know, I define forgiveness very broadly.

4:11 And so, to forgive someone,

4:12 you can let go of anger or you can let go of contempt.

4:16 Um or um you can refrain from revenge.

4:21 Um or a whole bunch of other kind of moral practices.

4:24 Um but you do it for the purpose of either um repair or reconciliation,

4:31 relief, or or or release.

4:34 Um So, there's a variety of moral practices and a variety of aims.

4:38 I think when you apply that account to individuals or to the self,

4:43 the only thing that changes is is the object of the target of your forgiveness.

4:46 So, what does it mean for me to forgive myself?

4:49 Um it could be the case that I let go of anger that I have towards myself,

4:53 so that I can um have a sense of release and kind of repair um uh myself.

5:01 Um or I can decide to stop beating up

5:03 on myself and stop looking at myself as as less than,

5:06 having contempt for myself,

5:07 so that I can go forward in in in the future with a sense of wholeness.

5:12 Um so, they're not different.

5:13 Um it's just target towards towards different persons,

5:16 which in the case of self forgiveness it is the self.

5:18 Well, there is a big difference though.

5:19 I mean, you you you write it You write about it in the book, right?

5:22 Like, the difference is that you got to live with yourself.

5:27 Like, you got to get your ass out of bed every morning.

5:30 Um and and go about your life.

5:33 And um it's hard to do that if you're um at odds with yourself.

5:40 Like, does that make it different?

5:44 The fact that you don't have to live with other people all the time,

5:46 but you got to walk you have to walk around in your own head.

5:50 Yeah.

5:50 All the time.

5:51 And so you almost have to forgive yourself.

5:53 Yeah, I I I agree.

5:54 So I think another kind of important difference is

5:57 not only um is it targeted towards the self.

6:01 But one of the things that I argue one

6:02 of the things that I argue is that, you know,

6:04 when it comes to other people, we don't always need to forgive them.

6:09 Right?

6:09 There there's other things that we can do in order to to kind of reach repair.

6:14 Um But also people are annoying and we're

6:15 always like the the righteous ones, right?

6:18 Like I mean, you know, it's always other people[ __] things up, right?

6:21 We're the ones that Yeah,

6:22 so it's not necessarily the case that people needed to forgive Dylann Roof.

6:26 You know what I mean?

6:27 Um and in some circumstances I would suggest

6:29 that that may be appropriate for some inappropriate for others.

6:32 But when it comes to the self, it's a kind of different scenario.

6:37 Like you said, we live with ourselves.

6:41 Um and the kind of consequences of of of not forgiving yourself

6:47 um kind of makes being you and living with you very difficult,

6:53 but also quite destructive.

6:55 And so as much as I say that we don't have necessarily have to forgive others,

6:59 um I do believe not today or not tomorrow we do need

7:03 to go about the work of forgiving ourselves because as you say,

7:08 we need to live with ourselves and the only

7:10 way to do that productively is to eventually forgive ourselves.

7:13 Now I do say eventually um because like forgiving others,

7:18 forgiveness is a process.

7:19 You shouldn't do do easy easily, you shouldn't do it too quickly.

7:23 Uh but eventually I think for the individual we need to ultimately

7:25 forgive ourselves if we are to continue to live or to flourish.

7:29 Um that is that is indeed necessary.

7:32 Well, what gives us the right to forgive ourselves?

7:35 I mean, it's it is normally um the victim, right?

7:39 Who has the right to forgive because the victim is the one that was wronged.

7:44 Um So, can I forgive myself when I'm the[ __] So, here's the thing.

7:51 There are instances in which you are the[ __] to other people, right?

7:55 But we also need to kind of expand um I wouldn't say the notion of victims,

8:01 uh but expand our notion of of people who are impacted by wrongdoings.

8:05 So, let me just kind of make this make this clear by an example.

8:08 It could be the case um that I uh

8:13 destroy a relationship by cheating on a person, for example.

8:16 And so, I I violate the trust of that particular

8:18 individual and hurt them in a very intense way.

8:21 But as a result of doing that, I

8:24 also destroyed a relationship that was good for me.

8:27 And so, I also have harmed myself very differently.

8:30 It's a very different harm, a very different degree of suffering,

8:33 but I also have harmed myself in that particular regard.

8:36 So, what what would it mean to forgive myself?

8:37 I'm forgiving myself because I[ __] up.

8:40 Can I say the Can I say the F-word?

8:41 I think I've already done it like four times.

8:44 Well, we didn't say the F-word, though.

8:46 Um I harmed myself by harming that person.

8:49 I harmed myself by harming that particular person, right?

8:51 So, I would have the right to to to indeed to indeed do that.

8:56 So, that's that's what I mean by having having having the right.

8:59 It's not necessarily that I harm myself,

9:01 but when we harm other people, we also indirectly harm ourselves, right?

9:04 And then we also when we harm other people,

9:07 um particularly when it comes to our loved ones,

9:10 um we are invested in our loved ones, right?

9:13 We make certain kind of commitments to our loved ones.

9:16 And then when we harm them, we disrupt that.

9:19 And what would make it the case that I would have

9:23 the right to forgive myself in that case would be well,

9:26 I harmed someone that I care about.

9:27 I harmed someone that I have invested in.

9:30 So, I kind of have impeded on my project, on my moral and loving project.

9:35 I messed that up by harming that particular person.

9:37 So, in that sense, I will also have have the right to to forgive myself.

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11:01 So, I would say in my own life, um,

11:07 I can be an[ __] And, like, often I find myself in the house just day-to-day.

11:19 Maybe I'm cranky.

11:21 Maybe I don't know,[ __] didn't go well at work

11:23 that day or maybe just got out of bed wrong.

11:26 Uh, maybe I'm just pissed off at the world.

11:28 And I'll be an[ __] or be too short, or too selfish,

11:34 and like almost immediately I know that, and I feel like[ __] about it,

11:39 and my wife and my son will like very quickly

11:42 forgive me and move on, but those little like micro failures,

11:46 when they happen, it really eats me up.

11:49 Um I don't know.

11:51 Like I'm not the dad or the husband or the person I think I am.

11:58 So, hearing you say what you just said, hearing you say what you just said,

12:03 what that communicates to me is that you

12:06 have certain kind of standards for yourself.

12:09 Right?

12:10 And so, you know what it is to be You know what it is to be a good Shawn,

12:15 or you have standards um of what it is to be a good dad,

12:20 what it is to be a good partner, what it is to be a good Shawn.

12:25 And then you have the failure in which

12:27 you don't live up to that particular standard.

12:31 So, not only have you let perhaps your family down,

12:35 but you've also let yourself down.

12:37 So, in both those instances, you may have asked your family to forgive you,

12:40 but now you have to figure out how to forgive yourself.

12:43 Right?

12:43 Which is not forgiving yourself necessarily

12:45 for the harm that you've caused to them,

12:47 but also forgiving yourself for not living up

12:49 to the standards that you have for yourself.

12:52 But there's also something else that's going on there.

12:55 We can get frustrated with ourselves.

12:58 And all that can bind,

13:02 even through even in the midst of the forgiveness, leaves something.

13:07 It leaves residue or it leaves what philosophers call kind of a a moral residue.

13:13 And I think what is important for us

13:15 to note here is that we think that after forgiveness,

13:18 everything becomes all right.

13:20 All right, we can just forgive and we can forget.

13:23 Right?

13:23 We can just wipe the slate clean.

13:26 But particularly when it comes to ourselves, it's not that easy.

13:29 So even after I've forgiven myself, my family members have forgiven me,

13:32 I can still feel like an[ __] I can still have regret.

13:36 I can still have remorse.

13:39 And I would say, well, that's the remainders of of wrongdoing.

13:43 Regret is defined as kind of like this deep

13:44 sorrow that we have as a result of our wrongdoing.

13:47 And sometimes that can just last for like a week.

13:51 Or it can come and go.

13:52 Or in the case of me not living up to the standards

13:55 of what it is to be a good daughter, you know,

13:57 I can be minding my own business one day and just feel this pain of like,

14:01 damn, I really messed up when my mother was alive.

14:05 And that's what regret is.

14:07 That's the That's the residue of wrongdoing.

14:09 The question is, is that a bad thing?

14:12 It can be.

14:14 If we ruminate, you know, over it.

14:17 If we allow that to stop us from entering into relationships,

14:20 or if we allow that um to allow us to have kind of this obsessive self-reproach.

14:27 It becomes a good thing.

14:28 And Daniel Pink talks about this in in his book The Power of Regret,

14:31 when we make use of it.

14:33 And how do we make use of it?

14:34 Learn from it.

14:37 Feel the sorrow.

14:38 Feel the pain.

14:39 Let it remind you of your values.

14:42 Let it remind you of your moral compass.

14:44 But also allow it to motivate you to do better next time.

14:49 I think it's about shame for me.

14:52 Do you think much about the distinction between guilt and shame?

14:56 And and sort of like how that relates to forgiveness?

15:01 I think when we are shameful, we are ashamed of who we are.

15:06 Right?

15:06 It's kind of an assessment of of who we take ourselves to be.

15:10 The, you know, a whole kind of personality or character.

15:15 With guilt, we're disappointed in what we've done, not necessarily who we are.

15:18 And so just by that distinction alone,

15:21 one has much more potential with taking us

15:26 into a better future than the than the other.

15:28 Right?

15:29 Shame, if you if you are you know,

15:32 have a kind of negative response based on who you are,

15:36 then there's no way out of that, right?

15:38 Because you've already accepted who you are.

15:40 You already have this kind of view of I'm a horrible person.

15:43 I'm a bad person.

15:44 And it's much not redeem, you know,

15:46 you might even say, "Well, because I'm a horrible person,

15:48 I am irredeemable." But there's something quite different from I'm

15:51 a horrible person to I did a horrible thing.

15:55 And we we can make room for redemption in that.

15:58 It's like, "Okay, don't do that horrible thing anymore." But isn't like

16:00 the definition of being a horrible person someone who does horrible things?

16:06 What's the difference?

16:07 So now you let's go back to Aristotle, of course.

16:10 You know, for Aristotle, um what it is to have a character of something,

16:15 um is that you must do it repeatedly.

16:17 It does indeed become who you are.

16:20 So, horrible people do horrible things.

16:25 But a person who done a horrible thing is not necessarily a horrible person.

16:29 All right?

16:30 So, that's what Aristotle Aristotle would say.

16:33 But here's the thing about the self say?

16:37 Maisha says that self-reproach, obsessive and irrational self-reproach,

16:43 will have you think or make you believe that that is who you are.

16:49 And we can beat up ourselves so much when we're beating ourselves up because we

16:53 have accepted or uh we have been led to believe that that is who we are.

16:59 So, we have to beat ourselves up,

17:01 beat that person up because they are what they are.

17:05 And I think that's an irrational way to think about ourselves.

17:09 What I believe a lot of the times, and this can change by context,

17:16 that we are beings in the making that we are

17:21 a lot of things and we do a lot of things,

17:25 but a lot of things that we do really don't really define us.

17:29 But it's so easy to beat ourselves up.

17:31 It's so easy to to to to to do that.

17:36 Well, especially if you're the over thinking in your head too much type.

17:41 You know, I Yeah.

17:42 I think um I'd say probably like most of the things um I probably let myself off

17:48 the hook for certainly uh in the past

17:51 and and probably still now more than I care to admit,

17:56 but you know, for me it was like just not showing up for the people

18:00 I care about because I was too involved with my own[ __] Mhm.

18:04 I think I've gotten better about that.

18:05 I I hope I've gotten better about that, but I

18:07 do feel a lot of shame for that kind of thing.

18:11 Um and of course at the time like

18:12 everyone I made a million different excuses for it,

18:14 but it It's It seems like a big deal because that sort of cuts to the heart

18:19 of being a good friend uh or a good

18:22 family member or good partner or whatever, right?

18:24 Like not showing up for people is sort of unforgivable, I think.

18:30 Okay, there's a lot of things I want to say.

18:32 The first thing I want to I want to point to is your use of shame.

18:36 I'm going to ask you a rhetorical question.

18:38 I'm going to make a statement and then I want to know what your response is.

18:41 So, my rhetorical question is is shame is shame what you actually felt?

18:47 Okay.

18:48 I said that that guilt you kind

18:51 of make an assessment about something that you've done.

18:53 So, you kind of it's a response to people's anger,

18:55 people's disappointment as result of what you've done.

18:57 And shame is a response to who you are.

19:00 Guilt makes you want to repair to reconcile, to fix things.

19:05 But shame typically makes you want to hide.

19:09 And so, the reason why I'm posing a question a rhetorical question to you,

19:13 Shawn, is to say, how do you know it wasn't guilt, right?

19:17 Did it make you want to hide?

19:20 Or did it make you want to to do better?

19:22 Now, both of these things feel awful, makes you feel awful about yourself.

19:24 So, let's just put that to the side

19:25 about how you felt about yourself about yourself.

19:28 But right now I'm talking about what

19:29 philosophy is called the action tendency, right?

19:31 What did what what what did you feel compelled to do?

19:35 Did you feel compelled to kind of hide yourself?

19:39 Or did you feel compelled to like fix things?

19:44 Or do better?

19:47 Well, it depends on how long the timeline is.

19:49 Like eventually I got to the place where I

19:52 felt like I needed to to change and did.

19:56 But it took a long while to get there, like an embarrassingly long while Mhm.

20:01 to get there.

20:02 I think probably what I went through first was just a lot of denial.

20:08 Yeah.

20:09 But then at some point you you just sort of you know,

20:12 you can't you can't not know what you know.

20:15 Mhm.

20:16 Um and I think I think it was shame,

20:19 although maybe you would you would call it guilt because um I had to sort

20:26 of like reckon with the possibility that maybe I'm not the guy I thought I was.

20:33 Mhm.

20:33 Like maybe I am actually um more selfish than I thought I was.

20:40 And you know, at some point we all we

20:43 all lie to ourselves about ourselves all the time.

20:46 You know, some more than others, but there are those moments where I don't know.

20:51 It just sort of the foundation of the[ __] collapses and you

20:54 you you got to kind of look yourself uh in the mirror.

20:58 Um and I got to that point.

21:00 But it took it took a while to get there.

21:02 Like way longer than it should have.

21:04 So, I don't know.

21:04 I mean, Yes, I kind of meandered a little bit,

21:06 but did I did I answer your question?

21:09 Or did that tell you anything about Yeah, you did.

21:11 You You did.

21:12 I'm a moral psychologist, not a psychologist.

21:15 But Okay, so so so so in your instance in the example that you just use,

21:20 you say that it took you a while.

21:23 Even if it takes you a while, I mean,

21:25 that's what forgiveness and reconciliation is all about.

21:28 It's a process.

21:28 It always takes a while.

21:31 Right?

21:32 But does that mean that what you did was unforgivable?

21:35 Right?

21:36 The The The The fact that let's just say you have forgiven yourself.

21:39 We don't need to go down a therapy thing about you, Shawn.

21:41 Um but let's just say you have forgiven yourself.

21:44 Let's just say that you have forgiven yourself.

21:46 It just took a while.

21:47 It doesn't necessarily mean that what you

21:49 did or how you showed up was unforgivable.

21:53 Right?

21:54 It is interesting that we're talking about the selfish stuff.

21:57 Um and the reason why I'm kind of familiar with the features

21:59 of selfishness is because I'm currently um writing a chapter about selfishness.

22:04 Um about a book that I'm working on.

22:06 So, you know, I'm I'm keenly aware about what selfishness

22:09 is particularly because I also think that in my love

22:12 relationships I have been selfish and justified it in reasons

22:20 that I felt it was beneficial for everybody, right?

22:23 I need to just focus on my career.

22:24 I'm the first person in my family to go to college.

22:26 First person in my family to have kind of like this income bracket.

22:29 I have a responsibility to maintain this and leave some money.

22:32 That That's how I was justifying of I can't go back

22:35 to Mississippi for the Christmas because I need to work on my book.

22:40 Right?

22:40 So, all these justifications of of of my neglect, of my inconsistency,

22:46 of me not being around for my family has been justified of of well,

22:50 I need to do my work.

22:52 I need to do my work.

22:53 And I've just come to the realization

22:54 of just how freaking selfish that has been.

22:58 That the book would not suffer if I go home for 3 days.

23:02 Right?

23:02 The my my my academic or professional world will

23:05 not fall apart if I call my niece every week.

23:08 And coming to that realization and then being, you know,

23:11 you talk about shameful, you know, really feeling awful about who I have been.

23:16 And here's the interesting Sean, you talk about therapy,

23:19 recognizing that I thought I learned a lot

23:22 from neglecting my mother when she was alive, but here I am again Yeah.

23:26 doing the same thing to my sister and my nieces and my nephew.

23:30 And feeling horrible about that.

23:33 But here's the thing,

23:33 if I am to be be better and to do better and really be a good family member,

23:41 feeling shame ain't going to do it.

23:44 Right?

23:45 Um feeling guilt, yeah.

23:48 Feeling remorse, yeah.

23:49 Feeling regret, yeah.

23:52 But I got to do something with all these feelings.

23:54 And the question is, what do I do with this regret?

23:56 What do I do with this remorse?

23:57 What do I do with this dis- this disappointment?

23:59 You try again, Maisha.

24:02 You do better.

24:04 So, what are you going to do?

24:05 I was just thinking about earlier today,

24:06 I need to make it the case that my niece and nephew finally

24:09 come to California so we can have a good time for a week.

24:11 Work on that now.

24:14 Right?

24:14 That's that's the future.

24:16 Like, let the regret do that kind of work.

24:18 But the whole beating yourself up and and ruminating

24:21 over what you've done and just feeling awful, you feel awful for a reason.

24:25 Do something with that.

24:26 And that's what that's what I'm working on.

24:28 I mean, not that there has to be a hierarchy of like of shamefulness here,

24:33 but at least like that justification isn't as bad as mine, right?

24:38 Like mine would be as bad sometimes as, you know what?

24:40 I I I can't make that that Thanksgiving family dinner cuz

24:43 I want to go[ __] ride my motorcycle with my friends.

24:46 But then you say, well,

24:47 self-care It's not like I got to finish my book or you know,

24:52 I got I got to get that tenure package, you know, to pop.

24:55 It was like it was just it it's just like it's just even worse, right?

24:58 So like No, I would I would have seen Sean, don't say that.

25:01 Don't Sean, don't say that.

25:02 Cuz here we are.

25:03 We're doing We're doing the thing.

25:05 Right?

25:06 We are exemplifying the very thing that we're diagnosing,

25:10 which is irrational self-reproach.

25:13 Right?

25:13 You're saying, "Oh, your explanation is I When I'm doing is

25:17 worse than than than than than than you." And I think that's

25:21 I didn't call you irrational.

25:22 I said irrational self-reproach.

25:26 Which is I was just I was just clarifying.

25:27 I was just clarifying.

25:28 You're just saying that what you've done is worse worse worse.

25:32 And that that worse thing, right, is the thing that can keep us keep us stuck.

25:36 Right?

25:36 I also just want you to be gentle with yourself because I think

25:39 I think even though you look back and you say to yourself, "Well,

25:42 what I actually wanted to do was to go

25:43 ride motorcycles." I think in your thinking at that moment,

25:47 perhaps, and you tell me this is not the case or not.

25:49 Cuz I'm not also trying to give you an excuse.

25:52 Is it just I want to go have motorcycles with my friend

25:55 or is it because I work so damn hard and I need a break?

26:00 And perhaps you thought in that moment, "If I don't get this break,

26:02 I'm not going to be able to be of use to other people." Now,

26:05 you could have been wrong about that.

26:08 But you also could be wrong about the fact that it was just motorcycles.

26:12 I think it was more than that.

26:13 And does that say that does that not

26:15 suggest that your priorities were still messed up?

26:17 Perhaps.

26:19 And I'm also not to make an excuse for you,

26:20 Sean, cuz you could just be a horrible person.

26:22 You know, I don't We're just getting to know each other.

26:24 I don't know.

26:25 And I think there are some people who are horrible people.

26:28 But we need to be very careful and with assessing ourselves.

26:32 And at the time, you may have thought that that was the best decision.

26:35 And then you think to yourself, "Oh,

26:36 that's kind of That was kind of selfish." And I'm

26:39 more concerned about what we do for the future.

26:41 I do appreciate you like trying to throw me a rope and and pull

26:44 me out of my my own[ __] but I'm just being real.

26:47 Like you you asked, so I'll I'll answer.

26:50 No, I I I I don't think I had some I don't think it was because of, you know,

26:55 I I I worked too hard that week and I needed a break.

26:58 I think it I think I was just being selfish.

27:01 And I wanted to go ride my motorcycle, right?

27:04 But that that's that's the shame part, right?

27:06 That Okay, is it truly unforgivable?

27:08 I don't know.

27:10 But like if you have a duty to the people you love,

27:15 it is to show up when they want you to show up, when they need you to show up.

27:20 And if you don't do that, like

27:22 you're just failing the most fundamental test, right?

27:26 Um and I think if I could have justified it to myself in those terms

27:33 that you suggested and I may have I may not have felt shame about it.

27:37 To the extent that I did,

27:38 I think I felt shame because I was just being an[ __] Yeah.

27:43 Not because I was too tired or or not because um you know,

27:48 um some other like semi noble reason.

27:52 I was just I was just being a bad person.

27:57 Um and that's not okay.

28:02 Um and that's why I felt shameful about it, you know?

28:05 Uh I don't know if I ever forgave myself.

28:07 I just stopped doing that.

28:10 And then the rest sort of takes care of itself.

28:12 Yeah.

28:12 But anyway, I I should have just taken the rope you threw me, but no, no, no.

28:16 Only you know.

28:17 You know you.

28:20 And that's a good thing that you know yourself.

28:22 It's a good thing that you know yourself.

28:24 You can know yourself too much.

28:26 Do you have too much self-knowledge?

28:30 I don't know.

28:31 Sounds like you Sounds like you forgave me.

28:32 I don't know if you have the right to forgive me, but

28:34 have the right to forgive you in that in that context.

28:40 All right, I don't know.

28:41 Um I want to Let me ask you something else.

28:44 Can I Can I put in a side?

28:45 Can I put in a side, Shawn?

28:46 Can I make a side?

28:47 I'm going to tell you what came to my mind when you said what you said.

28:50 And we don't we don't probably shouldn't, you know, release this response.

28:54 But I was listening to this podcast last night.

28:57 And uh Uh I don't know if I'm Okay,

29:00 I'm not going to say the person's name, but it was a famous physician.

29:04 And this is the Epstein files which just released.

29:07 And the famous physician had wrote a book last year.

29:10 And in the book he talks about how there was a time

29:13 in which his wife was having complications with their infant son.

29:19 And he was out of town.

29:20 to you?

29:21 Uh[ __] yeah.

29:22 Yeah, you you know exactly.

29:24 Um Yeah, now we're we name names.

29:26 Okay, okay.

29:27 Um and and and he couldn't be there for them.

29:30 He was out of town.

29:32 And it he didn't return back home until a week.

29:35 And the podcaster were basically saying when the Epstein

29:37 files was released and the podcaster had read the book,

29:41 the emails that were being exchanged with him and Epstein

29:43 at a particular situation where he was talking about,

29:45 "Hey, are you going to be around for New York?" Um that it wasn't just

29:49 that he had professional responsibilities of why he

29:51 didn't get back to his wife and child.

29:54 It was because he was hanging out with Epstein.

29:57 And he talks about in his book cuz he doesn't talk about

30:00 the Epstein stuff of how he felt so bad and all this other stuff.

30:04 And I think that's an example of yeah, I can I can imagine.

30:07 Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of guilt there.

30:09 The Epstein stuff made me think about oh, you should feel so shameful, right?

30:13 It seems like that's the degree until which not

30:16 only did you not do it for professional reasons.

30:18 It's like this other reason makes it the case that oh,

30:22 that was a kind of reflection of character and misaligned

30:25 desires and priorities and all this other messy messy messy stuff.

30:29 So, that's what I was thinking when you mentioned your example, Sean.

30:33 Um that it really does depend.

30:35 It's not just the act, the fact that you don't show up.

30:38 Sometimes I really think that the reasons can vary

30:43 in degrees that makes it the case with this reason,

30:46 even if it's a selfish reason, warrants guilt.

30:48 But this reason warrants shame.

30:52 I haven't always been the guy I want to be,

30:53 but guess who's not in the Epstein files.

30:56 This guy.

30:57 You can control F that[ __] as many times as you want.

31:01 Ealing is not going to pop up.

31:02 So, at least there's that.

31:04 But again Okay, so that guy he did that.

31:07 Let's say he did that.

31:08 All right, I'll just let me just okay.

31:10 Let's just take it for granted or allegedly if

31:13 the the legal people need me to say that, right?

31:15 If the if if he really did that should he forgive himself for that?

31:21 That seems You said you asked me if anything is truly unforgivable.

31:26 I I if that's Yeah.

31:30 not unforgivable, you got to tell me what is.

31:33 Yeah.

31:34 Or what isn't.

31:35 Yeah.

31:36 Yeah.

31:37 I I lot worse than just going to ride your motorcycle.

31:39 Yeah.

31:40 Yeah, that would be that would be tough.

31:43 If I'm just putting myself in Would you forgive him?

31:46 What if What if that was your husband?

31:48 Yeah.

31:49 Oh, if that came out, I would have been gone.

31:51 Cuz it Here's the thought that I was thinking as I

31:53 was listening to the podcast and I was driving at the time,

31:55 so I know exactly what exit I was at.

31:57 My thought was if she's just hearing this today this changes the relationship.

32:05 Like this this fundamentally changes who you took that your husband to be.

32:09 It it it seems like the the degree of the reason the depravity wise,

32:15 cuz now we've gotten to depravity, really makes you think is this who you are.

32:22 And then that calls for some other kind of work and introspection.

32:26 And reasons to really to indeed feel shame.

32:31 And let me just also say this for a lot of people may say, well,

32:33 you know, my issue is pro guilt and she

32:34 doesn't think sh- you know, shame is warranted.

32:37 I do think shame is important.

32:39 And I think particularly in our political context,

32:41 I think people need to feel more shameful.

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35:05 quince.com/grayarea If you are someone who, for whatever reason,

35:13 can't forgive yourself, what does your life look like?

35:19 How do you go on?

35:22 I don't think you can really go on.

35:24 And when I say when I say living,

35:26 I'm I'm talking about living in a Aristotelian sense of flourishing.

35:31 Flourishing in the sense in which your moral life is good,

35:34 your psychological life um is good.

35:38 Your relationships with other people are good.

35:41 And I think that when you don't forgive yourself,

35:44 one of those areas are impacted in ways that doesn't really

35:47 allow you to live the full life that you're capable of living.

35:50 Is there a simple test in the end

35:53 um for knowing whether you're forgiving yourself or just

35:59 letting yourself off the hook without actually like

36:03 sort of taking stock of what you did?

36:07 Which seems like a precondition for not doing it again.

36:11 Yeah.

36:12 So, we've been talking a lot about the extremes, right?

36:16 Beating yourself up, obsessing over what we've done,

36:21 living with the shame, guilt, etc.

36:24 And then there's the other end of the spectrum,

36:25 which is um just saying I forgive you know yeah I

36:29 forgive myself after the very next day after doing this horrible thing.

36:34 So there's there's ways in which we can do it too quickly.

36:37 And you know I don't have an issue with people who move fast.

36:41 But if you move fast and you're forgetting steps then that's problematic.

36:45 I think if you forgive yourself too quickly without taking stock of things.

36:50 Without a full recognition of what you're you you've done and an understanding

36:53 of how you've hurt another people and also hurt your own life.

36:57 Without a kind of a a guide of okay how can you you you do better?

37:02 Can you you know without So that's one thing, right?

37:05 So if you do it too quickly then you probably know that that's a problem.

37:10 But I also think that if you if you do it

37:12 in ways in which you allow yourself to forgive yourself because

37:15 you kind of minimize the harm where you basically say well

37:17 what I did was wasn't really that bad so I forgive myself.

37:21 Right that's problematic.

37:23 Um but another way in which it can be problematic is you you begin

37:27 to say well you know yeah it was my fault but you know if they

37:31 didn't or if they would have Right so if you engage in victim blaming

37:36 then you you know you that's probably not what you what you want to do.

37:40 And here's another thing if you basically say you know what

37:43 I know I messed up but look what came out of this.

37:48 Right?

37:49 I call it the greater good the greater good theory right?

37:52 Basically suggesting that you know I you know you allows you to forgive yourself

37:55 or have no regret because you think

37:57 to yourself something came out of this wonderful so I don't have to really have

38:01 the responsibility of the wrongdoing because everything

38:03 works out for the good if this you know I think those are all problematic.

38:07 We don't want to go down down that that that that that direction.

38:11 So if you're if you're doing any of that stuff

38:14 then I would say stop all that erroneous justification.

38:18 I would say sit sit with what you've done.

38:21 Hear how what you've done have impacted others,

38:25 try to figure out how you can do better, repent,

38:28 confess, and if you're doing those kinds of things,

38:31 then I think you're going in the right direction.

38:34 Do you have any advice, practical advice for for people, you know,

38:40 that that are just maybe stuck in the in the guilt and and shame

38:45 part and haven't quite managed to like move on to the um you know,

38:50 constructive action part?

38:53 You know, one of the things I would say is

38:54 that when it comes to wrongdoing and the you know,

38:58 what happens after wrongdoing, unfortunately,

39:03 there's a lot of things that can't be undone.

39:08 We think that we can recreate things out

39:12 of the destruction that we caused to ourself.

39:17 That is to say, we think that if we beat ourselves up enough,

39:22 things will get better, or we can rewrite a wrong.

39:28 And I want to suggest, no matter how many times you beat yourself up,

39:33 you can never undo what you've done.

39:37 But that's not the end of the story.

39:39 The good news is if you learn from what you've done,

39:45 and if you vow to do better, then you can recreate a better world.

39:54 I want to say for people who struggling to to forgive themselves,

39:56 I think I want to say to them that you are not what you've done.

40:04 That you are still worthy of dignity and respect.

40:09 That you are worth your own self-love.

40:14 And that means you're also worth a second

40:16 chance and you're worth a new beginning.

40:22 And to begin to see yourself

40:23 in that particular way can make way for self-forgiveness.

40:28 I'll leave it right there.

40:30 Before you go, I want to uh I want to read our our credits.

40:35 New episodes of The Gray Area drop on Mondays.

40:38 Listen and subscribe.

40:40 The show is part of Vox.

40:42 Support Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today.

40:46 Go to vox.com/members to sign up.

40:49 And if you decide to sign up because of this show or Myisha, let us know.

40:54 Myisha, uh where can people go to read your work

40:58 or listen to your pod or just follow you?

41:01 Well, every essay, academic and public that I've

41:04 ever written is on my website, myishacherry.org.

41:07 You can also find me be inconsistent on social media at myishacherry.

41:12 But also, um I have a new season of the UnMute

41:14 podcast um that's coming out uh at the end of February 2026.

41:19 And so, if you want to catch those episodes in which I

41:21 talk to philosophers about the social and political issues of our day,

41:23 it is available wherever you listen to your podcast.

41:27 Myisha Cherry, thank you so much for this conversation.

41:30 Thank you so much for coming back on the show.

41:33 You were uh so much fun to to talk to uh and I just um there are

41:38 not enough I think I may have told you this last time you were on the show.

41:41 There are just not enough um academic

41:43 philosophers who eat and care about actually engaging

41:47 with the public um and like writing for the public

41:51 in ways that uh can actually be understood.

41:54 Uh and I just I love that about you

41:56 and uh you're you're such a good sport and um

41:59 I'd love you to come back on for a third

42:01 time uh if you'll have us at some point.

42:03 so much for those words uh Sean and so good to see you and talk with you again.

42:09 Hey, thanks for watching.

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