From Jail Time to Healing: Sammie’s Journey Through Shame, Motherhood & Forgiveness

Aug 22

From Jail Time to Healing through motherhood, self-forgiveness, and personal growth

Healing does not always begin when life finally becomes easy. Sometimes it begins when carrying the past becomes harder than facing it.

In this episode of From the Heart, Katie Halle Lambert sits down with Sammie Chaffin of Mystic Shadowz for an open conversation about forgiveness, motherhood, shame, addiction, and rebuilding your life.

Sammie’s journey from jail time to healing was not a simple transformation. She experienced addiction, poverty, separation from her children, challenges within her marriage, and years of guilt over how those experiences affected her family. Eventually, however, she began to understand that continuing to punish herself was keeping her stuck.

Her story is not about pretending those difficult chapters did not happen. Instead, it is about learning from them, taking responsibility where needed, and discovering that your past does not have to dictate how you show up today.

From Jail Time to Healing Through Self-Forgiveness

For years, Sammie carried tremendous anger and shame. She was working, raising her children, managing her marriage, and simply trying to keep moving.

Eventually, that weight became impossible to ignore. One of the biggest changes came when she stopped viewing herself as fundamentally broken. Instead, she began looking at many of her reactions as learned patterns.

That distinction mattered. If a behavior is a pattern you learned, there is an opportunity to learn something different. For Sammie, self-forgiveness did not mean avoiding accountability. It meant acknowledging what happened without continually using the past as evidence that she was undeserving of a different future.

When Awareness Is Not Enough to Change

Many of us have had moments when we knew exactly how we wanted to respond but still fell into an old reaction.

Sammie experienced this too.

She had gone to therapy, read books, listened to podcasts, and worked on personal development. She understood many of her patterns intellectually. Still, understanding them did not automatically change them.

What helped was learning to recognize what was happening in her body before the reaction completely took over.

Maybe her chest became tight. Perhaps she noticed herself becoming activated. Those physical signals eventually became opportunities to create a little more space before responding.

The goal was not to immediately eliminate difficult emotions. Instead, she worked on making those emotions feel just a little safer to experience.

Revisiting the Moment

Sammie also shared a practical strategy for moments when she could not interrupt the reaction as it happened. She would revisit the experience afterward.

Rather than immediately falling into shame, she could ask what happened, notice what she felt physically, and consider how she wanted to respond differently next time.

She also used visualization to imagine herself handling similar situations in a healthier way. Progress did not require perfection. Even recognizing a pattern after it happened became an opportunity to practice something new.

Forgiveness Does Not Mean Excusing What Happened

Forgiveness can be complicated, especially when someone has experienced deep hurt.

Sammie makes an important distinction: forgiveness does not require pretending something was acceptable. It also does not automatically mean allowing someone back into your life.

You can forgive and still have boundaries. You can understand someone and still decide they are not safe for you. You can also acknowledge your own mistakes without spending the rest of your life punishing yourself for them. For someone who is not ready to forgive, Sammie encourages curiosity instead.

What are you actually holding onto?

Is it anger toward another person? Shame toward yourself? Fear that forgiveness will make you vulnerable again?

Understanding what sits underneath the resistance can sometimes be more valuable than forcing yourself toward forgiveness before you are ready.

Finding Gratitude Without Being Grateful for the Pain

Gratitude became another important part of Sammie’s healing, but she is careful about what that means. She is not suggesting that someone should be grateful for trauma or painful experiences.

Instead, she looks at who she has become because she chose to work through them.

That shift allows gratitude to exist alongside the truth that something was painful. Rather than asking yourself to appreciate what happened, you might recognize the strength you developed, the boundaries you learned to create, or the patterns you decided would end with you.

Over time, gratitude can also change the emotional baseline from which everyday challenges are experienced.

Motherhood, Shame, and Repairing Relationships

Some of Sammie’s deepest shame centered on motherhood. She had hopes for the kind of mother she wanted to become and the childhood she wanted her children to experience. When life looked very different from that vision, the gap became another source of guilt.

Healing required recognizing what happened while also allowing herself to repair what she could. That included learning the importance of apologizing.

Previously, Sammie felt that doing better should be enough. Over time, she realized that another person may still need to hear the words I’m sorry.

Repair became part of breaking the cycle rather than another reason to feel ashamed.

Why Community Can Matter During Healing

Sammie also credits supportive relationships with other women as an important part of her journey.

Healing does not always happen alone.

Sometimes a conversation, podcast episode, support group, friendship, or community becomes the first place where someone feels understood enough to examine what they are experiencing.

That is also part of why communities such as MOMnation exist. Women need spaces where they can find connection and hear experiences that remind them they are not the only ones navigating difficult chapters.

You Can Begin Again

Perhaps the most powerful part of Sammie’s journey from jail time to healing is that change did not happen in one dramatic moment.

It happened through small choices.

Notice the reaction.

Get curious about it.

Repair when necessary.

Practice a different response.

Then practice again.

Eventually, Sammie began noticing moments when situations that once would have triggered an intense reaction no longer controlled her in the same way.

Those moments are worth celebrating.

Your past may be part of your story, but it does not have to become the permanent definition of who you are.

You can acknowledge who you were, take responsibility for what needs repairing, forgive yourself, and continue becoming someone you are proud to be.

And when an old pattern appears again, you can begin again.

🎧 Watch From The Heart Conversation 🎧

Hear Katie and Sammie’s complete conversation about From Jail Time to Healing, including self-forgiveness, shame, motherhood, nervous system safety, gratitude, breaking old patterns, and learning to respond differently after difficult seasons.