A Good Apology: 4 Steps To Make Things Right

A sincere apology is one of the most powerful human interactions and can seem like one of the most challenging. Think about the big and small moments in your life when a good apology could have changed everything. Apologies, when issued well, lead to healing, reconnection, and growth. 

But why is it so hard to apologize and what goes into a good apology? Discover the 4 steps to a good apology, learn when NOT to apologize, what are bad apologies and what's up with public apologies?

Transcript

I am Anna Siwold and this is Authentic Parenting,

A podcast about personal development in the context of parenting,

Where I explore how you can find more calm,

Connection and joy in parenting through the process of self-discovery and inner growth with a trauma-informed lens.

I am a parent educator and my mission is to help children by helping parents.

The motto of this podcast is raising our children,

Growing ourselves.

Today,

4 steps of a good apology.

If you've been listening to the recent episodes in succession,

You might have noticed an overarching theme.

It all began with a deep exploration of our universal human needs and feelings with a fantastic guest,

Yvette Erasmus.

Then we talked to world-renowned psychologist,

Dr.

Ed Tronic,

The creator of the still face experiment and pediatrician and writer Claudia Gold on the power of discord that conflict is not only okay,

But essential for healthy relationships,

Followed by a phenomenal conversation with the world's foremost expert on forgiveness,

Dr.

Fred Luskin.

And today,

How to apologize and make things right with Dr.

Molly House.

A sincere apology is one of the most powerful human interactions and can seem like one of the most challenging.

Think about the big and small moments in your life when a good apology could have changed everything.

Apologies when issued well lead to healing,

Reconnection and growth,

But why it's so hard to apologize and what goes into a good apology.

My special guest today is Molly House,

PhD.

She's a Harvard trained clinical psychologist and an award winning writer.

Following a clinical fellowship at Harvard Medical School,

She completed her PhD in clinical psychology from Florida State University.

For 35 years,

She has maintained an independent psychotherapy practice in which she works with couples as well as individuals of all ages.

She has contributed to several academic papers and her creative nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Modern Love column,

The Boston Globe magazine,

NPR's Morning Edition and elsewhere.

Her work was also listed as a notable essay in Best American Essays.

She has been a grateful fellow at Ragdale,

VCCA and the McDowell Colony.

Her nonfiction book,

A Good Apology,

Four Steps to Make Things Right was published in July 2020.

It's about the meaning and power of making amends.

In today's episode,

We talk about the benefits of good apologies.

We explore the many apology myths and of course,

Share Molly's simple and elegant recipe,

The four steps of a good apology.

This will blow your mind as well as public apologies,

Bad apologies,

Choices for the hurt person and when not to apologize.

Apologizing is too hard to do and too important not to.

Please enjoy this eye-opening,

Helpful and powerful conversation with Molly House.

Molly,

Welcome to Authentic Parenting.

I am so deeply honored and thrilled to have you on the show today.

I'm glad to be here with you.

You have written an amazing,

Helpful,

Empathetic and compassionate book that I think everybody should read.

I read it twice and I think I'm going to refer to this more and more.

I've learned so much.

It's a good book because it helped me understand a lot how to apologize,

But I also felt so bad about the poor apologies I have delivered.

Yeah,

It's hard,

Isn't it?

It's hard.

It hasn't been my strong suit.

To begin with,

I want to read a tiny bit of passage before I ask you a question.

This is from the introduction and you write,

My journey toward developing an apology technique began in childhood in the face of chaos and neglect,

Including three years I spent in an orphanage.

I did what children often do.

I tried to control what I could control.

When I couldn't fix the unpredictable world around me,

I learned to mend physical things.

I replaced errant buttons and glued shuttered dishes back together.

Even as a child,

I had trouble tolerating waste.

I held onto broken things long before I learned that relationships too can be salvaged rather than discarded.

Wow,

So powerful.

I am very moved by this passage.

Of course,

You don't write about your life,

Right,

In this book extensively.

And I would love to know all the details of your childhood and your life.

And I know you have written a memoir about that.

Is that right?

I have.

It hasn't been published though.

Oh,

I see.

I see.

So tell me,

It seems like,

You know,

I want you to talk about the wastefulness aspect of relationships and why you chose to write about this.

Yeah,

It's a very central part of it for me.

Over all these years of sitting with people in pain in my office,

It seemed to me that there are many times when the hurt isn't necessary anymore.

Like it really might be possible to change things,

To repair it,

To improve the relationship.

And people don't know how to go about it,

Don't know how to begin,

Don't even know it's possible.

So relationships get wasted.

It seems really wasteful to me to lose a relationship or to lose a good relationship and have it become a bad relationship when it really might be possible to actually fix it and improve it.

Yes,

I so agree with you.

When I read that,

I immediately went back to my childhood,

My maternal grandmother and my uncle who lived next door to each other,

Mother and son.

They didn't speak to one another for years as a grandchild.

I witnessed that and I always wondered like why a mother and a son would not talk to one another.

Like what happened between them?

That my grandma is this wonderful human being and my uncle too.

I love them dearly both.

My grandmother lived until 90 and they never spoke a word.

They always spoke badly about one another.

I wish I could go now and ask them questions,

But you know hurt lingers and unfortunately destroys relationships.

It does.

It does.

And so a lot is lost,

You know,

Not just their connection with each other,

But your connection with the two of them.

The fabric of the family gets torn,

Right?

Right.

And what we learn like you write in your book why it's so hard to apologize.

Why is it so difficult for many of us?

What gets in the way?

I would love for you to discuss this a little bit.

The cultural messages that we received and not modeling,

Not having this education,

The skills.

Right.

Right.

I think there are three main impediments.

One is that lack of modeling.

You know,

We're not taught how to do it and we don't teach our children how to do it.

And so we don't really know what would make a good apology.

We don't witness good apologies in public or in our private lives.

So most of us are just ignorant about it.

And that's not anybody's fault.

It's just the way it is.

And another reason is this cultural climate that you're referring to where the model of an ideal adult is someone who's independent and super confident and not doubting oneself and not being curious or humble or open to considering one's impact on another person.

And that does not lend itself to inquiring and finding out if you've hurt someone.

Some people call that a masculine model.

And indeed,

I think it is harder for men to overcome that model.

It's not impossible,

But it's harder.

But it applies to everyone in the Western cultures at large.

And then the third reason,

Or maybe it's the first reason,

Should be the first reason,

Is that our brains are wired to be efficient.

The neuroscientists have taught us this,

That the brain doesn't want to use any more energy than it already is using.

So to go back and reconsider things and to look at mistakes and to wonder about things takes more energy.

And so our hard wiring is such that we're less likely to do that.

We have lots of cognitive biases that prevent us from really seeing and knowing what's happening and being rational about it,

Cognitive dissonance,

Confirmation bias.

And we have perceptual problems.

We trust our senses when perhaps we shouldn't.

And there are lots of studies about optical illusions and mistakes that people make about things that they swear they saw and perhaps they did see,

But they actually weren't there.

Or they didn't see and the thing was there.

And we're just notoriously bad at seeing our mistakes.

So we have this limitation.

That's so true.

I'm never wrong.

Even if I hurt you and you saying that you hurt me,

Anna,

I'm like,

No,

I didn't.

Yeah.

Well,

Partly because I didn't think I meant to.

So we confuse,

There are these myths about apologies.

We don't think we could have hurt someone because we didn't mean to.

I know you have the whole list of myths in your book.

And while I was reading,

I'm like,

Wait a minute,

Which kind of applies to me here.

And some of them do apply.

Let me open that page.

In fact,

Since we're talking about the myths,

An apology is a sign of weakness.

It's that masculine culture that you're talking about,

Right?

That if you apologize,

Then you are like a weak person.

Somewhat.

Yeah.

But adults do it to kids too.

It's not just male.

It's also sort of a dominance model.

Yes.

But in fact,

It's not true.

In fact,

The opposite.

You're more courageous if you apologize.

Absolutely.

It takes a lot of courage to do it well.

Yeah.

Before I go through the list,

Actually,

I want to wonder,

Like,

I've been thinking,

No one has ever taught me how to apologize throughout my life,

Like kindergarten,

Childhood,

School,

Forget the modeling part.

I've seen a lot of bad models in my life,

In my neighborhood,

In my family.

But I don't think anyone has taught me that,

Anna or children,

This is how we do it.

Of course,

We were forced to say,

I'm sorry,

You know,

As you say the magic words,

But I think that's about it.

Have you remember,

I'm not sure what kind of schools you went to.

Of course,

You grew up in America.

I grew up in a different country.

I'm wondering,

What's your recollection of apology being taught or like in an orphanage?

I worked in an orphanage.

There is a lot of,

You know,

Institutions are a little different.

So what do you remember from your childhood about lessons about apology?

Not much.

I think it's a greatly neglected area of life learning.

In the church somewhat,

So I was Catholic as a child and you have to apologize to God for our sins.

So that's a model,

You know,

And in confession,

You have to be heartily sorry.

That's the phrase.

And then you have the priest assigned some penance,

You have to say some prayers afterwards.

So it's a little bit of an apology model.

But it's not thorough and it's,

You know,

Narrow model.

But I don't think I learned how as a child.

But we sort of forced our children to say the I'm sorry,

The magic words.

They learned that in preschool.

And a lot of people that I know want to hear those magic words,

Even in their adult life.

Like for me,

As a person,

I was never interested in hearing I'm sorry.

I was always interested in the fourth step of the apology that you describe in your book and we'll get to that.

For me as a young adult as a person,

I was always adamant about speaking.

I don't care about the words.

Like I want to,

I want you not to repeat this thing,

This behavior,

Right?

So when we teach children to say those words,

What do you think we're teaching them in general?

Like firstly?

We're teaching them to repeat words they don't know the meaning of.

And how does that going to translate into taking responsibility in their adult life,

Right?

In their adult relationship?

Yeah,

It's pretty skewed,

Right?

And that's why,

That's partly why we don't know how to do it later.

We think those words ought to make it okay because that's what we are taught as children,

Right?

Regardless of what they mean.

It is kind of magic words.

But almost we're teaching them to lie,

You know,

Say this formula rather than think about how you really feel or what you really mean or how this has affected the other person.

Oh my gosh,

I just recalled a story from my early motherhood years when you said that it hit me,

This story.

We had a neighbor,

Her son was very rambunctious and younger than my daughter.

And one Halloween,

The kids were getting ready to go trick or treating.

And this boy pushed my daughter so hard for no reason because he was a very active,

Hyperactive kid,

Very poorly behaved most of the time.

He pushed my daughter so hard that she fell and her tooth broke and there was blood.

And I was helping my daughter.

They were young,

Maybe six years old.

And the mother,

All the mothers came to me,

The group of ladies and supported me and my daughter assisted,

You know,

And she was forcing her boy.

That's all she knew.

Like I'm not judging her.

She was forcing this little boy,

Samuel,

To come and to apologize to my daughter.

And in that moment,

I was ready to tear her head off to say,

Those empty words don't mean anything.

Look what you did.

That's all I wanted to scream at her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause you can feel it.

Right?

You can feel it because that's not all right.

Those words are not going to take away the harm that he just caused.

Right.

And of course you can't change the past ever.

You know,

There's nothing you can do about the harm that's already done.

So that's,

That's kind of off the table,

But,

But you can help heal the person that you hurt and you can help heal the relationship.

So what would that mother,

If she were to do it in a more empathetic way,

What would that mother,

How would that mother teach her child to apologize in that moment?

Well,

She might ask him to notice how your daughter feels.

What was the,

What was the impact of his action?

And he see what he did to her and how that affected her and practice empathy because that's a really important part of this process.

And kids can learn empathy pretty young.

They need practice and support in it.

And the other thing is that kids have a pretty strong and early developed sense of justice.

Right?

So if you asked him what would make it right,

What you did wrong,

What would make what you did wrong,

Right,

He might have an idea.

He might not,

But you could help him start thinking about it.

Is there anything that he,

He wants to ask your daughter?

Is there anything he wants to say to her?

Is there any way he can imagine making this right?

And that might not,

Might not be in the moment because everybody's all stirred up.

It might be in a quiet moment afterwards and it might be a letter or a picture that he makes to send to her,

To give to her,

You know,

Showing his regret.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Taking perspective in the moment.

I think it takes time for us to do it right,

To teach that,

But it's so crucial and we need to start young for sure.

So going back to the,

This book is so juicy and meaty.

I'm like,

Oh my gosh,

Where do I begin?

What do I ask?

There's so many things that I would love to dive into,

But I would love my listeners to get a copy,

Read and learn and practice.

And this is an amazing book and it has so many wonderful scripts.

The boxes that you include,

The helpful things to say in those moments is really,

People always are at loss,

You know,

For words,

When to say,

How to say things.

So I think,

Right,

Right.

Like it's a great idea,

But how do you actually execute it?

Right.

Yeah.

And even if it's not their own words in the beginning,

By seeing the structure or sort of the formula,

Then you can fill in your own.

It can become your own with time.

Oh,

Exactly.

I think that's really a good way to think about it.

So the second myth that you have is saying I'm sorry means you accept the blame because you were not at fault.

You shouldn't apologize.

Right.

Well,

Most of us have probably encountered that one,

Right?

I'm stubborn.

I'm not going to admit it.

I'm not going to say I'm sorry because I didn't do anything wrong.

Right?

Yes.

Yes.

So the question is,

What matters the most?

Does your feeling for the other person weigh more than your sense that you're right?

You might be right.

You might not have done anything that anyone would find fault with on another occasion or in the abstract or even this time,

But it happened to have hurt the person.

And if you care about the impact on them,

Then you want to address it and help them heal and make the relationship whole again.

We hurt each other all the time by mistake.

It's so,

So common,

Even with your grandmother and uncle.

It's not the breach that's the problem.

It's not the fact that something awful happened between them.

The problem is the failure to learn from each other and about ourselves in these moments of the relationship can heal and get stronger.

Yeah.

So the benefit is tri-fold and multiple fold actually.

Absolutely.

Good.

Well put.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're not apologizing to clear your conscience or to make amends only,

You know,

You're doing it for yourself,

For the other party,

For the relationship,

For the community sometimes,

For the whole family.

I think it's,

And if you can see it,

For peace on earth,

I think if,

You know,

That's not too vuvu or Pollyanna.

I agree with you.

I think the world would really be a better place if we could all learn how to do this.

Yeah.

Well,

Number four,

I'm not going to read all the myths.

Okay.

Because I want the listener to get the book and check them out for themselves.

But number four is my weakest point,

Which is if you didn't intend to hurt someone,

They aren't hurt.

Yeah.

Ouch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

Yeah.

And in fact,

Impact is really distinct from intention.

They're just quite different.

And this comes up a lot in social justice settings,

Right?

Well-intentioned people often make mistakes and hurt other people and claim that they didn't hurt them because they meant well.

And it's,

You know,

It's largely in those situations because the person hasn't inquired enough.

So if you inquire more,

You'll learn why was that harmful?

Why did that hurt someone?

Oh gosh,

I didn't mean that.

You know,

Okay,

You didn't mean it,

But you did hurt someone.

So where do you go next?

You know,

It's not the end of the story because you hurt someone.

It's not the end of the story because you had an impact that you didn't anticipate.

And people get kind of shameful about it or defensive or resistant.

Blame it on the other person.

They're oversensitive.

I've done that.

I've done that.

My friend who I've called oversensitive,

If he is listening,

I apologize.

I have done so great.

But I know that's not enough,

You know,

Saying I'm sorry is not enough.

Well,

We could invite him to let you know what the impact has been.

You know,

I've been thinking about this aspect of shame a lot after reading the book,

Even though you don't openly talk about it.

Do you think it's hard for us to admit that we hurt another person because it brings up a vulnerability that I'm not a good person there for?

Right?

It challenges a cherished idea about who we are.

As if nice people can't hurt people.

You know,

We kind of believe that,

Right?

It's not true,

But we believe it.

You know,

So if I've hurt someone,

I'm not the nice person I thought I was.

I think I'm a kind and generous,

Thoughtful,

Considerate person.

So it's so how could I have hurt someone?

It must be their fault.

Or else I'm not a kind and generous,

Considerate person.

And dang,

That hurts.

Yeah,

So we avoid the hurt of our own vulnerability to go on hurting another human being.

Absolutely.

And it's a false equivalency,

Right?

Those things are really,

Really both possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think,

But if we all can accept collectively that we hurt one another and it's okay,

Not okay to hurt one another,

But that's part of this human experience.

We normalize that and take responsibility for our behavior and actions.

And people need this book to learn how to do that.

I think the world will be a much better place.

I do too.

Let me add one more variation at the risk of complicating the picture.

There's another kind of blame that a person doesn't have to have in order to take responsibility for repair.

And that is for historic harms.

If I didn't contribute to the harm of the past,

Then I have no obligation to try to repair it now or its consequences now.

This comes up also in the question of reparations for slavery in the United States,

For example.

And I disagree.

I,

As a white person,

I and my people have benefited for centuries from this unfair system.

So from where I sit,

That means I'm responsible for the repair.

It doesn't mean that I'm not at fault.

Because we allow the perpetuation of this hurt.

And benefited.

And benefited.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's a different kind of responsibility,

Right?

It's not,

I don't feel guilty,

But I do feel responsible.

Yeah.

Thank you for the distinction.

I think that's huge.

Yes.

So here is another one.

Good relationships don't need apologies.

Love means never having to say you're sorry.

Yeah.

What's your favorite myth?

If you have one.

It might be the weakness one.

Because I've witnessed such courage.

And you know,

It's just,

It's a moral challenge sometimes.

But it's a relationship challenge and an intrapersonal challenge.

To face your regrets,

To face the impact of your actions,

To be brave enough,

Clear-eyed enough to address your failings is so,

It takes so much courage.

Yeah.

So that brings me to the four steps of how to apologize.

Yeah.

And I'm assuming you have done a lot of reading research to just present it in such a short,

Concise four step way.

Because as a creative person,

I know what it goes into creating,

You know,

Digesting something difficult and presenting in a very simple way.

You know,

So it makes total sense and it's elegant in its simplicity.

So I would love for you to just list the four steps and let's dive into the first step,

Which is I think the hardest one.

I do too.

I do too.

And for the same reason as I just was talking about with the courage that it takes.

The first step is not saying anything.

It's listening.

It's learning about the impact on the other person.

And for this step,

Nothing about you that would be apologizer matters.

It's not about what a good person you are.

It's not about what you meant.

It's not about,

You know,

What the other person did that led you to do what you did.

It's not about any of that.

You may have a chance to talk about that later,

But for step one,

The whole purpose is to learn about the effect you had on someone else.

So you usually have to ask for that.

Even people who know each other very,

Very well are often wrong about this.

And there's a lot of research in this area.

In order to understand the other person,

You often have to ask and then shut up and listen.

Which is hard.

It's hard.

It is hard.

It is hard because like your immediate instinct is to defend yourself,

To justify your actions,

Your words,

The intentions,

Why you did that.

I didn't mean that.

Or you know,

You're too crazy.

You're oversensitive.

You're making a big deal.

You're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Right.

You got it wrong.

The other person's got it wrong.

Yeah.

And this may take more than one sitting,

More than one conversation,

Correct?

Right.

Right.

Correct.

It may take more than one month.

You know,

There are,

There are for very serious betrayal level offenses,

If you will,

It can take a long time to heal and it can take a long time for the hurt to come out enough for it to be done.

And sometimes people have a delayed way of bringing up stuff in a relationship,

Right?

I may have hurt someone,

But if he or she didn't bring it up in the moment or even a week or a month later,

Years go by and they like drop it on you.

You're like,

Whoa,

Wait a second.

Like I was a good person all those years or all those months.

And now you're bringing this up.

I think that's a challenge.

For me,

It is a challenge.

For example,

I get more defensive in,

In that,

In that situation more,

But do you think the person who is injured for a lack of a better word,

They need time to process and that is why it's delayed?

Well,

There's lots of reasons to delay it.

Right.

I mean,

You might not quite realize it.

You might not have quite understood what actually happened.

You know,

Sometimes in the moment you're kind of stunned or,

And sometimes it only becomes clear over time because it's a pattern and patterns reveal themselves over time.

And also sometimes the person isn't sure they want to make this investment in the relationship to take this on because it's work for the person who brings it up to the injured person.

And they're not sure it's going to go well.

And only if they really care,

Are they going to try to make this,

Try to get the apology that they need.

Yeah.

I think it takes courage for them too.

I'm reversing the situation because I don't think I've ever in my life asked for an apology.

As odd as it sounds,

I think I have been okay by being hurt.

And if I received an apology,

Because of the,

Out of the goodness of that person's heart or whatever,

I don't think I've ever pressed for an apology,

But I have been on a receiving end of being pressed for an apology.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think one of the impacts of this book is not just on people who need to make apologies.

It's it's,

It has also been,

I know it has also been for the reader to realize what they need in an apology from someone else and to be able to guide the other person to give them what they need.

And that makes me really happy.

Yes,

Because I have a hard time.

I used to,

I think now I'm more prepared with the book and the personal development work I've been doing for the past six years.

I am more eager and willing to sit there and receive an apology,

Even if it's a half ass or whatever type of apology,

Because in the past I would have said,

Oh,

Don't worry.

It's not a big deal.

Stop it,

Stop it.

No,

I don't need to say I'm sorry.

Right?

I think minimize that instead of saying,

Yeah,

I do deserve to receive this.

I think it also comes down to the unworthiness almost issue that we have.

Yeah.

It's hard to be completely frank about these things.

Yep.

Yeah.

So,

But I just want to say one more thing,

Which is people don't often sound like they're asking for an apology when they bring up something like this.

What they sound like is they're accusing you of hurting them or of doing something wrong.

Right?

I mean,

That's the wording sometimes.

But that really is an opportunity to make an apology.

It just doesn't always feel like it.

Yeah.

So and I was going to ask you then,

How can I ask in a kind manner for an apology that I deserve?

The person may not deliver the apology,

But how can I develop the courage or the language not to hurt them because they hurt me?

Right?

How can I ask kindly that I deserve an apology?

Yeah,

I kind of think the approach is similar to the approach that I described for starting an apology.

And that is that it's an invitation for a conversation.

It's not a requirement or a demand.

Yeah.

Are you are you there's something I want to talk to you about that went wrong between us and and I want to find a good time to talk about it with you so that we can resolve it and and you know,

Make things better between us.

Yeah,

And we may not even use the word apology because that could be off putting to the other person in the beginning.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It could be if we're not used to speaking like this,

We're not trained or we don't know the apology model.

I think it could be off putting if I say,

Hey,

By the way,

You know,

I would love for you to apologize.

I can imagine saying that to someone or like,

Are you crazy?

Or here's here's one more thing if you want to just turn this on its head for a second.

If you've been in a relationship with someone for for a while,

And there's been some conflict,

Then probably you've heard them too.

Right?

If you feel hurt,

You're aware of how they've hurt you.

And you might not be aware of how you've hurt them.

You might not have even considered it because you're kind of focused on what's happened to you.

And so often,

We're kind of waiting for the other person to say they're sorry and make it right.

And,

And it may happen.

And you could ask them for that.

But another thing you might consider doing is try to figure out how you might have hurt them.

Is there anything that you could you could begin an apology process with them about?

You might not even know for sure,

But you could ask them.

And you might then get after that,

The apology that you want.

Yeah,

This is why I love there was an exercise towards the end of the book.

I was going to ask you about this towards the end of the interview.

But there is a good exercise that you suggest the letter writing from the other person's perspective.

If I think that my friend has hurt me and she or he owes me an apology,

I can write a letter.

Can you describe that?

I'm talking too much today because I'm so excited about this topic.

I really like your excitement though.

So you might be talking about the exercise where it helps you,

That can help you define what it is you actually need from the other person.

If you compose a letter as if they had written it to you,

Is that the one you mean?

Yes.

Yeah.

And you write the letter that you want to receive from them.

That includes all the things you want them to say and all the things you want them to agree to do.

And it can be very informative to you about what you need.

And you might not quite know before that.

And then if you're interested in being open and intimate with this person,

You can share the letter with them and it's deeply informative to them.

I thought that was so powerful.

I know letter writing in general is a powerful therapeutic exercise,

But this was,

It's just like another level,

Right?

Because then it's so humiliating and humbling.

Because sometimes I can feel self-righteous or I want a person,

He hurt me,

I want him to apologize.

But when I actually sit down and write this letter from his perspective,

I may change my perspective completely.

Right.

Because usually what we want is accountability and caring.

We don't really usually fundamentally want punishment.

We don't want to humiliate the other person in a bad way.

We ultimately,

But we may feel that way.

We may feel like we want revenge at some point in the process.

But that's not usually the ultimate goal.

Yeah.

Is there an apology that you're waiting in your life to receive from someone?

That's a great question.

Well,

I think I was waiting for my mother to apologize for the ways she let us down.

And she's no longer with us,

But I haven't been waiting for that for a long time.

And I'm trying to think of,

She didn't make an apology of any sort,

But I think I stopped needing it.

But I was waiting for it,

Wishing for it.

Oh,

Sorry.

Wow.

Yeah.

I mean,

And most parents do let their kids down in one way or another.

So it's a big universe of potential apologies.

But that's the kind of,

Your podcast is directed to parenting and there's so much about love and responsibility that we learn in those relationships.

And how to hold yourself accountable in ways that other people haven't held themselves accountable for you or to you.

And I think it was genuinely healing for me to have children and to see how easy some parts of it were that were not easy for her and how natural.

And it helped me understand that she was not cut out for that role.

You know?

Wow.

Thank you.

Plenty of parts were hard too though.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Definitely.

Yeah.

It is hard.

I remember when I was young,

My dad would always say,

Wait till you become a parent,

You will understand.

And truly you do understand your parents more and better once you become a parent for the better or for worse,

Right?

I think,

Especially when parents were not present or neglectful or abusive,

It could be hard because of the trauma,

The wounding could be so difficult.

If you haven't healed as an adult,

It's hard to see your parent through a compassionate lens.

But once you do,

You see that they also carried a hurt,

A trauma.

That's why they were not able to fully love and be themselves,

Let alone apologize and be a grownup and mature.

Sure.

Sure.

Yeah.

And the goal,

I mean,

When you say,

You know,

Everybody should read this book,

The goal is to interrupt that,

Right?

Like if my mom was damaged by her parents and they were damaged by their parents and you know,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Where do we learn to heal it within the generation so we don't have to keep passing it along?

You know,

Somewhere we have to be able to hold each other gently and long enough to recover.

Yeah.

Wow.

With that,

Let's talk about the second step.

I don't want to miss the best part of this book.

So the first step is just to listen and take it all in as uncomfortable and as hard as it is.

Right.

What's the second step?

The second step,

If you've done step one well,

Then you know.

And when you know,

If it's someone that you care about,

Automatically you'll feel empathy and compassion and caring for them.

And that has a great way of melting your defenses because you care about them and you don't want to see them hurt.

So what follows naturally is a statement that's sincere in which you express your regret,

Responsibility and empathy.

This is like saying,

I'm sorry.

You don't have to use those words,

But they might be in there.

But it's simple.

I am so incredibly sorry.

I hurt you.

I can see that I hurt you now.

And I'm so sorry is very powerful.

And it's really different from saying,

Well,

I am sorry,

But,

Or I already said,

I'm sorry.

So what do you,

You know,

It's very different from that.

A sincere,

Simple,

Direct statement is step two.

Yeah.

I think there are many bad ways of apologizing and not now that we have the model now that you've written the book,

I think we've all known how to poorly apologize for things and make it about the other person.

I've certainly done it many times.

I'm sorry that you feel hurt.

Oh,

Ouch,

That's not an apology.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I'm sorry if something I did happen to have had an effect on you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's the second step.

I think once you allow yourself to hear fully,

You would know the extent to which you hurt them and you would know how you've hurt them.

Right?

Because like in the beginning,

I don't know.

I'm in a position of,

I didn't mean to hurt you,

Like you're oversensitive,

But if I hear,

I will learn something.

And so I think the second part comes naturally for us to just validate and empathize with the thing that the person brings up.

Right.

Right.

And sometimes there's more than one part.

So you have to hear more than one part,

But yeah.

So what would there be more?

Can you say more about that?

Oh,

Like if there was an impact that wasn't apparent right away.

I know that I forgot your important occasion and didn't show up for it.

And I'm sorry that I let you down about that.

But it turns out also that there was another effect of that.

Like there was somebody important there that that person wanted you to meet or there was some occasion afterwards at which they were depending on your presence to sort of make them feel more comfortable or protect them from something or whatever,

You know,

There's a lot of other things that might've been consequences that you might not know about,

Even if you do know that you let them down about one thing.

So just more than one thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the third step.

The third step is to make the wrong right.

And that is restitution.

In a court of law,

We usually think about that as making the other party whole financially.

So returning them to their previous state.

But in relationships,

It's not usually material or not wholly material.

Sometimes it's symbolic material or replacing an object that was lost or damaged,

But it's more likely to be making the relationship whole again,

Not the person exactly.

So the thing that I've seen happen most often in relationships is a do over,

Which seems incredibly corny.

And people think it won't work,

But it does.

And what it is,

Is the chance to get it right this time.

The thing that you didn't get right the first time.

My friend likes to tell a story about the time that her husband was really grumpy one day after work and she was irritated with him for being so grumpy and everybody was kind of in a bad mood.

In the middle of the night,

She woke up and realized that it had been his birthday and everyone had forgotten it.

Which of course she felt bad about.

But what she did was she organized a whole series,

A week's worth of dad days.

And she and the kids made him little presents and prepared his favorite foods and gave him a card every morning.

And he talks about that as his favorite birthday ever.

So the hurt mattered to them.

And it mattered to them enough to make sure that he knew how much they loved him.

And so that's the part that he remembers in his heart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

I can go on and on and ask you different scenarios,

But I think this is very clear.

How about the fourth step?

I think the fourth step is hard too.

I think the first and fourth step are the hardest one.

Right.

The fourth step is to prevent the hurt from happening again.

And that means usually that there has to be some real change made.

If there's a pattern in the relationship that led to this harm or hurt,

Then you have to really change something.

Sometimes the pattern that needs to change is a serious mental health issue or substance abuse issue or other kind of behavioral addiction.

And those cases often you require some professional help.

It's not a fair fight for the two people to be able to tackle that just on their own usually.

But many things can be changed within a relationship.

Communication patterns,

Timing patterns,

Sharing of responsibility for things,

Even administrative sinking of calendars makes a difference for repeated disappointments.

Couples therapy helps,

Especially a brief focused piece of couples therapy with someone you can return to later if you need to for a tune up.

But people often can come up with ways to change things.

And this is a collaborative process often.

It's not up to the hurt person to determine it,

But it ought to be something that will satisfy that person.

And you can't tell at the beginning whether it's working,

Because it takes time to establish habit change.

It's really hard to change habits and patterns and intentions are usually not enough.

Something real has to be changed in the setup.

And that takes work.

It takes time.

Yeah,

That's why I said it's the hardest part because I faced this difficulty myself.

It's one thing to give my word and say,

Oh,

I will never ever do this or apologize to all the right three first steps.

But sometimes,

I can't guarantee my intention is there.

I can give you a word on that for sure.

But the behavior change,

Man,

That's going to take some time and practice and effort.

Yeah.

And so I like to say that the plan,

The apologizer has to make a convincing plan about how they're going to change.

And saying I'm not going to do that again,

I really,

Really am not going to do that again is not a convincing plan.

Yeah,

That makes total sense.

Yeah.

So you're really,

Really hooking the person here at every step to take full grown,

Mature accountability and responsibility for every step of the way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And compassionately,

Right?

I don't think it's punitive.

I think it's kind responsibility.

Yeah,

I completely agree.

And the older I get,

The more I am witnessing this topic of taking personal responsibility is like slapping on my face that this is an important topic that our society lacks.

You know,

Everybody's stuck in victim stance and victim mind,

Victimhood.

And it's so easy to blame others for your misery and for your suffering,

Point fingers and complain and whine and do all those things as opposed to taking a responsible act,

You know?

Right?

Or even if you are wrong,

You know,

Sort of in the public arenas,

You know,

Someone might be wrong.

But that does not mean that they're evil and can never fix it.

I think that compassion is an important part of it too,

To taking real accountability and repairing things.

Yeah,

That's why I love the book.

It's very positive,

Hopeful,

And doable.

You know,

It normalizes things,

It teaches,

It's very helpful.

It doesn't just talk about the issue or the importance of it.

It gives you really like practical step by step to actually with the scripts to do it.

If you develop the courage,

The authenticity and the vulnerability,

You know,

To do so,

You know,

It's like,

This is a growth oriented work.

And if you care about the relationship that you're trying to repair more than you care about covering your ass.

Well said,

Well said.

Well,

There is a chapter in the book that is titled When Not to Apologize.

I'm wondering if you can speak about some of the points in that chapter.

Well,

One big time not to is if you don't mean it.

If someone's requiring you to say something that you don't mean,

I think it's a bad idea.

Sometimes,

You know,

Maybe you have to,

But if you can avoid it,

I think it's a mistake.

Another one is if the person has asked you not to be in touch with them,

You know,

Connected to the hurt,

You really ought to leave them alone.

That's not fair,

I think.

Yeah,

You don't want to harass them and chase them because you want to feel good,

Clear your conscience and apologize when it's for your own benefit,

Really.

Right.

Right.

Right.

I think the last one item on that list is if you never do anything wrong,

If you never make a mistake.

And of course,

That's a joke,

Because everybody does.

But literally,

Some people do believe that they do not make mistakes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They believe everybody makes mistakes,

But not in this moment or not me or not under these circumstances,

You know.

Our former president,

I don't want to get political,

But I think he was like that,

Wasn't he?

Sure.

And lots of people have recommended we send him.

Oh,

Boy.

I think it's too late.

That train has left.

I'm not going to mention it for me.

But almost everyone,

Maybe not him,

But almost everyone can learn to do this.

It's completely common sense and accessible.

It doesn't mean it's easy,

But it's not mysterious.

I agree.

Well,

How about when a person demands way too many apologies,

And I've been on a receiving end of this,

And they even give you a script how to apologize to them correctly,

Because they don't accept your genuine apology.

They say it's incomplete.

It's not good enough.

If you want to apologize,

This is what you should say.

Hmm.

Well,

I don't know.

Is it because I read this book and they know a good way to apologize or is it because they're being a pain in the neck,

You know?

Yeah,

I think that would be controlling.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's kind of in jest.

People can tell you what they need from you,

And you can decide whether you can give it to them sincerely.

Yeah.

I think.

Yeah.

And,

You know,

Sort of the benefit of the.

.

.

Give the person the benefit of the doubt if you can,

Because you're trying to heal things,

Right?

If it's a pattern where this goes on a lot and it becomes kind of a tyranny,

You become a supplicant and you're never off the hook,

No matter how well you do it,

And you've done your due diligence,

You've really learned how to do this well and it's still not acceptable,

Then maybe this isn't something you can repair.

And then you have to choose between your own,

I don't know,

Integrity and appeasing the other person.

Yeah.

And one,

Just to conclude the conversation,

As I said,

We can talk about this forever,

But I wonder if you can say a few words about public apologies.

You know,

We've been seeing a lot more these days in the social media,

In the pop culture,

You know,

Celebrities,

The Me Too movement,

Maybe a good apology example that you've seen and a bad one.

You write about that in your book too.

Yeah.

There are a lot of examples to choose from,

For sure.

One mistake people often make,

Celebrities especially,

Is they make a public apology rather than an apology to the person that they hurt or persons that they hurt.

So it's misdirected from the very beginning and it's not an inquiry to find out what really happened to the other person.

It may be trying to take responsibility,

But it's not thorough and it's misdirected,

I think.

So there are,

You know,

Hundreds of them.

You know,

One example of that was when Louis CK was first accused of sexual misconduct,

He apologized to the wrong woman for the wrong thing because he didn't listen.

So a person who's demonstrated good apologies,

A thorough,

Sincere seeming apologies,

You know,

You can't really tell about public people,

Is Justin Trudeau,

The Canadian Prime Minister.

In several examples,

He has had people do the research to understand the impact of governmental decisions and he's made tearful,

Sincere seeming public statements at some length about,

For example,

There was a gay purge in the,

I think it began in the 60s,

50s or 60s,

I can't remember now,

But it went on for a very long time and people were removed from government service and the armed forces and all kinds of Canadian institutions if there was a suspicion that they were gay.

So they lost a lot,

Those people,

They lost income and standing in the society and so did their children and grandchildren.

And so it was a very costly and horrible pattern and he stood in parliament and said for this,

You know,

He listed the things for this,

We are deeply sorry for this,

We are so sorry for this,

You know,

And it was moving.

It is moving,

You can see it,

You can find it online.

I recommend you listen.

And then he made some changes,

You know,

In the law or instituted the process to make the changes to change the law and reversed people's legal records,

Which had been,

You know,

Littered with these false and ugly made up crimes and made financial restitution.

Sorry,

I said that out of order.

He made financial restitution and then he changed laws also.

So that's the step four,

Right,

Is to make sure that this won't happen again.

So you know,

He's pretty thorough.

He's done,

He did a statement about the turning away of the St.

Louis,

The ship that was carrying people trying to escape Nazi Germany.

Lots of countries turned it away.

Canada did too.

And in that statement,

One person who had been on the ship was there.

Apparently,

She might be the only one who lives in Canada now.

But she's quite,

She was quite old,

And her son was there.

And he was quoted as saying,

This is the beginning of the possibility of healing,

Because it's naming it.

Yeah,

That's,

That's very powerful.

So how has this book changed your life?

Did this research,

You know,

Diving into this topic,

As a person,

How have you changed as a result of this work?

That's a good question.

I'm definitely committed to challenging my defensiveness.

That doesn't mean it doesn't come up.

But I want to be,

I want to follow these steps.

I want to hold myself accountable.

And I want to hold my loved ones accountable in a kind way.

And you know,

Embrace information about myself that is surprising and not always pleasant to receive.

Because I believe that none of us knows the whole story.

You know,

We don't know until we hear from other people.

We only know our part of the experience.

And I want to be curious.

I want to remain curious about the rest of the story.

Well Molly,

Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for your presence,

For your wisdom,

For spending this generous amount of time with me putting up with my tech demands in the beginning.

And thank you for the book.

And as I said,

Like,

This is going to be in my top 10 of all times.

That's amazing.

I'm gonna put this on my list.

It's a wonderful book,

Really,

Very well written,

Thorough,

Comprehensive.

And I think,

You know,

Even young people have to read this,

High school kids,

You know,

To learn this from a young age,

We need to teach our children how to apologize for the reasons mentioned in this episode for the sake of our own,

You know,

Relationships for the planet,

For humanity,

For peace,

You know.

I have been doing some workshops with high school students and among others,

And they've been very actively engaged,

You know,

Surprisingly willing to engage with this model.

I'm excited to hear that.

That makes me happy.

Well,

Thank you again for your time.

We'll be in touch.

And I will let you know how the listeners engage with this episode and what the feedback is.

That concludes today's conversation,

My dear listener,

And I hope you enjoyed it.

I would love to hear your biggest takeaways and ahas from this fantastic episode.

You can send me a note to the email info at authenticparenting.

Com.

You can call the number 732-763-2576 and leave a voicemail.

And for international listeners,

You can use the free SpeakPipe tool on the contact page of my website,

Authenticparenting.

Com forward slash contact.

Join your fellow listeners from around the world in our private Facebook group,

The Authentic Parenting Community,

A positive and supportive space for conscious moms and dads like you.

Generate conversations,

Ask questions,

Discuss the episodes,

Take part in our monthly book club,

And be part of our amazing community.

I continue offering my weekly pandemic support calls.

They are free and open for everyone.

I post the link and the information in our group,

But if you are not on Facebook,

You can sign up for my newsletter on my website to receive notifications.

If you enjoyed the podcast,

Take a moment to rate and review it on Apple podcasts.

Until next week,

Connect to the present moment,

To yourself and your children.

I am Anna Siwold.

Thank you so much for listening!