The Art Of Apology: Finding Healing & Authentic Forgiveness

We all make mistakes. It's normal. But when that mistake involves another person, we need to know how to make it right. We need to apologize, right? Well, most apologies don't heal the damage, and sometimes they even make it worse. Let's explore what a true apology is and how to give and receive them so that our relationships not only heal, but also become stronger.

Transcript

So today we're talking about the art of apology.

How to apologize in a way that actually heals our relationships.

And I think this is so important because the bottom line is sometimes we make mistakes.

We all do.

It's just the way it goes.

But the problem is when we apologize,

It doesn't often help.

We don't trust the apology.

Someone says,

I'm sorry,

Like I'm not gonna do it again.

And we're just sort of like,

Well I know that you're gonna do it again.

Like your words don't mean anything.

And so then we sort of are left with this,

Then what do we do?

What do we do as people who want to be together,

Or struggle,

Or family members,

Or loving partners,

Or children,

Or friends?

How do we possibly mend it?

When the truth is none of us are perfect all the time.

We're all growing,

We're all evolving,

We're all learning.

And things happen sometimes.

Well one of the biggest problems is that when we apologize,

We're actually not sorry for what we did in a way that's gonna stop us from doing it again.

We might say,

Like I said I'm sorry,

Like what more do you want?

Or when we say I'm sorry,

I'm sorry this happened.

I'm sorry you found out.

Even if we don't say this,

It's kind of what we mean.

I'm sorry you're hurt.

A real famous one,

You know,

I'm sorry you feel this way.

And a lot of times when we say we're sorry,

It's actually something we were taught as children.

And we were actually taught that it means nothing.

You know,

Somebody hits their sister,

Now you say you're sorry to your sister.

I'm sorry.

Okay good,

Everything's fine.

Like this was,

We were trained that all we had to do was say I'm sorry.

And that sister knows a hundred percent that it's gonna happen again.

You know,

The fact that we don't trust an apology is because we're wise and wisdom comes from experience.

Because we've been apologized to before and it's a hundred percent happened again.

So we already know that,

Well this doesn't change anything.

It certainly doesn't address the fact that I'm hurt or feeling abandoned or feeling,

What's the word,

Disrespected.

It doesn't address any of that.

And I know you're gonna do it again.

So what?

What do we do?

So the number one thing for me that changes an apology into something that actually heals the harm and bonds us together is,

And this word isn't maybe very popular,

But it's repentance.

And repentance is used a lot in the Christian Church.

But whatever we believe about that,

I mean maybe that's a good reference for you and that's awesome.

But I want to take it out of that because it's not a word that ever felt good to me in the way that it was taught to me anyway.

But what repentance in my context means,

It means that you have had an aha moment.

You've had literally a change of heart.

You have realized the underlying drivers that maybe live in your unconscious that caused you to do this thing to someone you love.

And because you've had this awareness and this aha moment,

Suddenly you're like,

I need to get help with this.

You know,

I've actually realized,

Because maybe you actually felt shame for what you did.

This is where shame and guilt are really important emotions.

Like normally we talk about shame and guilt,

Like you can't like beat yourself up all the time,

You can't live in shame,

You can't live in guilt,

Like all these kind of things.

But when we've done something wrong,

Shame and guilt are so important.

And if we can't feel shame and guilt,

We're in big trouble.

Because it means,

And maybe we can't feel them because we are embarrassed or we don't like those feelings or who knows why.

But if we don't feel shame or guilt,

Our apologies will always mean nothing.

So it's really important to feel that shame,

Like I can't believe I did it.

Feel the guilt to realize,

Okay,

I did it.

It was me that did it.

I can't blame anyone else for this.

Get some help,

Have the aha moment,

And then you return to your partner or you return to the person and you say,

I am so sorry.

You know,

I've realized that this and this and this and this,

And it's been driving me this way,

And I can't believe it's come to this and now I've done this and I've hurt you and I am so incredibly sorry.

There's something when someone genuinely comes with true repentance,

Changes everything.

Like the entire,

The whole field is changed.

Everything disappears.

So why is repentance,

Like how does it work?

So as human beings,

We have,

Imagine we have our conscious mind,

The part of our mind that we can access.

You know,

I decide that I want to be this kind of person.

I want to act this way in my life.

I want to act this way towards people I love.

I want to eat healthy foods.

I want to treat,

What do you call it?

I want to spend money in a particular way or save money in a particular way or whatever.

We have all these conscious intentions and then something happens.

We don't.

We go on a binge and eat,

You know,

A box of cookies or something or we go off the diet or we,

You know,

Spend the money or we don't do the thing or we lash out like someone says something and suddenly we get all upset and pissed off and we're like,

Ah,

And then afterwards we're like,

What happened?

Like what happened there?

I was fine and then suddenly I wasn't.

And this is the interesting interplay between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind or the subconscious mind,

Doesn't really matter which one.

But in the unconscious mind are a million things.

It could be pain from trauma as a child,

From previous relationships,

That at the time I can't handle the emotion,

I can't handle the pain of this.

So our bodies very beautifully bury it for a time so that we can continue on.

You know,

If you're six years old and suffering abuse or have a emotionally unstable parent or whatever,

There's nothing you can do about it.

So all you can do is bury the fear,

The anxiety,

Whatever it is that we have,

Put it away until one day we're older and we can look at it and we have the autonomy and the empowerment to actually deal with it.

But at that time there's nothing we can do.

So it goes into our unconscious.

We're all like that.

Every one of us.

Every one of us has an unconscious filled with past experiences.

Past unresolved experiences.

So then what happens?

We're older and something happens and it triggers us.

This,

Quote,

Trigger.

What does that actually mean?

When we become triggered we time-travel in our consciousness.

We time-travel back to that point where this feeling happened before and now suddenly this person in front of you is not the person you love.

They are the person who hurt you 30 years ago and you will act out in that way.

That's almost like we time-travel back to that point and now we're six years old or now we're 14 years old or now we're 20 years old or whatever and we act in a way that is not in alignment with our consciousness.

Well the problem is we may have done this before as an adult.

We may have lashed out before.

We may have ignored people before.

We may have shut down.

Whatever it is our adaptation is.

And so then as an adult we've now doubled onto it and we've said well when I do this I now I lash out even worse you know and I get defensive and I freak out or whatever.

I push people away or I punish them with silent treatments or whatever.

And now all of a sudden it's like this weird multi-layered thing that I already know I do this and now I've figured out how to not get in trouble for it.

And this is where all of a sudden this person says I'm sorry and you're like it means nothing because they're not sorry you know.

They're not even looking at why they did it and this is the difference.

So when we think of some of these unconscious things that happen in relationships or things that are driven from the unconscious,

One of the big ones is lying.

That someone will lie to you.

They could be white lies that they're not happy with something or they are happy with something.

They could be outright covert lies of some kind of deception or not telling you something because they don't want you to be mad or whatever.

It could be all kinds of reasons that they lie.

But why might they lie?

Did they get in trouble as a child if they told the truth?

You know were they never able to get their way?

Why are they lying?

There's a reason they're lying.

And of course you know we'll speak in a moment that perhaps they truly do have narcissistic tendencies or psychopathic tendencies or something like that.

That they truly are manipulative.

That is not such a huge percentage of the population.

They say that like 5% of people actually do have these dark you know narcissistic,

Psychopathic,

Machiavellian,

Sadistic tendencies kind of thing right?

So the majority of people they're lying because they weren't allowed to tell the truth when they were children or something.

There's something in there and we don't have to unpack it.

They do.

This isn't your job to unpack why they're lying.

It's theirs.

But there might be something in their childhood and their upbringing in their past that's actually causing this.

And if they get to the root of it they'll stop.

And then when they say they're sorry you'll believe it.

Some people hide themselves.

It's kind of like lying but they sneak around.

They hide things from people.

Why would they hide things from you?

Right?

It's pretty easy to imagine that perhaps there's something deep in the childhood that that forced them to hide things.

And again we don't need to go into it right now.

Whoever has the problem,

It's their job.

This is the big thing right?

That if you're sort of the one that's always the forgiving one and always the one that people are lying to or doing all this thing,

To really be clear that it's not up to us to sort out their problems.

It's theirs.

They need to go for counseling.

They need to start journaling.

They need to do the things.

Otherwise again their apology means nothing.

They have to do the work.

Maybe they have a bad temper and they lash out.

They lash out emotionally.

They lash out mentally.

People play huge mind games with people you know.

Or they lash out physically.

It it's very very common.

This is also something that easily comes from the unconscious from childhood.

Whether it's how they were treated.

Whether they're just frightened.

Whether that behavior was normalized as a child and they just never quite sorted it out in their conscious mind as an adult.

It doesn't matter.

But what matters is that it's living in the unconscious.

Some people are insanely suspicious and they follow you around and they have to read your phone and they have to do this and they have to do that.

And it's kind of like enough.

You have to stop.

First of all you don't have to know everything.

Oh why are you hiding something?

You know and it's kind of like okay this is not a healthy relationship right here you know.

But again why are they so suspicious?

What in the world is going on?

And of course obviously I'm not talking about you know you've done things and you've repeated them and repeated them and repeated them and they're naturally suspicious because of history.

I'm not talking about that.

Some people are just super suspicious all the time.

And that's a little abusive to somebody.

To be constantly questioning every single thing.

And how come you were five minutes late?

And who were you talking to?

And this is a real thing.

Until that person gets to the bottom of why they're so unconsciously suspicious of everybody,

They are gonna have,

They're gonna push everybody away all the time.

Sometimes people can be very insensitive.

You know you could share something and they shut you down.

Or even in like some of so many like sexual issues are actually caused by someone being very insensitive in the bedroom.

Saying something that just isn't caring enough.

Here you are sort of open to the world.

First,

Second chakras exposed.

You're naked.

We have body image shaming issues.

All these things.

And someone said something very insensitive and it just shut you right down and really hurt you.

You know this happens.

It happens to men and it happens to women.

It's actually some people say that for men it's one of the number one things that causes performance anxiety.

You know erectile dysfunction.

Things like that.

Because somebody said something once.

Once.

And it shut this down.

When we're open and vulnerable like that,

Wow we are so susceptible.

And this is a very very hard thing to forgive.

Right?

Because it hurt.

It actually hurt us.

So if we have this insensitive way about us,

Again we can only imagine why.

Why have we become not sensitive to others?

Because we've been hurt.

Because people have been insensitive with us.

So we've put up walls and then hidden behind them and not connected with people's feelings.

And again it doesn't matter what it is.

But all these things live in the unconscious of their psyche.

So you can imagine the chance for redemption here.

Right?

Chances are high.

There is so much juiciness in the unconscious that if that person truly feels shame and guilt and wants to have the connection back that they once had with you,

Then there's lots of places to work.

There's lots of places to go.

You know counseling,

Books,

Learning,

Anything.

And the truth is push comes to shove they probably do know why they did it.

You know they probably can take you to a place in their past.

So there's lots of possibility for them to go into that,

Get right down to the core of it and sort it.

There's something really magical when this happens.

When you know when I first started dating my partner we would have like the weirdest arguments.

Like just something would happen and I'd be like that's not okay.

And he'd say well what it's not a big deal or something.

And I just say I don't know.

I just now I because of this thing I now feel very separate from you.

Like I can't I've got walls up now.

And so we would sit on the couch and talk and he would you know we would go back and forth and back and forth.

And one of the interesting things in that this relationship because again coming into it later in life because I'm 56 we've been together for four years and I came into it kind of with the idea that well if it works out great you know he's lovely and everything but I'm not I'm not 20.

I'm more than happy to be alone or whatever if this doesn't work.

And so when something would happen I wasn't gonna do the deep diving which I normally would have right.

That's the problem when you're into psychology and philosophy and spirituality that you really want to solve their problems.

You want to help right.

And I just kind of look at him and say I don't know what the answer is.

You know I might give some some suggestions maybe it's this maybe it's that I don't know.

And I'd always say you know the answer is inside of you.

You've got to figure it out.

And he would sit there and chew on it and think about it and all of a sudden 100% of the time it would be some memory from his childhood and he'd say I remember this time when my dad said this or whatever.

And all of a sudden you know he'd start to cry or something would happen and instantly the distance was gone.

Whatever it was whatever the thing was that caused the behavior was now free.

The light was on it.

It was over.

Whatever it was had zero power over him anymore.

And whatever the issue was was truly over.

It was done.

It was so incredible.

And so over that course of you know we always joke that we did our relationship backwards.

That instead of having the honeymoon period at the beginning we sorted out all the unconscious things right at the beginning.

And so now we're kind of living in the honeymoon period.

But this is a real thing.

But the magic is that he did it.

He dove into his psyche.

I didn't do it.

He did it.

And then he found it,

Sorted it,

And then looked at me and said wow I am so sorry.

I get it now.

You know that is an apology.

And then we were closer than ever right.

So this there is potential here if someone wants to.

So I want to talk about the different kinds of quote apologies that we experience in life.

So the first scenario is that the other person doesn't apologize.

You know it's sort of one of those people that they're like oh they'll never say they're sorry you know.

And this doesn't have to be a romantic partner.

It can be a parent,

Friend,

Child,

You know anybody.

And those are the people that very often we will tell ourselves I would take any kind of apology from them right.

We would say if if all they said was I'm sorry I'd be happy.

But the reality is what we're actually looking for there is just some recognition for our feelings.

We just want to know that they even care at all.

Like they even are registering that I'm upset.

That's that's actually all we want.

This is a very low bar for relationships of any kind.

The simple acknowledgement that you're a human being with feelings.

But sometimes we'll take it if that's all it is for that person to turn around and say I'm sorry.

Even if it's not even heartfelt we're happier.

So there is that scenario.

Not really what we're talking about in our talk today.

And then there are people who say they're sorry in anger.

You know you you say well this and this and this and that's not okay.

And they're like okay I'm sorry all right I'm sorry.

What more do you want from me?

Not exactly a bonding moment.

Exactly a moment where you feel like oh this yeah this is gonna be much better from going forward.

But of course what's happening in that person in that moment?

Right?

They're expressing this anger.

For some reason they're terrified.

They're terrified that you've caught them.

Like they are that seven-year-old child who doesn't want to get punished in this moment.

And they're terrified and they're lashing out because they're an adult and they can.

Or maybe they're embarrassed.

Maybe their pride is taking a huge hit here.

And they they are just so embarrassed they can't face it.

So the best they can do is push you away and just back off.

And I said I'm sorry and I'll leave it alone.

Again this doesn't help anything.

But it happens.

And some part of us can understand that wow they're like they are so emotionally triggered.

There's not a lot of chance of them sorting this.

Not in this moment.

And we make choices all the time in relationships as to whether we stay,

We go,

We get help.

Like whatever.

We all we all have options there.

And then there's the manipulators.

They're like I am so sorry baby.

Like I can't believe I did this to you.

Like I just feel so bad.

Like look at you.

I just oh man like I can't believe I've done this.

Like will you ever forgive me?

Like really like I just can't tell you.

I just feel so horrible about this.

You know but they're lying.

They are purely manipulating you.

They know that you respond to emotions.

So they're gonna speak to you with emotions.

And they've learned your language.

They know how to make sure you're not angry with them anymore.

Now this is the sign of narcissistic traits.

That they don't care about you.

They care about them.

And they're more than happy to manipulate your feelings to get the focus off of them.

There's another dark trait in the psychology world.

And it's all it's about Machiavellianism.

And this is essentially that you know ability to manipulate other people to do things so you will win.

You know and it's taught in business all the time.

You know it's a well it's a means to an end.

You know if I've got to suck up to you a back whatever I'll do it.

This is dangerous right?

As soon as someone's giving you that kind of apology best to really go a little deeper into that one.

Because you're probably never gonna get an authentic apology out of this person.

Then you have the poor me apology.

Right?

You're like I'm really sorry but you have to understand like where I'm coming from.

Like if you if you'd seen what I've seen like you know and honestly I think it's because I you know my dad was so mean to me when I was young you know.

And and I'm hurting and I'm still hurting badly.

And you know it kind of almost bothers me that you're attacking me for this.

You know here I am doing the best job I can and and you're just getting all upset about it all the time.

Like like did you even think about me?

You know like it's not an apology.

It's not remotely an apology.

It's actually again it's kind of a narcissistic twist.

And I'm not saying people are narcissists.

I'm just saying there's a trait in there.

There's a twist in there that now suddenly they are getting out of responsibility for what they did.

It's a very childish response.

You know they don't want to be treated like an adult.

They don't want to actually take responsibility for what they did.

They want they want to get let off the hook.

So they're gonna plead their case for their sad story.

And it's interesting that how very often sometimes this works.

It doesn't actually bring you closer together.

But depending on our own woundings this may work on us for a little while until it doesn't.

But there's no healing in the relationship because they never ever get to the bottom of it.

And they make sure that well the truth is they actually are healed from their childhood.

It's all an act right?

If they're if they're able to flail it about like that in front of you it's not actually hurting them anymore.

You know they're using this as a tool against you.

So then the last kind of apology.

The real apology.

The person truly like we said feels shame,

Feels guilt.

They own it.

They own the responsibility of this like an adult.

And they sit with that and they think wow something's really amok.

Like there's cognitive dissonance inside of them because they've realized that I don't want you to feel like this.

And I don't want you to feel this way because of something I did.

I've hurt someone I love.

Why would I do that?

And they want to get to the bottom of it.

They do.

To the point that when they actually do get to the bottom of it they come to you and they're like I am so sorry.

You know I've done I figured it out that wow I really do think that this comes from this part of my life.

And it doesn't matter.

Like it's not important.

And truthfully I understand even if you don't forgive me.

Because it was really really an awful thing for me to do.

But there's no excuses.

No nonsense.

And the reality is it never does happen again.

Whatever the thing is.

It actually doesn't happen again because the unconscious trigger that started it or the unconscious need that made it happen doesn't exist anymore.

You can trust that they've rooted out the problem.

They don't ever want to do it again.

And this is completely different.

And when this happens a bond,

Your bond together becomes greater.

Because you have unearthed,

Let's say you're the one that is apologizing.

You've done something wrong.

You've done,

You've hurt this other person in some way.

You've gone deep into your psyche and discovered some aspect of you that you didn't previously know.

Or you didn't previously connect the dots.

And your heart is so open.

In order to get there you've got to open that heart and be so vulnerable.

And then you shared it with this person.

You shared this vulnerable part of you that maybe you've never shared with anyone ever before.

Because it's never come to this point before.

For whatever reason you've never cared enough or been provoked or had the need to go into this enough.

And you shared it openly with this person in complete vulnerability and said I understand if you don't want to be around me anymore.

I'm so sorry.

And then that other person takes you in their arms and says thank you so much for going there.

Like this is a bonding moment.

And this is why when we really understand apologies,

Then suddenly,

Let's say in a romantic relationship,

This is where the relationship can actually be so healing for each other.

Where the relationship becomes this safe container of personal exploration that that is unprecedented.

And you can definitely have it with parents and children and children and parents and friends.

You can have it there but just for simplicity.

I'm just gonna play in the romantic place.

So then all of a sudden you're going along in your life in this relationship and someone does something wrong.

They just they do something.

And the other person's like wow that really hurt.

And you sit there and maybe you are initially defensive.

Maybe those old unconscious defenses come up first.

And the other person just sits there with you and says I've got to sort this.

And the wild thing is every time we do it,

It gets easier.

And it's like as human beings you keep going deeper and deeper into who you truly are.

Every time you have an incident.

And again to truly understand these aren't repeating incidents.

It's not that they did it and then they did it again and they did it again.

It's not that.

Something happened.

A deep dive happened.

That person healed something in their soul.

They come out.

The dust settles.

And then maybe the other person does something.

And they think oh wow.

And then they go deep.

And bit by bit over time and suddenly 20 years later you truly are each other's best friends.

You truly are.

You can say that this person knows parts of me that no one knows.

How did you get there?

Through conflict.

Through difficulty.

Through resolving.

Truly resolving issues.

And that's why understanding what an apology really is is such a huge deal.

It's so healing for everybody involved.

And like we've seen like it's so much more than just saying I'm sorry.

Like just saying I'm sorry skips an entire potential journey.

You know and it's like we're actually skipping our own chance to heal every time we get defensive or we try to not take responsibility.

So yeah.

So important.

Thank you so much for being here and I hope you have a wonderful day.