Talking about magnitude(DW# 763 )
It goes without saying that not offences are the same. And apologies for smaller offences can be much easier to offer than for the big ones.
What do I mean by that?
Harriet Lerner in her great book on the subject: Why Won't You Apologize?: Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts explains the difference between small medium and big hurts.
Small everyday happenings that are not necessarily in our control or our fault.
There are things that happen everyday in our lives which cause inconvenience to our loved ones and they involve us in some way.
For example, I get held up in a traffic jam on the way home from work causing the family to wait for dinner
Saying sorry in such a situation is not really asking for forgiveness since these happenings are not anyone’s fault. Rather, it is simply an empathic response to another person’s pain. We are saying, in essence, I am sorry you have to go through this ordeal.
Saying sorry in such situations may be fairly easy but the failure to do so will have a big impact. For example, if I am late for a family dinner it can mean a lot to acknowledge that I am sorry for the inconvenience to the family even though I could not do anything different in the situation.
A medium difficult apology
An apology is more difficult to offer when we do have something to apologize for and we regret our earlier behavior. Here even a short, sweet, or belated apology can be better than ignoring the incident.
An incident that comes to mind is when I missed a big part of a cousin’s daughter’s wedding because I fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon. Since many family members were staying with us, they had to wait for me and they missed it too.
I was so embarrassed at this that it took me several months before I could approach my cousin and apologize to her for what had happened and tell her how deeply I regretted missing an event which was so important to her. I am so glad that I did.
After the apology, it felt like some bit of trust or closeness had been restored back to our relationship - that I didn’t even know was missing. I felt so much lighter about it and no longer stressed when I was going to meet my cousin.
The hard stuff
The most difficult apologies are for those actions that have caused the greatest hurt or involved a betrayal of trust. It can take great courage to open a conversation and apologize for something that has hurt someone deeply.
Apologies in such situations are particularly hard because they involve being willing to listen and bear witness to the pain of our loved one. Unfortunately, there is no short cut out of this step. Healing can begin to take place within the relationship only once we listen to and acknowledge the hurt caused, and make meaningful amends.
Here is how Lerner puts it:
It’s a profound challenge to sit on the hot seat and listen with an open heart to the hurt and anger of the wounded person who wants us to be sorry, especially when that person is accusing us (and not accurately, as we see it) of causing their pain. Yet both personal integrity and success in relationships depend on our ability to take responsibility for our part (and only our part) even when the other person is being a jerk.
In other words, the reward in terms of personal wellbeing and relationship success makes the discomfort worthwhile.
Two points as we wrap up today:
1) If we start taking responsibility for the small and medium stuff, we will likely grow our apology skills and be able to take responsibility for the harder stuff
2) Our relationships (with ourselves and others) will definitely suffer if the skills for meaningful apologies are not developed. And they will surely benefit if we are brave enough to start practicing taking responsibility and apologizing when our actions cause pain to another human being.
Let us start practicing saying sorry (and meaning it) for the little stuff to start with, shall we?
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