If you try to accomplish something big, you’ll need other people.
This is one of the many reasons why relationships are so important.
Sooner or later, you will hurt another person. It doesn’t matter how good a person you are, or how good your intentions were, we hurt others. That’s life. We’re wounded. We hurt, so we hurt others.
And there would be no problem with hurting others if we knew how to repair it, but most of us don’t.
Specifically, I want to address the dying concept of the apology. Apologies have become more insincere, and more and often completely absent. Have you noticed?
It used to be that a customer service person would actually empathize with your problem. That devolved to conditional and impersonal: “I’m sorry if there was any inconvenience.” I notice even this hackneyed phrase disappearing and instead they just move onto solving the problem without even a nod to the impact.
This is the decline of relationality in our world. In the bigger picture, I think relationships of all kinds are failing because they were built on the shifting sand of inauthenticity, and must fall apart in order to reform in a new way. Here are some ideas that may help.
The “ology” in “apology” is the same as in biology or psychology, and they all share my favorite Latin root, “logos,” which in this case means logic/reason. “Apology” literally means “a rational explanation for something.” It used to mean a formal defense of one’s opinion or action. Plato’s “Apologia” was Socrates’ speech justifying his actions before being sentenced to death for being the smartest person in Athens and making other people feel inadequate. Well, the official charge was impiety and corrupting the youth, but six of one, half a dozen.
The word “apology” (d)evolved to mean an expression of contrition for wrongdoing, but the key to an effective apology lies in its logical root. Simply saying, “I’m sorry,” isn’t a rational explanation for anything. A rigorous apology requires the apologizer to sincerely examine what they did and why they did it in order to share the logic, the causality, of what happened. This is especially important since the discovery of how much we are unconscious of.
“I’m sorry my assignment is late.”
Not an apology. No explanation whatsoever.
“I’m sorry my assignment is late. I was overwhelmed and was too embarrassed to ask for help. I tried to figure it out myself and that was a mistake. This is a pattern I desperately want to change because I know it hurts myself and the people I work with.”
That’s a great beginning! The receiver of the apology might curiously ask, “Why were you embarrassed? I’d love to have helped!” And now, we have two people caring about and getting to know each other. That’s vulnerable relating.
The explanation of what happened is the yang component. The feelings expressed are the yin. Interestingly, the word “sorry” has the same root as “sorrow.” It’s an expression of regret, sadness, and grief.
How often when you hear, “I’m sorry” from someone, do you actually feel that sorrow in them? Not always, right? Saying, “I’m sorry” without the feeling of sorrow is inauthentic. It literally means, “I feel sorrow,” so if the person isn’t feeling that, it’s effectively a lie.
Remember when you were a kid and a parent would order you to say you were sorry before you felt it? That doesn’t support mature relating. It’s control followed by inauthentic appeasement, which is rampant in our society.
When people say “I’m sorry” and aren’t feeling sorrow, something else is going on inside. “I’m sorry” often means things like:
- “Can we please stop talking about this and pretend it didn’t happen.”“Will you please absolve me of having to look at my unconscious motives?”
- “I’m going to do this again, but let’s pretend I won’t and move on.”
When we feel that the other person feels genuinely bad about what they did, it elicits compassion, and forgiveness automatically emerges, because we sense that it’s more likely they’ve learn from the mistake. When we can’t feel that, we’re suspicious and forgiveness is forced.
Human beings learn faster when the lesson is associated with emotional pain. Avoidance of the emotional pain, therefore, is short-term win and a long term loss.
A mature person wants to learn about themselves, especially their unconscious, just like an athlete wants to feel their muscles burn. They know the pain helps them in the long run. But this abiding relationship with emotional pain is rare and hard-won. To the degree our parents didn’t make room for our emotional pain is the degree to which we think we can’t bear it.
But just like with physical exercise, not only can we bear the pain, but to become emotionally mature, we must. So the next time you screw up, and you definitely will, care enough about yourself to be curious about why you did what you did, and care enough about who you impacted to feel remorse about it. That’s basing responsibility in love.
To do this, you need meta. I’m currently leading a course called Zen and the Art of Meta if you would like some support. It’s not too late to join, and I won’t tell you time is running out and all that other marketing crap. When you’re ready, I’m here.