Why does apologizing make us feel so powerless when it’s the most powerful thing we can do?

Why does apologizing make us feel so powerless when it’s the most powerful thing we can do?

 

If you’re a person who has spent enough time trying to improve upon present and future relationships by reflecting on the past ones, you’ll notice something.  A lot can be fixed with an apology.  Not everything, but more than we give two words credit for.

Yes of course, acknowledgement of bad behavior coupled with future changed behavior is critical, but that aside, just saying “I apologize” or “I’m sorry” can move mountains. I have seen it. I have felt it. And I have also felt the devastating absence of it.

So why is it so difficult to do the thing that gives us the most power?  Do we even recognize how much power lives in an apology?

 

Nope

 

Think about a time when your feelings were so hurt by someone and all you wanted was for them to apologize.  You knew that you would instantly forgive them, but in this moment, you just needed to hear the words.  If you are lucky you heard them, or read them or whatever, but if not, try to recall that silence, the waiting;  and then the ultimate disappointment and devastation.  

 

Tragic huh? Almost Shakespearean kind of tragic.

 

I learned after a pretty rough relationship that saying “I’m sorry” would have yielded greater results than saying whatever the next meanest thing I could think of. 

 

So I made a new policy.  Everyone gets an apology.  

You get one, 

you get one, 

you get one. 

I’m Oprah!  

 

It literally costs me nothing to give that person relief, to pop their anxiety balloon, to proverbially pat them on the back as their breathing slowly returns to normal.  

It may sound disingenuous, but it’s not.  Yes, I mean it, yes there will be changed behavior in the future even if that behavior means we spend less time together.  It also means I see you. I see what happened. And I am not going to pretend otherwise.

But here's the part nobody talks about.

Watch what happens when you say it. “I’m sorry” or “I apologize.” Watch their face, their demeanor, their posture. Watch the muscles in their face relax. Watch their shoulders drop. Watch the air change in the room.

You have completely changed the energy of the entire room; you’ve altered another person's entire physical disposition— without laying one finger on them.

That.

Is.

Power.