How To Apologize The Right Way

Making a real, heart-felt and life-changing apology requires certain critical factors. And there are degrees of apology for degrees of wrong-doing from having to work late and missing a dinner with your spouse, to neglecting or abusing your child at critical junctures in development that have had terribly destructive consequences. Modern, secular society has lost these essential skills and lost the understanding of how spiritually powerful a real apology can be for healing and reconciliation.

Apologizing is a key component of reconciliation where wrong-doing destroyed sacred bonds of trust and reliance, fracturing a family relationship or even a Nation.

HOw to make an apology the right way:

She is a little too upbeat in this video for the bigger infractions but you get the idea



Some essential components to a real and lasting apology - the type that heals relationships and changes lives:

• Accepting and voicing personal responsibility for wrong-doing. Sometimes it doesn't matter that you never 'meant' to do or not do something. So your intent doesn't always matter - apologize anyway. It's what happened, not necessarily what you intended to happen.
• Outlining your awareness of the many and varied consequences of your wrong-doing
• Saying 'I'm sorry', 'I was wrong', 'I failed you', 'It was my fault' and being truly and deeply remorseful and penitent. Sometimes a 'wrong doer' has to wait many years before he/she even understands the extent and damage of their actions and to feel real remorse
• Don't ask for, nor expect a declaration of forgiveness right away
• Being willing to do things to 'make up' for what was done ( to the extent that it is possible )either in error, ignorance or done willfully ie. willing to undergo suffering and pain, willing to put in time and effort
• Don't expect reconciliation and forgiveness right away or even at all. Depending upon the offence, it can take many years or even a lifetime or maybe never happen.

When you make a real apology, encorporating these and maybe other critical elements can be the difference between real and lasting reconciliation and spiritual healing or not and can even be life-saving to both parties.

 

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