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A Portal to Healing and Growth

Apologies

What Is An Apology?

True apologies come from a place of empathy and focus on justice.

As children, we’re taught to apologize by looking our friends, family, or classmates in the eye and saying, “I’m sorry.” As we grow older, relationships and injustices become more complex—yet for many, apologies remain the same. They begin and end with a simple declaration of being sorry. Although this can be well intended, this simple expression of remorse is rarely enough to make things right after we mess up.

Investing in the work of true apology not only helps those we’ve hurt, heal, it can also transform the culture in which we’re embedded by modeling new ways of relating. In addition, a strong apology can become a kind of superpower for the one who apologizes. We often hurt people because of our own wounds, and a deep apology will open us to confronting and tending to those pains. And if we fully accept the damaging impact we’ve had on another person, we can appreciate that we may have more power than we realized. In a deep apology process, we can claim that power and commit to using it for good. Below are five key pillars that shape an effective apology.

Pillar One

Self-Awareness

Pillar One

Self-Awareness

You can’t deliver a good apology without empathy for the impact your actions had on the other person—and you can’t make the inner space that you need for that empathy without looking at your own wounds that led you to make the choices you did. Tending to those wounds with compassion can help you develop more compassion for the person you hurt.

Reach out to your community of care to support you in this process. All wounds deserve care.

Pillar Two

Empathy

Pillar Two

Empathy

Soak in how your actions impacted the other person. If appropriate, ask the other person, how this experience might have felt, or try to learn from others who may have been hurt in similar ways.

Bear witness. Let their hurt into your heart. Allow yourself to accept the full extent of their suffering.

Pillar Three

Impact

Pillar Three

Impact

Focus on the one you hurt, not on yourself. An apology is not the right place to explain your motivations. Display empathy, not defensiveness. Learn from those you hurt what you need to do to make it right. Did your actions impact a community as well as an individual? That community will also need an apology.

Name this. Address this. Step into the power of taking responsibility. You can do it!

Pillar Four

Improvement

Pillar Four

Improvement

Enroll in trainings, therapy, or service that will set you on a path so you don’t hurt someone in this way in the future.

Pillar Five

Delivery

Pillar Five

Delivery

Incorporate what you’ve learned into your apology, then take the action you promised you’d take to make things right.

Pillar One

Self-Awareness

Next Pillar
Pillar One

Self-Awareness

You can’t deliver a good apology without empathy for the impact your actions had on the other person—and you can’t make the inner space that you need for that empathy without looking at your own wounds that led you to make the choices you did. Tending to those wounds with compassion can help you develop more compassion for the person you hurt.

Reach out to your community of care to support you in this process. All wounds deserve care.

Pillar Two

Empathy

Previous Next Pillar
Pillar Two

Empathy

Soak in how your actions impacted the other person. If appropriate, ask the other person, how this experience might have felt, or try to learn from others who may have been hurt in similar ways.

Bear witness. Let their hurt into your heart. Allow yourself to accept the full extent of their suffering.

Pillar Three

Impact

Previous Next Pillar
Pillar Three

Impact

Focus on the one you hurt, not on yourself. An apology is not the right place to explain your motivations. Display empathy, not defensiveness. Learn from those you hurt what you need to do to make it right. Did your actions impact a community as well as an individual? That community will also need an apology.

Name this. Address this. Step into the power of taking responsibility. You can do it!

Pillar Four

Improvement

Previous Next Pillar
Pillar Four

Improvement

Enroll in trainings, therapy, or service that will set you on a path so you don’t hurt someone in this way in the future.

Pillar Five

Delivery

Previous Notable apologies
Pillar Five

Delivery

Incorporate what you’ve learned into your apology, then take the action you promised you’d take to make things right.

What makes an apology notable?

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Whether an apology is public or private, it should serve to heal victims, be honest and restorative, and bring about a sense of continued justice. Public apologies offer us an opportunity to examine both shortcomings and successes within context. Below are notable apologies and what we can learn from them.