Most of us know how to say we’re sorry. We know the right words. We also know when an apology didn’t land with us, even when the other person technically gave one. Something was missing. They said they were sorry, but never actually said what they did. Their words sounded right but everything else about them felt irritated, inconvenienced or like they wanted the conversation to be over. Or they acknowledged what happened but couldn’t stay with what it was like for us. Somewhere in there the apology became an explanation, a defense, a reason we shouldn’t have been as hurt as we were, or a request for us to hurry up and make everything okay again.
There are a few things happening when we truly and authentically apologize. We directly name the behavior that caused harm. Our words, body language and what we are actually feeling are congruent. And we have enough capacity to understand that what we did had an impact on another person. We rarely do all three.
The accountability part can get tricky fast. To apologize, I have to be able to know something about myself that I may not particularly enjoy knowing. I did that. I said that. I caused that. You were hurt by something I did. I can have reasons for what happened and still have caused harm. I can have had absolutely no intention of hurting you and still be sitting here with the reality that I did.
What happened with that kind of truth in the house you grew up in? What happened when an adult lost their shit, said something unkind, scared you, embarrassed you, ignored you, blamed you or simply got something wrong? Did they come back? Did anyone name what they actually did? Could they tolerate knowing that their behavior had affected you, or did life just carry on? Dinner happened. The television went on. Everyone went to bed. The next morning arrived and apparently we were all just going to agree that yesterday never happened. That teaches our nervous system something about repair without anyone ever having to teach it.
If the adults around you didn’t have the capacity for their own truths and limits, where would you have learned how to stay with yours? If accountability meant shame, punishment, weakness, being wrong, losing power or becoming the bad one, what happens in you now when someone says, “That hurt me”? Do you hear information about their experience, or does your system hear something about who you are?
This is where apologies can start doing some strange things. “I’m sorry you feel that way.” “I already said I was sorry.” “That’s not what I meant.” “You know I would never intentionally hurt you.” “I was stressed.” “You did the same thing last week.” We can get remarkably busy when the simple truth sitting in front of us is that something we did landed painfully for another person.
And the body keeps the score for all of it. What happens to your face when you apologize? Your voice? Can you look at the person? Do you start explaining? Are you saying the words while some other part of you is braced against having to say them at all? Congruence is difficult to manufacture. We know when someone’s mouth is saying one thing and the rest of them is somewhere else. We also know when we are doing it.
Understanding impact asks for something else. Can another person tell you what your behavior was like for them without you needing to correct their version of it? Their experience doesn’t have to become your intention. You don’t have to agree with every meaning they made from what happened. But can their experience exist without you immediately reorganizing it into something easier for you to hold?
An apology can bring us right up against the patterns underneath all of this. Protect self. Explain. Minimize. Make nice. Get the other person to reassure us. Find the part they did wrong. Say the right words so we can get out of here. None of those tell us who someone is. They tell us what became available when accountability entered the room.
So what becomes available in you? Can you name exactly what you did? Can you stay there when the other person tells you the impact? Where do you leave yourself? Where do you leave them? What are you protecting when you do? And if you learned repair from adults who never came back after the rupture, what would it be like to find out what happens when you do?