Contents
The ability to admit we are wrong and ask for forgiveness if our words and actions have caused someone pain or harm is what distinguishes a mature, adult person. How to learn to apologize? Five tips to help you avoid mistakes.
Nobody likes to ask for forgiveness. It’s not fun at all. Even adults pronounce “Forgive me, please” as if this apology was pulled out of them for three hours with tongs, or, conversely, blushing and turning pale, they shyly whisper it, burying their eyes on the floor. Nobody likes to be wrong, because it follows that “I am a bad person.” And we do everything in our power to avoid this feeling.
After all, we are good people, right? Caring, loving. We listen to the voice of conscience, do not offend the little ones, stand up for the weak, care about the environment and donate to charity. We are good people! And good people have nothing to apologize for.
And then suddenly it turns out that there is.
Gradually getting used to the idea that I, too, can be wrong is an important part of growing up.
The unwillingness to ask for forgiveness often does more harm than the bad offense itself. We argue, we distort. We force the person we offended to prove over and over again that he has the right to be offended, and in the end we still deny him this right.
We begin to perceive him as an enemy, and now we are the offended party. We demand an apology for making us feel worse than we think. And we don’t learn anything.
It takes many years to come to terms with the need to ask for forgiveness. And this gradual getting used to the idea that we, too, can be wrong and hurt someone, that we need to ask for forgiveness for this, is an important part of growing up.
So here are five tips to help you master this adult skill.
1. Forget about “I know how you feel”
In fact, it is impossible to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes and feel what the other is experiencing. We experience and experience the world differently. We can guess and assume what is going on in the soul of the interlocutor, but we never know for sure. Moreover, we do not need to be able to feel someone else’s pain as our own in order to believe in its sincerity. If this particular situation seems normal to us, it does not mean that others do too. “I wouldn’t be offended by this,” we say to ourselves. So what? It’s not about us at all.
2. Ask for forgiveness for an act
Skip “I’m sorry it hurt you”, forget about “I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d take it like that”. An apology looks like this: “I did ________, because of this you ______. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” If you don’t understand what exactly offended a person, either make more efforts to understand, or honestly admit that you don’t care.
And if you don’t care, just admit it. Say it out loud. Sometimes we offend people and feel guilty. Sometimes, we do not feel the slightest remorse about this. In any case, we are responsible for our actions. Moreover, even if we don’t feel guilty, the person hurt by our actions still has the right to feel offended.
3. If you feel guilty, think about how to fix the situation or how to prevent it from happening again
Communicate your desire to the one you offended (if they want to listen to you). Apologies are worth nothing if after a couple of minutes you have already forgotten what you did.
The person we hurt is absolutely not obliged to help us fix the situation in any way.
An adult’s apology suggests that he wants to compensate for the consequences of his actions, or at least learn from his misconduct a lesson for the future. It is also important to consider that the person we have offended is not at all obliged to help us correct the situation in any way. This is our own business, and if suddenly he nevertheless comes forward to meet us, we should be grateful for it.
4. No “buts”
“Sorry, but…” – after such a beginning of the phrase, it is better to stop and douse yourself with ice water in order to recover. So don’t ask for forgiveness. So they argue. If we ask for forgiveness, we are talking only about our act and the feelings of the person whom this act offended. Our thoughts and experiences at this moment have nothing to do with the matter.
“But he offended me too!..” So be it. Set it aside for a second. Sorry. Let the person accept the apology. And only then, at the right moment, talk to him about your offended feelings. And if the interlocutor does not want to ask for forgiveness in response – well, his business. It doesn’t give us the right to take back our apologies. We are responsible adults.
5. No one is obligated to forgive us
The person we hurt doesn’t owe us anything. He has the right not to hear an apology. He has the right not to accept them. He has the right not to love us. He has the right to say in response: “To hell with your apologies. You are a terrible person.”
And that’s okay. Perhaps you really behaved horribly. Nobody has to be friends with us. Nobody has to forgive us. And even if you repent every day, and they say to you again: “Nope, you are not forgiven,” this is also normal. It doesn’t follow that you have to repent for the rest of your life, but refusing to accept an apology shouldn’t offend you. You did bad. So the person towards whom you acted badly has every right to despise you. And that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for forgiveness.
Like it or not, even though saying “I’m sorry” is painful and unpleasant, it’s still better than blushing and hiding your eyes when you meet the person we offended.