One of my biggest weaknesses in my life has been my inability to say I am sorry. Even today, I am in no way professing that I have mastered the art of apology or being able to recognize when an apology is needed.
The art of saying sorry shifts from situation to situation.
Saying sorry isn’t an answer or a cure to all challenging
relationships or interpersonal dynamics. Saying sorry does not solve all the problems in the world. However, it does make us more
accountable for our own actions and, in turn, allows conscious words and behaviour to flow, and this does change the world.
Apologizing is a humble action, especially if our behaviour or words have been wild and messy. Or if we are really wanting to be right. I get in my own way with that one; my need to be right can blind me to the bigger picture. When I can understand that if I am not right, my world will not fall apart, I take some of the aggression out of my conviction. If I can soften to other possibilities, I can choose to be compassionate towards someone else’s similar need to be right. This is a kinder response than holding my ground without compromise.
I also have a tendency to believe that everything is my fault, and
this is one of the reasons it has felt so challenging to say sorry.
If everything is my fault, I must be a horrible person, and if
I apologize, it makes this belief more real. That’s a heavy way to see the world, and it doesn’t serve me. I am learning to be softer with myself, to know that I (like everyone else!) am also doing the best I can. Sometimes things are my fault, but not always. I don’t have to be a dick in trying to prove my lack of fault: sometimes even just creating space for another to express themselves or better understand a situation is a peace offering.
I am learning to practice saying sorry to myself for decisions I have made that turned out not to be the best in the long run, for being
vulnerable and getting hurt, for trusting the wrong people, for not
trusting myself, for not showing up as my best self. You know, I
am finding that the more I learn to forgive myself, the easier it is
to forgive others. Of both small or great wrongs.
Are you willing to forgive yourself above all else?
What are you willing to say sorry to?
with love
Noelle