What a great book!
A wonderfully thoughtful deep-dive on everything to do with apologies, drawing heavily on Dr. Lerner’s experiences in clinical practice. Covers the whys and hows of good apologies, good listening, family dynamics, managing ourselves and our expectations, understanding what we can vs can’t control, the role of forgiveness, as well as misconceptions about it, ways to stop waiting for apologies that aren’t coming, and what you can do to move forward and lessen the amount of injury past hurts still hold for you – literally packed with insight.
There were so many quotable passages inside the book that I could have ended up with one for every page, however, below is a listing of the ones that resonated with me the most during my reading.
“The best apologies are short, and don’t go on to include explanations that run the risk of undoing them. An apology isn’t the only chance you ever get to address the underlying issue. The apology is the chance you get to establish the ground for future communication. This is an important and often overlooked distinction.”
“..a false, blame-reversing apology is worse than no apology because it repeats and deepens the insensitivity.”
“A heartfelt apology is not about you. If your intention is to offer a genuine apology, it’s the hurt party’s anger and pain that matters. Save yours for a different conversation.”
“..here is the real point when it comes to the challenge of apologies in family relationships. If our intention is to have a better relationship, we need to be our best and most mature self, rather than reacting to the other person’s reactivity. Also, some of the other person’s complaints will be true, since we can’t possibly get it right all of the time.”
“It’s incredibly difficult to listen to someone’s pain when that someone is accusing us of causing it. We automatically listen for and react to what is unfair and incorrect. To listen with an open heart and ask questions to better help us understand the other person is a spiritual exercise, in the truest sense of the word.”
“Being a good listener also means that we can tell the other person when we can’t listen – that we know when to say, “Not now” or “Not in this way.” When we tolerate rudeness in any relationship – if doing so becomes habitual rather than a rare event – we erode our own self-regard and diminish the other person by not reaching for their competence to do better.”
“Listening is an intensely active process, and one that comes far less naturally than talking. There is no greater challenge than that of listening without defensiveness, especially when we don’t want to hear what the other person is telling us.”
“Non-defensive listening is at the heart of offering a sincere apology.”
“1. Recognize your defensiveness.”
“2. Breathe.”
“3. Listen only to understand. Listen only to discover what you can agree with.”
“4. Ask questions about whatever you don’t understand. This will add to your clarity and show the other party that you care about understanding her. Note: Asking for specifics is not the same thing as nitpicking – the key is to be curious, not to cross-examine.”
“5. Find something you can agree with. You may only agree with 7 percent of what the other person is saying, and still find a point of commonality.” “If you can’t find anything to agree with, thank the other person for their openness, and let them know that you’ll be thinking about what they’ve told you.”
“6. Apologize for your part. It will indicate to the critical party that you’re capable of taking responsibility, not just evading it. It will also help shift the exchange out of combat into collaboration.”
“7. Let the offended party know he or she has been heard and that you will continue to think about the conversation. Even if nothing has been resolved, tell the other person that she’s reached you.” “Take time to genuinely consider her point of view.”
“8. Thank the critical person for sharing his or her feelings. Relationships require that we take such initiative and express gratitude where the other person might expect defensiveness.” “In this way we signal our commitment to the relationship.”
“9. Take the initiative to bring the conversation up again. Show the other person that you are continuing to think about her point of view and that you are willing to revisit the issue.
“10. Draw the line at insults. There may be a time to sit through an initial blast, but not if rudeness has become a pattern in your relationship rather than an uncommon occurrence. Exit from rudeness while offering the possibility of another conversation.”
“11. Don’t listen when you can’t listen well. It’s fine to tell the other person that you want to have the conversation and that you recognize its importance, but you can’t have it right now. If you’re closing the conversation, suggest a specific window of time to resume it.”
“12. Define your differences. You need to tell the critical person how you see things differently, rather than being an overly accommodating, peace-at-any-price type of person who apologizes to avoid conflict.” “Timing is crucial, so consider saving your different point of view for a future conversation when you’ll have the best chance of being heard.”
“Words of apology, no matter how sincere, will not heal a broken connection if we haven’t listened well to the hurt party’s anger and pain.”
“If only our passion to understand the other person were as great as our passion to be understood. Were this so, all of our apologies would be truly meaningful and healing.”
“When we adapt an attitude of terminal seriousness about our mistakes – or we equate mistakes with being unworthy, lesser, or bad – it’s more difficult to admit error and apologize for being wrong. A vicious cycle ensues because the inability to admit error, orient to reality, and offer a heartfelt apology only leaves the perfectionist feeling less authentic and whole, that is, even “less perfect,” which then further heightens the resistance to apologizing.”
“Perfectionists fail to identify with the wise words of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross: “I’m not okay, you’re not okay, and that’s okay.”
“To offer a serious apology, you need the inner strength to allow yourself to feel vulnerable.”
“When you have fairly solid self-esteem you can admit to being in the wrong, without feeling like you’re weakening the fabric of the self, or losing something to the other person.”
“When guilt is about doing, shame is about being.”
“To guard against the intolerable feeling of shame, we may fold ourselves up and hide in the darkest corner. We may apologize for taking up too much space or for using up too much of valuable oxygen in the room. Or we may do the opposite and flip shame into contempt, arrogance, a need to control, and displays of one-upmanship, dominance, and superiority.”
“When our identity and sense of worth are at risk of being diminished or annihilated, we will not be able to offer a true apology and face all that challenge of earning back trust entails. We are more likely to wrap ourselves in a blanket of rationalization, minimization, and denial in order to survive.”
“When we have lost sight of our value and worth, defensiveness is where we live.”
“Only by enlarging the offender’s platform of self-worth might that person find his way to empathize with the pain and the hurt the party feels, apologize in a heartfelt way, and work to ensure that it will never happen again.”
“If you want to invite the other person to consider his behaviour and offer an apology, remember the most basic rule of good communication. Criticize the behaviour, not the person.”
“Paradoxically, it’s in our most enduring and important relationships that we’re least likely to be our most mature and thoughtful selves.”
“If you’re trying to get through to a non-apologizer – or any difficult or defensive person – keep in mind that overtalking on your part will lead to underlistening from the other. This is true whether the offense you’re addressing is large or small.”
“If your intention is to be heard and to make room for a sincere apology and behavioural change, opt for brevity.”
“When we believe we won’t get through to the offending party, we often increase the intensity and lengthen our arguments. This does not help – and usually hurts.”
“Timing and tact, along with kindness, are exactly what make honesty possible with the most difficult and defensive individuals.”
“Shaming people — whether they are seven or seventy – may indeed force an apology, but that apology is likely to be motivated by the wish to escape the intolerable feeling of being shamed. A shamed person wants to fold up and disappear, so an apology becomes a quick way to exit the situation.”
“..shame will not inspire reflection, self-observation, and personal growth. These are essentially self-loving tasks that do not flourish in an atmosphere of self-depreciation and self-blame.”
“When we go from criticizing specific behaviours to taking a hatchet to someone’s already rickety self-worth, we narrow the possibility that they will be able to consider their harmful behaviours, feel empathy and remorse, and be motivated to make amends, Shaming will also fundamentally harm your relationship with the other person, even if the damage doesn’t show up till many years later.”
“If the other person has pushed through his or her discomfort to do the right thing and apologize, we can push through the discomfort and say, “Thanks for the apology.” It’s important to resist the temptation to cancel the effort at repair that a genuine apology is.”
“Some parents feel reluctant to apologize to their kids because they think it undercuts their authority and makes them look weak and uncertain. Actually, it models a stronger approach to the world that reflects a concern for fairness, and an ability to orient to reality. It shows children that their parents can admit to being wrong without being lesser people for it. Indeed, the ability to apologize is one of the greatest gifts that we can give to our kids. Children have a strong sense of justice, and suffer when a parent’s defensiveness invalidates what the child knows to be true.”
“..if we want to teach children to apologize. Learn to say, “Thank you for the apology,” and stop there.”
“Under stress, people easily get polarized and divide into opposing camps. We get overfocused on what the other party is doing to us or not doing for us, and underfocused on our own creative options to move differently and de-intensify the situation. We want change but we don’t want to change first – a great recipe for relationship failure.”
“We all have a better self we can reach for, but sometimes our anger, fear, stress, or exhaustion blocks us from doing so.”
“We automatically look for the one to blame, the person who “started it,” but relationships don’t work that way. Both observers are right and both are wrong. Relationships operate in a circular, not linear, fashion, the behaviour of each person provoking and reinforcing the behaviour of the other. The real question is not who started it, or who is to blame, but rather what each person can do to change his or her steps in the dance.”
“The courage and clarity to define our bottom line, which includes our needs and the limits of our tolerance, is at the heart of having both a relationship and a self. Doing so is ultimately an act of kindness and respect. Most pursuers would rather be confronted by a strong partner with a clear request for a behavioural change, than be met with silence. A firm constructive complaint lets your partner know that you care about making the relationship better and you’re willing to fight for it.”
“The phrase, “I don’t want to talk about it” – when it goes beyond taking temporary distance and becomes a pervasive strategy – is the death knell of an intimate relationship.”
“..no one – whether nine or ninety – will value criticism if there is not a surrounding climate of appreciation and respect.”
“When we interpret genuine difference as a problematic distance, we end up making things worse.”
“Accepting differences is one of the greatest human challenges, and that includes differences in how we manage stress.”
“..changing how we habitually behave in any relationship often requires an initial willingness to pretend, to do something different that may at first feel nothing like being one’s true self.”
“Without a spirit of adventure, you’ll be stuck with a narrow vision of who you are and what’s possible in your relationships. The best apologies are offered by people who understand that it is important to be oneself, but equally as important to choose the self that we want to be.”
“When people suffer, as Kim did, they often suffer twice, first because they have lived through something painful, and second because a key person in their lives doesn’t want to hear about it, or doesn’t want to hear all of it.”
“Without the confidence to know that we can handle whatever comes next, and enough self-esteem to avoid collapsing into shame, it’s unlikely that we will deepen that conversation.”
“Letting go means protecting ourselves from the corrosive effects of staying stuck. Chronic anger and bitterness dissipate our energy and sap our creativity, to say nothing of ruining an otherwise good day. If nonproductive anger keeps us stuck in the past, we can’t fully inhabit the present, nor can we move forward into the future with our full potential for optimism and joy. There is a difference between healthy anger that preserves the dignity and integrity of the self, and ruminative anger that wakes us up at three in the morning to nurse past and present grievances and drum up fantasies of revenge. The latter accomplishes nothing except to make us unhappy.”
“My professional and life experiences have taught me to hold a large picture of people who do bad things, and I do not reduce them to their worst deeds or most dramatic insensitivities. I look at relationship problems, including my own, through the widest possible lens, and I teach people to understand patterns, rather than to blame or diagnose individuals.”
“If you believe that forgiveness, like gratitude, is a universally healing emotion, you may be inclined to encourage other people to forgive someone who hurt them. Your intentions may be good, but you run the risk of victimizing the hurt party all over again.”
“People who appear to be holding on to anger or bitterness frequently did not experience a clear, direct, heartfelt validation soon after an earlier betrayal or act of neglect occurred. The child, or adult, may have been told that the bad thing was not really happening, that his feelings and perceptions were wrong, out of proportion, or crazy – or that what happened was necessary, even his fault, his choice, and something he brought on by his own difficult behaviour.”
“To heal, the hurt party needs to hear an unequivocal validation of the awfulness of the experience, and an affirmation that his or her feelings and perception makes sense. Suggesting to someone that they forgive can leave the hurt party feeling more emotionally unsteady and betrayed all over again. This can be so, even if the injury and insults were small ones, and especially if they were not.”
“”Can’t you forgive him?” are the last words a hurt or victimized person needs to hear. Cliches like, “She did the best she could,” or “It is what it is,” or “This happened forty years ago,” are similarly unhelpful. It is one thing to tell someone that you hope they can find a way to unburden themselves from carrying so much anger and pain. It is another thing entirely to suggest that they should absolve the wrongdoer and transcend their anger through a heroic act of will or grace.”
“Forgiveness is often characterized as an all-or-nothing sort of thing, like being pregnant. Either you embrace or exile the offender, either you forgive him or you don’t. The truth is that you can forgive the other person 95 percent or 2 percent or anywhere in between.”
“The transfer of vigilance.”
“It’s useful to consider how members of your own family practice compassion and forgiveness when a hurt has not been repaired. Thinking about family patterns can help you see your own habitual way of responding to insults and injuries more clearly.”
“You do not need to forgive a person who has hurt you in order to free yourself from the pain of negative emotions. You can even reach a place of love and compassion for the wrongdoer without forgiving a particular action or inaction. You are not a less loving or whole person if there are certain things you do not forgive, and certain people whom you choose not to see. Perhaps you are even a stronger or more courageous person if you have leftover anger, whether from one violation or countless little micro-violations, even as you move on. Most importantly, it is no one else’s job – not that of your therapist, mother, teacher, spiritual guide, best friend, or relationship expert – to tell you to forgive – or not to.”
“We all want to suffer less, yet we may reflexively lock ourselves into ways of thinking that block us from resolution and letting go. Our longing for justice, the singularly human struggle to make sense of the other person’s behaviour, and our tendency to take things personally, are among the factors that may keep us from moving on – whether from a small insult by a stranger, or from a devastating betrayal in an important relationship.”
““Don’t take things quite so personally; unhappiness or insecurity can make people say stupid things. When other people act badly, it has to do with them, not you.” My mother’s words helped me to be less reactive, to pass on less intensity than I receive, to see people as more complex than their worst behaviours, to develop empathy, and to be curious about why people do what they do.”
“..we misread people’s motives all the time, and in the absence of facts, we are left with our fantasies (Had she heard something bad about me? Was it my torn jeans?) or ruminations (“Why are people so senselessly mean when life is already hard enough?”). We engage in mind-reading, which in contrast to intuition, humans have no talent for.”
“How do we explain the inexplicable? Not simply the rudeness of strangers, but the hurtful actions of the very people who were supposed to nurture and protect us. Why did they leave us so totally alone, fail to protect or rescue us, or otherwise behave very badly? This is a puzzle that a child may struggle with even before she has the words to articulate it. “Is it because I am too good or too bad, too pretty or too ugly, too special or too worthless, too needy or too unable to fix my parent’s need? Children seek meaning for the hurtful behaviour of family members very early on, often relying on self-blaming fantasies that serve to preserve their image of the “good parent” on whom they utterly depend. Children have a strong sense of justice combined with an equally strong wish to forgive those they depend on and love. In our adult relationships, we may still be struggling with this same question.”
“Of far greater value than diagnosing and labeling people is knowing their history and their stories, and having a solid theory about how anxiety and shame can drive good people to do bad things.”
“Knowing the facts of family history over generations, achieving a wider historical perspective, and understanding the patterns and triangles in which we all participate, can change the meaning of a family members behaviour. As we pull back and widen the lens setting, we temper our anger with compassion, even as we hold that person accountable for their actions. It always helps to have a larger picture, even when we choose not to forgive.”
“When the non-apologetic wrongdoer has never been accountable, our reactive brain excels in rehashing grievances (“How could my ex do this to the children?”). Our anger may be totally legitimate, but rather than leading to productive problem-solving, it just digs a big negative groove in our brain and disrupts our sleep. If, however, we soften our hearts toward the target of our resentment or hatred, or start letting the anger recede into the background, we may be confronted by a new set of challenges that we don’t anticipate. Sometimes it’s easier to cling to old resentments, and continue to carry their full weight, than to put down the heavy load of resentment and hurt.”
“Sometimes we are just not ready to detach from our anger.”
“..staying angry and “done in” can serve us, without our conscious awareness or intent, in the following four ways.”
“First, our suffering can be our way of taking revenge, by showing the other person as well as the world how deeply his or her behaviour has harmed us.”
“Second, the anger we allow ourselves to feel toward one offending individual can serve to protect a different and more important relationship.”
“We’re unlikely to let go of a negative focus on one person if it allows us to protect our favoured image of a different person or relationship, including our relationship with our own self.”
“The third reason we may resist letting go of our anger is that it keeps us connected to the very person who has hurt us. Anger is a form of intense (albeit negative) attachment just like love. Both anger and love keep us close to the other person, which is why so many couples are legally divorced, but not emotionally divorced.”
“Finally, clinging to an angry internal dialogue keeps the fantasy of obtaining justice alive – that one magical day when the offender will have a Eureka! Experience and see what he’s done. No one makes a plan to cling to a connection that gives the offender so much power over our current emotional life. Yet, as Katrina’s story illustrates, it is so hard to let go of this hope.”
“I also told Katrina what she did not want to hear – that her ex would never see what he had done to her and make amends. There was no expert, myself included, who could ever make him see the truth, or feel guilty, or feel anything at all. She could run the courtroom sense through her mind a sling as she needed to, for the rest of her life if she chose to. The unequivocal and heartfelt validation she deserved would not come from him. Nor did she need to forgive his actions to free herself from the pain of what he had done.”
“..people who deceive and diminish others are not deeply happy and fully at peace with themselves.”
“..often what we need most to learn is not new. Rather, we most need to learn what we already know and to know and live it at a deeper level.”
“How do you find peace when the hurt you’ve suffered will never be acknowledged or repaired by the one who inflicted it? The answer is as simple as the challenge is daunting. Any way you can. It’s worthwhile finding a concrete strategy, healing practice, or larger perspective that suits you, or a new way of thinking that speaks to you. While you’re ruminating about the terrible things your ex (or mother or Uncle Charlie) did to you, and making yourself miserable in the process, the person who has hurt you may be having a fabulous day at the beach. This is as good a reason as any to make use of the resources that are out there to help you grab a bit more peace of mind. The hardest part is that it requires us to accept that the offending party is never going to apologize, never going to see himself or herself objectively, never going to listen to our feelings with the slightest openness of mind or heart. Letting go of anger and hate requires us to give up the hope for a different past, along with the hope of a fantasized future. What we gain is a life more in the present, where we are not mired in prolonged anger and resentment that doesn’t serve us.”
“Our apology can help free the hurt person from life-draining anger, bitterness, and pain. It validates their sense of reality by affirming that, yes, their feelings make sense, we get it, and we take full responsibility for our words and actions (or our failure to speak or act). A heartfelt apology allows the hurt party the space to explore the possibilities of healing instead of just struggling to make sense of it all. The apology is also a gift to our self. Our self-respect and level of maturity rest squarely on our ability to see ourselves objectively, to take a clear-eyed look at the ways that our behaviour affects others, and to acknowledge when we’ve acted at another person’s expense. The good apology also earns us respect in the eyes of others, even though we may fear the opposite. Finally, the good apology is a gift to the relationship. Two people can feel secure in the knowledge that if they behave badly, even fight terribly, they can repair the disconnection. We strengthen our relationships when others know that we’re capable of reflecting on our behaviour, and that we’ll listen to their feelings and do our best to set things right.”
“Part of the vulnerability of apologizing is that we have no control over how the other person will respond. The apology is a leap into the unknown.”
“..sometimes the only motive behind an apology is the wish to restore one’s integrity, to heal the relationship with one’s own self.”
“..you tend generously to the vulnerability to others. People enter close relationships with a deep longing that the other person will tend to their wounds and not throw salt on them.”
“A wholehearted apology means valuing the relationship, and accepting responsibility for our part without a hint of evasion, excuse-making, or blaming. Sometimes the process is less about insisting on justice and more about investing in the relationship and the other person’s happiness. It’s about accepting the people you love as they are, and having the maturity to apologize for our part even when the other person’s feelings seem exaggerated, or they can’t see their own contribution to the problem. Lead with your heart and not your attack dog. It’s difficult and it’s worth it. The courage to apologize, and the wisdom and clarity to do so wisely and well, is at the heart of effective leadership, coupledom, parenting, friendship, personal integrity, and what we call love. It’s hard to imagine what matters more than that.”