8 Empathic Steps to Make Amends
Sorry, Not Sorry — Cute song, but, is it great relationship building advice?
Make Amends and heal relationship damage after your mistake or your thoughtless behavior with a sincere thought-out apology. The truth is, all people – even good people — are capable of harming others.
We all make mistakes. We all have patterns of behavior that we should change. Every single person has done something thoughtless or selfish that has hurt another person. Making amends is often needed. That doesn’t mean that we are mean hearted or have bad intentions. There is also a time where you should say sorry, not sorry. If you are perfect then close this article if not, hold on till the end of this post.
Hurt someone? Yeah, me too.
Defensiveness sets in because we desperately want to be known as good.
Don’t panic. We likely have bought into this lie: “being good means we don’t hurt people”. Our brain flips into high gear to running through the mental rolodex of reasons to accuse the other of having an ulterior motive for accusing us of hurting them. Our brains run high-gear and hot to circle the situation where we caused hurt. We are prosecutor, defense and judge in the mini kangaroo court of our mind. Guilty.
Where to go from here? There are two directions.
Sorry, not sorry. or Admit to your mistake, and gain integrity.
Quickly removing negative emotions, investing time and energy into the healing process and build intimacy with the person or people you’ve hurt. So, what’s the hang up? Technique. Yes, has anyone told you that there is a practice to apologizing? Why doesn’t it come naturally?
We desperately want to be known as good. The hero of our narrative. The good guy.
Well hang on you are in for a wild ride because you will hurt someone and you will have practiced these techniques. Developing an apology method using the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, empathy.
One method is to develop healthy and reasonable standards for ourselves. We will make another mistake, and we will unintentionally hurt another. To build up our sense of self and identity strong enough to take on truth responses start with the following challenges:
- First, learn to own your mistakes.
- Next, Fully embrace those mistakes, being childlike in this observation, look and know they are bad.
- Then, pick away at them.
- Lastly, become the very best apologizer you can be.
Freedom feels good. We want to feel good. Therefore, FREE yourself with a great heartfelt apology when you hurt someone. This helps you shed unreasonable expectations you are holding onto. Guarantee relief from any self inflicted issues. Mental gymnastics, physical anxiety, or stress related illness when the apology doesn’t present an opportunity can really mess you up. Mistakes makes us a normal person.
Apology Guide with Truth Responses
Someone is upset. You made a mistake. Now they are mad at you. To halt going down the defensive track, name your feelings. We all have been on the defensive track and that’s not serving us. Notice when your focus changes from listening, to thinking excuses or reasoning. What does your heart feel like in that moment? Is your mind racing? Seeing red? What feeling was present that led to you to open your mouth letting words spill out instead of listening? Typically, it’s because we feel ashamed.
Take charge of your own self. Your reaction. Your words. Breathe.
To self-regulate is being able to manage reactions to strong emotions and calm down after something upsetting happens. Notice the feelings, name them. Are you being accused? Does your stomach flip? Is your brain feeling hot? Try to breathe. Think of how you want someone else to respond when they’ve hurt you or when you are hurt. Use that information to help guide you when making choices about how to respond when someone tells you that you’ve hurt them.
Truth Responses
Replace your internal excuses with truth responses below or come up with your own. Try repeating the following truth responses in your head or out loud or if you are brave in front of the mirror:
“Everyone makes mistakes. It’s ok for me to make mistakes.”
“It’s possible for me to mistakenly hurt someone. Mistakes are inevitable.”
“Making a mistake doesn’t make me a bad person.”
“I cannot change someone else, I have the power to change myself to be better in the future.”
“I show integrity when I apologize for hurting someone.”
“Mistakes are an opportunity for deepening my skills to apologize.”
Steps to a better Apology
1) Listen
Firstly, do your best to empathetically listen to the other person. Empathic listening is trying to understand their heart message, intentions and meaning. Empathic listening can help build deeper connections.
“What I hear you saying is that I hurt you by…”
2) Own
Be accountable for whatever ushered from your own mouth and actions.
3) Wish
Pinpoint what you wish could have happened instead so that everyone would be happy and at peace. Note: Don’t waste time yammering on about what the other person did or explaining who said what and why you said what you said.
4) STATE
Then state what you did wrong with realization that it is wrong. No matter how bad you feel, the other person probably feels worse. Neglecting to acknowledge their pain only compounds brooding.
5) Empathize
Empathize with the person feelings of the person who is hurt. Empathize not sympathize. Repeat the person’s key phrases, ask if what you said back to them is correct. Pay attention to what’s not being said. “So that make you feel …, is that right?”
6) Become Better
Moreover, Be the Change you want to see in you and commit to do things differently in future. If you don’t know what you could be done differently, ask if you can borrow their brain on that.
7) Apology
Yeah, here it comes you knew it was going to pop in to this article. Ugg! apologies. But don’t worry READ on you will find there are sometimes when you DO NOT apologize. Additionally, intentionally apologize sincerely with empathy for the other person’s pain,
“I am so sorry that I did or said …”,
“I do not want to cause you pain.” Ask the person if they need anything from you in addition to your apology.
Note: Make sure the following statements do not usher forth from your mouth.
We can cross these out with a big red crayon:
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”,
“I’m sorry, but…”,
Excuses are a No Go. Sack the qualifiers, like “Sorry, if I had only known…”,
Keep justifications out of your mind, “Sorry, Well maybe if you would have…”.
8) Know
You tell a friend, “Yeah, I don’t talk to that [mutual known person] anymore.”,
“Oh, I am so sorry!” They slump a bit into themselves their body posture closing up into a ball and do that wide teeth grin. You know, eyes kind of popping grimace.
You say, “Oh, I’m not sorry. That person was toxic to me and I don’t have time for that.”
Know when an apology is not necessary by being self-aware. Apologizing simply to prevent conflict or when you did nothing wrong is not healthy. This kind of apology is not caring for yourself. It can affect your sense of self-worth and damage your wellbeing. So be sure you know when to apologize just don’t expect anyone else to be that self-aware. Humans are complex and they have not read this article yet!
Isn’t Empathy just like Sympathy? I thought so. I thought wrong.
Honor Our Older Loved Ones Where they Live; Specialists at Golden Placements can help:
Obviously, these tools to better communication can help you help our Older Loved Ones. Firstly, Golden Placements helps you manage resources and takes care of the leg work for finding the best living situation for your Golden Year parent, sibling, loved one. Best yet, GPS has ideas gathered over years of experience by being Senior Life Specialists. Additionally, Portland Senior Living and their various options from our Golden Girls specialists are IS NO COST. Community living and finding the right living choice for you or your loved one is important. All things considered, we help you navigate the details. Finally, we give you even more resources to help you learn more about our services:
- You can call us today or continue to read more about Long Term Care Planning with our friends at ACL
- Oregon Defines and Describes ADLs for us legally here: Long Term Care
- Golden Placements RESOURCES to find CARE Services
- Quality locations for you Senior Loved One with the Golden Girls
- Senior Living Near Me – Adult Home Placement
- Explore Residential Care Homes for Older Loved Ones “near me”
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Diane Delaney, Placement Specialist Extraordinaire
Delaney is the founder of Golden Placement Services. She began this business with a healthy dose of compassion for helping families make educated decisions regarding senior placement. Focused to relieve stress in uncertain senior housing crucial moments. Diane brings about loving change of lifestyle with grace. Additionally, Diane is an accomplished executive manager, Director of Operations in senior housing. Emphatically, she enjoys sharing her full spectrum experience of transition process for older family members. Read more from Senior Placement Specialist Diane: Ultimate Senior Living Resource Guide >>
LaVona Tomberlin, Senior Placement Specialist
Tomberlin brings a high level of education and experience to you as your Senior Placement Specialist at GPS. She loves writing about improving the lives of Aging Adults working in private care and in-home care for over 36 years. Geriatrics, Memory Care. Additionally, she holds Master of Psychology Behavioral Health with the goal of advocating for those who needed a voice. Basically, LaVona believes helping families make good decisions relieves stress in uncertain times makes life worthwhile! Ready to Learn More, Read articles from Placement Specialist LaVona: End of Life Transition a heart felt Guide >>
Gwenn McNeal2023-03-09Golden Placement Services answered! It’s really difficult to have to place an aging parent into a facility, but our family knew it was time. So I did some research, called 15 facilities, and managed to get on one wait list. I also called two companies that assist with finding homes, and they said they could not help. We were concerned we wouldn’t find a place, and if we did, it could be a very poor choice for our dad. Then I was given Golden Placement Services phone number and I spoke with a lovely woman named LaVona. That’s when everything changed! LaVona listened to our family’s needs, was understanding, and within days, she had arranged places for us to visit. How she found them, I don’t know, but she did! She met us there, listened some more, answered questions, and offered sage advice. We will forever be grateful for Golden Placement Services help in making this very tough decision. We absolutely know that my dad is in the right place to spend the rest of his life. And, we wouldn’t have that assurance today, had we not been connected with their wonderful service! They have blessed us greatly and we are sharing their information with others we know who are going through the same process.Maureen S.2022-10-18Our family is so grateful for Diane and her company. They have helped us, two times find placements for our family members. We are now working now to find a great situation for another elderly family member.. Best thing, THEY CARE about each client and their wellbeing... THANK YOU, DianeAddison Inman2019-05-31What a great resource for seniors in this area. Great, honest work. Very knowledgeable.Denise R2013-03-23They were very helpful and while being professional, kind and caring. They were thorough in trying to find the best arrangement for our situation and followed-up to make sure client's new arrangements were satisfactory. I highly recommend them.