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Health & Fitness

How to: Apologize

The proper steps to crafting a good apology, including offering restitution and asking for forgiveness.

Patch’s blogger Kimberley , and I managed. Barely. But you, Dear Readers, paid the price for my survival.

While my family visited the farmers market, made freezer jam and ice cream and rock candy lollipops, I did not write a single blog for the Patch. While I oversaw a garage sale and a lemonade stand and a water balloon fight and a Nerf war, I didn’t even log on to the Patch. While we visited Remlinger Farms, Snoqualmie Falls, the Fremont Troll, Theo’s chocolates, the International Fountain, the Issaquah Hatchery, and the Seattle Aquarium, I didn’t read my fellow bloggers’ work. Instead of working this summer, we visited local parks, watched a movie or two, taught our friends geocaching, played putt-putt, and even took a weekend trip to Leavenworth. The g-parents visited us and we rounded out the summer with a trip on the Ice Cream Ferry.

And while I thought of you, Dear Readers, I didn’t do anything about it.

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And now it’s November. School has started, we’ve all already gotten sick, had fights about homework, lost a water bottle, been late to karate (twice), and in general been caught up in the craziness of life.

It’s not slowing down.

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It never will.

Being busy is no excuse for not blogging.

And that brings me to this week’s post: How to apologize.

When we realize we’ve done something to offend or hurt someone, it’s our responsibility to ‘fess up and face the consequences. If our transgression was private, the apology may be made in private. But if our transgression was public (here “public” means in front of others. “Public” also means Facebook if you’re in the habit, as I am, of using Facebook as a personal soap box), then our apology must also be public.

When we do apologize, we need to keep the focus on the person we hurt. No excuses. No “I’m sorry, but…,” which often just means we aren’t even sorry. No “I’m sorry you feel that way,” which puts the blame for the incident on the person we are apologizing to.

Before apologizing, we need to get our ducks in a row:

Step 1: Figure out what we’re apologizing for. We need to determine what went wrong. What did we do or fail to do that caused the offense?

Step 2: Figure out what our action caused. Did we hurt feelings? Damage something?

Step 3: Figure out how to fix it. We need to know what we will do to ensure the same action doesn’t happen again. Forget a friend’s birthday? Promise to update your calendar or sign up for an alert service. Mouth off about your child’s teacher on Facebook? Promise to take such grievances to a more appropriate (not to mention smaller) audience. Did we break a favorite coffee mug? Buy a replacement.

 

After we understand what happened, it’s time for the actual apology:

Practice the apology. Write it down, if necessary. The apology needs to include steps 1 – 3. It does NOT include excuses or “it’s not my fault because…” It does NOT include too many “We feel terribles" because the apology is not about us, but about the person we wronged.

Express what you appreciate about the relationship. If the transgression is minor, this step may not be important. But if you let a friend down by not planning the Halloween party for the mom’s group kids (not that this is a personal example or anything) and that would have let down a whole bunch of kids but didn’t because another mom stepped up, well, you need to express how much you did NOT intend to take advantage of her and what you appreciate about that relationship.

Ask for another chance. You want another chance to behave better and earn your friend’s friendship back.

Plan an out. The apology can be accepted or rejected and in either case, we need an escape route planned so we don’t blather on with excuses and possibly dig ourselves into a deeper hole. In the case of rejection, leave the door open: “I’m sorry; thanks for listening to me, please call if you change your mind.” In the happy instance of acceptance: “Thank you for listening; shall we get a cup of coffee to catch up on what we’ve missed?"

Be patient. Forgiveness may take time.

Be forgiving. If our apology isn’t accepted and we’ve done the best we can--we’ve apologized gracefully, offered restitution, asked for forgiveness--we may have to accept that our victim was wounded too deeply to ever forgive us (or that our victim is a big fat jerk who’s never made a mistake, ever). It’ll hurt but we need to be respectful and move on.

So, Dear Readers, I am sorry I did not post helpful (or not) “how to” advice this summer. I hope the list of things to do I offered at the beginning of this post offers some small restitution. In the meantime, I plan to post How to Find Craft Supplies after Dinner, How to Discuss a Problem with your Teacher, and more. If you have a burning need for how to advice, feel free to comment and I’ll get on it.

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