So in today's episode we're going to look at why we find it so hard to apologize. So a friend
came up to me the other day and she was completely livid because a co-worker of
hers made an indirect comment about how she takes too many days of work and she
was really angry because she was like 'Oh I only take days of work my kids are
really sick, I work really hard I thought he understood that I thought
that the company knew that'. And then she showed me this really long text that she
was gonna send to her co-worker about how he doesn't work that hard either and
that he's all that good at his job along with many unkind words and so after
reading the text I was thinking to myself unless her co-worker is like a
Zen Buddhist monk with extremely high emotional intelligence I don't really
see how that text is going to get him to realize what he did wrong or how hurtful
or inaccurate his words were. So that's what happens sometimes when someone
hurts us we like to justify in our minds why they deserve to be hurt as well or
why they deserve to be shamed as well but if we want someone to change their
behavior and see what they did wrong that doesn't necessarily work and I'll
tell you why because when we feel attacked our amygdala which is
responsible for the fight-or-flight response gets triggered you know and the
amygdala is also a call to the 'alarm system', when the alarm system goes off we
no longer can listen rationally and so it doesn't matter you know if they're
right or wrong or what's moral or ethical, all that we can feel is that we
are not safe and so basically we are not safe enough to analyze our actions and
what we could have done wrong so if we want an apology we have a better chance
if we focus on how we feel than the other person's crime sheet. That's harder
because it's much easier to get angry than it is to say, 'You hurt my feelings'
because we have no control over how the other person will respond you know they
could just get defensive and then blame us for being too sensitive and then
obviously that would make us feel worse and Harriet Lerner
who said a lot of research on forgiveness says that some people will
never apologize and the more harm they have caused you, the less likely that
you would be able to get an apology from them because the shame on their end
would be too high but the person who has the courage to apologize sincerely is
somebody who stands on a sturdy platform of self-worth and it's only from that
secure foundation will they be able to see their mistakes as a small part of
who they are but you know if somebody is standing on a very unsturdy foundation
of low self-worth they really won't be able to apologize because that criticism
will kind of flip them over the edge and they won't be able to see that they
are more than the mistake that they made. Okay so now let's look at some tips on
like ask yourself 'Are you ready to work this out?' because if you're still in a place where
you want to punch them and you want them to feel hurt they probably won't hear
you, you know, they probably won't be able to listen and if you're not ready to
figure things out they probably won't apologize either. Okay so number two when
you are speaking make sure that you
as a person, you want to concentrate on their behavior and not on them as a human being so you
would think things like okay what he said so go back to the other example
what he said was an inaccurate hurtful thing to say opposed to saying 'Oh he's
an idiot anyway what does he know you know he's a loser' and stuff like that so
what you want to do is want to separate their behavior from them as a person so
number three when you're speaking you want to
So you would say when you said those words 'You really made me feel like I don't
work that hard you know and that really upset me'
you know and instead of saying 'Oh you don't work that hard either who are you
anyway I've seen you skive off work so many times' and stuff like that you know and
if you're thinking all these are just semantics and it's really not you know
the particular words that we choose really makes difference to how other
people respond to us and really the bottom line is, is that it's
hard to put our feelings out there right it's much easier to get aggressive you
know it's hard to put our, sort of, our emotions out there because we think that
it makes us vulnerable and weak but people respond much better when we make
it about ourselves than about them. Okay so now let's look at some tips
Remember this doesn't diminish your self-worth this is just an
opportunity for you to strengthen your relationship or your character
Listen carefully to see how your words or
actions may have caused pain to them so that means don't go around thinking that
it's not a big deal and that they're too sensitive and all that kind stuff and obviously
for the peace that you agree with, you know, in a close relationship it's not like the person
that we love will never hurt us because we hurt our you know loved ones without
words and actions all the time you know it's really more about being able to go
back and forth and you know having the courage to say 'Oh you hurt my feelings'
or having enough self-worth to be able to analyze ourselves so that we can
apologize when we need to.
For more infomation >> Gingrich: Get rid of the White House press briefing - Duration: 2:51. 
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