Improving Our “Signals” and “Beings”

The second part of this course reveals to you the common barriers, problems, and mistakes we face when we apologize. Learning the correct actions and methods to apologize is not enough. It greatly helps your understanding and success if you not only know what to do, but also what not to do.

You are also going to learn about something called a non-apology apology. If you are into politics you definitely would have experience with a non-apology apology! Anyway, I am sure you would have used this technique sometime in your life as a way of escaping a situation where you did not want to apologize.

Barriers to Apologizing

You know how important apologizing is after reading the first part of the course, but let’s say you just can not bring yourself to apologizing. Maybe you are experiencing excessive workloads and stress. Maybe you do not have the guts to confront the person face-to-face. If this is the case, I encourage you to build your confidence and throw away your pride. You will be glad you did.

As explained in part one titled “The Power of Apologizing”, we often do not apologize because of fear. Why are you scared? Do you even know what you are afraid of? Our fears possess extreme amounts of power that many times cause to not even know why we are afraid. The fear completely irrationalizes our minds blurring our thoughts as to what we actually fear. By consciously challenging your fears and knowing exactly what you are afraid of you will be far more self-aware and prepared for interpersonal communication success.

The primary fear I think people have when apologizing is the idea that apologizing puts down your protective shield leaving you vulnerable for an attack by the other person. You fear the ramifications of your actions. The people with this fear think that the problem is best left in the dark and apologizing will bring it to light and worsen the problem.

A part of this fear may actually be real because the topic you are discussing could be bottled-up inside of you and the other person. By apologizing you could be opening up a bottle of softdrink and depending how shaken the two of you are, a lot of fizz could come out. Anger, confrontation, and frustration will shoot-out when either of you are shaken up and have not opened-up to the other person.

Being humble, calm, and losing a self-centered approach will ensure this controlling fear does not prevent you from apologizing. If the fear is minor, you simply need to tell the person your fear and why you have it before apologizing. That itself is truly powerful and opens communication right up.

When apologizing or trying to apologize, it helps to keep in mind that being scared of facing the person is coming from the desire to protect yourself. You have a fear of responsibility for your own actions. Do not expect the person to treat you like an angel. After all, you did screw up otherwise you would not be apologizing in the first place. If you do not own up now, it will come back at you harder and at a worse time.

Another likely barrier to you apologizing is that you are scared apologizing is a sign of weakness. With this train of thought you think the other person receives a superior power over you. “Bahaha. I’m better than you. You apologized!” Yeah right. By not apologizing you are weak because you have an imbalance between your courage to apologize and your ego. When asking for forgiveness, your self-centeredness lowers, your courage rises, and balance exists with you and the other person. Weakness and vulernablity is a misperception about apologizing. As Kimberly Converse powerfully said, “You are never so strong as when you forgive.”

Your goal in apologizing is not to keep what pride you have alive or to let the other person “win”. You should be aiming to keep, and develop, a good relationship. There are no winners or losers. The two of you are on the same team and need to work together. Each of you are 50% of the relationship.

A Non-Apology Apology: Most Common Mistake

We are taught early on in our lives to say “please” and “thank you”. Most of us never know that this is a way of expressing gratitude, as we only think we are suppose to say these things because our parents made us. At the same time, we are taught by our parents to apologize by saying, “I’m sorry”. We are unknowingly taught to say “sorry” to please mum or dad, and not actually mean the apology. We miss the true reason for apologizing.

From a young age we continue to shy away from true apologies by creating something called a non-apology apology. That is no typo. A non-apology apology is a comment that we feel compelled to say to please the offended person. It is almost an extension of the forced apology our parents made us give when we were young, except with the non-apology apology we say it to please the other person out of our own self-will.

If you are after some examples of non-apology apologies, look no further than politicians. These adorable people are jammed packed with this type of apology. I do not mean to pick on politicians, but one example is Bill Clinton’s remarks regarding the Lewinsky scandal. President Clinton confessed his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong”, but failed to experience guilt. It was said about his talk that Clinton aimed to protect what he had done. Part of the President’s speech that made it a non-apology apology is:

“It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: first and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people.”

Here we see Clinton detached from his sorrow. Another non-apology apology I came across was NFL’s Detroit Lion’s president Matt Millen who used an inappropriate term for gays when confronting a fellow NFL player. He said:

“He made an inappropriate remark, and I reacted inappropriately. I said something I shouldn’t have, which was wrong, and I apologize for that. And I apologize to anybody that I offended with that remark.”

That is absolutely filled with non-apology apologies. Another example I found of many was Pierre Boivin, Montreal Canadiens’ President, when he apologized for fans booing the American national anthem:

“We apologize to anyone who may have been offended by this incident.”

It has become a trend in public apologies to say sorry if you hurt someone. The apology is dependent on the condition someone was hurt and implies the offended person has something wrong with oneself. Some more examples:

• “I’m sorry for not mowing the lawn even though it does not require cutting.”
• “I apologize if I hurt anyone.”
• “Please take my apology if you were offended by what I said.”

To show you how easy and delicate apologizing is, check out this apology: “I’m sorry I lied to you. I feel guilty that I’ve let you down.” All you need to do is replace the first sentence with, “I’m sorry if I lied to you.” and you’ve destroyed a good apology by making it a non-apology apology.

Do you see what kind of apology a non-apology apology is now? We use non-apology apologies to take the heat off ourselves to keep the offended person quite. It puts the onus on those we upset by implying the victim has something wrong. There is no remorse and sorrow similar to what I explained with how most young children apologize. It is something you say to please the other person while protecting yourself. You try to shy away from guilt and responsibility by using a non-apology apology.

Becoming aware of these common barriers and mistakes will get you ready to successfully apologize. Knowing what not to do will guide you with what to do. By overcoming these barriers and mistakes you are now ready to heal your relationships and strengthen the damage that set the two of you apart by learning to correctly apologize.

Links in this Course: Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain – A Five Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom

1. Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes Made in Apologizing
3. How to Apologize Correctly
4. Alternative Ways of Apologizing
5. Finding the Art of Forgiveness

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I'm creator of a highly praised program called "Communication Secrets of Powerful People" program. You can read about it here and order it here.