“I’m Sorry.”

I’m Sorry
by Linda Anderson Krech

“Why were you so worried?,” I would often say to my mom. “I wasn’t all that late, and besides, I’m a very good driver.”

How unreasonable, I would think to myself. What a worrier, I’d repeat silently. She and I could go back and forth about our perspectives. Was she being reasonable or unreasonable? Was I irresponsible or was she overprotective? Probably a bit of both, a mix of the two. But she really does worry too much, I would always conclude.

So if I thought she was really creating the problem, or at least contributing heavily to it, I didn’t feel inclined to offer much of an apology. I may have said something like, “I’m sorry, mom, but maybe you should find something else to do with your time so you don’t worry so much.”

But from Japanese Psychology — specifically Naikan — I came to see that we don’t need to tangle with issues of right and wrong before offering an apology. We can simply ask ourselves the question, “Did I cause trouble?” and apologize if the answer is “yes.” It’s so simple.

We can recognize the other person’s suffering and let them know that we care. “I’m sorry you were so worried about me. I know how awful it feels to be worried.” And as I think about this situation now, looking back into our pre-cellphone world, I have more regret about the worry I caused. I’m sorry, mom.

If we think we made a mistake or used poor judgment, we can include that but there are bound to be plenty of times when we won’t be clear about that at all. Our relationships are complicated and messy and our lives are hopelessly intertwined. Who set the stage for this problem? Who started it? Who escalated it? It can be hard to tell which end is up sometimes.

Forget about what’s reasonable. That won’t get you anywhere. Forget about who’s right. You’re right 90% of the time. So am I. We all are. Unfortunately, the math doesn’t add up. But it’s not hard to tell when we’ve caused trouble . . . especially in our close relationships.

Softening up enough to show that we care about the other person’s experience can go a long way toward resolving tensions (even if we believe, with every cell in our body, that we are “right”).

Linda Anderson Krech, LICSW, is the Program Director of the ToDo Institute and a frequent contributor to Thirty Thousand Days: A Journal for Purposeful Living.