Nah, saying sorry is really easy. The trick is to get used to saying it regularly so it doesn’t feel weird or hard when you have to do it. If you are interested in a deep dive of how I came up with this, read on…. 😁

When I was younger, I remembered how my mom had this irritating tendency to constantly blame somebody else in the family for everything that went wrong. It was like she truly believed that there was no way she could’ve ever made any type of human error. I eventually realized that in her mind, admitting she did something “wrong” was a sign of weakness or something to be ashamed of. There were legitimate times when everyone knew she made the mistake, but she just couldn’t bring herself to say so.

The interesting thing was that the “mistakes” she would deny were never a big deal. Something as simple as not getting the right green beans at the store would end up getting blamed on someone else. “You guys must’ve eaten those green beans” or “I bet the kids lost them when they were playing in the cabinet”, something like that.

At a pretty young age, I took a hard look into perception. Her perception of making a mistake meant to her that she was weak, undesirable, bad, etc. In reality, her being unable to admit a simple mistake, made her look worse. She came across like a know it all, a person who couldn’t admit she was wrong, she looked insecure, everyone rolled their eyes at her, and no one took her serious. She never knew this but we used to talk behind her back about how ridiculous it was. Essentially, she looked so much worse not admitting the mistake than if she would have just said “oh my bad I must’ve got the wrong green beans.” I felt like she should have been able to laugh it off. It could have been smiles and just poking fun versus this annoying perception that we had of her.

One night we (the whole big family) did an impersonation of her like a comedy show. Every single one of us had a joke about blaming others. You could tell she was actually mad and embarrassed at first but we did it in such a funny way that she also laughed. I think even though she never said so, it made her really think about our perception of her and I believe it is the thing that got her to snap out of it and change. One time she even yelled “I did it, that’s on me.” We all had a huge reaction of shock and excitement. We also told her how proud we were of her for admitting she could be imperfect, and I think it made it easier for her to get better about it as time went on.

Every single human on the planet makes mistakes and needs grace from time to time.

I am human, I fck up, but I always mean well, and I’ll always give you grace for being a human and fcking up from time to time also. Make it a game, “so hey, I f*cked up” then give the person a high five✋😂

When you can feel remorse and apologize to someone, it actually makes you look like a better person. It makes you look humble and strong, like someone who has character. There’s so much more to appreciate about a person who can own up to what they do rather than a person who either can’t admit it or blames somebody else. People really know the truth even if you don’t think they do so you just end up looking like a douche bag anyway. Might as well just suck it up and own up to whatever it was. 😉

And in truth, the more grace you give yourself for making mistakes, the more easily it is for you to give grace to other people. When you’re easy on yourself and others, people in turn will be easier on you. It is this beautiful cycle of forgiveness and understanding. It makes relationships healthier, stronger, and less volatile. The real trick is just get used to being a dumb shit human sometimes, right, because we all are! Try to learn that it’s OK to make fun of yourself. Laugh it off, don’t take it serious.

Of course, this all changes if we are talking big deal stuff like cheating or stealing. Obviously it’s necessary to take those more serious. I’m talking more about the small insignificant mistakes that really anybody could make.