Some people avoid apologizing because it feels like an attack on their own identity. As if saying “I was wrong” is the same as saying “I am bad.” (and they are probably unaware that they are doing this)

Those are not the same thing, and confusing them is what keeps most apologies unspoken.

What I find clinically interesting is what happens in the body and mind when shame is held in silence over time. It does not dissolve. It accumulates. It changes how we relate to the people around us and how we relate to ourselves. The unspoken acknowledgment of a mistake does not stay contained. It leaks into other areas.

An apology, when it comes from a grounded place rather than a place of self-punishment, is one of the most effective tools for releasing that accumulated weight. Not because it erases what happened. But because it completes something that was left open.

The relationship benefits. But so does the person doing the apologizing. Your self-worth is not on the table in that conversation. Your integrity is. And integrity, unlike worth, is something you actively demonstrate through your choices.

That distinction is worth sitting with. ~ Dr. Brenda Lau, pain medicine specialist, anesthesiologist, cancer patient

I share this because for a long time I believed that making a mistake meant "I'm bad" (so bad there's no coming back from it).

Guess who I learned that from?

I break that cycle by changing my relationship to shame.

Much, much love,

Karen