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Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to the show. This is Better Than Yesterday. I'm Osher Ginsberg. Thank you for listening to the show. I'm glad you could be here. It's a Monday, the 28th of September, 2026. And I wanted to talk today about saying sorry. Hang on, I've got to do my zipper up. I still do the rocket break from Herbie Hancock. Like every time. Since 1983, whenever I've got a zip-up jumper. Sorry about apologizing. I wanted to talk to you about saying sorry. As you've heard me talk about on this show before, I volunteer teaching ethics at my son's primary school. It's one of the most fantastic half hours of my week. I absolutely adore it. In New South Wales, the kids have an option to either do scripture, where they get taught religion in a state school, or parents can choose to have their kids learn ethics. And in New South Wales, They have the primary ethics is the not-for-profit that provides it, and I volunteer teaching. And it's great. Like I said, it's one of the most fantastic half hours of my week, and I teach it to my son's class. He's seven, a bunch of grade one and two kids. Now, without giving away any details, recently one of the lessons was talking about apology. And what's really interesting is that six- and seven-year-olds inherently know when and why an apology lands with them. and when and why an apology doesn't land. My relationship with apologising has changed significantly over the years. I'm not proud to tell you that there were indeed times when I would say the words because it would potentially stop the situation from escalating or potentially stop the shouting, but absolutely did not mean it and did not intend or actually make any change in myself. I was emotionally immature and I either wanted to protect my ego. So when I do that, that's me being emotionally immature and me protecting my ego or my sense of self and me not wanting to face the consequences of my actions. I, for the most part, try to avoid doing that as much as possible. Not saying it doesn't happen. It will happen occasionally. But yeah, for the most part, that all changed once I got sober and I learned what making an amends to someone feels like and how powerful it can be. And I had to learn how to do this in my late 30s, how to do it properly. That's not to say that I still do it perfectly every time. I don't. But if you've been stuck in a situation where your apologies don't seem to be touching the sides, perhaps I could share with you what I've come to know about saying sorry and making amends. Because here's the thing no one tells you about making amends. The sorry, saying sorry, is the easy bit. It takes about five seconds. Most of us have been doing a version of it that doesn't touch the sides since we're the same age as those kids in my ethics class. The hard part is everything I decided at five seconds, getting yourself to the point where you're willing to do it all and then living in a way that proves you actually meant it. I was very fortunate to be walked through a model around getting to that point. This model has been used in recovery programs since the late 70s, but my mentor, my sponsor took me through it. And I'm very lucky. You might've heard this. It goes, the model goes pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Now, most of us, most of what I knew about apologizing started and finished at action, saying the thing. All right. Which is a big part of why so many of my apologies had all the effectiveness of a chocolate teapot. All right. So to start with the first one, pre-contemplation, that's where you think you don't owe anybody anything. If someone says, you know, you might want to go and make that right, and it sounds like, this is what it sounds like coming out of my mouth, or you might sound like coming out of your mouth, oh yeah, you don't know the full story. And they probably don't know the full story. But that's not the point. The pre-contemplation part is, it's a very comfortable place to stand in while you avoid the point they're trying to make. The reason we hang out there so long, usually, isn't because we're bad people, and, you know, we... go, you know, fuck that other person. I'm not going to do anything with them. We often know that they have a point, but we stay in that space because of shame. Now, there's a big difference between guilt and shame. And this one, I learned how to tell the difference and it sounds funky. It sounds like something you learn in primary school. Again, the difference between guilt and shame is you can't spell guilt without you and I. All right? Guilt is because I know that I've recognized that I've done something against you. But I can't spell shame without me. Shame is about what I think about myself. Guilt says I did a bad thing. Shame says I am a bad thing. Guilt is not fun. Don't get me wrong. It's not nice to feel it in your body, but generally guilt allows a bit more space to want to try and fix a thing you broke. And that means owning up or apologizing or paying for the damage of something or replacing or something like this. Shame, however, can push us the other way towards hiding it and hiding away from it and avoiding it. But when that stops working, getting angry and pointing the finger at somebody else. So if you're stuck in either of those places, the first thing you've got to do is separate what you did from who you are. You might have made a mistake, but you're not a mistake. It's true. That helps us get to the next part. Because beating yourself up about something is not the same as owning it. Being shown to like, I am flagellating myself. It's not the same as owning what you've done. Once you've got through that, the next stage is contemplation. This is where I get stuck a lot. Here's what contemplation sounds like. Yeah, but I'm fucking sorry to say that I do this and have been doing this too much. It's not great. because I'll say that and then immediately start building the case for my defense to defend me and my ego. Taking responsibility is the only way to get through this part. And there's three parts to taking responsibility. You've got to name exactly what you've done. And you've got to, to the best of your ability, name what it cost the other person in the words of that person. If you don't know, ask them. You're going to need to find out. And thirdly, you've got to accept what parts of that situation were yours to control, even if other stuff was going on. You think about the apologies that really land for you. When someone's able to articulate in a detailed way how they believe they hurt you, it makes a huge difference, all right? Because you feel seen, right? But importantly, if you can't describe the harm to another person in a way that they would recognize, you might not be ready to do the apology part yet because you're possibly going to be apologizing for something that isn't quite the thing that you did. So there may need to be more conversation there. Now, there's a knockoff version of responsibility, like one you buy on the street, like a fake Louis Vuitton bag. And that's where you're taking responsibility for their feelings instead of your actions. It sounds like, oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm guilty of this. Too many times I've been guilty of this. But that's not ownership. That's me basically giving sideline commentary, you know, in the commentary box going, oh, I can see they're really angry. All right. The next stage after contemplation is preparation. This is the part where you work out what you're going to say. It's also where you need to be aware of words that will help your apology land and move your relationship or situation forward, or words that are like smoke bombs, right? Words you drop on the ground so you can vanish out of responsibility of the situation. So Words which show remorse, accept responsibility, admit you're wrong, acknowledge the harm, offer to repair it, promising to do better, a short explanation as to action, even asking for forgiveness if you feel that's okay. Those kind of things, the more your apology sounds like that, the better chances you have that your apology will land. But if you're throwing smoke bombs like denying it happened, minimizing it, oh, it's not that bad, making excuses, yeah, but, yeah, but, justifying it, well, of course I did because do-do-do. even blaming the other person. You're the reason we're even here. I have been caught in this pattern. You're right. And I know when I get caught there, what I'm doing is I'm trying to protect the picture I have of myself as a kind of person that doesn't do those sorts of things and make those kind of mistakes. Smoke bombs can sound like, I'm sorry you were hurt, which is turning a real hurt into a hypothetical. Of course, the word but deletes every word that came before it. Putting you at the end of a sentence, I'm sorry you took it that way. All right. You're making the hurt their problem. Okay. There's something politicians say all the time. Mistakes were made. All right. Politicians will say that in a sentence confidently because there's no person in that sentence. It sounds like responsibility. It isn't responsibility. Another one I hear myself say is I didn't mean to, which is about my intent when we're talking about, and I'm trying to apologize for my action or my impact. And there's other words which minimize things using like just or a bit or only. If you have only one sentence to apologize, just try to take responsibility for the thing and then offer to make it better. That's it. Another part of the preparation part is working on your timing. I would recommend, in my opinion, waiting until you've processed that guilt and shame before you try to put your words together. Uh, to sit in it for a little while before you've done anything about it. In my own experience, if I act, even with the best of intentions, but if I act while I'm feeling that guilt and shame inside me, I know that I will say and do things that will just make it worse. I reach for those smoke bomb words or I try to minimize things. I just tend to make it worse. So I don't phone call or email or text or wherever possible, I try to sleep on it. Even if that means sleep is six minute chunks. I will try to sleep on it. What it does, it gives time for those feelings to process and dissipate by themselves while I am remembering why those feelings are there and linking that uncomfortable feeling with my action. So that helps me remember to not do it again. And that way I can be as clear as possible and not let, hopefully none of those smoke bombs show up when I'm trying to speak. And then we get to the action part, which is often the only thing that people can do. If you look at 12-step recovery programs, I'm in a 12-step recovery program. Of the 12 steps, step nine is about making direct amends wherever possible, except when doing so would injure them or others, yourself or others. Sometimes the most honest amends you can make is to stay away from a person that you've hurt or harmed, connecting with how you hurt them. Instead, connecting with how you hurt them and then trying to live your life in a different way going forward so as to honor your commitment to trying to make it better and be better. Because sometimes turning up just to unload those feelings of guilt and shame, it's really about getting relief for yourself. And it just makes things messy. Before you apologize, ask, like, is this conversation for who? For them or me? Because if it's for you, you're going to need to take a moment. If the answer is them, this is the part where you say it. And then you say it and then you stop talking. If you need a cheat sheet, apologies, it's four beats, all right? One, two, three, four. I did this. I hurt you like that. I'm responsible for it. This is what I'm going to do about it. I did this. I hurt you like that. I'm responsible for it. And this is what I'm going to do about it. Offering to fix it. This is what I'm going to do about it. Offering to fix it. You've got to have details there. If you say like, oh, let me know if there's anything I could do to make it better. That puts the making it better part back on them. All right. They don't need that right now. So that means pay for the thing, fix the thing, return the thing. Tell the truth to the people that you lied to and then stop talking. Don't fill the silence with more explanation. Don't ask for forgiveness like you're ticking off a list. Forgiveness is for them to give when they choose. You've got to be with that. The last part of this is the maintenance part and that's the doing the thing. The apology builds the bridge and our behavior shows the other person that the bridge is safe to walk on. the other person never chooses to walk on that bridge ever again, we can't do anything about that. That is okay. Our part is to do our best to live in a way that that bridge doesn't sustain further damage. If we're doing that, if we're keeping our side of the street clean, we have done all we can. You may never get forgiveness for what you did. You may never get the chance to apologize because to do so or to make contact with that person might cause further damage, and that is okay. In the words of my mentor David, the good news is you get to live the rest of your life not being that person anymore. From the moment you apologize until the day you die, every time you make a choice that is honoring the maintenance commitment you've made, you are doing all you can. In sobriety circles, it's called a living amends. You don't just say you've changed. You become quite predictably, quite reliably, quite unremarkably, boringly different, just day after day, week after week. The kids in my ethics class, six-year-olds, they already know when an apology feels real. They know when they don't mean it. They know when they do. And I know from watching them, how they behave afterwards, that they also know how to make it better. They know how to do the maintenance part. I don't know where along the way I forgot how to do that. But I'm grateful I have them to remind me to learn how to do it again properly. I hope that was useful for you. I never heard anything like that when I was a younger man. And so I hope that is of some help. Whether it's in your relationship, whether there's another person in your life that can't apologize properly or your apologies aren't landing. I hope that is useful. That sort of stuff was very helpful to me when I needed it, but I hadn't heard it spoken out loud in a while. Let me know how you go. You can jump on the newsletter, links in the show notes, and let me know, reply to that newsletter, or you can go and say hi. October the 18th is our next show in Sydney. It's a live storytelling show I do called Story Club. Nikki Britton, Lockie McIntyre, Charlie Clawson, Christy Jenkins, and Rosie Waterland are going to join me. There's also a YouTube channel. I'll put the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks to Damien Hafferty who produced this show. Have a lovely, lovely day. I'll see you back here on Wednesday. And go be better.
Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to the show. This is Better Than Yesterday. I'm Osher Ginsberg. Thank you for listening to the show. I'm glad you could be here. It's a Monday, the 28th of September, 2026. And I wanted to talk today about saying sorry. Hang on, I've got to do my zipper up. I still do the rocket break from Herbie Hancock. Like every time. Since 1983, whenever I've got a zip-up jumper. Sorry about apologizing. I wanted to talk to you about saying sorry. As you've heard me talk about on this show before, I volunteer teaching ethics at my son's primary school. It's one of the most fantastic half hours of my week. I absolutely adore it. In New South Wales, the kids have an option to either do scripture, where they get taught religion in a state school, or parents can choose to have their kids learn ethics. And in New South Wales, They have the primary ethics is the not-for-profit that provides it, and I volunteer teaching. And it's great. Like I said, it's one of the most fantastic half hours of my week, and I teach it to my son's class. He's seven, a bunch of grade one and two kids. Now, without giving away any details, recently one of the lessons was talking about apology. And what's really interesting is that six- and seven-year-olds inherently know when and why an apology lands with them. and when and why an apology doesn't land. My relationship with apologising has changed significantly over the years. I'm not proud to tell you that there were indeed times when I would say the words because it would potentially stop the situation from escalating or potentially stop the shouting, but absolutely did not mean it and did not intend or actually make any change in myself. I was emotionally immature and I either wanted to protect my ego. So when I do that, that's me being emotionally immature and me protecting my ego or my sense of self and me not wanting to face the consequences of my actions. I, for the most part, try to avoid doing that as much as possible. Not saying it doesn't happen. It will happen occasionally. But yeah, for the most part, that all changed once I got sober and I learned what making an amends to someone feels like and how powerful it can be. And I had to learn how to do this in my late 30s, how to do it properly. That's not to say that I still do it perfectly every time. I don't. But if you've been stuck in a situation where your apologies don't seem to be touching the sides, perhaps I could share with you what I've come to know about saying sorry and making amends. Because here's the thing no one tells you about making amends. The sorry, saying sorry, is the easy bit. It takes about five seconds. Most of us have been doing a version of it that doesn't touch the sides since we're the same age as those kids in my ethics class. The hard part is everything I decided at five seconds, getting yourself to the point where you're willing to do it all and then living in a way that proves you actually meant it. I was very fortunate to be walked through a model around getting to that point. This model has been used in recovery programs since the late 70s, but my mentor, my sponsor took me through it. And I'm very lucky. You might've heard this. It goes, the model goes pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Now, most of us, most of what I knew about apologizing started and finished at action, saying the thing. All right. Which is a big part of why so many of my apologies had all the effectiveness of a chocolate teapot. All right. So to start with the first one, pre-contemplation, that's where you think you don't owe anybody anything. If someone says, you know, you might want to go and make that right, and it sounds like, this is what it sounds like coming out of my mouth, or you might sound like coming out of your mouth, oh yeah, you don't know the full story. And they probably don't know the full story. But that's not the point. The pre-contemplation part is, it's a very comfortable place to stand in while you avoid the point they're trying to make. The reason we hang out there so long, usually, isn't because we're bad people, and, you know, we... go, you know, fuck that other person. I'm not going to do anything with them. We often know that they have a point, but we stay in that space because of shame. Now, there's a big difference between guilt and shame. And this one, I learned how to tell the difference and it sounds funky. It sounds like something you learn in primary school. Again, the difference between guilt and shame is you can't spell guilt without you and I. All right? Guilt is because I know that I've recognized that I've done something against you. But I can't spell shame without me. Shame is about what I think about myself. Guilt says I did a bad thing. Shame says I am a bad thing. Guilt is not fun. Don't get me wrong. It's not nice to feel it in your body, but generally guilt allows a bit more space to want to try and fix a thing you broke. And that means owning up or apologizing or paying for the damage of something or replacing or something like this. Shame, however, can push us the other way towards hiding it and hiding away from it and avoiding it. But when that stops working, getting angry and pointing the finger at somebody else. So if you're stuck in either of those places, the first thing you've got to do is separate what you did from who you are. You might have made a mistake, but you're not a mistake. It's true. That helps us get to the next part. Because beating yourself up about something is not the same as owning it. Being shown to like, I am flagellating myself. It's not the same as owning what you've done. Once you've got through that, the next stage is contemplation. This is where I get stuck a lot. Here's what contemplation sounds like. Yeah, but I'm fucking sorry to say that I do this and have been doing this too much. It's not great. because I'll say that and then immediately start building the case for my defense to defend me and my ego. Taking responsibility is the only way to get through this part. And there's three parts to taking responsibility. You've got to name exactly what you've done. And you've got to, to the best of your ability, name what it cost the other person in the words of that person. If you don't know, ask them. You're going to need to find out. And thirdly, you've got to accept what parts of that situation were yours to control, even if other stuff was going on. You think about the apologies that really land for you. When someone's able to articulate in a detailed way how they believe they hurt you, it makes a huge difference, all right? Because you feel seen, right? But importantly, if you can't describe the harm to another person in a way that they would recognize, you might not be ready to do the apology part yet because you're possibly going to be apologizing for something that isn't quite the thing that you did. So there may need to be more conversation there. Now, there's a knockoff version of responsibility, like one you buy on the street, like a fake Louis Vuitton bag. And that's where you're taking responsibility for their feelings instead of your actions. It sounds like, oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm guilty of this. Too many times I've been guilty of this. But that's not ownership. That's me basically giving sideline commentary, you know, in the commentary box going, oh, I can see they're really angry. All right. The next stage after contemplation is preparation. This is the part where you work out what you're going to say. It's also where you need to be aware of words that will help your apology land and move your relationship or situation forward, or words that are like smoke bombs, right? Words you drop on the ground so you can vanish out of responsibility of the situation. So Words which show remorse, accept responsibility, admit you're wrong, acknowledge the harm, offer to repair it, promising to do better, a short explanation as to action, even asking for forgiveness if you feel that's okay. Those kind of things, the more your apology sounds like that, the better chances you have that your apology will land. But if you're throwing smoke bombs like denying it happened, minimizing it, oh, it's not that bad, making excuses, yeah, but, yeah, but, justifying it, well, of course I did because do-do-do. even blaming the other person. You're the reason we're even here. I have been caught in this pattern. You're right. And I know when I get caught there, what I'm doing is I'm trying to protect the picture I have of myself as a kind of person that doesn't do those sorts of things and make those kind of mistakes. Smoke bombs can sound like, I'm sorry you were hurt, which is turning a real hurt into a hypothetical. Of course, the word but deletes every word that came before it. Putting you at the end of a sentence, I'm sorry you took it that way. All right. You're making the hurt their problem. Okay. There's something politicians say all the time. Mistakes were made. All right. Politicians will say that in a sentence confidently because there's no person in that sentence. It sounds like responsibility. It isn't responsibility. Another one I hear myself say is I didn't mean to, which is about my intent when we're talking about, and I'm trying to apologize for my action or my impact. And there's other words which minimize things using like just or a bit or only. If you have only one sentence to apologize, just try to take responsibility for the thing and then offer to make it better. That's it. Another part of the preparation part is working on your timing. I would recommend, in my opinion, waiting until you've processed that guilt and shame before you try to put your words together. Uh, to sit in it for a little while before you've done anything about it. In my own experience, if I act, even with the best of intentions, but if I act while I'm feeling that guilt and shame inside me, I know that I will say and do things that will just make it worse. I reach for those smoke bomb words or I try to minimize things. I just tend to make it worse. So I don't phone call or email or text or wherever possible, I try to sleep on it. Even if that means sleep is six minute chunks. I will try to sleep on it. What it does, it gives time for those feelings to process and dissipate by themselves while I am remembering why those feelings are there and linking that uncomfortable feeling with my action. So that helps me remember to not do it again. And that way I can be as clear as possible and not let, hopefully none of those smoke bombs show up when I'm trying to speak. And then we get to the action part, which is often the only thing that people can do. If you look at 12-step recovery programs, I'm in a 12-step recovery program. Of the 12 steps, step nine is about making direct amends wherever possible, except when doing so would injure them or others, yourself or others. Sometimes the most honest amends you can make is to stay away from a person that you've hurt or harmed, connecting with how you hurt them. Instead, connecting with how you hurt them and then trying to live your life in a different way going forward so as to honor your commitment to trying to make it better and be better. Because sometimes turning up just to unload those feelings of guilt and shame, it's really about getting relief for yourself. And it just makes things messy. Before you apologize, ask, like, is this conversation for who? For them or me? Because if it's for you, you're going to need to take a moment. If the answer is them, this is the part where you say it. And then you say it and then you stop talking. If you need a cheat sheet, apologies, it's four beats, all right? One, two, three, four. I did this. I hurt you like that. I'm responsible for it. This is what I'm going to do about it. I did this. I hurt you like that. I'm responsible for it. And this is what I'm going to do about it. Offering to fix it. This is what I'm going to do about it. Offering to fix it. You've got to have details there. If you say like, oh, let me know if there's anything I could do to make it better. That puts the making it better part back on them. All right. They don't need that right now. So that means pay for the thing, fix the thing, return the thing. Tell the truth to the people that you lied to and then stop talking. Don't fill the silence with more explanation. Don't ask for forgiveness like you're ticking off a list. Forgiveness is for them to give when they choose. You've got to be with that. The last part of this is the maintenance part and that's the doing the thing. The apology builds the bridge and our behavior shows the other person that the bridge is safe to walk on. the other person never chooses to walk on that bridge ever again, we can't do anything about that. That is okay. Our part is to do our best to live in a way that that bridge doesn't sustain further damage. If we're doing that, if we're keeping our side of the street clean, we have done all we can. You may never get forgiveness for what you did. You may never get the chance to apologize because to do so or to make contact with that person might cause further damage, and that is okay. In the words of my mentor David, the good news is you get to live the rest of your life not being that person anymore. From the moment you apologize until the day you die, every time you make a choice that is honoring the maintenance commitment you've made, you are doing all you can. In sobriety circles, it's called a living amends. You don't just say you've changed. You become quite predictably, quite reliably, quite unremarkably, boringly different, just day after day, week after week. The kids in my ethics class, six-year-olds, they already know when an apology feels real. They know when they don't mean it. They know when they do. And I know from watching them, how they behave afterwards, that they also know how to make it better. They know how to do the maintenance part. I don't know where along the way I forgot how to do that. But I'm grateful I have them to remind me to learn how to do it again properly. I hope that was useful for you. I never heard anything like that when I was a younger man. And so I hope that is of some help. Whether it's in your relationship, whether there's another person in your life that can't apologize properly or your apologies aren't landing. I hope that is useful. That sort of stuff was very helpful to me when I needed it, but I hadn't heard it spoken out loud in a while. Let me know how you go. You can jump on the newsletter, links in the show notes, and let me know, reply to that newsletter, or you can go and say hi. October the 18th is our next show in Sydney. It's a live storytelling show I do called Story Club. Nikki Britton, Lockie McIntyre, Charlie Clawson, Christy Jenkins, and Rosie Waterland are going to join me. There's also a YouTube channel. I'll put the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks to Damien Hafferty who produced this show. Have a lovely, lovely day. I'll see you back here on Wednesday. And go be better.
