How should I express my apologies?

In today's society, it's hard not to find a report that someone apologizes for something in any news. Whether it's a celebrity's apology for not being in Weibo, or a national political party's apology for what his country did in the last century. Obviously, people often apologize to each other. I found that these waves of apologies originated from 10 years ago, even 20 years ago. At that time, Japanese companies often apologized to the people they had hurt to avoid the inevitable lawsuits of American companies. Since then, everyone has to apologize. Any injury, except physical injury, mental injury and economic loss, is ultimately an injury to self-esteem, that is, a loss of face. Just like saying "thank you" and "please", apologizing is to affirm the fact that the injured party is injured. The more insignificant the injury, such as being late for coffee, the greater the harm to friends, especially girlfriends. A simple "I'm sorry" can help the other party save face to some extent-you don't need to say sorry to the computer while waiting, so when you say the word "I'm sorry", you simply raise the relationship between the two sides and establish interpersonal communication. More importantly, a sincere apology also lowers the status of the apologist, because an "sorry" means that the apologist realizes his mistake and expects some kind of response (such as some form of forgiveness). "Sorry" is usually the passive request of parents as a substitute for corporal punishment/punishment when children make mistakes. Parents will eventually start to distinguish between sincere apologies and perfunctory apologies. Of course, some parents find it difficult to judge whether their children are sincere when they understand the importance of the tone and timing of apology. It is difficult for parents to distinguish between a child who really thinks hurting others is wrong and a child who seems to think hurting others is wrong. The difficulty is that when the child is angry, the injury suffered by the injured party becomes a catalyst, so when parents try to use the injury of the injured party to ask the child to apologize, the child will feel disgusted. Efficient parents will associate the injured party with negative effects, such as saying to their children, "Timmy doesn't want to play with you anymore." If so, how do you feel? " But not every parent will take the time to do so. Parents usually don't care whether their children really realize their mistakes, but simply let them solve the problem with a "sorry". This led to a meaningless apology in this case. In fact, the child's inner line is "stop, don't start with me, I have already said I am sorry." When the injury is substantial, or the influence of both sides of the incident is not so great, an apology can still play a role, but the repair of the relationship will take more time and energy than "sorry". For those trust relationships that have been established, the injury does aggravate the mistakes, because when you fully believe in a person's good upbringing, any injury will affect the relationship. There should be four steps to a real apology, and the word "sorry" can't be used instead. You must clearly know that this is a progressive process of the relationship between the defense and the injured party, that is, the defense cannot simply ignore the participation of the injured party in order to complete the four steps. 1, damage assessment A real apology needs a damage list. It's not just "I'm late". I make you feel that you don't need to find a book to wait for me. Not just "You were sexually assaulted under my care." , including, "I make it hard for you to trust my judgment; Sex is no longer a pleasant thing; You think it is difficult for you to respond in time when friends talk about sex; Your sense of control over your body has been violated. " These injury assessments need to be consistent with the details of the injury (and of course with the age of the child). 2. Misevaluation A real apology needs to recognize the mistakes made in the injury. "I should have called you in advance." "I should have gone out early." It is only appropriate to say "I'm really sorry to keep you waiting" or "I'm sorry to interrupt the meeting" when you really haven't done anything wrong. Mothers whose children are sexually assaulted are more willing to feel sorry for the weather on their children's birthday than adults attending birthday parties. But when it rains on birthdays, mothers usually say, "I should make other plans." Instead of saying, "I'm very sorry if I influenced anyone here." In this case, you can choose to express what you did wrong (if you did) or not apologize at all. Because it sounds like saying, "I'm not trying to avoid hitting you." This will cause both sides to agree with different opinions and let the other side know that you want to express yourself completely, which will eventually lead to a sincere apology. 3. Why do you really apologize? You must point out the actual reason behind the wrong behavior. This is the same reason that a good counseling and treatment plan needs appropriate case analysis to explain the problems encountered by visitors and the help that counselors may give. Next, the difference is that you must be able to explain why this reason is directly related to your mistake. The more superficial or official the reason, the worse the effect of apology. "I often refuse to believe how important you are. I know it's unfair to you, but I may want to prove that I'm important to you, too. Then, I unconsciously arranged some situations to prove that you would wait for me. " "I was lonely, and I didn't like my job, so I found a boyfriend. He became so harsh that I allowed him to spy on you while I was working. I was afraid of losing him, so I followed him all the time. I think it might be better for him to tell you. 4. What should I do now? If the parties to the incident do not make some necessary changes to their previous wrong behavior, the relationship between the two parties will be difficult to improve. " I will keep reminding myself that you said how important I am to you. ""In order to stop feeling lonely, I made some new friends. After re-examining my work, I fell in love with it. I now realize that many people in the world will hurt children, and I will pay attention to observation from now on. "When a therapist hurts a visitor, such as being late for an appointment, the steps of apologizing need to be adjusted accordingly. The therapist's simple "sorry" is meaningless, because the background of the consultation relationship should be exploration, not defense, and it is an emotional response. Therapists can make injury assessment by listening to visitors' thoughts on events. The reasons given by therapists when apologizing, just like the way parents express their reasons when apologizing to their children, should be suitable for the relationship between the two sides (therapeutic relationship or parent-child relationship), rather than some therapists think that the more information, the better. In psychological counseling and parenting education, what to do now is usually implicit, and minor injuries are often opportunities for both sides to discuss and make changes. Apologize for the healing effect: this is a remodeling process of rupture repair and an important part of consultation. Many people who choose psychological counseling have met people who are better than themselves in some aspects and abused their abilities/powers in their lives. In this case, a real apology (including changing the status quo) can correct the party who has the upper hand in the interactive relationship and avoid excessive use of power. Last week, my colleague was hit on the head by a falling brake lever while pushing something through the sentry box. He suffered a concussion. The story is not over yet. Colleagues with head injuries were also injured by the supervisor. Colleagues sitting on the ground clutching their bleeding heads lost their heads for a while. As a result, the supervisor came and said in a sarcastic tone, why are you so careless? Do you want me to take you to the hospital? Colleagues didn't reflect it at the time. Went to the hospital for filming treatment. When I got home, the more I thought about it, the more wrong it was. Obviously it was a safety accident, how did it become my fault? The next day, my colleague went to the supervisor and asked him to apologize. The other party not only did not apologize, but also accused colleagues of not watching the road. The colleague was very angry and immediately complained to the party's headquarters. In this process, the parties have gross negligence: 1, safety negligence. We all know that safety is no small matter. The fall of the brake sign is actually a very serious safety accident. Colleagues are lucky, just a concussion. If it's someone else, or worse, think about it. But the parties are completely unaware of this problem. And has been arguing about equipment. Equipment problems have nothing to do with the parties? Definitely not. The equipment problem is a big problem. Therefore, solving the problem is the correct way. 2. negligence of responsibility. Instead of admitting the mistake, the client accused my colleague of carelessness. This is shirking responsibility. It is this attitude that hurts my colleagues. In fact, the feelings of colleagues are very understandable. If you want a statement, you need a comfort, an explanation and a solution. But when many appeals are ignored, the problem is serious. In fact, reflecting on the whole process, if the parties handle it differently, the result may be very different. For example, he should apologize. You should apologize seriously and sincerely. So, how should he apologize? Specifically, apologize for your mistakes first. " I'm really sorry about this. "Apologize with this basic sentence pattern, combined with the specific situation at that time. Then describe the losses suffered by the other party. Many people ignore this part and describe it very roughly. But the person who accepts the apology will not ignore your omission. " All I know is that I'm sorry. "Do you know why you apologize? You're actually just paying lip service. So you should apologize seriously based on the facts. For example, as follows. " The equipment problem is all our responsibility, and you were injured by mistake. You were badly hurt this time. It's really embarrassing. "Finally, tell the cause of the failure and the corresponding scheme. Don't lie, don't hide anything, show sincerity. " When our equipment braked, a problem appeared. We will find a solution as soon as possible to ensure that this situation will not happen again. "If you can't find out the cause of the failure soon, you should also say what you mean and tell the other party that you will report the specific situation of the investigation to them in the future. Therefore, if time goes back, the parties concerned should apologize to my colleagues and bravely take responsibility for their mistakes and losses to customers. Is it difficult to apologize? Actually, it's really not as difficult as you think. However, if you do something wrong, something goes wrong, and you don't admit your mistake, then the situation is really serious.