The Power of an Apology

I was introduced to the concept of conscious and the unconscious mind after I was offered a partnership in Brzee Wellness LLP by NLP Coach, Shetal Chavan. This knowledge and research is helping me make unconscious more conscious. Dr. Willem H. J. Martens, MD, PhD presented an article in Psychiatric Times, Issue 10 were he concluded that Psychopaths cannot have good relationships as they do not have the capacity for guilt and empathy*. Most of research psychologists explain that we have little awareness of our own brains activities.

Sigmund Freud said “It would take about a hundred years for science to accumulate enough data to show support for his theories of the unconscious.”

Let's describe AN APOLOGY. We all know what an apology is. In fact, it’s one of the first things we learn as children. durable face how could you not forgive a child like the one in the picture. Back in those days we wanted to avoid punishments, harsh words and always got back to our parents good conducts. Though the magical word “Sorry” stands a different emotion and definition where genuinely apologising is to receive forgiveness as opposed to apologising to give something to repair.

When to apologies ?

1. When Admitting Fault : Admit to fault immediately when making mistakes, arriving late, upsetting others, etc.

2. When Asking for Clarity : Ask for clarity when you don’t understand, can’t hear someone, when you’re shocked at what someone has said, etc.

3. When Interrupting : Ask before you want to interrupt someone, to politely disagree, etc.

4. When Expressing Regret : Express regret when you want to acknowledge an offence or failure, when someone’s laid off, when you want to soften a negative response, etc.

5. When Expressing Sympathy : Express sympathy when someone shares unfortunate news, when someone is hurt or ill, when someone passes away, etc.

Some Philosophy

Originally the word apology comes from the Greek meaning “to offer a defence for ones beliefs or behaviours” as Socrates did at his trial. An apology can be entitled by exercising it as a defence to seek forgiveness and also as an instrument to repair ruptured relationships.

This perspective itself is a paradigm shift and we need it as we are bad at relationships. Approximately 70% of our brain process is our awareness comprising of our perceptions, emotions, thoughts, feelings and motives. The part that affect our relationships the most is only 5% of that awareness and the rest is only adaptation.

From the very Beginning

The parent-infant bond is the strongest bond as compared to the ones we share amongst adults. As we grow we tend to develop emotional maturity to make our relationships last. Our brain development gives us the ability to feel guilty and empathy unlike the psychopaths who can never really learn to care.

Everyone learns to care as our brains are dependent on learning during a critical period in childhood. Every child is thought to apologise over a misbehaviour or mistake where initially parents need themselves to learn apologising to their children. It’s accustomed for a small child to see and learn making it essential for the parents to first action it by apologising. This initiative models healthy relationships between parents and children.

We have a brain that does not understand its own awareness comprising of our personalities and flaws nevertheless affecting our relationships. We don't have an instinct for long-term bonding and we needed our parents to learn about emotional relationships that results in frequent relationship ruptures.

Solution, understandings and adaption

There are three major elements in considering means to apologise.

1) Acknowledgement:

**Example: A man very upset as he has recently got into a verbal spat with his senior at office on being bluntly answering and sharing his views on the current market trends and sales report for the quarter.

Manager: “I expect an apology from you for being that blunt and over smart in answering questions after the presentation. At least look out for the attendees and behave.”

Employee: “I have not done anything wrong worth an apology as I was sharing them facts and overall the nobody was really interested in the revenue generated nor were they actively listening to the presentation.”

Now the problem is the employee would not acknowledge any wrongdoing. One major reason why he had difficulty in managing the employee relationship. An acknowledgment should start with one word “I” followed by a statement of acknowledging the wrongdoing.

Correction: The employee could say “I am really very sorry for being that blunt and coming out as an over smart person that's inconsiderate. I will surely take a note of your suggestion in the meetings to come.”

2) An Expression of Guilt & Empathy

Everyone have experienced people who use apology to manipulate other people, like manipulating them back into the relationship.

**Example: A young boy driving his new SUV happened to bump into a car ahead of him at the traffic signal. The driver from the car ahead was upset such reckless behaviour.

Man (who’s car was hit): “What reckless behaviour! You just happened to dashed my car. Look at the damage done.”

Boy (driving SUV): “Okay sorry I hit that piece of junk you call a car. Because your car broke down soon before the traffic signal turned green. I personally believe nothing is above money.Now take this cash as damage reimbursement and give way.”

The man didn't know what to say but the truth is that the money given to him may be enough to fix the damage on his car but only an apology from the boy showing is wrongdoing was enough. But the boy arrogantly used money to pay off for his recklessness. Here the boy doesn't have the capacity for guilt and empathy.

Correction: “ Please accept my apologies to have recklessly crashed your car. I should have been patient for sometime before accelerating. I remember how it felt when my father dented his favourite car, it was horrible. I promise to be driving responsibly on the streets.”

3) Feeling of Restitution

CASE I: Personal Relationship 

**Example: A boy was agitated as his father caught him sneaking out the car without prior permission and holding a valid drivers license. His father was still angry on him even after repeated apology.

Boy: “ I am sorry for sneaking out the car Paa. I didn’t go far for a drive as if feel the car is an antique and could break into pieces anytime. Buy me a new car once I join college. Please.”

Something the boy completely failed to understand, he had to negotiate a fair reconciliation argument with his father. Above all his father will let go that behaviour by a certain amount of time had the boy not demeaned his fathers vehicle and demanded a new one. The boy needs to be more attentive, understanding, rebuilding trust by working to be a better person.

CASE II: Business Relationship Example

A similar model in a business relationship by rebuilding trust and restitution when there's a service or a product failure.

Business Owner: “I know you're upset because of this issue. I don't blame you for feeling the way you do. I am going to work making sure to get this right until you're completely satisfied. That's not enough I'm going to give you something extra special to show you how much you mean to us as a customer.”

An apology should be effective and responsive. When you are done reading the bog and you happen to bump into somebody in the day, you share a polite apology with a smile.

By now you must be thinking what if you went through the complete process right from acknowledgment, guilt and empathy to restitution. The person you bumped into might punch you even before you decide to say sorry. So, I mention apologies as Dose Effective I mean the appropriations. When mentioned about Dose Effective Apology there's also exists Apology Timings. 

Everyone has experienced the late apology for it to be effective. It should be as soon as possible after the wrongdoing. Our history is filled with examples of late apologies.

**Example from the year 1633

Galileo is called before the Inquisition as he's charged with non-belief and the threat of being tortured to death. He had to take back his theory that the Earth goes around the Sun. He plead guilty and was then sentence of house arrest for the rest of his life. Well in 1992 the Vatican officially apologises Galileo for his theory is true, too late to do him any good.

Don't wait any longer and practice the Dose Effective Timely Apology which is the right mix of acknowledgement guilt and empathy and a fair restitution you'll be empowered to help repair ruptured relationships. If we all do more

that we'll be empowered to help repair the world and that would be a giant step.

We humans are curious creatures always seeking for something in life. From opportunities, money, promotions, enlargement, right partner, importance and love to name a few.

SEEKING AN APOLOGY DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN YOU ARE WRONG AND THE OTHER PERSON IS RIGHT. IT JUST MEANS YOU VALUE YOUR RELATIONSHIP MORE THAN YOUR EGO.

reference:

*https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/hidden-suffering-psychopath

** EXAMPLES mentioned here are not specific to any actual event or living being. They are used to ease the explanation of the concept.

What Reality are you Creating For Yourself ?

When Rani was a little girl, she was fascinated by her goldfish which her father gifted her and had explained her about fish swim quickly swinging their tails to push themselves through the water. Without hesitation, little Rani responded, “Yes, Daddy, and fish swim backwards by swinging their heads.” In her mind, it was a fact as true as any other. Fish swim backwards by swinging their heads. She believed it.

Our lives are full of fishes swimming backwards.

We make assumptions and faulty leaps of logic. We know that we are right, and they are wrong. We fear the worst. We strive for unattainable perfection. We tell ourselves what we can and cannot do. In our minds, fish swim by in reverse madly swinging their heads and we don’t even notice them.

I’m going to mention five facts about myself. You need to honestly guess which

One fact is not true. :

One: I graduated from Mumbai University at 21 with specialisation in Electronics Engineering.

Two: I am currently home like everyone around the world due to the pandemic.

Three: I once rode a Harley Davidson Motorcycle.

Four: I have Dual Vision, an eye condition known as Diplopia.

Four: I served as a client servicing executive in two Advertising Agencies for over seven years.

Question : Which fact is not true?

Answer : Non of above. They’re all true.

At this point, you seem to only care about the diplopia? Why is that?

We make assumptions about so-called disabilities. I confront others wrong assumptions about my abilities every single day. My point today is not about my condition, however. It’s about my vision. Getting a double vision condition taught me to live my life with eyes wide open. It taught me to spot those backwards-swimming fish that our minds create. Double vision added me to see two images at one time and simultaneously I adapted to cast them into focus.

What does it feel like to see?

It’s immediate and passive. You open your eyes and there’s the world around you see and you believe what you see. Sight is absolute truth, right?

Well, for all these years that’s what I thought too. Then, in 2015 I had a motorcycle accident which left me with a squint causing the double vision issue. My sight became an increasingly bizarre, funhouse hall of mirrors and confusing. The salesperson I was relieved to spot in a store was really a mannequin. Reaching to fill my glass with water on dinner table, I suddenly saw the water was more on the table and very less in the glass, when my shirt sleeves felt wet. Objects appeared, repeated and overlapping in my reality. It was difficult and exhausting to see with both eyes open.

I learned that what we see is not universal truth. It is not objective reality. What we see is a unique, personal, virtual reality that is masterfully constructed by our brain. Let me explain as per my bit of neuroscience research. Our visual cortex takes up about 30% of our brain as compared to approximately 8% for touch and 2% to 3% for hearing. Every second, our eyes can send our visual cortex as many as two billion pieces of information. The rest of our body can send our brain only an additional billion. So sight is one-third of your brain by volume and can claim about two-thirds of your brain’s processing resources. It’s no surprise than that the illusion of sight is so compelling. But make no mistake about it: sight is an illusion.

So here it goes, to create the experience of sight, our brain refers our conceptual understanding of the world and other knowledge like memories, opinions, emotions, mental attention and so on where all of these understandings are linked in our brain to our sight. These linkages work both ways, and usually occur subconsciously. Therefore, what we see impacts how we feel, and the way we feel can literally change what we saw. Numerous studies demonstrate this.
Example: In school the subjects most of us do not like is Mathematics. I had my issues with mathematics where at large I didn’t like the teacher or I found it too boring or had the universal reason of not getting good marks even after studying and hence I was a low baller in mathematics.

We have arrived at a fundamental contradiction of what we see is a complex mental construction of our own making, but we experience it passively as a direct representation of the world around us. You create your own reality, and you believe it. I believed mine until it broke apart. The state of my eyes shattered the illusion, sight is just one way we shape our reality. We create our own realities in many other ways.
Consider ‘fear’ as just one example:
Our fears distort our reality. Under the warped logic of fear, anything is better than the uncertain. Fear fills the void at all costs, passing off what we fear for what we know, offering up the worst in place of the uncertain, substituting assumption for reason. 
When we face the greatest need to look outside ourselves and think critically, fear beats a retreat deep inside our mind, shrinking and distorting our view, drowning capacities for critical thought with disruptive emotions. When we face a compelling opportunity to take action, fear calms us into inaction, tempting us to sit back and just give up.
When I was diagnosed with diplopia, I knew dual vision would have a deep impact to my life. Indirectly it was a death sentence for my independence. It was the end of achievements for me. Dual vision meant I would live an unremarkable life, small, sad, and likely alone. I knew it. This was a fiction born of my fears, but I believed it. It was a lie, but it was my reality, just like those backwards-swimming fish in little Rani’s mind. If I had not confronted the reality of my fear, I would have lived it. I am certain of that.
So how do you live your life eyes wide open?
It is a learned discipline. It can be taught. It can be practiced. I will summarise it briefly:
It’s a simple tool called as “Who does it belong to?”
It is based on the argument that 98% of your thoughts, feelings and your emotions do not belong to you. They actually belong to the people around you and you are picking them up. When you feel them you keep thinking that they are yours.
What if they are not yours?
Now imagine if 98% of the stuff that was in your head yesterday didn’t have to be there tomorrow. That’s what this tool can do for you.
How does it work?
For every thought, feeling, emotion, judgement, point-of-view or heaviness you are holding on to for a couple of days, if you ask “WHO DOES IT BELONG TO?” and if it lightens up at all, it’s not yours. It actually belongs to somebody else, you are picking them up at the time. If it lightens up all you need to do is to return it to the sender just add saying “ I return it to the sender with consciousness attached.”

You say :
“ WHO DOES IT BELONG TO? I RETURN IT TO THE SENDER WITH CONSCIOUSNESS ATTACHED.”
Open your hearts to your bountiful blessings. Your fears, internal critics, fiction heroes, fiction villains are all your excuses, interpretations, shortcuts, justifications and surrender. They are fictions you perceive as reality. Choose to see through them. Choose to let them go. You are the creator of your reality. With that empowerment comes complete responsibility. I chose to step out of fear’s tunnel into terrain uncharted and undefined. I chose to build there a blessed life.

What do you fear?
What lies do you tell yourself?
How do you define your truth and write your own fictions?
What reality are you creating for yourself?
WHO DOES IT BELONG TO?
In your career, personal life, relationships, and in the heart and soul, that backwards-swimming fish does great harm. They exact a toll in missed opportunities and unrealised potential, and they cause insecurity and distrust where you seek fulfillments and connection. I urge you to search them out.
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
For me, that incident was a profound blessing, because diplopia gave me vision. I hope you can see what I see.
AND FISHES DO NOT SWIM BACKWARDS SWINGING THEIR HEAD.
Though there are species such as the Eel who use eel-like locomotion to move their elongated bodies do swim backwards.