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Alright, y'all, Part 2 of Harriet Lerner's Master Class on Apologizing, where you get to hear me get schooled and learn a lot and get schooled again. I hope you found the first part as helpful. I hope you found it as helpful as I found it and less challenging than I found it.
I hope you're just smooth sailing for you. For me, it's like freaking swimming against the tide a little bit. But I'm getting better. Again, COVID quarantine, I'm apologizing a lot to my family, to Steve, to my kids, to my colleagues. And in this episode, y'all, we really dig into, there are times that some people will not apologize. And Harriet talks about how we have to have a platform.
Of self-worth on which to stand and offer an apology and sometimes people drop into shame. So they just a lot of people who are raised not apologizing, see saying I'm sorry for doing something wrong as saying that I'm a bad person. And so they get into shame so fast they can't apologize and we're going to uncover that.
I think the other thing that's important is Harriet has a real stance on forgiveness. It's different than a lot of people, which is sometimes forgiveness in her mind is not warranted. And so I think apologizing and forgiving and what we're talking about in these lessons.
You have to take that into context. Are you in a safe, healthy relationship where making mistakes and apologizing are a part of how you grow and change and stretch. And if so, this is great. And sometimes I think Harriet would say, you don't always have to forgive to be healthy.
But when it's time to say, I'm sorry, do we know how and do we know why and do we know what works. Let's dig into this. This is part three and four of her again, her master class and her teaching. You're going to listen to me get really stumped in this one, but I hope it's useful for you. Game changer for me.
Okay, so lesson number three, the great apology challenge, defensiveness. I feel like people say to me sometimes when they hear me speak, they're like, how do you get inside my head? And I never understand exactly what that means until this moment where I'm like, how do you get inside my head defensiveness? The great apology challenge, right? Right. Okay, so I'm going to tell you a couple things that really stood out for me in this chapter. And then we're actually going to do a role play.
Yes, I'm going to inflict it upon you for an A. It's going to be amazing. Okay, here's some things that you say that I love. This thing called the mischief of defensiveness. We're all wired for it. Neurobiologically. It's normal. It's normal. We all want to protect our favorite image of ourselves. Right. We don't want to see ourselves outside of what we like about ourselves.
And so because we're neurobiologically wired for it, because it's normal, we have to find a strategy to be aware of it and move out of it. Is that right? Yes, we need a strategy as well as motivation and the intention to get past our defensiveness. I love the mischief of defensiveness. You say something here that, first of all, this is one of my favorite quotes and I've read every book you've written probably four times.
If we would only listen with the same passion that we feel about needing to be heard. Yes. But we don't. The reality is that we're much more interested in enhancing our talking skills than we are interested in enhancing our listening skills.
That's true. You know, it's so true. And I actually have an anecdote to prove it because when I was collecting data for the dance of anger, a colleague and I were doing these workshops into Pika Kansas called Talking Straight and Fighting Fair, it was for women. And people were pounding down the doors to be participants in this workshop. And I decided at one point to do a workshop called The Power of Listening.
And I had to cancel the workshop because the registration was like four people signed up for it. That's okay. We line up to get into the power of talking, but no one shows up into the power of listening. Exactly. And then you wake up one day and you have the political culture we have today. Exactly. No. Everyone's talking and no one's listening. Right. Is it fair to say before we jump into this role play that defensiveness and receiving and giving heartfelt apologies mutually exclusive.
They are mutually exclusive defensiveness is the arch enemy of listening. It's the arch enemy of connection and intimacy. And it's impossible to give an apology if we can't move out of the defensiveness because we can't listen. We can't get it. Obviously it's easy to apologize if we see a need for it and it's a simple thing like I spill red wine on your couch. Of course I'm going to apologize. And it's easy to listen if we like what the other person is saying.
You're telling me how wonderful and how wonderful it is to be here with me. It's very difficult to listen when we're being criticized. So that's when we automatically listen defensively. We automatically listen. And this is very important because you have to catch yourself doing this. We automatically listen for what we do not agree with. We listen for the exaggerations, the inaccuracies that will be there. So we listen for what we don't agree with.
Oh my God that's true. I want to make sure I understand this right. When we are feeling defensive, we listen for what we don't agree with. We won't even be aware of feeling defensive. If you're not even feeling it, that is defensiveness. And that's the way to catch it because you won't feel it. You won't say, well, you may if you're highly evolved. We might say to ourselves, wow, I'm being defensive.
I feel it in my body. The way to catch it, whether you feel it or not, is you are listening to correct the exaggerations, the inaccuracies, etc. You're listening for what you don't agree with. We're wired for defensiveness. We can engage in it without even thinking about it. But we need to catch ourselves. And the best way to catch ourselves is when we realize we're listening specifically for what we don't agree with. What's inaccurate? What's exaggerated?
Exactly. Like a very simple example that happened recently with Steve. He said that I was paying more attention to my women friends and putting all this energy into my women friends and I wasn't putting it into him. And all I could do was to think about the fact that I had not seen my women friends in three weeks. They were complaining they hadn't seen me.
And all I wanted to say to him was that that's crazy. Like I'm not even seeing my women friends recently, which that's a great example of defensive listening. Rather because it was inaccurate. That piece of it was inaccurate. Rather than listening for the essence of what he was saying, which is he somehow felt I wasn't present enough with him or wasn't there.
And he was missing me. So I really had to stop myself from pointing out that he was totally wrong about this thing about spending all my time with my women friends. Okay, so that's defensive listening. Simple example. We go back to the statement. Do you want to be right? Or do you want to give to the relationship? And do you want to hear? Do you want to get what the other person is saying? Because no apology has meaning if we haven't listened carefully to the hurt parties anger and pain.
You have to say that again. No apology has meaning if we haven't listened carefully to the hurt parties anger and pain. Okay. God, you know what I have? I have like an inner litigator. So when you start saying something to me that I've done or had hurt you, I am absolutely cross-examining you. That's funny that you say that because two weeks ago you said it had been a week since this happened. But now you're saying 10 days, so which is it? It's a week or 10.
I am right. Exactly. Yeah, I'm not listening for pain. Right. I'm listening for a right or wrong that I can prove or disprove. Okay. That can correct. Right. Should we roleplay? Okay. So here's I'm going to tell you your partner. This is my partner. Okay. I am your mother, Brunei. And you want to confront me about something really important that happened a long time ago.
But it stayed with you and you feel perhaps that our relationship can't really move forward unless you can express this and I can get it. So what this will be about, although you can change it as you feel fit, is let's say that when you were 16 years old, I divorced your dad. And during the long periods surrounding the divorce, I was totally unavailable to you. I was ignoring you.
I was just ignoring you. I was just thinking of myself and you were going through a terrible time. The divorce was happening to you too. You were the most vulnerable. You were 16. And maybe something bad happened to you at the time like your boyfriend broke up with you. And that maybe even your in therapy and you've been talking about this with your therapist. And it's really gotten all wrecked up. And you want to have a conversation with me.
And of course, as for all of us, you don't just want me to say, I'm sorry, Brunei. You want me to get it. Because this is what the apology is really about. You want me to get it and to feel it. So I'm your mom. Let me have it. Okay. You know, here's the thing. I'll let you know if I'm dating someone. You don't need to ask. But I'm not dating someone right now. And of course, I'm talking to my therapist about it all the time.
Because it turns out I'm not good at letting myself be in relationships, which probably comes from all the shit that happened when you and dad were going through a divorce. Not that you would have noticed, but yeah. What? It's hard for me to be in a relationship because a, I watch you and dad just completely fall apart in this crazy way.
And I had my first boyfriend. You probably do not remember this because you were very self-absorbed with your divorce who broke up with me during it because I was falling apart. And he couldn't take it. And of course, I didn't talk to you about it because you again were not paying attention. Wait, can you just please stop for a minute because I'm like getting a headache here. Could you like slow down and tell me like, what is the point you're trying to make here?
Don't ride me about whether I'm dating someone or not because no, I'm not. And part of the reason I'm not dating someone is because I don't know how to do that. Because when I needed you and I needed to talk to you about what this was supposed to look like and feel like and work, you were not available to me.
You're talking about the divorce. I'm talking about the divorce and everything I went through and everything I was going through in my own life when you were getting divorced. The divorce did not just happen to you. Remember I lived there too? And then I was in a, the divorce did happen to me. And I had to put bread on the table. And I was struggling with things. I'm sure you didn't think about it and you're dating thing.
Let me ask you a question because I'm just feeling a little upset here. I mean, have you talked to your dad about this? I mean, I know you're such a daddy's girl that everything is blame the mother. But have you talked to him or just like, you're totally talking about it.
Yeah, yeah. And that's actually none of your business. But I have talked to him about it. And all I'm saying to you is don't write me about not dating people. I'll let you know when I'm dating someone. And if you want to know why it's hard for me, you should look back to when I was growing up and you were not around. And I get you were putting bread on the table because guess what? I was the one sitting at the table by myself every night.
Well, Brunei, could I ask you since this happened when you were 16 years old, why are you bringing this up now? Why are you bringing this up now? This is like way in the past. What's got what what is with you because it's still affecting me and we've never talked about it. We've never dealt with it. And you keep pushing on areas that are really tender for me. And they're tender for me because you did not show up like you should have shown up.
So you are accusing me of being responsible for your constant problems with boyfriends. No, I'm asking you to see the fact that you are irresponsible as a mother when we were going through a very hard time as a family. I was irresponsible as a mother. I was doing everything to survive. I was doing everything to help you. And you're telling me I was irresponsible.
And I can talk about this anymore. No, talk. No, I want to know. I want to show you how I'm feeling. And then on top of telling you how I feel, try to take care of you because you're on the verge of one of your great breakdowns. I got it. I got it. I got it. You're awesome. Bread on the table. Hard life. Got it. Well, I just want to say that I'm very sorry that I did the best I could. That when you're older, I think that you'll understand more.
What age do you think? What age do you think I need to be to understand? Something more mature than you are now. And I'll tell you something else, Brunei, because I have heard you talk about not living in the past. I've heard you talk about positivity and about optimism. And then you come to me with all of this negativity. And it doesn't fit into anything about being positive or about caring about relationships. It's just an attack on me.
Positive or done talking about that. Okay. You are much too articulant. There's an example of something that didn't go very well in the mother daughter relationship. That was hard. That was hard for me too. Let's talk about how it felt to us. Do you want me to start it? Do you want me to know? It felt like there was no chance of me not being defensive.
I felt like I was going to be annihilated and like you could talk verbal circles around me, which made it verbal circles and so quickly and so fast that I couldn't even slow down my breathing. And I just couldn't go there. And I just wanted you to shut up. So that's how I felt. I felt like going into it. And maybe it's because I knew the role play was going to be you were never going to show up for me. So I just wanted this to hurt as much as possible.
You did it. Yeah. Because I didn't intend to do the crying thing. I actually never thought that would happen. And then inside you're like, maybe you're right. Yeah. No. Yeah. So I had to remind myself that I was in a role play when you say when you're more mature, you'll get it. I couldn't believe it.
Yeah. I couldn't believe it. Not once you said, tell me about your hurting. Tell me what's hard. Right. And I felt I had no space to do it because I felt that you were coming at me at this highly articulate, ratatat way. Both with the current situation of that I shouldn't be asking you about boyfriends and then going back. So even if I were not that defensive a person, I don't think I could have taken it in.
Sometimes the very speed at which we talk the very number of words we're throwing at the person and the intensity in our voice just makes the defensiveness. I don't mean to blame you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but it makes it harder to slow that down. How do you control for that on the other side of that? Well, if I were, for example, I can show you that very easily because I talk much too slowly. I'm told, you know, I'm told all the time I talk a glacial speed.
I think, for example, I might have started by saying mom, I really would like to talk with you about something is now a good time. Now, but how would you have slowed it down if I were the daughter and you were doing. Yeah, but if you were, if you were not playing defensive mom, if you were playing.
Oh, if I were playing myself, but oh, I see, I see, how would I slow you down? How would you have slowed me down? Because I haven't told that before because I'm thinking of a very specific mother and daughter that really exists. Right. And I'm thinking about a conversation that. That's a very good question. Yeah. Because being a good listener also means that we know when not to listen, that we can say, I can't listen now or I can't listen in this way.
So I think that as the mother, let's say I'm the non-defense mother and you're coming at me like that. I would first say, Brunei, this conversation sounds so important and I really want to hear what you're saying. But I can't listen well right now. So what about tomorrow after breakfast and you know, I'll have my coffee that we sit down and I really, I'm going to do my best to try to listen to what you're saying.
And I might also say to you when tomorrow comes, I might say, you know, one problem I have is that I very easily feel flooded and it would just be helpful to me sort of if we could take one thing at a time. Oh, it's already I'm like this. Okay. Right. Like already, like I'm.
Right. So you might so, Brunei, why don't why don't we start with the issue that you started with that I wasn't even aware of that somehow my bringing up asking you about whether you're dating or have a boyfriend isn't useful to you because I wasn't aware of that. It helped me to really get that piece of it. I think I would have to slow you down as the I love how you're segmenting it. But the first thing I heard is you want to listen.
Yes, I want to listen. I do want to listen and that you want to hear and then asking for what you need in order to listen. Exactly, exactly because you are so articulate and you're so fast and you know, I wouldn't want to criticize you as the mother in any way for your style. But I would say I really do want to listen and here's how you can help me because that is so powerful.
Yeah, I want to listen. I want to hear a care deeply about what you're talking about. Right. I see you're hurting. Here's what I'm going to need to be able to hear you exactly. Check it out very well. Right. Okay. So sometimes in wholehearted listening, you have to know what you're going to need to be able to hear. Right. Right. Now I do. Now ideally because you were feeling it so strongly and you might not have accepted it if I said that you said, look, I want to talk now.
I mean, ideally, I'm so committed to you. I'm going to really just try to sit through this blast and then sort of ask you questions to segment it. But yeah, I might need to tell you that I, you know, this is what I need. Right. Yeah. So the another daughter that I'm picturing my head, she said that her daughter's really, really attaches every hard thing she has in her life to the way she's raised and what's happening in their family.
And she said, I can't get a word in edgewise. I can't even ask a clarifying question. And so, but you can say this is what I'm going to need to hear you. Right. Right. And also what's very useful, this is going to sound like a very silly simple thing. It's very useful to go to a new place. In other words, that mother and daughter and most of us are in a family. You've had so many arguments in the kitchen and in the living room and, you know,
that's what she told me is always in the kitchen at the bar. Right. Somewhere else. And one thing that's very useful is to go to a place where you have never had a fight like a new place like a new coffee shop. Like, let's go to, you know, this new place and let's sit down. And I really want to do my best to listen because it makes a difference to actually change the venue.
It's silly as that sounds. It doesn't sound silly at all, because there's a history and a pattern that happened there. Right. Exactly. Okay. Let's talk about non-defensive listening and go through kind of, you have identified through your research and work. Kind of ten elements of wholehearted non-defensive listening. I'm going to read them. And then can you jump in and let us know what it means exactly? Yeah. Or in exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Recognize your defensiveness.
When we're criticized, we immediately go into defensive mode. Like you said, we're hardwired for it. It's automatic. It's normal. It's universal. And just recognizing our defensiveness can give us a little bit of distance from it. That sort of tense but but but we want to say but we are listening for the inaccuracies. So recognizing it is the first step to having the intention of moving past it.
Do we all have tells, tells we know on the inside. If you pay attention, you can feel it in your body. Right. Yeah. Number two, this comes up in every course I teach when I'm teaching with someone else like a self-compassion across the nav. Breathe. Right. Defensiveness does start in the body. And it does make us tense and unguard. So slow down your breathing and do whatever mindfulness technique or what you've learned in your, I don't know, childbirth class or whatever.
Any breathing technique that works for you to calm yourself, you cannot listen with an overheated nervous system. It's not possible. So breathe. What about for those of us who are breath holders? Breathe. Breathe. That's hard. Breathe. Okay. Listen only to understand. This is hard for me because shouldn't you be preparing your case? This is the hardest one. It's really the hardest one. Listen to discover only what you can agree with.
And do not interrupt. Don't argue. Don't correct facts, etc. And if your points, these points that you're making in your head of their legitimate, all the more reason to save them for another conversation when the person might really hear you, don't use them as a defense strategy. Okay. So it reminds me a little bit of Stephen Covey's seek first to understand than to be understood. Yes. Yes. Look for what we share in common. Look for what you can understand and agree with. Right.
Ask questions about whatever you don't understand. Well very often a criticism is vague. Like you don't respect me. I'm not important to you, whatever it is. And it's very helpful to say, you know, can you give me a specific example where you felt that I wasn't respecting you? Because that's going to help me to better understand. So ask questions to better understand the person's experience. But don't not nitpicking. Don't act like a lawyer, you know, even if you are one.
So don't say, tell me exactly what I did. No, tell me exactly what I said. Don't do that. Say, help me understand what you mean. Can you give me an example? Can you tell me a time when you felt like that? So so much of this is also in how you're showing up. Right. And then your tone, the difference between curiosity and nitpicking or picking on the person. Yeah.
What's it called the deposition being deposed? Right. Exactly. Okay. Find something you can agree with. Well, I might only agree with 7% of what you've said. But that's what I should be focused on. And I can apologize for that piece first. And if there's nothing you've said that I can agree with, then I could tell you that I appreciate you're bringing this up. And I'm really going to be thinking about it.
Okay. Let the offended party know he or she has been heard that you will continue to think about the conversation. The continuing to think about it is a really important point. You don't want to think that I apologize. I heard you. And then it just slipped out of my brain that I never think about it again. So a very important part of a heartfelt apology is to let you know, Brunei, that what you told me is not going to slip out of my brain.
That I'm going to continue to think about it. And that I also want the lines of communication to be open between us. And if more comes up for you, let me know. That's a very vulnerable thing. It's so important because nothing is processed in one conversation if it's a really important hurt. So you as the hurt party need to know that what you said affected me and that I'm going to come back and I'm going to initiate another conversation, not just leave it up to you.
I'm going to initiate the conversation and let you know I've been thinking about it. God, that's rare. It's so important. That's rare. Well, we always leave it up to the hurt party to bring up the next one. And it falls on the hurt party because the wrongdoer doesn't initiate the next conversation. And we may not initiate it with good intentions. We might say, well, she's not bringing it up again. Maybe it's too sensitive.
It's very important if I've neglected you like that and you find the courage to tell me that I initiate a conversation to let you know I'm thinking about that and I admire your courage and bringing it up. That would blow my mind if someone did that. So important. I can think of a million work examples. I mean, this is just as much at work. Right. Okay. Thank the critical person for sharing her feelings.
It's important to express gratitude where you're going to expect defensiveness. But it's important, even though you've just blasted the hell out of me, that I could say to you, Brunei, it's been hard for me to listen. But I want to thank you for your courage in bringing this up. And what's really important to me is to have a relationship where we can talk about things. Although it may take me a while to really take in everything you're saying, I want to thank you for the conversation.
Who does that? I mean, again, that's vulnerable. Right. And brave. Right. Support for this show comes from Sylvan Learning. As a parent, you want your child to have every opportunity. But giving them the tools they need to tackle every challenge, that takes a team. Now more than ever, educational support tailored exactly to what your child needs can make all the difference. That's why parents have trusted Sylvan Learning for 45 years as the ultimate teammate in their child's educational journey.
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Go to Sylvan29.com to learn more and get your child's assessment for only $29. That's s-y-l-v-a-n-29.com. All right. Define your differences. Okay. That's a very, very important one. You don't have to define your differences when you're in the apology corner. I love that image because you want to keep a pure apology. Now, expressing a difference does not mean I'm trying to convince you or fix you or change your mind or get you to see it my way.
It just means I can say, you know, Bernadis is one thing we see differently. So it's defining a difference. It's really helpful on the receiving end because it makes your apology more believable. Oh, absolutely. Do you know what I mean? It seems like it's counterintuitive. It seems like you would think that it didn't make your apology more believable. But if you're willing to say, yeah, I apologize. I own this part. I really, but here's where I don't really.
Right. For example, where I see a different Libre Né is that I do not feel that I was responsible for your dead's drinking after the divorce. You know, he's a grown man. He, it was up to him to get the help he needed. I feel responsible for my behavior, but I do not take responsibility for your dead's behavior. And that's a difference. It's huge modeling. Right. Around boundaries that into and around. Right. You know, like it's clearly.
And it's very important that you think about it as defining your differences, not confrontation. No, I hate that word confrontation. It's defining your differences while allowing the other person to think and feel and react differently. And own their, you know, and on their stuff. We can be in relationship. We can exchange a heartfelt apology. We can deepen our relationship and still disagree on certain points. Right.
Because intimacy requires a huge tolerance for differences and respect. And respect. Right. Okay. So do you want to do the role play again? Oh, I'm scared. You are. You are so intimidating. Well, you told me to be really tough. I did. I just hope that's what you go. I'm like, I can't like, I'm gonna start crying. I don't want to let go. Okay. Let's try it again. Okay. Okay. So I'll aim this time for non-defensive listening and I'll aim for those things that we win. Okay.
Okay. I really wish you would stop asking me about who I'm dating. Because I'm not doing it. Right. But yeah. Have I been, I'm sorry that I'm a little feeling a little defensive. But back up a little bit. What is it with the dating that you're wanting me to hear? No, I feel like you're always saying, you're always asking like, so what are you doing on your weekends? And I feel like it's your way of saying do you have a boyfriend yet?
And whenever I get to have great kids and like, I say, and I don't, I don't have a boyfriend right now. And it's a really hard part of my life. I say, and I'm really glad you said that because I didn't realize that I was coming on like that you should have a boyfriend. I was feeling it more as curiosity, but I really hear what you're saying. And just want to start crying right now. Yeah. Thanks mom. Okay. Let me go back in my role.
Okay. I will really pay attention. I mean, I'm sorry because now that I think about it, I have sort of been like a broken record around the boyfriend thing. And I'm glad you brought that up. Thank you. Well, I think for me, it's hard because like I'm in therapy now. I told you I'm a senior therapist. And she said basically between what I went through with the divorce between you and dad. And the fact that my first real love was during that period of time and we had a horrible breakup.
And I didn't have anyone to help me through it. I mean, you just weren't around that I'm very guarded. And that it's going to be hard for me to find someone and really have a great relationship with someone if I'm this guarded. And you weren't really around. Wow. Well, I'm at a temporary loss for words because what you're telling me is very different. It's very difficult for me to hear. And I really, really want to understand it. Can you say more about my not being around?
I mean, I know I was very depressed. I know that. But share a little more with me about like what you remember about my not being there. You really want to know? Yeah, it's hard, but I absolutely want to know. Well, you were working all the time. It was before dad got sober. Right. You were working all the time. You weren't around. I was having a really hard time. And I'm sure I was, I don't know what I was acting like, but Carl, my boyfriend was like, I can't deal with this.
It's too much. You're too sad all the time. You're too freaked out about your parents' divorce. I just want to have fun. And there was no one to talk about it. And you were, you know, and so not only is dad gone and he's moved out, but I'm home alone all the time. There's no one there. And yeah, I just don't. It was, it's soft.
Well, I'm actually, you know, I want to tell you have sorry. I feel because in fact, I remember the boyfriend, but I don't remember being there for you when he broke up with you. And I don't remember getting in any way how painful that was for you. I mean, I think, I think I was really out of it. I have no excuse. I think I was thinking so much of my own pain that I, I didn't get how incredibly painful that breakup would be for you.
And especially as your dad and I were breaking up, I mean, just to help me refresh my memory, did we talk about it at all or did we? No, I mean, we had one conversation about it and you said it might be for the better because you know that he drinks too and I would possibly wind up like you and dad. I said that you could wind up like me and dad. It's a really stupid thing to say, Brunei, because you're you and I'm me.
And that was a really stupid thing to say. I'm very sorry. I wish that I could go back in time and and do it differently. Is there an addition to ignoring the breakup? Was there, I mean, I know this isn't just one conversation because I want us to be able to have a relationship where we can continue this conversation. Is there anything that also really stands out about the way I left you alone? No, but maybe dad wouldn't have drank so much if you wouldn't have pushed on the divorce.
Same more about that. What was really hard to have a dad who was like drunk and like almost losing his job and all I you know all it was was fighting about the drinking and maybe if you were not so hard on him about the drinking, he wouldn't have drank so much. Well, that's a piece that I see a little differently because your dad is and was a grown man. And while I take total responsibility for my behavior, I don't take responsibility for your dad's drinking and not getting help.
And we can talk about that piece later, but that's a piece I do see a little differently. What is it like for you that I see that piece differently with your dad? What is that like? I think you can see it differently. I'm just trying to figure it out. I'm trying to find a reason why it happened. Why what happened? Just why everything fell apart. Why the divorce was passed?
Just why it happened? Why I'm having a hard time dating? Why I'm 24? I still don't have a boyfriend. They say my therapist says you know I don't, I don't let people in. I try to beat hurt to the punch. And so I'm just trying to figure out why it all happened. And so I think it's easier for me to think well if you would have done something different maybe I could do something. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure it out.
I feel like you weren't there. I never thought about before. I never thought about something you were saying before. So I need to think about them. But I know you're not going to want to talk about it again. But I think I just need to. Brunei, I totally want to talk about it again. And in fact what you're bringing up and you know you're understanding the divorce better from my perspective and your pain and the way that I ignore it to you.
I first of all want to thank you for initiating this conversation. I know it must have taken so much courage and you know hard work in your therapy. And what I would like is let's get out our schedules and let's make another time and go out and have lunch together or coffee or whatever you would like. And let's continue the conversation. And I want you to know that although I can't go back and be there for you like I should have been there for you.
I want you to know that I am going to do everything to be here for you now. And I will never ignore you again when you're in pain. That was amazing. When a little better than our first conversation I think you know what changed everything. I'm not going to stay to shock. This is like heavy. This is intense right? It is intense. You know what changed everything? Your curiosity. Uh-huh. My really wanting to know my genuinely wanting to know. Yes. Right. Right. So do you think everyone can do that?
I mean not just a therapist with you know 40 years of experience and a researcher. No not everyone can do it. And if I felt for example so insecure as a mother and I felt that you were telling me I was a toxic mother, a bad mother, a narcissistic mother. If you threw that label at me and I felt really badly about myself I could not do that because I would just, I would just collapse into shame.
So not everyone can do it but we can all do better and we can all work on it and that's why we're doing this. I think we long for that. Oh long for it. Yes. But defensiveness is so powerful that when it happens it's a great gift. But you know it's difficult. Yeah, I'm actually or something really personal like so my parents went through a very difficult divorce when I was twenty one. And when she and I through the years have talked about it.
When I first started talking about when I first started talking about with her and this was hard and helped me understand she would ask me a thousand questions. And she would say do you mind if I write down what you're saying so I can read about I can read it and think about it later. Because I can get really overwhelmed but I really want to understand. Right. And she was very much in therapy and very much you know part of like turning the family around.
And I was like I really want to write down she's like yeah you can read if you want to but I just want to be able to and I thought she cares enough about what I'm saying. And then she'll say so what does that mean again for you like what was you thinking when I said that. And I'm like could you get this down I was thinking this. I don't think until this moment in my life at fifty. I can understand the power of being curious. Right curious about the other person in a foreign situation. Right.
Can you give me an example can you help me understand. Yeah. That just changed my it rearranged my entire being during that conversation. Because you can't fake that. Right. Well the other person would pick it up and you could try to fake it. Yeah. Yeah. When you tell that very moving personal story about your mother. I thought of my father who was the opposite where nothing would get through. He really lacked empathy and he didn't have very much capacity to connect and he never apologized.
And one of the things he did is he always favored my big sister Susan, his five years older, over me. But openly and I mean it was really bizarre. He's such a great genius and he would even introduce us like I remember him introducing me to a neighbor in Phoenix when I visited it. And he said something like this is Harriet and Harriet writes books. But you should meet Susan because Harriet is very bright but Susan is brilliant.
And this was like his theme you know about like I was this little turtle kind of moving forward and Susan was brilliant. So in the meantime I remember once you know I visited him again in Phoenix and I was a time of great success in my life. And I was in the New York Times list and Susan had just lost her job. And I approached him. I was really going to in a very curious way, not in a way that would make anyone defensive, raise this issue again.
And I said to him because he made one of his Susan as the brilliant one. And I said to him and you know in my Jewish family being brilliant and achievement was next to godliness. So I said you know Ted I have the feeling that even if I won the Nobel Prize you know I came back and told you I won the Nobel Prize that you would still say that Susan is the brilliant one. And he said yes that's true.
And I said well that's interesting you know help me to understand that. He said well if you won the Nobel Prize you would win it because you're good at one thing. But Susan is brilliant she's good at everything. And at that moment I mean I didn't even feel angry. It was like a moment of total acceptance that there was no getting through. And there was no changing his fixed ideas of this issue. And it wasn't even an apology I was looking for. I was looking for you know wasn't that interesting.
And I won the Nobel Prize you know. My sister had just been fired actually from a job and was really struggling. So I guess it's an example of sometimes we accept you know that another person is not capable of hearing us but we really give it a chance. I mean I really you know had got it a gentle way. Very gentle way and I had told him early or in a gentle way that it hurt my feelings when he would constantly mention that Susan was the brilliant one and Harriet's the one who's good with people.
That was the framing Susan's the scientist. She went to Barnard and Stanford and Yale and Harriet. She's good with people and she went to the University of Wisconsin and he wouldn't put the decal on the car you know only Ivy Lane. So this was like a very pervasive and big thing for him. But certainly there was not going to be an apology and there was not going to be any attempt on his part to think about this to be curious about himself. So that's an striking contrast to your mother.
But we don't choose the family that we're born into. The family we're born into is the deck of cards that they hand us. And what we make of it though and how we navigate the relationships is up to us. Okay lesson number four our final lesson and I love this because it's a title of your amazing book why won't you apologize. So one of the things I've learned from you in this work in this book is kind of in the secret life of the non-apologizer where you're not going to get an apology.
Actually two primary reasons for not receiving one one we have a pardon even as the wounded person we've made it very difficult to apologize. And the second piece we're going to talk about is you've just got someone who is entrenched in absolutely not going to do it. Right they are never going to hear you they're never going to care about your feelings and they're never going to be sorry. Okay let's start with the one where we have a part.
Right well we should start there because the whole challenge of apology and reconciliation is a dance usually that occurs between two or more people. So although we don't like to see this we do have a part in the apology not coming because we're really throwing fire. I mean a typical example is where we started with a bananas where rather than my simply pointing out to Steve that is again buying five right bananas meant that three would end up in the campus bin.
I went from that to what kind of person are you you know and what kind of citizen are you and of course when we exaggerate when we blame the blame or shame the shame or perfectly natural impulse you know when someone has heard us we will strike back. We make it very very unlikely that we can get through or get an apology so that would be the most common actually scenario. Yeah and that's better because we have a part in that maybe we can do something exactly.
So let's jump into a scenario and we're going to do a work scenario for the spot. Okay and this is going to be amazing because here's what we're going to do. I am going to tell a story about a work situation and I'm going to talk about how this person dealt with it and then Harriet is going to come in and she's going to clean it up and set the stage for probably the only possible reconciliation apology we can get from this.
Let's jump in so this is a story about John who has been with this company for 15 years high producer well liked well respected. John is in his mid 40s and finds himself in a very almost kind of blindsided way struggling with some major addiction issues. And so John goes into his boss's office and says I am going to take three weeks and I'm going into recovery and I'm going in patient treatment not only will I not be here. I will not be available.
I will not have a phone or email and all the things that go with going into recovery which are important important parts of it and John's boss is not receptive to this now his John told his boss that things will be covered that he's taken care of yes. Yes well he has a plan that he went to run by John first because he wanted to run by his boss first it's not just like I'm going.
I will be able to clean up this one thing which is not always a luxury when you go into treatment because sometimes you know you go intervention in but John's going and John's boss not receptive not respectful. So John's boss's response is he is clearly disappointed he uses language like we all have problems I don't know why you can't push through you're really dropping the ball.
I don't understand why treatment is really important I don't even know that I believe in this whole thing of addiction who told you you have the problem. He leaves his boss's office hiss off and yeah and ashamed and just angry so John's response is to fire off an email.
What's that for email yes and sleep on an email yeah and so John was really interesting is email because he took kind of all the values he's heard his boss in this company espouse and write them and then say here's why you're a hypocrite. You know we say family and health first I call bullshit I'm trying to take care of myself and you're putting me down it says we can trust each other I told you something now you're calling me week. So he has got a literally two page email to his boss.
I'm trying to catch him in hypocrisy really slamming this guy and saying I thought I could count on you but really you're just another talking head from this corporation you only care about us as long as we're producing everything you said to us for the last five years. So this is the email. This is not going to lead to an apology is it no it's not going to lead to an apology why not.
Well unless his boss is a very highly evolved Zen Buddhist like person it'll take him a nanosecond before he shuts down people taking very little information when they're being criticized and they don't want to hear what you're saying. I'm sure that the boss shame John but John is shaming him back and courage is not in blaming or shaming the person who heard us and in fact writing a letter like that can only backfire because the boss will just see John as a problem.
He's a problem person in the institution and the boss because of this massive criticism will just wrap himself even more tightly in a blanket of rationalization and denial there's no way that the boss will be able to look at himself. Okay so here's what we did we took this scenario before we came on to tape this lesson and Harriet has these five points of how you really state your case in a way that people can hear you.
Right and it's not a two page shaming blame email right because if we want an apology meaning we want the person to get it which is really what we want you can't shame the shame or blame the blame doesn't help. Okay so I want to go through these five before you read.
Okay the power of shorter this is so important it's so hard it's the hardest thing for me because I over talk things when I'm anxious when I'm intense when I'm angry if I were John I would automatically over talk it so don't send that angry email and also things on email can be read much more.
Yeah as we know you know even then they're meant so if you want to be heard keep in mind you know and the research verifies this that people will take in very little information when they don't want to hear what you're saying and it's very important to keep it short very important.
When people don't want to hear even if you're avoiding shaming blame if the when people don't want to hear when it's hard right it's small and you know people it's so interesting because when people try to get through and what they're doing isn't working do they stop and do something different no they do more the same more of the same so they write an angry letter to their boss or their coworker or their sister their mother or they get the long lecture to their child and that doesn't work so they add more.
They add more points you know they lengthen the conversation is if then the person will get it everyone who gets me as a therapist gets me as an editor and I always help people to say it shorter. Okay yeah move from blaming to assertive claiming right blaming as I said especially in a workplace never works it will only hurt you if you study good leaders they do not blame parents sort of can help it because you're living you know 24 seven with a kid but it's just not useful to blame.
And with assertive claiming what it means is that you are defining yourself this is what I think this is what I feel this is what I believe this is the ground I stand on while respecting that other people will see it differently. Okay so no blaming no blaming and I love it so claiming right here's my truth right okay focus on how you feel and not how on the other person's crime sheet.
Right so not a lot of everything they did wrong exactly exactly focus on your own feelings whatever I left your office feeling hurt and disappointed I felt like I was a smaller person who didn't meet your standards wasn't tough enough. Those are your feelings is opposed to what you describe John doing in this long letter of you are a hypocrite you say one thing you do another thing.
So focus on your feelings do not ask for or demand an apology right don't ask for an apology no or demand it it's not useful people do not like to be told how they should think and feel. And that goes for apologies to when you ask for an apology or demand it it can make an adult feel more like a child like you're asking them to.
No and everyone goes back to that moment where your mom's apologized to him right now exactly exactly and then if they apologize because you've insisted on it it's not as meaningful anyway it's really not useful to say I want an apology. Okay standing on the highest ground whether defensive wrong to her here's you are not so you are not writing this letter I want to make sure for any motive other than to the assertive claiming in stand your ground and integrity.
Right you have the motive to be heard we all want to get through we all want to exceed the other person's threshold of deafness but basically you write a letter of integrity and maturity and you're standing on higher ground you're being your best self and again unfortunately we have no control over how the other person responds but we can be thoughtful about the best way to get through.
So I want to ask you this because I get this question a lot of my work and I think it's really important I'm sure I learned this from you somewhere along the way as well but the healing of writing that should not come from the response. Oh absolutely it should come from the writing of it not on controlling the response to it right that's very very important and you know it's especially important is a therapist I work so often with adults who you know in the course of therapy like they.
They get in touch with something they're very angry about and they they get on a plane and they parachute down on their family and they bring up some very intense issue of whatever it is and no one's talked about nothing more than sports and weather in this family they've never laid a groundwork for the conversation and it doesn't go well surprise surprise.
So if you're going to confront someone I actually don't like the term confrontation if you're going to open a conversation about a very difficult issue especially if you're opening it up with the defensive person who's hurt you you do it for yourself you do it because you need to hear the sound of your own voice speaking what you really believe.
If you need a response say from a parent then you're not ready to open up the conversation of course we want a particular response but if you're doing it because you're dependent on it that's right. That's right. Exactly. Okay so two page email you're a hypocrite and a liar you don't mean anything you say right you talk about trust you're a joke and that's a joke. You don't care about me what is John right.
Okay so I condensed it a little bit I see you've got like seven lines right okay so dear so and so it was difficult to tell you why I needed three weeks away from work. But I've come to see you not only as a leader but an important mentor in my life. I came to you with the truth about my addiction struggles because you have consistently talked to us about the need for trust and truth in our team.
When you frame my struggle as weakness of character and ask me to suck it up I left your office feeling like I had disappointed you and lost respect in your eyes. My hope is that you will support my decision to get help. I believe it is the bravest most respectful and best thing I can do for myself my family and this team. Okay shorter a little shorter a sort of claiming.
Very blame focus on how John feels not there was no crime sheet at all did not demand an apology or ask for one right and complete high ground. Complete high ground and John didn't lecture or preach or interpret or criticize or blame you know like you were saying he. So however John's boss response John has behaved in a way that will increase his own sense of integrity and self-regard.
It's really funny because I mean there's nothing there's nothing you can do if you read the letter except think respect. That's right I respect this person I may not agree with what they're doing I may feel like a lot of feelings about my behavior but I respect this person.
It was very interesting because I went through a very I write about this in rising strong a very shaming experience from an event planner who sent me an email after an event really ridicule me for how I mispronounced Pima children's name. And said that if I was going to call myself an academic or a thought leader I should at least have the respect to pronounce people's names right.
And I was devastated it was so in my shame area right of imposter and not being eloquent and educated enough and I wrote a letter. And I called out some of the behaviors this woman had engaged in at this conference which were very questionable and I wrote the opposite of what you said it was shaming it was blaming and I see see her boss on it.
And I didn't send it but I didn't I did not send it I was smart enough to print it and take it to my therapist and so Diane I had Diane said I want you to read it to me and I'm sure I know why she want me to read it to her so I read it to her. And she said wow annihilation you're going on for like full kill here and I was like yeah she is tell me how you want this person to feel when she reads it I was like I want her to feel small and found out and great and I was like oh my god.
I want her to feel like she made me feel exactly exactly and it was such a moment for me that like when you answer shame with shame and blame with blame there's no end to that cycle right there's no high ground there there's no high everyone's in the sewer. And there's also a paradox because if your intention was that she recognized how awful she was and that she would feel as bad if not worse that she had made you feel that letter won't do it. No exactly it'll do the opposite.
It'll defend her it'll it'll be defended. She'll see you as even more of a different crisis. Right now let me make one point of clarification the point of clarification is that this exercise is an exercise to have the best chance to be heard by the person who hurt you.
If that's your intention if your intention is to just let it all hang out and your intention is you know to write a three page letter that's going to blame and shame the person that's your decision so it's important to know your intention always yeah always yeah I mean on this especially because if you want to write something from a point of self righteousness and feel good and put everything out that's great.
That's not going to get you heard right it won't get you heard right good thank you right. Okay so we're going to jump into this last part of our last lesson which is kind of the entrenched non-apologizer. So I think it's fair to say that everyone has probably been hurt at least once in their life by someone who is really never going to apologize. I would say it's safe to assume that we've all been hurt far more than one time by someone who is never going to apologize.
What in the hail is going on with that entrenched non-apologizer. Okay and let's say we've done a good job we've done a great higher ground seek to be heard. Yes. Some people will never apologize and in order to apologize a person needs a big platform of self worth to stand on. And when they stand on that higher platform of self worth they can look out at their bad behavior and their mistakes and they see those mistakes is part of a much bigger part of the world.
They're part of their being human of their being an ever changing complex self. People who do really bad things and people who do the greatest harm to us are least able to apologize because they stand on a small rickety platform of self worth. And they're not able to then be able to see the bad things they've done as just a part of the whole complexity of being human. They're very vulnerable to collapsing into shame and they just can't do it.
It's very easy for anyone to apologize for a small thing. If anyone spills the coffee on your rug they'll say that they're sorry and they'll really feel badly they will. But it's different for people who do a lot of harm because they have so much shame. And we can apologize for what we do. We stand on a platform of self worth. We look at we can't apologize for who we are. If I said, Brune, can you please apologize for being not a very great person?
No one can apologize for that. Actually there's a wonderful, my favorite peanut cartoon shows Lucy at her five cents psychiatrist booth thing. And she says to Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, the trouble with you is that you're you. Well, you know what can Charlie Brown do? Yeah, yeah, what do you do? Right. So that people who do very bad things who have a lot of shame, who have a rickety platform of self worth are entrenched non-apologizers.
The non-apologizer walks on a tight rope of defensiveness above a huge canyon of low self esteem. Oh, I think for a lot of people, it will be counterintuitive because it looks like non-apology is a function of arrogance and greatness. Well, what is arrogance? Right. Exactly. The arrogance is low self esteem. And one of the things I found that was so shocking in my research, the willingness to apologize and make amends was such a function of self worth. Exactly.
The higher the self respect. Right. The greater the willingness to apologize and make amends. Right. So that when someone really does serious harm, exactly, and they don't have self worth and they have shame that if you confront them, they will really desperately justify and minimize and reverse the blame.
Yeah. And even say you caused it, you brought it upon yourself or that it didn't happen, it never happened. Invalidated reality. Invalidated reality. So that it's very important that if you are going to speak your truth to someone who's done serious harm to you, you do it to hear because you want to stand on that ground of speaking your truth. Because it is very unlikely that the person can hear you or apologize there to filled with shame.
And so that becomes our work to do on our own. That's our work to do on our own. But it's also important to know that it doesn't mean the person doesn't love you. It does not mean your dad or mom don't love you because they behave badly and they can't hear you. It doesn't have to do with love. It has to do with the size and the strength of their platform of self worth. And you can't give another person self worth. We can only do that for ourselves.
Yeah. And it won't work either to say you're great. You're amazing. Now can you please apologize? Right. Yeah. It doesn't work. Right. Right. Right. First of all, let me say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Oh, you're welcome. And thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's amazing. Yes. Thank you. I just want everyone to know there's no way I would be doing the work that I'm doing today if it weren't for you. Really. You know that, right? Thank you.
Yeah. That's a big deal. Wow. That's a big deal. Yes. So we're going to end with a parable. Yes. Okay. This is the parable I love. Yeah. I'm going to ask Brunei if she would read it. Okay. Hold on. I'm still figuring out why I love it. I have some ideas. I'm emotional now. And now I've got to find the parable. Okay. I'm ready. Okay. Okay. Okay. So according to an ancient, acidic parable, a king corals with his son. And in a fit of rage exiles his son from the kingdom.
After a number of years, the king heart softens and he sends his ministers to find his son and ask him to come home. But the young man resists the invitation. He feels too bitter, too hurt to return. When the ministers present the sad news to the king, he sends them out again with a new message for his son. Return as far as you can. And I will come the rest of the way to meet you. Our goosebumps. Yeah. What does that mean to you?
Well, I don't know why it touches me so deeply. There are reasons that are obvious to me that I like the parable. And one is that the king in this parable doesn't have the false notion that by sending a word of apology by saying, I'm sorry, that that in itself could heal the broken connection, that that in itself is going to heal his exiling, his son.
And I also like the fact that he did not send his ministers out again with the requests for forgiveness. He didn't send his ministers out to say to his son, the king is really, really sorry and hopes that you will forgive him. Please forgive him. He didn't do that. The king instead performed his apology by letting his son know that he was prepared to travel for as long as it took to meet his son and bring him back.
He didn't say, come halfway and I'll meet you. Somehow that went to, no, and went to have done it. He said, come as far as you can, even if that's one step. And I will come the rest of the way to meet you. And so in my mind, if we continue the parable into real life, in my mind, the son takes a few steps and the king, this is the reparation, takes a very long journey to meet him and brings him back.
And then with all of the lessons that we and our students have learned also with language, because language is part of what we have. And with, you know, the reparations he can make, lets his son know how sorry he is and what a terrible mistake he made and all the grief he carries for that. And of course, they live happily ever after because it's a parable.
Now it's beautiful and I'm going to add this last piece that you just said to kind of my final takeaways, which are apologizing as a function of self-respect and self-worth. Choose the relationship of choosing to be right. Stay curious and perform the apology. Yes. Yes. Very good. Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much. Yeah. It's been amazing.
Unlockiness is produced by Brunei Brown, Education and Research Group. The music is by Carrie Rodriguez and Gina Chavez. Get new episodes as soon as they're published by following Unlockiness on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.