Interesting piece on Lifehacker (Gawker’s site about “living better in the digital age”) about Christian counselors Gary Chapman and Jennifer M. Thomas’s “5 Apology Languages.” It’s a sequel to Chapman’s popular 5 Love Languages, about differing communication styles and values, and how to determine the most effective way to show your love for someone with a different style. Chapman and Thomas’s new book, When Sorry Isn’t Enough, says that people have five different ways of apologizing:
1. Expressing regret
2. Accepting responsibility
3. Genuine repentance
4. Requesting forgiveness
5. Making restitution
“I’m not a regular mom. I’m a cool mom.”
Chapman and Thomas say that for your your apology to be most effective, you need to speak the other person’s apology language. If the other person values repentance, offer that. If he or she wants you to beg for forgiveness, do that. If you don’t know the other person’s apology style — if, say, the person is someone you don’t know all that well as opposed to someone you spend a lot of time with — Lifehacker says, try a grab-bag of approaches. This seems needlessly complicated.
Don’t get me wrong, the notion of providing what the other person most craves is intriguing. (One commenter agrees, saying he’s a #1, 3 and 5 kinda guy, while his wife is a #2 and 4 kinda gal, so learning to tailor his apologies to her preferences has helped him communicate better.) But IMHO, Sumac’s guide to The Parts of a Good Apology is better, because apologies are not Garanimals. There is no need to mix and match. These steps go with everything.
1. Say you’re sorry. Expressing regret (which is about YOUR feelings) is not the same thing as apologizing (which is about the OTHER PERSON’S feelings).
2. Say what you’re sorry FOR. Don’t be a weasel. Name your sin.
3. Say why what you did was hurtful.
4. Offer a little explanation, BUT ONLY if doing so is not a craven attempt to let yourself off the hook or turn the focus to poor, poor, pitiful you.
5. Say why this won’t happen again; elaborate, if possible, on the steps you’re taking to be sure it won’t happen again.
6. Make it right. As Sumac says, sometimes “the apology itself is the reparation,” but other times you have to go the extra mile. You know which is which.
ALMOST.
And sorry everyone is dead.
See, you needn’t learn other languages. A sincere, heartfelt, explicit, honest, non-chicken apology is clear in all of them. And don’t ask for forgiveness. It puts the other person on the spot. It makes a demand when you are not in the position to be demanding anything. And it turns apology into an exchange: I say this, so you do that. Good apology has no strings attached. Forgiveness is not a quid pro quo for apologizing. The apologizer has no right to claim it, demand it, own it or even ask for it. Only the apology recipient has the right to grant it, and in his or her own time.
Sorry I incorrectly punctuated “gets.”
Wow, those five apology “language” steps to me are just still one real apology. I think their focus is on marital communication strategies — maybe those five different mix-n-match types would be more appropriate to reach someone with whom you’re in marriage counseling or whatnot, but I *still* don’t like to be asked to forgive, because that really is NOT mine to demand… and if you’re demanding anything from me, and you’re already on my List, woe be unto you.
My mom sent me a clip of a church leader attending a celebration of a church’s seventieth year of being together where he apologized to their AfAm membership for slights over the past years of being a mixed church in a racially damaged world. It was in light of Charleston, of course, but also acknowledging that no one has to be shot to have raw wounds, and that a church is allegedly held to a higher standard of behavior. The apology was unexpected and heartfelt. The surprise was the next speaker accepting the apology on behalf of — everyone. (He apparently felt he could do that, he’s AfAm.) It was a startling, uplifting moment which reinforces my belief that apologies – sans asking for anything – are effective.
Oh, Tanita, I would like to see that clip.
Further to yesterday’s conversation: “Genuine forgiveness is important for one’s soul and serenity. But an oppressive nation likes to use forgiving the sinner to get people to forgive (and thereby allow the continuation of) the sin. That we won’t do.
This is why, for today, for me public talk of forgiveness is out.” – from The Toast, “Misunderstanding Forgiveness” http://the-toast.net/2015/06/23/misunderstanding-black-forgiveness/
And here’s that vimeo: https://vimeo.com/131332874
Thanks, Tanita. That Toast piece is great — debating giving it its own post here rather than just FB’ing it, which is what we usually do with stuff about which all we have to say is pretty much YESSSSSS or EWWW .