Stop saying sorry!

When it boils down to it, our greatest suffering is caring what other people think of us. Most of our neuroses and our stress is really about that. We care too much.

When we stop caring about what others think of us, we stop apologising for ourselves quite as much. We also stop caring increasingly what we think of ourselves, because that too is a cause of much suffering, based on what we think others think of us.

It is all to do with judgement and the idea that “it is not OK” for us to behave or be a certain way. But according to what and whose judgement system? To set ourselves free we might instead challenge this belief and develop self-acceptance by transforming the negative “it is not OK” into something more positive, “it is OK”.

Ultimately, self-rejection - making ourselves wrong - leads to unhappiness.

How do we set ourselves free?

Stop saying sorry and stop feeling sorry for anything you do in your life.

The Practice - not saying sorry!

See how it might be to stop saying sorry. If this is really hard for you, just pick a day. No doubt it will be uncomfortable, but perhaps interesting to see what it throws up. It is all about accepting yourself as you are without judging yourself, or indeed judging others, or caring about their judgements of you.

Because not saying sorry will highlight negative complexes and bring them into the light.

Remember that we all make mistakes (mis-takes), this is how we grow. So next time you consider you have made a mistake, let it go by telling yourself that it is OK to make mistakes. My boys have picked up this “let it go” theme tune and every time they hear me going on about something, they sing “let it go” to me, which is actually hugely helpful as I have started doing it myself now, lightening up the whole process!

{Please note that this is different to lying to yourself that you have not made a mistake. It is important to realise the difference].

So next time you feel you have done something wrong, don’t feel sorry for it, and don’t feel sorry for not feeling sorry for it! If you have made a mis-take, just fix it without needing to feel sorry about it. Often we say sorry out of habit so this exercise allows us to see more clearly our habits and belief system.

Increasingly we move away from dualistic thinking - that there is a right and wrong, and just focus on being contended and happy. Being happy is about letting go of unhappiness and this can be increasingly experienced through forgiveness, forgiving ourselves and others and by simply accepting things as they are without judgement.

So every time we find ourselves judging, it’s best to try to let it go. Not easy when it has become a habit and we might have a deep limiting belief that we are not enough, but this will help us uncover it…best not to try to mentally work out what might happen if we do this, or what might happen if we do that, or what to do if this person says this and that person says that, just focus on what brings happiness, on the inside, and let go of caring how we are received and following our inner wisdom and guidance.

So when we start imagining what other people may say or do, we just let those thoughts go. Remember thoughts are nothing but passing clouds in the sky. So keep letting them pass on by.

Remember also, that developing self-acceptance is not about doing something “perfect” and achieving a “perfect” outcome. It is about developing self-belief that we are living according to our inner being. Often it is this which needs strengthening - our connection with our inner voice.

If someone blames us for something or when we feel bad for making a mistake, we might just pause, take a breath, and consider whether the situation is really such a big deal because often it isn’t. People are very good at manipulating us for our perceived feelings of guilt, but at the end of the day they can’t make us feel the way, it is a choice that we make, albeit unconsciously, to feel guilty or bad about something.

It can be uncomfortable when faced with this situation, where someone says something which makes us feel we are at fault, to really question it and sit with the discomfort of the feeling of anxiety or whatever it is, and just letting that pass by, it is just a feeling, a habitual response. Do we really need to take the guilt on? No, of course we don’t. But it takes times to work this pattern through and change the power play.

In many ways it is about being more of ourself. By not taking responsibility for other people’s stuff, by not saying sorry all the time, we can be more of ourselves without caring what others think of us - we can speak our truth without caring how this is received. And by speaking our truth, I don’t mean being opinionated, I mean being more of our true selves in the world.

So I suppose the key is to increasingly notice when we go to say '“sorry” and pause. Is it truly warranted? Why are we judging ourself?

The more we stop judging ourselves, the more we stop judging others.

And the more we notice ourselves being judged, the more we can appreciate that those people are also judging themselves, so we cultivate more compassion for them.

So if we start imagining other people disliking us for whatever their reason may be, just let these thoughts go. These are just thoughts. And remember that if they really dislike us that’s OK. Somehow we have triggered something in them. But this doesn’t make us wrong and them right. It just means that they are up against themselves. So we can have compassion for that as we all know how horrible it is when we become our own worst enemy.

When we stop making ourselves wrong or bad all the time then we start to get our power back and our self-confidence and self-belief.

And all this, just from noticing when we say “sorry”!

Love Emma x