One of the hardest things we have to do in our lives is to ask someone for forgiveness. This process is difficult for many different reasons, but mostly it’s because our egos simply make it hard for us to accept that we’ve done something wrong. In many cases, we hurt people about whom we care. In others, we hurt total strangers. No matter what we’ve done, forgiveness is essential to our mental well-being.
With interpersonal relationships already one of the most difficult things in many people’s lives, having to ask someone for forgiveness can seem like a daunting task. Not only does it make us feel exposed, but it causes a lot of anxiety and worry. How will the person react? Will they even feel like forgiving me at all? What if they don’t?
In the following article, we’ll discuss how to ask for forgiveness. Aside from going over several ways that can put your guilt to rest, we’ll also go over the psychology behind forgiveness, and the various steps that go into the process. If you’ve been holding guilt inside and don’t know how to ask for forgiveness, read on.
The Steps of Forgiveness
If you want to ask someone you’ve hurt or wronged for forgiveness, you must understand the steps that they need to go through before they can be truly ready to forgive. Knowing these steps will also come in handy when someone wrongs you, as you’ll be in a better position to put their actions or words behind you and free your mind.
For someone to forgive you, you need to make sure they:
Are Aware of What Happened
There are situations in which you wrong someone, and they have no idea that you did it. You may have said something behind their back or done something that is going to lead to them being distressed. There are also situations in which someone is aware that they’ve been hurt in some way, but are unaware of who is responsible.
In both of these situations, you need to understand that these people might not yet be fully aware that you’ve wronged them. In some cases, they might not have even seen any repercussions from what you’ve done. If this is true, you also need to understand that they will very likely be unable to forgive you when you confess.
Getting ready to forgive a person for doing you wrong takes time. People need to process their anger and hurt for quite a while (depending on the nature of the act). Even after they’ve come to grips with what happened, they might not be ready to forgive you until you initiate a heartfelt apology.
Are Ready to Leave Their Anger Behind
Though anger is ultimately something that will have many unfortunate side effects on your mental and physical health, lots of us choose to hang on to it and nurture it for quite a while after being hurt. In many ways, this is just a defensive reaction to someone doing us wrong. Over time, however, anger can turn into bitterness and resentment. When this happens, forgiveness becomes much harder.
In order to ask for forgiveness and receive it, you need to make sure the person that you’ve wronged is in the right stage of processing their anger. It can’t be too soon, or else they’ll spend most of your apology yelling at you. It also can’t be too long after the incident, however, as they might be too bitter to accept your “late” apology.
Are in the Proper State of Mind to Forgive
As with anything else we do – timing is everything when it comes to apologies. While it might be tempting to ask for forgiveness after the person has had a few drinks or is in a particularly good mood, you’d be surprised how quickly these situations can backfire on you. Indeed, knowing when a person is in the proper state of mind to forgive can be crucial to the success of the entire process.
For forgiveness to work (and to also be genuine), you want to make sure the person you’re approaching is calm, collected, of clear mind, and – most importantly – alone. If they’re upset or intoxicated, the discussion might reinvigorate their anger. If they’re with others, they might pretend to forgive you just to look like the “bigger person.”
Can Talk Calmly About the Situation
All of the above factors contribute to a person’s ability to speak calmly about what happened. Doing this allows you to derive an almost therapeutic effect from the situation, and can be essential to getting through the mental blocks they’ve built around it all. Not only do they need to be calm, but you need to be calm as well.
When asking for forgiveness, don’t be combative or argumentative. Acknowledge that they’re the person who’s injured, and you don’t get to define how and when they should feel better about it all. Talk to them. Apologize. Explain that you understand what you did and why you’re asking for their forgiveness, not demanding it.
Why We Need to Ask for Forgiveness
As we mentioned before, there are a lot of negative feelings associated with refusing to ask forgiveness of the people we hurt. Even though our ego is ultimately trying to protect us from having to admit wrongdoing, it ultimately does us much more damage to avoid reconciling. From both a psychological, emotional, and spiritual perspective, there are reasons we need to ask for forgiveness.
Your Relationships Will Be Healthier
The ability to apologize and the ability to forgive are benchmarks of healthy interpersonal relationships. Whether people are friends, lovers, partners, or even just acquaintances, our successful interactions often rely on honesty, openness, and positivity – things that cannot happen if one or more people are holding grudges or burying guilt.
It’s unfortunate, but many relationships dissolve or fade because the people involved don’t have the strength to apologize to one another about ways they’ve wronged each other. Fortunately, this is the worst-case scenario. Even the world’s most terrible apology is still better than allowing bitterness and resentment to enter the relationship.
Less Anxiety and Stress
The issues we deal with mentally have dramatic results on our physical health. Stress, anxiety, and other negative feelings are some of the leading causes of chronic illnesses, particularly those associated with stomach disorders, nervousness, and pain. Many studies show a correlation between guilt, shame, and other such feelings with depression, anxiety, and even PTSD-like disorders.
Guilt and shame are a direct result of someone not being able to ask forgiveness for a wrong they’ve done to another. In many cases, once you make the apology and begin to rebuild the relationship, many of these feelings will fade – sometimes almost immediately. Many people see an almost instant reduction in strength and anxiety after this happens.
Can Help with Depression
If stress and anxiety are symptoms of unaddressed guilt and shame, depression is the disease. When we allow too many relationships to suffer due to a lack of apologies / forgiveness, the negative feelings we suffer from can actually manifest into a major depressive disorder. Once this happens, you will often start experiencing major issues in your everyday life.
Depression is hard to reverse. Some people require medication, therapy, or years of concentrated effort before they see relief. However, when people suffering from depression begin to look inward, recognize the wrongs that they’ve done to others, and start to address those feelings with meaningful apologies, many begin to see significant relief.
Better Physical Health
Did you know that, along with anxiety, feelings of guilt and remorse can have a huge impact on your physical health? These effects can include everything from raised blood pressures to a weakened immune system to poor heart health. Over time, the emotions you aren’t addressing can be just as damaging to your body as years of drinking, smoking, or other bad habits.
Once you begin addressing your guilt by asking for forgiveness from the people you’ve wronged, you might begin to see some of these physical symptoms abate. While it’s true that you’ll still need to “rebuild” your body to recover from the damage, at least you won’t be continuing to suffer throughout the process. In essence, you can prime your body for healing.
Apologies Will Become Easier in the Future
The longer we go without apologizing for the things we’ve done to others, the more the thought of addressing the issue seems like an insurmountable task. As with so many other unpleasant feelings, many of us will just bury the guilt as far down as we can, resulting in the myriad of physical and mental disorders we’ve discussed above.
Once you climb the mountain and make that first real, genuine apology, however, you’ll gain the confidence you need to make other apologies in the future. Even if the apologizing doesn’t go as planned, you’ll still see that the process is far better than living with the guilt.
You’ll Receive the Blessing of Mental Clarity
Sometimes we don’t spend enough time with our thoughts. Even when just talking about our conscious minds, many of us feel like we’re always racing from thought to thought and desperately trying to organize our mental “to-do list. These sensations can make it difficult to think clearly and to perform a lot of day-to-day tasks.
The reality is, however, that our subconscious minds are constantly flashing images, feelings, and emotions as us no matter how busy our conscious mind is. These flashes can be positive or negative and have a dramatic effect on our daily lives – without us even realizing it.
Feelings of worry, grief, and remorse are very common and tend to “intrude” on our waking minds a lot in this way. Apologies, especially those that are accepted, have the ability to remove these feelings entirely, as the subconscious no longer feels the need to dwell on them. Afterward, many people discuss having feelings of intense mental clarity for the first time in a long time.
How to Ask For Forgiveness
Now that we have a grasp on the importance of asking for forgiveness, let’s discuss how to ask for forgiveness. While not all of these tips will apply to every single situation, the majority of them can be used in concert to make your apology more genuine, more heartfelt, and – ultimately – have the effect you want on the other party.
Start with Some Deep Reflection
Before you can even begin to approach the person you’ve hurt and ask them for forgiveness, you need first to spend some time reflecting on what you did to hurt them. Whether what you did came in the form of actions or words, you can’t begin to make things better unless you have a firm grasp on what you did and how it did damage to the other person.
As you reflect, try to think about your relationship with the person. Does the action you’re preparing to apologize for represent a one-time misjudgment, or is it part of a larger trend of behavior that they’ve been putting up with for a long time? Identifying other times you may have hurt them, especially those where they didn’t act hurt, is essential to approaching your apology correctly.
Cultivate Empathy First
One of the most important things we need to do before we begin an apology is to cultivate empathy for the person we hurt. Unlike sympathy, which only requires us to understand that the person’s feelings are hurt, empathy asks us to put ourselves in that person’s shoes. Try to imagine you had a friend do what you did to them, and think about how you would feel, react, and process the hurt.
Cultivating empathy is essential to determining what sort of apology is appropriate. It will also help you move forward in the ensuing discussion. Without empathy, apologies tend to sound hollow and fake. To make sure the person knows that you know how they feel and are desperate to make things right, you need to be able to show them you’ve made an effort to understand.
Remind Yourself that You’re Human
We all make mistakes sometimes. We all hurt people – both intentionally and unintentionally. Though we should never use these facts as an excuse for our behavior, we do need to harness them if we are to convince ourselves that we still have value despite our faults. Without convincing ourselves of this, how would we ever begin to harness the confidence we need to apologize?
You’re not the first person to hurt someone else, and you won’t be the last. After you’ve cultivated the empathy you need to understand how your actions hurt the other person, you need to take a step back and remind yourself that you’re an imperfect human. Still, this doesn’t mean that you don’t have value. Spend some time reminding yourself of your good qualities, and the apology will be much easier.
Consider Writing Your Apology First
Organizing your thoughts can be hard enough without having the emotionally trying experience of an apology with which to deal. Indeed, one of the reasons why people avoid apologies in the first place is because they don’t have confidence in their ability to approach the conversation well or to handle the apology with the right amount of tact and gravity.
This point is where writing your apology beforehand can be a huge help. Keep in mind that we’re not saying that you need to sit down with the person and read from your script (though this is still a viable option in some cases).
Rather, we’re asking you to spend some time organizing your thoughts on paper. Doing this will not only give you a better idea of what to say, but you can practice your wording to a “T.”
Decide on the Best Time and Place
We mentioned this briefly in our overview above, but it is crucial to the success of your apology that you choose the proper time and place. Unfortunately, this is also one of the points on which we can’t give you adequate advice. In the end, you know the severity of how you hurt the person, and you know the person as well. Ultimately, you’ll need to decide what’s appropriate.
It is worth noting that not all your apologies need to be face to face. There are some circumstances in which a written letter, an email, or a card can be even more effective (especially depending on the severity of the hurtful action. If you do decide to have a phone call or a face to face apology, make sure you give the discussion plenty of time and – above all – be mentally prepared for their reply.
Explain, But Don’t Make Excuses
Now, imagine that you’re ready to confront the person. You’ve done all of the above steps, and you’re prepared to make the apology. The first thing you need to do to make sure they understand your sincerity is to explain what it is you did from both your and their point of view. This point cannot be stressed enough (and is where the time you spent cultivating empathy will begin to pay off).
Often, apologies seem static or disingenuous because people tend to make excuses for why they did what they did. In the eyes of the hurt person, this makes it seem as if you’re trying to deflect blame from yourself. Instead, own up to what you did. Sure, it’s going to hurt your ego a bit, but in the long run, you’ll feel a hundred times better getting it all off your chest.
Express Regret
An apology in which the apologizer doesn’t adequately express regret is like a sandwich with no filling – it’s technically still an apology. Still, the chances of anyone accepting it are quite slim. Throughout the time that you’re speaking to the hurt party, you need to let them know that you understand exactly how your actions or words made them feel by outlining it in detail.
Another component to the expression of regret is the use of “I statements.” Doing this means saying things like, “I feel bad because I know that I” or “I am sorry because I’m now aware that I.” When you do this, you’re keeping the focus on the other person while acknowledging your guilt. You certainly don’t want to make the apology about you, but you need to show that your regret comes from an honest place.
Try to Make Things Right
There will always be things we do to hurt other people that cannot, in any way, be repaired or made up for in any way. The forgiveness of these actions requires that person to have a lot of strength and a big heart. In many cases, however, there are things we can do to make things right with the other person, and we need to be prepared to offer to do these things during our apology.
It’s a great idea to come up with some generous ways that you’d like to make amends to the hurt party before approaching them with your apology. We also have to be prepared for them to make their own suggestions. Usually, if the person is ready to forgive you, these suggestions will be reasonable. If they aren’t reasonable, you need to step away and try again later, as they aren’t ready to move forward yet.
Hear Them Out (and Don’t Get Defensive)
If you’re speaking to the person directly via face-to-face contact or the phone, you’ll get an immediate and natural response. The same can’t be said when you send an email or letter, as the hurt party will have a lot more time to plan and write out their response. Either way, there are further steps you need to take to ensure the success of your apology after they’ve heard you out.
Their reply may still come from a place of anger and hurt. This is both natural and to be expected. This is the hump that you both have to get over before you can begin the reconciliation process. When they speak their mind, be sure to hear them out. Don’t interrupt. Don’t attempt to defend yourself, and don’t try to explain further. You’ve had your chance to talk – give them theirs.
Ask for Forgiveness
In the world of sales, people call this “making the ask.” This is when you actually get to the point where you ask the person if they will forgive you. By now, you should have outlined everything fairly well. You’re aware of what you’ve done. You regret it. You want to try and make it better. Also, you have heard what they’ve had to say about the whole situation.
The wording of your request doesn’t have to be anything special, but it can’t be mealy-mouthed either. You can’t say something like, “do you think you could ever forgive me?” This implies that the mistrust and bad feelings are going to continue for a while, yet. Instead, you need to say the words plainly and directly: “do you forgive me for what I did?”
Accept Rejection
Even if you’ve done absolutely everything right, there’s still a chance that you hurt the person so badly with your actions or words that they simply cannot forgive you. Though this is both rare and unfortunate, it is something that you need to acknowledge and accept. After all, you cannot force someone you’ve hurt to forgive you – you can only make the best effort you can and hope that it works.
Fortunately, in most cases, the mere act of putting yourself out there and committing to an apology will be enough to relieve you of many of the symptoms of guilt and remorse. While it will be unfortunate to see your relationship with this individual end, you can rest assured that you make your best effort to preserve it.
In some cases, the hurt party will continue to process your apology, and many end up changing their mind. While this would be welcome, it should not be expected. You need to accept that you did the best you could and move on. The ball is in their court now.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there is a lot that goes into asking for forgiveness. Not only do we have to understand how our guilt and remorse over what we’ve done affects us, but we also need to learn to cultivate empathy for the person we’ve wronged. This empathy is key to understanding how what we did affected them, which allows us to repair the breach in trust.
In the end, you cannot force someone to forgive you, but you can make such an effort in your apology that you are finally able to forgive yourself.