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##Apology and Reconciliation – Main lesson

Hi, I’m AJ, welcome to this month’s VIP lesson.

A good friend of mine recently called me with a problem, a very, very difficult and painful problem. His name is Gene and Gene wanted my advice. You see, Gene had not talked to his daughter for 20 years, over 20 years. Over 20 years ago, Gene and his wife got a divorce and it was very messy and painful, lots of anger and upset and you know, all of the usual things with divorce but very, very, very strong. His daughter got caught in all of that and as a result, Gene and his daughter ended up fighting, having some very bitter, painful, angry fights and they just broke their relationship.

Now, at the time, when that happened I’m sure Gene thought, well okay, this is bad. This is a problem but it’ll be okay, we’ll just take some time let everything cool off and then my daughter and I will talk again and it’ll be okay. So time went by, months, and I’m not sure maybe they talked again maybe they didn’t, but it was just anger and fighting and all that again. And so, again, Gene thought… Gene was angry too right because he felt like the daughter was blaming him for everything. He felt like he was not completely wrong. That it wasn’t fair, the daughter was angry with him for many, many things that she felt he did very badly, that he did wrong.

So then more time went by, a year and then two years and here’s the problem, as more time went by it became more difficult for Gene to talk to his daughter, to call her up right? He thought oh no, I don’t want to call her up, she’s probably angry. He still had these upset angry feelings himself. She probably was the same and so those resentments, the anger, the hurt, all of those things just got deeper and deeper and deeper. Two years, three years, five years and, of course, after enough time it felt very strange to call her or contact her. And unfortunately, he let this go for 20 years, 20 years with no contact at all with his only daughter; sad. Sad situation.

Now, for whatever reason, he recently, the beginning of this year, decided that he wanted to contact her, wanted to try to repair their relationship somewhat, to have a relationship again.

This is when he called me for advice. What should I do AJ? Do you think I should do it was his first question? Do you think I should do it? I said definitely you should do it. I said, it’s your only daughter. If you really love her, if you really care about her then absolutely you should do it. You know you made a huge mistake waiting for 20 years, big, big, big mistake, terrible mistake. I said, but do you really want to wait 20 more years?

What if you go your whole life, at the end of your life will you regret that you never talked to her or will you regret that you tried? Of course, he realized he would regret never trying. So he realized, I’ve gotta do it, I’ve gotta finally just do it, but he was scared and worried. He didn’t know how she would react. I mean, it’d been 20 years right. So I said look just do it, do it and my advice to him was to write a letter. Write and send, send a letter or at least an email, because after 20 years calling up, that would be too much of a surprise I think, too much of a shock and it probably wouldn’t go well. So I said, writing is better because then she’ll get your letter and she’ll have time to look at it, to read it, to think about it, so that’s what he did.

He wrote out a long letter and sent it to her. She got it. And then he waited and waited to see what would happen. Finally he got a reaction, she wrote back. And it was not good. Her letter was super angry, really just criticizing him and one of the first things she was really angry about was, why are you contacting me now, it’s been 20 years? Why after 20 years? You waited so long. Clearly I’m not important to you or you would’ve tried to talk to me earlier.

Let’s be honest that’s valid criticism. It’s valid anger. She had good reason to be angry about that, because it’s true. And then she said a lot of things, a lot of things she still remembered that he did badly that hurt her. So her letter was not positive at all, it was very, very angry, mean and negative, and when Gene got it he read it. He was hurt. Oh this is terrible. He did not like reading that letter. He did not like remembering all of those things. It brought up some anger in him again like, oh this isn’t fair and erg, and all the upset and all the memories, all of that came back in him.

And a kind of pride too like, this isn’t fair. I tried I wrote her a letter and she sent me this really nasty letter. So he called me again really, really upset. He said, you know I think, it’s not gonna work. I tried and it failed. And I think I’m just gonna let it go, what do you think, AJ? And I gave him some very direct advice and my direct thoughts about it. I said look, you let this go for 20 years. Did you really think one letter would completely change everything? Did you really think one letter would be enough after 20 years? I said no way, no way. I said this is going to be a long process. I said look you should be happy because she actually replied to you, that means she’s actually interested in communication. Maybe you don’t like what she’s saying but it’s actually a good sign.

If she totally ignored you, if she just tore up your letter and threw it away then you maybe have no hope, but the fact that she’s communication, well now, you can communicate back with her. I said you’re gonna have to swallow your pride, swallow your pride and keep going and I said I’ll help you. So I said I’m gonna give you a process. I’m gonna write it out and send it to you exactly, step-by-step-by-step exactly what you need to do, how to do this so you can apologize effectively and reconcile with your daughter.

This verb, to reconcile, the word reconcile it means to correct or to fix a relationship. It means the relationship is broken, through anger or conflict, some problem and then when you come back and you fix it you apologize, you talk and then you fix it, the noun is reconciliation, that’s called reconciliation. It means ah, now you’re okay again and the verb is to reconcile.

So I said, if you want to reconcile with her you’re gonna have to follow all of these steps I’m going to send you and you have to do exactly what I say, and if you do it I promise that you’re going to feel much better and you probably have a 90% chance that it will work. There’s no guarantees in life, but I said you have a very good chance. So he wasn’t too happy about it but he accepted my advice. He looked it over, he realized it was gonna be very tough and he followed it and it was not easy. It wasn’t easy because he had to swallow his pride. That was a big part of it, and he had to do a lot of things that were uncomfortable, but he kept going, he kept following that outline, that plan that I gave him. And, I’m happy to say it did work.

That now he is talking to his daughter again. They’re talking on the phone. They’ve talked on the phone several times now, like good, nice, positive conversations. Something else which is very important to Gene that he’s very happy about, he has contact with his grandchildren now.

He’s talked to them on the phone. They’re excited about getting to know and meeting their grandfather, who they’ve never met before. And maybe most exciting of all, they are planning to meet in the future, this year, face-to-face. So he’ll get to meet his grandchildren. He’ll get to see his daughter again, finally.

So it was a difficult process. It was painful, but a really great result that he’s very, very happy about.

What about you, what does that have to do with you? Hopefully, you have a good relationship with your children or your parents or both. But, the truth is, in life all of us eventually have to face situations like this, maybe not so serious but it’s very normal in life with our relationships, with the people we’re close to, that we’re gonna have problems. We’re human. Even though we do the best we can we’re still going to make mistakes. We’re going to get upset or get angry and we’re gonna say something not nice to somebody else. We’re gonna hurt their feelings or we’re gonna do something that hurts their feelings.

Or sometimes we do something that’s not bad, but just accidentally the other person gets hurt.

Maybe they misunderstand. Maybe something happens we didn’t expect and again, it hurts their feelings or it hurts the relationship. It happens. In any relationship that is long it will happen many times. I’ll give you a couple examples…

One example, Kristen, our Learn Real English teacher, who you know so well who does the commentary’s in Learn Real English, she’s my best friend. We’ve been best friends for over 20 years, 23/24 years at this point. During that time we have had a lot of fights. We’ve had a lot of problems at different points. She’s hurt my feelings many times. I’ve hurt her feelings many times. There have been many different times where we’ve been angry or upset with each other, but the reason that we’re still best friends and still so close is because we have learned how to apologize to each other, how to reconcile.

That when these things happen we come back again and we heal the relationship, and as I said we’ve had to do it many, many, many times. That’s normal for a long friendship. And so, you know, I’ve many times said things to her, gotten upset about things and said something to hurt her feelings and it’s created a problem in the relationship and then I’ve had to learn how to effectively apologize so we can heal that and she can forgive me and then we’re good. And the same thing’s happened, she’s said things or done things to me and then she’s had to apologize to me and we’ve had to go through this process as well.

It’s been great though, because we’ve both been able to do that we have such a long friendship.

It’s a rare thing to have such a long and close friendship and it’s one of the best things in my life, one of the things I treasure the most.

The other relationship that I deeply treasure a great deal, probably the most, is of course the relationship with my wife, Tamoi. Now I happen to be lucky that I feel like I’m married to the most patient and forgiving woman in the world, so I have to say that relationship has been very easy by comparison, because she’s just so patient and forgiving. She’s just a natural at this.

She just… even when I do something that upsets her she just, she might, she’ll be upset and get a little upset, I can tell she’s upset but then a day later it’s fine.

But still, we’ve been married 10 years and we’ve also had points where we’ve had to apologize and reconcile with each other, where I’ve done something that’s really upset her and then I have to go through the same process to heal the relationship again or she’s done something. It’s usually me being the bad one, quite honestly.

This is true for all our relationships. It’s true for you too. So it’s super important for marriages or romantic relationships. It’s very important for close friendships, for family, parents and siblings.

It’s even important with co-workers.

Like I said there’s different levels, you know, there can be very emotional situations and when you have to have a very deep and serious process of apology and reconciliation. But then we can also do it very quickly and easily if it’s not so serious.

The benefits are this. Look, when you do this you will have a much richer life. Your relationships, all your relationships will be better. But there’s an enemy to this, two enemies in fact. The two enemies of reconciling, of healing relationships are:

1. Fear

2. Pride

It’s our fear and our pride that really damage relationships. It’s not making mistakes. You know, sometimes we get feeling guilty about we’ve made mistakes in our relationship and we’ve done something bad, said something unkind. Of course that’s not great, it’s better not to do that, but we’re all human we do it, eventually we do it. But the really damaging thing is when you don’t heal that. If you do something bad and then you can heal it, it can actually make your relationship even stronger.

What prevents us from healing usually is fear and pride. Think of Gene’s example. In the beginning, for many years, it was his pride that prevented him from apologizing, that prevented him from fixing the relationship with his daughter. Too much pride, it’s like, I didn’t do everything wrong. It’s not fair she’s blaming me for everything, but it’s not all me. He was too prideful, too much, he wanted to be right and holding on to being right.

As time went on the other thing that prevented him was fear. As the years went by he started to fear her reaction, if he contacted her. He knew she was angry. He knew she was really upset and so he feared that reaction, that f he contacted her she would yell at him and say mean unkind things, and indeed she did. But he got through it.

So you have to let go of these two. You gotta swallow your pride, let it go, not worry about being right and being fair. And the other thing is you have to overcome your fear, but it’s worth it because then you have much more loving, caring relationships. You can keep those healthy.

All right, now in the interactive lessons A and B and in the commentary I’m going to teach you the exact step-by-step process that I sent to Gene. You’re gonna learn exactly what to say, when to say it and how to do it. For small apologies and for big ones, but in this main video I’m just gonna discuss some of the key principles, the big ideas, then you’ll learn the specific details in the other lessons. So let’s talk about it.

They all begin with the letter R.

1. Recognition – the first principle of apology and reconciliation.

Recognition, what does this mean? To recognize something means to see it, to be aware of it, to realize it. So this is the first step. The first thing to repair a relationship you have to realize, you have to recognize that there’s a problem. This seems obvious but it’s not. Many people are clueless, they’re not aware.

So let’s say you have a good friend and let’s say you do something or you say something, you’re in a bad mood and you say something, it hurts their feelings but you don’t even realize it.

You’re thinking about yourself. You’re not really thinking about them or noticing them. Then, over the next several days your friend is more distant, they’re kind of a little more cold. They don’t call you. Well, if you’re sensitive you’ll recognize that there’s a problem. You’ll recognize that they’re behaving differently, you’ll notice their non-verbal communication, their facial expressions and you’ll realize, you’ll recognize hmm, somethings wrong.

This is the first step, but some people they’re so clueless. They’re so focused on themselves only. They don’t even recognize it, they just keep going along not even realizing there’s a problem, not even realizing the other person’s upset. This is dangerous because then the other person possibly will start to feel even more angry, more resentful. This is called resentment when you kind of have some bad feeling and then it just builds and builds because you’re not saying anything. So if you don’t notice then their feelings might be worse and worse and worse, because you haven’t recognized there’s a problem and you haven’t apologized.

So you need to be sensitive and aware, especially with your important relationships. If you feel like there might be something wrong, you know, you need to notice the person’s behavior and communication and if they’re acting strange then the first step, the first principle, recognize there’s something wrong and ask them. Just say, is there something wrong? That’s all you gotta do. Now maybe it’s not you, maybe you didn’t do anything, maybe they’re having trouble at work or there’s some other problem in their life, but they’ll still appreciate you asking because then they can talk about that too.

So first you have to recognize, recognize there’s a problem, very important.

Once you recognize there’s a problem and you’ve asked them and you realize it’s a problem that you caused, it’s a problem with your relationship what’s the next step do you think? It begins with an R.

1. Responsibility – you take 100% responsibility for the problem.

Now some people don’t like this step. Gene didn’t like this step at all this principle, didn’t like it.

A lot of people don’t like it because it feels like it’s not fair. A lot of people have the idea in relationships it’s 50/50, right. This is a common saying in English, relationships are 50/50 right, the idea is, the other person is 50% responsible for the relationship and I’m 50% responsible, half and half it’s fair. The problem is that doesn’t work, especially when there’s a break in the relationship, when there’s a problem, 50/50 doesn’t work.

This is Gene’s problem, he was trying to do 50/50. Well, she did some bad thing too. She also said things that were bad. I’m also angry about things and so he used that as an excuse to do nothing. If the person and the relationship are important to you, you can’t worry about the other person. Don’t worry about it that’s their problem. Maybe they did say bad stuff. Maybe they did do some bad things, but you know what that’s their responsibility not yours, you’re not gonna worry about that part. You are gonna take 100% responsibility. I am completely responsible for fixing this relationship and for reconciling, 100%.

That means, in other words, you’re going to be the leader. You’re going to be the strong one.

You’re going to be the leader. This is a way of claiming your own power. See, when you’re trying to do 50/50 and blaming the other person for half of it that’s weak, you’re giving away half your power. Oh well, I’m not gonna do anything until they apologize to me first. Right, that’s acting like a victim. That’s a weak position and that’s why it doesn’t work. But, when you’re powerful you say you know what, first of all I’m going to let go of my anger. I’m gonna heal and just let go of my blaming and anger.

Let it go, their behavior is their responsibility, so you just let it go. That’s being a leader. That’s being a strong person. That’s being a good person. That’s being in control of your own mind and emotions. That’s what being responsible means.

Then you say I’m going to be the leader here. I know we need to come together, this is an important relationship. Like Gene with his daughter, very important right, your only daughter. So he had to just decide, I’m going to do it. I’m going to take the step. I’m gonna be 100% responsible, I’m not gonna wait for something from her I’m gonna do it. So you have to do that.

You’re gonna be a positive leader, it’s one of our very important values in Effortless English, positive leadership, that’s what this means.

This is often the most difficult step of this whole process. It’s hard, because you probably have a lot of emotions in there and a lot of anger in yourself, and a lot of blame yourself or you just have pride or you have fear. Letting go of that and just saying, I’m responsible. I’m gonna be the leader. I’m gonna make this happen. It’s not easy but I guarantee the benefits are huge when you do it. It will make you a stronger person. It will make you a happier person.

All right our next principle…

1. Remorse – this means that you genuinely, sincerely feel bad about any actions that you did that hurt the other person.

Even if you did them accidentally. Even if you weren’t trying to be angry, you still feel bad that they got hurt. It’s called remorse. This is the step, this is the place where you actually apologize, where you actually say I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did this and this. I’m sorry that I made you angry.

I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. This step is where you clear out the pain and clear out the hurt, you help the other person to get that out and heal it.

Now, sometimes this is not a pleasant step, because you might have to listen to a lot of stuff from that other person who’s not so nice. Again, this is why you’re taking 100% responsibility.

You have to stay calm and be in charge of your own emotions. So, if they start saying bad stuff to you, you have to be able to just listen calmly. I’ll talk more about that in the other lessons, how you do that, because I had to teach Gene how to do that. Because, when he started hearing all that anger from his daughter, ooh, it was very tough for him. It’s generally very tough for most people, but there are some techniques you can use to make it easier for you.

The next step, the next R…

1. Restitution – here’s a new vocabulary word, restitution. It’s a nice word.

Restitution is an action or a payment that you make to correct a mistake. For example, let’s say you steal something, you steal someone’s phone and then you sell it to somebody, and then later you start feeling really bad. Oh, I stole that person’s phone that’s terrible. You apologize.

But, after you apologize you need to make… we call it making restitution. You need to make restitution. It means you need to take an action. This is so important, because lots of people can talk easily, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But, if you don’t take an action then the words, they’re not powerful and people might not trust your words when you’re apologizing, you’re trying to reconcile.

If you only talk. If there are no actions they might not believe you, so that’s why it’s very important this next step, you have to take some action to at least try to correct the mistake with some action. So the phone example, you stole someone’s phone then you feel bad. You apologize, but apologizing’s not enough what should you do next? Well, buy them a new phone.

That would be a good example of restitution, an action to correct a mistake. You buy them a new phone or you give them money to buy a new phone. It’s an action. The person will believe your apology much more because you’re taking an action and you’re trying to fix it.

Now, of course, in life sometimes it’s impossible to completely fix a mistake or something that you’ve done that’s caused a lot of pain, but you should still try to do as much as you can. Taking some action, the other person will appreciate it, and they’ll trust you more and it’ll make the whole apology more effective, so restitution is very important.

Finally, our final R is…

1. Repetition – This is another part that Gene had a lot of trouble with. Repetition, it means, you might have to repeat all of these steps many, many times, it depends.

Right, like with Gene. He hadn’t talked to his daughter for 20 years and he thought just doing it one time would be enough, one letter and everything’s fine? Of course not, no way! The deeper the problem, the bigger the break, the more pain and hurt and anger and emotion, then you need more and more repetition. You might have to repeat this process 10 times, 20 times, 50 times, 100 times. Gene had to do it again and again and again for months and months and months, until finally, his daughter was able to forgive him and let go, and he could finally reconcile with her. It took months and months and months repeating this process, each time they got maybe a little better, but it took a long time, so repetition very important.

Now, for something very small, very small, no big deal, maybe just one time very quick is fine, but for more important things bigger issues, you might have to repeat this. You gotta be persistent, another important Effortless English value.

All right, so this seems like a lot of work doesn’t it? It is. It’s a little tough, because we’re dealing with some painful emotions of our own, we have to control our own emotions that come up and then we have to deal with sometimes the unpleasant emotions of the other person saying maybe some bad stuff to us, maybe reminding us of all the bad things we did and how angry they are. That’s also not easy, especially it’s not easy to stay calm.

So wow, why should we do all this if it’s so difficult? Well, because the benefits are really big, very important.

• Number one, the first big benefit for you is that you clear out your own pain. You clear out your own guilt.

Many people in life feel they do things that they regret. They know they’ve caused pain to somebody else. They know they’ve done something wrong, but they don’t apologize or fix it, and then somewhere back in their mind they always have this little bit of feeling of guilt or shame and then these start to build up in their mind as they do more and more and it creates this kind of heavy negative feeling in them that creates unhappiness, a lot of unhappiness with some people.

So, just doing this process of apology, trying to reconcile, it can free a lot of that negative emotion, guilt and shame from your own mind. It’s like just letting go of it, it will make you happier, make you feel good, even if the other person doesn’t accept it. Even if it’s not successful you’ll still feel better because you really tried, and that will make you much happier in life, I promise.

• Now benefit number two is that you’ll just create a lot more love and happiness in your life.

As I pointed out with a couple of my important relationships, my wife, my best friend, by doing this process whenever I needed to, it’s created these two amazing relationships in my life. With my own sister I’ve gone through this same process at different times in my life when necessary.

With my mom and my dad, and with the people that are close to me and important, and because of that I have good close contacts with all of these people. I have so much more love and connection in my life because of this, and that’s more important and it makes me happier than being prideful and being right all the time, and it’ll make you happier too I promise you. It’s worth the effort of doing this.

• Finally, the third big benefit is that you will help the other person. You will help other people. You will contribute to other people’s happiness, another Effortless English Value.

Gene, by doing that whole process, he also helped his daughter because clearly, the fact that she wrote back to him and she let him keep trying, it showed that somewhere inside of her she also wanted this, but she wasn’t able to start it herself. And so through this long process he helped her to heal a lot of that anger and pain that had been there for 20 years. He helped her be more happy, more relaxed, more forgiving. It was also a gift to her and it’s the same for you.

You will be helping and contributing to this other person, it is a gift of kindness and compassion to do this, because many people for, because of fear, because of pride usually, they’re not able to do it. They might want to but they’re just too afraid or too prideful to.

And so, when you take responsibility and you start the process and you do it, they may not tell you but they will feel happy. They will appreciate it. In the end they will be quite happy and appreciative that you did it, and they will be happier in their lives too, so you’re also giving a gift to other people by doing this.

Okay, that’s the end of our main lesson. Now, in the interactive lessons A and B, I’m going to teach you the exact step-by-step process. In fact, I will use the exact outline, the exact advice that I sent to Gene so you can learn exactly the step-by-step process for apologizing to someone, for reconciling with someone in a powerful and effective way.

And then in the commentary I’ll talk in more detail about each of the steps so you can really use this in your own life.

All right I’ll see you in the other lessons. Have a great day, bye for now.