Do you introduce yourself by apologizing?
Some things to say other than "I'm sorry"
There have been many instances in my life where I have gotten myself into more trouble by saying, “I’m sorry.”
Times where I have taken the blame for another person’s error just by default of apologizing more than them. My need to not upset people can transform a mundane exchange into a personal character assassination. I have a magic power where I can take a simple boundary request or cry for help and morph it into a narrative of what a bad wife/mother/sister/daughter/friend I am before the other person has even had a chance to respond.
“Sorry” is my knee jerk response to any awkward exchange. Why sit in the discomfort of not knowing how another person feels about me when I can lie in the familiar mire of self-loathing?
Recently, I’ve been trying to pay attention to how much I “sorry” all over people.
Emails and texts have been a great place to start, because I can choose my words before hitting send. In the same way that I sometimes have to consciously add “How are you?” at the top of an email, I now take a breath and try to delete my myriad sorries, including the insidious ones that are masked as self-deprecation.
Appease and please
The tendency to over-apologize is actually a nervous system response to stress. Perhaps you have heard of fight, flight, and freeze, but did you know that there is a fourth stress responses called fawn? It’s sometimes referred to as “please and appease.”
This stress response (commonly a trauma response) occurs in the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system, meaning it is a down-regulated response. It often occurs when the danger sources is another person we know or need for survival. It’s like our fight and flight defenses get overridden and our only defense is to supplicate.
Psych Central explains,
Fawning refers to consistently abandoning your own needs to serve others to avoid conflict, criticism, or disapproval.
We see it a lot in children as they rely on the adults in their lives for survival. While it might make sense in perfectionist and explosive homes, there is still yelling or disapproval in even the most conscious parenting homes, too. And it is after those moments, when our kids are doing all they can to re-bond with us, that we will see evidence of fawning.
Attachment is our number one survival need and humans will always choose attachment over everything else.
When we grow up, our attachment figures change, most often to our partners. Even work colleagues can feel like sources of survival. But some of us see every human as crucial to our survival.
What I find most fascinating is the long-standing assumption that women apologize more than men. I would have stated this as a fact, but a 2010 study found that it’s not that women necessarily say “sorry” more, bur rather women believe they are in the wrong more often.
Men apologize with the same frequency as women, they just feel in the wrong less.
Am I saying the entire female race is in a trauma-response with men? Maybe. But rather than wallowing in the why’s of it all (*coughs* it’s the patriarchy), we can ALL take back our power (men, women, non-binary folk, kids) by taking back our sorry.
Here are a few ways I’ve replaced “I’m sorry” in recent exchanges:
Sorry for the delay → Thanks for the reminder.
Sorry I’m late → Thank you for your patience.
Sorry, my mistake → Thank you for letting me know. I’m committed to not letting this happen again.
I’m not saying we never apologize again. Humility is a beautiful, human trait that allow us to connect more deeply to others.
But if you tend to introduce yourself by apologizing or start every exchange with, “I’m sorry,” then I have a challenge for you: Before doing so, take a deep breath. Ground in safety and see what wise response comes up for you then.
My name is Sarah, not Sorry.
I love this! In all my years of training in and teaching trauma informed yoga, I’d never yet heard of fawning. Thank you for shedding some light on my weary soul. After nearly twenty years in an abusive marriage, I fawn all over the place. I’m working on not apologizing and as I change my own approach, I notice how so many of my friends, my daughters, my clients and my students apologize for things that have nothing to do with them or are not their fault.
Now that I know the term, I will be more cognizant of not apologizing for my existence.
Excellent article!
Thank you for writing about this. Thank you for your grace (when I'm late) is my go-to and teaching my littles to say, excuse me instead of I'm sorry (when appropriate) has been an on-going lesson.