What Comes After "I'm Sorry"
By Jackie Woods
Have you ever given or received an apology and felt the issue was over? All too often the words, "I'm sorry," are used to bring closure to a broken promise. Actually those words should be the beginning instead of the end of a subject. Instead of stepping over the breach of trust that has happened to your relationship, it would be better to acknowledge that damage has been done and commit to repair it. An apology can be the beginning of relationship expansion rather than just the end of a mistake.
Once the awareness spotlight has been shown on a broken promise to the extent that an apology is forthcoming, a door is opened for you to bring more to the relationship. Take for example, a time you were late for an appointment. More than likely you said you were sorry for being late, but if no action was taken to activate whatever heart energy was dismissed by the breaking of that promise, then the relationship with that person got smaller. That doesn't mean the other party started hating you. It simply means you missed an opportunity to bring more heart energy to the relationship.
Recently, a student had promised to provide food for an outing. He forgot. Several times the words, "I'm sorry," were spoken. While it is nice when a person is contrite over their mistake, it doesn't cause me to believe they will never do it again. So I asked my student what heart-energy he would have brought if he had remembered the food. The answer was love. Since I didn't want the love in our relationship to be damaged, I asked how he felt he could heal the damage. He said he would think of me everyday for three days and send love. The words, "I'm sorry," became a doorway to bring more to the relationship instead of less.
When an opportunity to bring heart energy to a relationship is missed by non-action, then action must be brought to that heart energy to restore its size in the relationship. Even though my student would still have had love for me, his broken promise could have diminished the amount of love in our relationship space. A relationship space is created by two people agreeing to bring their hearts together around certain activities. Resonance of those two hearts is made possible by both people keeping their promises to each other. Thus, an uncorrected broken promise is an "un-creator" in the relationship.
A big deal is made when the sacred covenants of a marriage are broken, and rightfully so. However, every agreement to bring two hearts together (no matter how small the agreement) should be seen as a sacred covenant. Naturally it isn't keeping the promise that makes it sacred, but bringing your heart to that promise. For example, let's say you promise your partner to pick up some food on the way home. It is an empty promise unless you both hold some heart-energy such as health or nurturing as the reason for the purchase. In this example, you kept the promise but not in a heartful way. You were in a hurry - actually you were nearly home and had to backtrack to the store. The food was bought in order to avoid an unpleasant scene, not with the intent of bringing a heart gift. An "un-creation" just happened in your relationship instead of a creation.
In order to have sacred relationships, you must make sacred promises. After the words, "I'm sorry," you must find ways to create a new space for the missed heart energy to be brought. With the choice to be intentional in what you bring to your relationship comes the reward of being able to create the kind of relationship you want. Good relationships are made, not found. An apology does need to come when a promise is broken, but it also needs to be present when the intent to have a sacred relationship is broken.
You will not be able to recognize the qualities that fill your heart as sacred if you don't allow them expression. You will not be able to acknowledge another person as sacred (even if you love them) if you don't keep sacred covenants spoken between the two of you. There is no other relationship other than a sacred one. All other relating is just that - relating. The connection made between two hearts actually creates its own energetic space that supports both people when they are not physically with each other. A gift such as this is worth stepping beyond the words "I'm sorry."
