00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 195, "What Are You Sorry For?" Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Well, hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast today. So glad to have you here. Alright, first of all if you have not left me a review, will you please go to either Apple or Spotify and you can leave me a review there that helps other people find this content and it's a really easy way for you to do something positive in the world. Share this positive message, this information that can help us to live better lives and it's a really great thing to do. It will take you just a couple of minutes. It won't take very long and it would make you feel so good, right? You would feel so good for helping me and I would feel so good for you helping me. It's kind of a win-win. 

01:01 

Alright, we are going to jump in today. We are talking about the question: what are you sorry for? So I'm going to start off with an experience. So you've met my daughter Allison, right? She's been on the podcast a couple of times. So a few years ago she and I were sitting in an auditorium in the auditorium style seating and we were near the edge and someone closer to the middle needed to get up and leave. And so as this person got up and walked past us, all of us needed to adjust our knees a little bit while she passed. And while she was passing the five or six people, she said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" to every single one of us. And after she had left the row, my daughter leaned over and whispered, "why is she saying that? What is she sorry for?" And I loved the conversation that we ended up having because we identified that women often seem to be socially conditioned to always say, "I'm sorry," for things we don't need to be sorry about. Okay, so let me give you some examples. 

02:05 

If you need to pass someone in the grocery store aisle and it's a bit of a tight fit, "oh, I'm sorry can I get by you?" Someone else says "excuse me, can I squeeze past you?" and we reply "oh, I'm sorry," and we move. 

02:19 

You show up a few minutes late for a lunch date with friends: "I'm sorry, I just can't get my life together." 

02:24 

Dinner is a little bit overcooked: "I'm sorry, I should have paid closer attention" or "I'm sorry I'm such a bad cook." 

02:32 

Maybe friends drop by unexpected: "I'm sorry my house is such a mess". Maybe again friends drop by unexpected: "I'm sorry I'm still in sweats and my hair is so such a mess. I haven't done it yet today." 

02:47 

The bag of flour you got at the store has a hole in it and you don't discover it till you're at the checkout: "I'm sorry I should have noticed." 

02:55 

You're a few minutes late picking up your daughter from a friend's house: "I'm sorry, I'm such a bad mom." 

03:01 

You're sick and you have to cancel an appointment: "I'm sorry, I'm sick." 

03:06 

Okay. I've heard all of these. As women, we seem to always be apologizing almost for breathing sometimes. I exist, therefore, I apologize, right? That seems to be a women thing. Let's be very clear. There are times an apology is absolutely necessary. When you say something unkind, insensitive, by all means apologize. When you accuse someone unjustly, go ahead and say "I'm sorry." When your lack of preparation creates undue stress on others, probably a good thing to  acknowledge and to say" I'm sorry." One definition of sorry is "feeling sorrow or regret." There are definitely situations where we feel sorrow or regret. Let's step up to the plate and let's apologize. But should we feel sorrow or regret for having a cluttered home when somebody else comes by? I would say no. Maybe we don't really like having a cluttered home and I'm embarrassed, but it's nothing to apologize to people who don't live there. It has nothing to do with them. But "I'm sorry" is sorely overused by the female population in our society. 

04:24 

I think the biggest thing we want to look at here though is the reason behind saying we're sorry. Admittedly, it's become a trite phrase and we often say it without even recognizing that we're saying it. Here's a space where we can start increasing our awareness so that we can show up in this world a little bit more the way we want to. But here's another reason why we say it: it seems that often we as women are apologizing for taking up space in this world. When our space seems to bump up against someone else's space, we tend to try to make ourselves small and insignificant, acquiescing our space to them. But guess what? We get to take up space in this world. We were created to take up space in this world. God wants us to take up space. And it's natural that our space will bump up against someone else's space sometimes, and there is nothing wrong with that. We don't need to apologize for this. 

05:27 

What we want to apologize for are things for which we feel sorrow or regret for when we have hurt someone. Okay, so let's go back to the auditorium with my daughter. When we were chatting about this later, we discussed how this woman saying, "I'm sorry," wasn't needed. She was just taking up space, and her space of needing to leave the auditorium wasn't hurting us, right? We completely agreed that she was seeking to be polite. And that was absolutely appreciated by us. But she wasn't hurting us either intentionally or unintentionally. She wasn't making our lives more difficult. She hadn't really even inconvenienced us in any way. She was just taking up space. She was doing something that humans do. We need to bump up against someone else's space once in a while. And this didn't require her to say she was sorry. She had done nothing wrong to apologize for. 

06:27 

However, it was not lost on us that she wanted to acknowledge that we were moving our knees to the side for her. Social niceties would have us say something. Wouldn't they here in this situation? So here's a brilliant solution to this conundrum. Instead, say, "thank you." Now, this is an amazing option for a couple of different reasons. One, it fulfills her need to acknowledge the fact that we're moving our knees and she's aware of the slight gesture to accommodate her space. It's a good thing to recognize when we're bumping up against somebody else's space. That's always great. That's kind. That's appropriate. And two, it's a great way to express appreciation to the other person, acknowledging the fact that they are making room for your space. An expression of gratitude always helps the other person to feel good about how they are showing up. So instead of walking out the aisle saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," apologizing for her needing to take up space as a human, had she walked out and instead said, "oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for making space for me. Thank you for moving to the side." That just has such a different feeling, doesn't it? It feels so different. Okay, so let's go back to these examples from the beginning of our discussion. 

07:51 

Okay, so you need to pass someone in the grocery store aisle and it's a bit of a tight fit, and previously we were saying, "I'm sorry, can I get my by you?" This becomes "excuse me, I need to get by you. Thank you so much." Do you feel the difference? There's just this space of graciousness, like offering grace to the other person and offering grace to yourself. 

08:15 

Alright, another one. Someone else says "excuse me, can I squeeze by you?" And instead of saying, "oh, I'm sorry," we say "absolutely," and we step to the side with a smile. We just make space for us to bump into each other. 

08:30 

Another example, you show up a few minutes late for a lunch date with friends. And sometimes we might say "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I can't get my life together," and we may apologize over and over, right? That would become, "oh, thank you so much for waiting a few minutes for me. I'm so excited to be here with you all." 

08:47 

Okay, dinner's a bit overcooked. "I'm sorry, I should have paid closer attention," becomes, well, maybe nothing. Okay? Because why do we need to nitpick a bit of over-cooking? If someone says something negative about it, we can choose to ignore it. Messing up dinner is not necessarily worthy of sorrow or regret. It's more of a slight inconvenience. It happens. We're human, right? We still went to the effort to provide something for our family and we don't need to feel sorrow or regret for our efforts not being stellar or perfect. We can step into the humanness of, "listen, I got distracted and I burnt the bread." That's kind of my go-to. That's my thing, right? No need to apologize. Just like, "well, there you go. We'll just scrape it off. It's all good." We don't need to apologize for that. 

09:35 

Okay, friends drop by unexpected. "I'm sorry my house is such a mess," becomes "thank you for dropping by. I'm so glad to see you." Here we go, my friends. No apologies for your house. No excuses for the state of what's going on. How we keep our own houses has nothing to do with anyone else. We don't need to feel sorrow or regret if they are uncomfortable with the state of our house. If they're uncomfortable, that is not ours. That's theirs to figure out. They're uncomfortable because of their own thoughts. And if they're going to be all judgd-y about how we keep our house, that has nothing to do with me either. They can be as judgd-y as they want. 

10:14 

Okay, here we go again. Friends drop by unexpected and we say, "I'm sorry I'm still in sweats and such a mess," becomes "I'm so glad to see you. Thanks for coming. Tell me all the things." There is absolutely never a reason to apologize for how we look. Ever. We're amazing humans. How we look has nothing to do with that. We don't have to apologize when we're sick and how we look. We don't have to apologize when we were up all night and how we look. We don't have to apologize for the fact that we have had a great day and we don't feel like we look our best. No need to apologize. I just say "thank you for coming. So glad to see you." 

10:58 

Alright, the bag of flour you got at the store has a hole in it, discovered at check out. "Oh, I'm sorry. I should have noticed," becomes "oh, thank you so much for switching that out for me." 

11:10 

You're a few minutes late picking up your daughter from her friend's house. "I'm sorry. I'm such a bad mother," becomes "thank you for waiting so patiently for me." 

11:20 

You're sick. You have to cancel an appointment. "I'm sorry. I'm sick," becomes "thank you for understanding." 

11:26 

Do you just feel the difference in those? I love just the difference of the feeling. A huge part of moving into gratitude, instead of apologizing, for taking up space is acknowledging our humanness. We will make mistakes. We will be in someone's way. We will be late. Basic human foibles. That's part of life. We don't need to apologize for breathing, for taking up space. We just can move into a place of thanking people for their contribution to our lives. This makes people feel so good to be acknowledged and it feels better to us not to be apologizing for our existence. Okay, so I get that saying apologizing for our existence is a bit of a hyperbole, but that, as women, we spend a lot of time apologizing for things that don't need apologizing for, for being a human who takes up space. It is great to acknowledge that our spaces are bumping up against each other. Absolutely. Yes, it is. But do we need to apologize for it? No, we don't. We can honor ourselves. We can have respect for ourselves. We can acknowledge that we get to own our space in this world as much as the next person. We can embrace our mistakes as humans and when we hurt someone, we can apologize. Absolutely. But when you're just being a breathing human, girlfriend, let's stop apologizing. Let's stop apologizing for taking up space. Let's move into gratitude instead because that honors us and it honors them. It respects us and it respects them and this feels so much better for sure. 

13:25 

Okay, that's going to do it. I really want you to think about that this week though. Try and pay attention to how often you are apologizing and see when you do. Am I apologizing for taking up space or have I really done something that requires an apology? If you're just taking up space, let's just pay attention. Let's increase our awareness and then over time, let's start seeking to shift that out for a thank you instead of an apology. I think you'll see some amazing changes when you do that. It just moves you into a space where your brain just says, "oh, I'm an important person. I get to take up space in this world." It's an amazing thing. Okay? 

14:10 

Curious about coaching? If you've been curious about it and would love to see if this is a good fit for you, you can go to tanyahale.com. You can sign up for a free 30 minute consult. We can talk about your situation. We can talk about how coaching can help you. I promise you it is such an amazing opportunity to work with a coach. I work with a coach a couple of times a week, actually, because it really helps me to clarify my thoughts. It helps me to see thoughts that I'm not seeing because my coach points them out to me. It really helps me to become more clear on becoming the kind of person that I really want to be. It is so so helpful to have some regular coaching and I think that you would love it. Is an investment in time? Absolutely. My sessions are about 50 minutes long and we go for 12 weeks, but the impact that those 12 weeks can have on your life is significant. Is it an investment in money? Absolutely. Right? But I promise you, what you get from coaching is so worth what you put into it time, energy, money-wise. Because if you can clarify something in your life that you can benefit from for the next 30 or 40 years and it can change your relationships and deepen your relationships and help you feel better and show up more the person you want to be and love yourself more, is so worth any investment you put into it. I promise you that my friends. Coaching has changed my life. Absolutely it has. I love, love, love my life, love where I am and that is so much of that is due to coaching and how it has helped me to be more self-reflective and understand myself and show up more the way that I want to. That's what coaching has to offer you. Okay? That is going to do it. I hope that you have a really, really fabulous week and I will talk to you next time. Bye. 

16:16 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.