Stop over-apologizing!

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I'm sorry that we're doing the video right now. It's so late. I know you don't wanna be , do it. I'm really sorry. I'm

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Sorry. Do you know that? I noticed that when you go all like, sorry , sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry. Then it makes me feel like a you're kind of pathetic and B like, like I'm angry even though if I'm , I wouldn't even thought

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About it . I'm sorry. I said that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you know that when somebody over apologizes all the time, whether it's you or your partners

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Over everything, even things that you barely even noticed?

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Well, today we're gonna finally crack down on that. Stop it .

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You are listening to the potential state podcast With your host, Dr . AEL Romanelli.

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Hi, my name is Dr . AEL Romanelli

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And I'm late Romanelli

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And this is the potential state. And today we're gonna talk about stop over apologizing. Yeah , we see this all the time. And I see this a lot in the clinic, especially with women.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Yes. Women tend to apologize a lot more than men,

Speaker 1: 1:03

Right? So first of all, men start apologizing more, but if you are one of those people that over apologizes , um, a lot of times I see this, especially with women, they see this as , as a marker of being , um , disempowered or more victim me . And they're like , uh , but there's another shadow to that, to that pattern of the person who over apologized about everything. Excuse me for that. Sorry. Sorry, sorry .

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Sorry . Oh, sorry.

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Sorry. I sat down. Is that okay to sit down? Is that okay? Sorry. Can

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I speak? Sorry . I took your pen. Sorry.

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Sorry. And this is what happens. Okay. This we're gonna present on the shadow of the manipulative side of the over accepting over apologizing. So here's the thing. Um , refer back to the victim triangle episode, because what happens when you over apologize ? Two things happen. The first thing is it's becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, cuz I'm apologizing more and more. And if I over apologize, a certain point that will become annoying and then delete or whoever's with you will start , um , getting upset at you. That's really annoying. Stop it . Well,

Speaker 2: 2:03

I think that what it does is it kind of highlights things that right , like puts things in our conscious mind that otherwise we wouldn't even notice and wouldn't be an issue, but you're apologizing so much that it kind of becomes this. Sorry, here , sorry here . Sorry. Becomes accumulative. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, this person did so many things that they apologized for. I guess they, you know, do you know what I mean? They're bothering me. They've done something wrong. I guess they have done all these

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Wrongs. So exactly. So over time that is starting to be annoying. And then you will get, start getting upset,

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Right? Because you're , you're noticing a lot more the , the , by apologizing all the time, you're surfacing kind of places where even if you've done nothing wrong, you're by apologizing, you're surfacing places where potentially your partner is now aware of all these things that you have done wrong because that's what you're

Speaker 1: 2:58

Verbalizing. Yeah. Well , we're talking about cases where you're apologizing, even for things you have done nothing wrong.

Speaker 2: 3:01

No, I know, but that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that because we're inter because your partner is constantly saying, sorry, sorry, sorry. There becomes this accumulative feeling of like, oh, this person is like constantly messing up, constantly doing something wrong constantly, you know,

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Mucking up. Yeah . And that gets annoying. And then you get aggress

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Gets frustrating. Yes. Right. Even if it's things that you otherwise would not have even hated it, would've never crossed your threshold of consciousness. Exactly. That's my point. Good. Thank you for bang with me. Thanks . See that. I didn't say sorry. I said thank you.

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Um, and the second thing, and this is the deeper manipulation, almost unconscious. It unconsciously makes the , the other partner , um, feel implicitly. That they're bad. That

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They're the perse.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Exactly. Cause over time somebody says to you, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Talking like, wait, why are they saying, I'm sorry. I guess I did something wrong.

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If we think about the, the tri the victim triangle, then by you apologizing that casts you as the victim. And then it casts the other person as

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The

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Percu, the percu

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And over time will have the other part will suddenly feel like they're or

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The savior, but either way, right? Other way , you

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Start feel like the

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Responsibility , the stress , and I need to do something to help you.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Right. It becomes, it becomes , I burden on them and especially see this with couples where they become the actual , uh , percu. And you are the two taxes you pay. First of all, for the person who's over apologizing. If I apologize again, again, overtime , it becomes weak, pathetic, annoying.

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It's a , it's a waste of energy. There's a way that we can shift that energy from, from apologizing to thanking or like, right. We can reframe to the

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Positives. We'll get that later. First. We're saying what the problems are, then we're

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Solving. I always like to fix things,

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Right? So first of all ,

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Heavy , positive spin,

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Heavy, annoying , um , pathetic. And then over time, people will just avoid you because if you're over apologizing, just it's heavy to come close .

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It becomes taxing to be.

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So people would just rather with you . Exactly . So people would rather just move away

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Right. Or do videos by themselves.

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Exactly. Exactly. And the last thing is when, when you really will have pain, no, one's gonna hear you . It's like the boy who crying .

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Right. Because there's so many, sorry , it's hard to differentiate between like the genuine, sorry. And the kind of mundane, sorry.

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Exactly. And the tax for the partner. Like if you're in a relationship with somebody who's always over apologizing over time, you are going to feel bad and guilty or responsible for your partner all the time. It becomes taxing and then intimacy becomes heavy and then we start avoiding. Yes. And then here's another thing. And, and when I do say to the partner, if I'm over apologizing and gait says, stop it. I'm not, I'm not angry. You don't have to apologize. Yeah . Oftentimes I'll also be seen as aggressive. So the partner is in a lose lose, or

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Then you're like insulted. Right. Cause like what? But I apologize.

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Right? So stop a , so whether you accept that you say, I forgave you and then you become the persecutor. If you say no need to get to apologize. In both cases, you're gonna lose, lose . And when partners are gonna lose, lose, what they usually do is they avoid, they avoid parallel lives. So two quick examples, one is a couple I worked with a while back and we, she kept over apologizing for everything. And she apologized for not having dinner ready in times. Like I'm not even,

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Yeah . Nobody, nobody expected it to be ready right now.

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And as we were unpacking this, he suddenly realized that for the past 20 years, she's constantly over apologizing for things he didn't even care about. And he kept saying, I don't care about that. She's like, yeah, yeah, of course you do. And then he said, you know what? I'm, this is really true. I have this moment where he's like, yes, I'm feeling guilty all the time in my marriage.

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I know with me, I used to say a lot, sorry, in, in various environments, like at work or with E like even in emails, it would, it would , um, it would kind of sneak its way in. And then I just, I, I, well, there's a great app called just not sorry. And it highlights , um , you know , where you over apologize and how to flip it, flip it to write something else. And so I've really, that really helps me become more aware of how I , how you know, where I was signing with an apology or making an apology that wasn't necessary. There was no need for, and it gave me an alternative, which I think is really important. Yep .

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So,

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And it made me realize where I do it also with us and in my other relationships.

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Right. And, and just one last example , um, I once worked with a woman who kept apologizing so much that everyone actually experienced her kind of like a persecutor, like a martyr and just people would move away from her. Mm . They didn't wanna talk to her. They wanna engage with her became heavy. Yeah. And that is , uh , kind of self fulfilling prophecy that leads you straight into feeling sorry for yourself. Cuz everyone doesn't have energy for you. Yeah. So how to change that, how, first of all, reflect and see if you are an over ER or in your relationship with an over

Speaker 2: 7:52

Yeah. Log

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Kind of like log it in . How do you know if you see they're apologizing for way too many things? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Well like really, even like I would say even really small mundane things,

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For instance,

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I don't know, like, sorry I took your pen. Sorry. I misplaced that when it's things that are like , sorry , I

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Didn't finishing up the table before you came back home. It's almost like a Ugh .

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And like how it's delivered.

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Right. It's always delivered like, Ugh , just don't get angry. Yeah , yeah, yeah . Sorry for living. Yeah . But it's also like almost like eggs shelling around the part or making the partner feel like

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He's done something wrong .

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Mm-hmm <affirmative> first thing is say the thing, instead of saying, sorry, first of all, you can just name it. You can just say I wanna apologize, but actually that's not what I need to do right now.

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Well, I think that that transferring an apology to thank you to thank you is really helpful. Right. It also helps us move from guilt to gratitude from feeling guilty to gratitude. Right. Right. Instead of feeling sorry and apologetic. Right. Which is kind of guilty, you're feeling grateful. So thanking the person, right. Like thank you for, for waiting for me. I know I was like coming home. I really appreciate you waiting for me with dinner instead of being , oh , sorry . I'm so sorry. I'm late. I'm so sorry. I'm late. Right.

Speaker 1: 9:06

And also I wanna say , um , own your. Notice this, if you notice you're over apologizing and it's kind of an easier way for you to paint yourself as the martyr, as the benevolent partner, notice that, and then try to not say that. Try to actually, as it's coming up, you can see it . You can try to just look at it, look at it. Even if you have to verbalize it , just to get it out. Like I wanna apologize, but I'm not gonna apologize right now. Like even if you need to first just work with it a little bit out loud, rehearse that out a good way to , to counteract that is to say to yourself and to the partner. It's not that important to me watch that episode cuz it's not that important to me is like the opposite of I'm over. Sorry.

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Who says I'm not that important.

Speaker 1: 9:43

That's not , no , that's not important to me. Instead of over apologizing all the time, you can actually go to different direction Uhhuh and take it to the other extreme of saying, I'm not gonna apologize for this. Dinner's not ready. It just, it wasn't a priority for me right now. Mm . So try to actually go to the opposite direction cuz UN if you're assuming that if you know that over time over apologizing will cast your partner as a percu and will prevent you from going deeper in your relationship. Maybe it's worth it . Maybe it's in your enlightened self interest to go to a different direction. And for the listener when somebody says, and when you are , when you're feeling in relation with an over ER , you can actually try to react differently, be playful. And you can either say, yes, you do have to apologize, apologize all day. What you wanna do? You wanna take this and be playful with it instead of just getting upset

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Or you can help them and say, I think maybe you meant to say thank you for, you know, I can only think of waiting for me. I

Speaker 1: 10:39

Can't think I can also say as the Pope I hear by forgive you poop . Cause what you're basically trying to say to them is to soften this tendency. There's no need to get over apologetic.

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Yes. It's not necessary.

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Don't get upset by it and don't fight them on . You

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Both want to , um, shift your energy to other things exactly. To more important things.

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Exactly. So stop apologize .

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But that doesn't mean that you don't apologize when you

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Need to. And one last shout out that we have another video on the four types of, sorry, you can check out that talk. So this was Goli Romanelli.

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This is Dr . AAL Romanelli

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And we're the potential potential

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State

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You've been listening to the potential state podcast For more information, visit us@potentialstate.com.

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And

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Thank you for listening.