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– Good morning my friends
– How is your week going?
– I realized again this past week that the most humbling moments in my life are my interactions with other humans
– I thought Mountain climbing is humbling
o Climbing a route you think is manageable but then I end up struggling like crazy
o Those are often Chimneys for me
o They looks so straight forward and yet they never are – at least not for me
– A long strenuous hike can be humbling as well
– But other humans beat every humbling moment I ever had
o I have had interactions with others that literally brought me to the ground
o I laid on my floor because a comfortable bed didn’t seem appropriate
o My heart beat so wildly as if it wants to jump out of my chest
o I struggled breathing
o And my mind races
o It races as if in a competition with my heart
o and sometimes I don’t know how is running harder
– Both are fighting a battle
– My mind fights for reasoning, for understanding, for logic
o It also fights for justice
o It wants to prove its right
– My heart fights for peace, for harmony and for order
o It wants to feel safe and protected
o It wants to be loved
– In those humbling moments with others
o That have caused me to doubt everything I know and believe
o That have led to utter confusion
o And that have temporarily paused my life because who can do anything when heart and mind are consumed in a fight?
– Those raw, often brutal moments
o Those humbling moments
o Moments that leave me feeling empty, useless, without purpose
o Without any energy to continue my regular life
o Moments that immobilize me
– Because I have clashed with another person
– A person that matters to me
– A person that is in my mind and in my heart

– You know those moments
– When you’re totally stumped by
o Someone’s unexpected reactions
o A sudden misunderstanding or conflict
o A mistake you come to find out
o A issue that occurred you didn’t know about
o An unpleasant surprise
–

– Those kind of moments teach me – over and over again – one simple yet hard life lesson
o Fighting with logic is useless
 Because your logic is different from the way the other person sees the situation
o Fighting with emotions is ineffective
 Because we all have different feelings
• We may feel hurt, the other person may feel disrespected
• Its unlikely to come to an agreement over emotions
– The only one practical way to deal with those kind of moments is to let them go
– And the best strategy to let go is to apologize
– When someone is upset at you
o Attacks you back
o Drops you like a hot potato
o Dismisses or ignores you
– You can try to fight, to reason to explain,
– You can cry and plead and offer all sorts of incentives to make them change their mind
– I have done it all
– I still do them
– I start typing long, rational email response that try to leave all emotions out
– I craft lengthy counter arguments, defending myself
– I try to call them
– Hold them back from leaving
– Explaining my reasoning
– Trying to appear innocent
– Do everything I can to control the other person
– Those strategies don’t do anything other than make we wonder if I should have studied Law
–
– Try it
– Type those emails or texts and but don’t send them
– Then take a sleeping pill to stop your heart from racing and Go to bed
– And the next morning you will wake up and realize the futility of that hour spent on producing a bunch of sophisticated words meant to convince someone into changing their mind
– Delete all those line you typed
– Because it rarely works
o Maybe they see your point of view to a degree
o But they wont admit it because they still want their point to be acknowledge by you
– They want to be seen
– And they made it point to make sure you see them
– It may not be an appropriate way
o It may have hurt your feelings – but something you did hurt theirs as well
o It may offend you, disrespect you, make you feel little and important
– And you want to tell them how you feel
– How wrong they are
– How can they even say something like this
– It all just adds more fuel to an already burning fire

– Instead:
– Apologize
– I know – its hard
– But the morning after it will come naturally to you
– When you picked yourself off the floor and sleep calmed your mind
– You will delete those 5 paragraphs and instead write a simple apology
– An apology is letting go
– Every time – after a long night of tossing and turning
– Of headaches, body pains, life-ending thoughts
– And apology relieves the pressure form my mind and my body
– I feel better and this is an indication to me that this was the best response for the given circumstance
– Fighting – whether emotionally or logically – is hanging on
– Apologizing is as acknowledging what has happened
o It lets the other person see that you heard them
o It allows you to accept what has occurred
– An apology puts a stake in the ground
o It ends the race
o The race for being right
o For proving something
o It also ends the mental race in your mind and the physical race in your body
– I am sorry closes the wound with a bandage
o Its not a fix
o Its not a solution
o It doesn’t make everything good
o But it stops the bleeding – you stopped it
– An apology is admission that something went wrong
o And it turns the outcome over to the gods
o Fighting, begging, pleading and arguing is trying to control the outcome
o To somehow turn around what has happened
o An apology acknowledges the event and accepts to deal with the consequences
 Whatever they may be
– Letting go is hard, because we don’t know what comes next
– But every time I apologize, sincerely, from my heart
– Not superficially, not to appease the other person
o But in an honest way
o With empathy
o Trying to see what they have been through and how I contributed to the problem
– I feel ready to let go and accept whatever the outcome may be
– It allows me to move on
– I may wait and hope things work out
– Or I may be ready to move on without the person
– But in my heart I know – I offered the best possible ending I could
o By acknowledging my mistakes
– Apologizing is humbling
o It forces me to think about my actions
o It teaches me about myself
o It helps me understand other people better
– It helps me be a better person
– And that is why it’s the best strategy to a conflict that I may have caused
o Even if it wasn’t intentional
o Even if I wasn’t aware of it
o Even if I meant something completely different with my actions
– It doesn’t matter
– My actions caused havoc
– And the best response is to end the havoc with an apology
– And then move on
o As a better you
– Even if the outcome I not what you had hoped
– Duck your head
– Accept the lesson
– Learn from it
– And do better next time

If there is havoc in your life right now, see if you can let go of all your logical reasoning and emotional turmoil and just extend a I AM SORRY
And then let go of the outcome
Accept the circumstances
Learn what you need to learn
And move on

Much love my friends