Mistakes and making amends
You can’t live without making mistakes. Some mistakes may hurt you. But other mistakes, particularly in the way you treat other people, can hurt others. There are many unhealthy ways of dealing with mistakes but only one healthy way to handle them.
You can’t erase mistakes. You have to accept that you made them, and deal with the consequences of making them. Many people try to avoid this. They may minimize their behavior, try to make light of it or deny they made a mistake because they don’t want to face the responsibility or shame.
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Denying, minimizing and blaming others doesn’t repair damage. Hurting someone is like punching a hole in the asphalt on a street. The longer it is left unattended the bigger the hole gets. Eventually it will swallow anything that drives into it.
It hurts to accept you made a mistake. You may feel embarrassed, ashamed, foolish or guilty. But you’ll feel the same if you don’t admit to it and for much longer.
It is difficult to admit to mistakes, and accept and respond to them. When making amends you can’t just pick things up as they were, pretending that it didn’t happen. You must accept the effect it had on the other person. This means listening to the other person, letting them talk their feelings out. It means putting yourself in their shoes, something that can be very hard when you are wound up with your own feelings.
This also requires patience. You can drop and break an object in a moment. It may take hours or days to repair it. But people usually take even more time to heal.
