My first job was working at Taco Bueno in 1979. My boss was named Isaac, and he taught me one thing I have always remembered—if you have to tell the customer something they don’t want to hear, start with “I’m sorry”. For example, “I’m sorry, that does not come with onions”. I have used this rule throughout my life and it works well—if you tell someone “I’m sorry”, in a sincere way, they will better accept any bad news you might have for them.
However, I have noticed an epidemic of “I’m sorry” amongst women. Here’s an example--I can’t tell you how many times I have waited outside a one-seater bathroom for my turn, and when the woman who was ahead of me comes out, she says “I’m sorry”. What is she sorry for--getting to the bathroom 2 minutes before I did?
Women are generally taught to feel responsible for the feelings of others, even when they didn’t do anything to that other person. This can cause a lot of anxiety because we can’t fix someone else’s unhappiness but we still somehow feel responsible for fixing it!
The solution is to challenge those thoughts of feeling responsible for making everyone else feel better. We can decide if there is a real reason to be sorry for something, or if we are not the source of that person’s unhappiness. If we’re not the reason they’re unhappy, then we can be present for them without feeling responsible for fixing their feelings. It’s very freeing to challenge those thoughts of feeling responsible for making everyone else feel better. If you find that you’re feeling responsible for making everyone else happy, and/or feeling guilty because you can’t make everyone else happy, I would like to help.
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