Joe distinguishes two kinds of apology. The shame-based apology — “I’m sorry, it wasn’t me, I won’t do it again” — makes you small and perpetuates the very behavior it attempts to address. Whenever Joe sees this kind of groveling apology, particularly in abusive relationships, he knows the behavior will repeat. Shame is stagnant; it locks patterns in place.
The upright apology is radically different. You stand in your full agency and say: “This is genuinely what I don’t want to do. I don’t want to yell at you like this. I’m very sorry for doing that. That’s not how I want to be with you.” There’s no self-diminishment, no shame — just clarity about who you want to be and acknowledgment that you fell short. This actually reduces the likelihood of repeating the behavior because it comes from alignment rather than self-punishment.
“One of the most powerful tools I know for changing behavior is to apologize in an upright way for the behavior that you’ve done.”
“I look forward to, I can’t wait to find a place where I can apologize because I know how transformative that apology is for me.”
Joe learned this after a therapist asked him: “What does fault have to do with an apology?” — which shattered his childhood association of apology with shame.
Related Concepts
- Shame stagnates the behavior it punishes
- Shame-free problem solving
- Safe agreements make conflict transformative
- Shame locks in the very habits it punishes
- Shame stagnates fights the same way it stagnates individuals
- Empathic acknowledgment is presence, not fixing
- An empowered apology is one of the most powerful tools for self-transformation