Apologies have more power than most of us realize to restore strained relationships, free us from vengeful impulses, and create possibilities for growth.

We rarely wrestle with apology and lose.

Apology may start as a feeling, a desire to make matters right, but it requires a commitment to move that desire into practice, to actually take on the great courageous task of showing compassion to others.

One of the most useful tasks of apology is to bring home to us how keenly, honestly, and painfully past generations pursued aims that now seem to us wrong and disgraceful. It behooves us to consider if future geenrations will similarly regard the aims we most defend today.

When I accept an apology it means that the part in me that honors our relationship honors the part in you that honors our relationship.

Apology is the most courageous gesture we can make to ourselves.

Apology is not for the faint of heart, but then, neither is life.