We all have something to be sorry about. Why? Because we’re all human and we make mistakes. Furthermore, we often don’t know when we’ve offended somebody. Words come pouring from our mouths before we realize that they have an effect. Or a careless action affected someone close to you.

Listen - it happens. But the beauty of a well-placed apology is this: it can melt all the pain and hurt away. It can begin a brand new day. It can lighten the load for both parties:

Did you know there’s an author who has written about the technicalites of apologies? Even apologies can be broken down into a science!

The fascinating book On Apology, by Aaron Lazare begins with this paragraph:

“One of the most profound human interactions is the offering and accepting of apologies. Apologies have the power to heal humiliations and grudges, remove the desire for vengeance, and generate forgiveness on the part of the offended parties. For the offender they can diminish the fear of retaliation and relieve the guilt and shame that can grip the mind with a persistence and tenacity that are hard to ignore. The result of that apology process, ideally, is the reconciliation and restoration of broken relationships.”

A genuine and effective apology can reduce the pain of guilt and shame and help to resolve anger. Effective apology can create a satisfactory asymmetrical balance where genuine remorse is accepted as the only available compensation to offset an irreparable loss.

Apology restores the congruence between what we acknowledge to ourselves and what we acknowledge to others when we blame ourselves for their loss.

Definitions

1. A sincere acknowledgement of responsibility, wrongdoing, and regret.
2. Restoring power to the injured.
3. An encounter between two parties where the offender acknowledges responsibility for an offense or grievance and expresses regret or remorse to the aggrieved.

Root: Latin apologia, from Greek apologi? : apo- + logos, A speech in defense

Commonly used synonyms include: acknowledgment, admission, amends, atonement, concession, confession, defense, excuse, explanation, extenuation, justification, mea culpa, mitigation, plea, redress, reparation, and vindication. These are inexact substitutes because they each refer only to a portion of a full apology.

The Paradox of Apology

A genuine apology provides so much benefit with so little cost, it is surprising and unfortunate it is not more common. The decision to apologize is a tug-of-war between stubborn pride and guilt. Since guilt is authentic, and stubborn pride is not, it seems best to get on with the apology. Making a sincere apology is an act of courage, not a sign of weakness.

Many people are reluctant to apologize because they fear either humiliation or retaliation. This is unfortunate because most genuine apologies elicit gratitude as the response. Failing to apologize can be a costly dominance contest that prolongs bad feelings in a relationship that could have been easily avoided or foreshortened.

Elements of an Apology:

A successful apology includes each of these four elements:

• Accepting personal responsibility; acknowledge the specific offense and the pain it caused and clearly take personal and unconditional responsibility for the offense. Acknowledge directly to each of the injured parties your role in causing the damage and their suffering,
• Showing Remorse; humbly and sincerely describe the painful regret you feel for committing the offense. Look backward to express your regret. Then demonstrate forbearance by looking forward to describe the lessons you have learned and the changes you have made to ensure nothing like it will ever happen again.
• Offering an explanation; honestly, candidly, and simply describe why the offense happened. If it was inexcusable, simply say so.
• Making reparations; fully repair the loss if that is possible, otherwise ask: “Is there anything I can do to make this up to you?”

“After completing this mission, there was a sense from the team of complete satisfaction,” Subhash Garg said. “All Rotarians involved had a joyous feeling because we were able to contribute something so big.”

One medical team makes a big difference in this touching story:

During a massive seven-day medical mission in March, a team of 37 doctors and volunteers from District 3080 provided care to about 50,000 people in the remote tribal district of Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, India.

Organized by Past RI President Rajendra K. Saboo and Vivek Tankha, additional solicitor general of India and past governor of District 3260, several health camps offered medical exams, dental procedures, and surgeries to a population with limited access to health care.

The team included 24 doctors and surgeons, nine volunteers, and four medical assistants.

“This was an exercise where vocational service was at its best, where doctors made their knowledge and talents totally available to serve humanity,” Saboo said. “We were able to reach the unreachable.”

The doctors and volunteers performed 3,500 dental procedures and 2,000 major surgeries, including reconstructive surgery, orthopedic work, and eye operations.

Source: Rotary.org

“Just be yourself,” you’ve heard, time and time again. But what does that really mean? In order to be yourself, you have to know what a “yourself” is, right? What if you feel like you’ve lost yourself? Or don’t like yourself?

Well, here are some words of wisdom from the masters, who have thought long and hard on this matter:

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  ~e.e. cummings, 1955

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.  ~Raymond Hull

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.  ~William Shakespeare

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.  I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory.  I was naïve.  I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.  It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with:  that I am nobody but myself.  ~Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another.  ~James Matthew Barrie

Most people are other people.  Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.  ~Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.  ~Judy Garland

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.  ~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.  ~David Carradine

A man who is “of sound mind” is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.  ~Paul Valéry, Mauvaises pensées et autres, 1942

I am told to just be myself, but as much as I have practiced the impression, I am still no good at it.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity.  Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.  ~Boris Pasternak

Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.  ~Shakti Gawain

Creative potential abounds, even in the most unlikely situations. One would think a boy with a terminal illness would not have the energy, let alone the know-how, to produce such sophisticated and impressive artwork. It reminds us: we are all creative. Convince yourself otherwise and you won’t produce. Allow your inner child to express and you may have the next Picasso:

A terminally ill boy who was not expected to live past six-months-old, has stunned doctors by surviving and holding his own art exhibition.

Leo Haines, aged five, was born with cerebral palsy and a terminal condition affecting his lungs and heart.

Doctors told his mother Marianna Haines, 26, that little Leo would die in his first year. But his fighting spirit saw him through and after spending his first brithday in hospital, Leo was able to move home.

The talented young artist, from Taunton Somerset, England, began painting alongside his grandmother Marianna Thomas, who quickly recognised his talent.

Leo now has 40 unique works, reminiscent of the American abstract artist Jackson Pollock, featuring in their very own art exhibition where they are being sold for charity.

His grandfather, Brian Thomas, 59, said: ‘My wife, his grandmother, is a well-known local artist and it started with Leo joining in, basically uninvited, into her work.

‘So she used to get him a canvas and set him up with paints on the floor and it just went from there.

Artistic Leo, pictured here aged 3, is able to concentrate on his work for over an hour at a time

‘It began by getting him to recognise different colours and mixtures and shapes. Now it is his favourite pastime.

‘I suppose you’d call them impressionism - they’re definitely inspired by his choice of colours, and I think he’s got a very good choice in colours.

‘And they’re really quite good. The first day of the exhibition a man came in and got halfway down the wall and turned to me and asked, ‘Are you Leo?’ - quite seriously.

‘He thought they’d been painted by an adult, and I pointed him to the other wall which tells Leo’s story. He immediately bought a painting. We’ve got about 40 in the exhibition, and they represent two years of Leo’s work.’

Leo was born with cerebral palsy and terminal pulmonary vein stenosis, a condition that means the veins running from his heart to his lungs will become eventually blocked, killing him.

Doctors told his mother, a care assistant from Taunton, Somerset, he was unlikely to survive past six months old, and in the first year of his life Leo’s family was told nine times to prepare for the worst.

But Leo, who suffers from intermittent deafness, battled through and eventually moved home, where he developed a fascination for art as part of therapy to help him communicate.

Now he creates dazzling abstract works full of feeling with sweeping colours on black backgrounds.

Leo’s grandfather, a retired electronics and communications worker, added: ‘Amongst his biggest problems is the ability to communicate because he has cerebral palsy.

Little Leo’s work has been likened to Jackson Pollock’s paintings such as ‘Number 17, 1949′ pictured

‘One of the ways we actually got him to communicate is through activities - painting is one of those things that he can do.

‘My wife’s taught him a sort-of no boundaries approach. It has been great for Leo - it’s got him communicating. He has at least three sessions a week, and in the winter four or five.

‘Some children of his age would not concentrate for more than 15 minutes, but he loves painting so much he can be absorbed for an hour and a half.’

Source: Daily Mail UK

In the states, we celebrate the 4th of July this weekend. Yesterday, I found myself wondering what this holiday meant to me. Independence and freedom seem to be at the center of it all. Then I started thinking about personal freedom. It’s a concept we might not pay much mind to it, unless we don’t have it. Then its very much an issue.

I came up with a personal list of ways I discover freedom in my life; inner freedom from worry, anxiety, burdens of life. Interestingly, I realized I do provide myself many “escapes” that are healthy and allow me to fly away. These include: running, surfing, singing, dreaming, driving (yes, driving can sometimes be pleasurable!) and walking dogs (because dogs love freedom.)

Where’s your freedom? How do you fly? Celebrate your freedom. It’s a precious and dear commodity that not everyone possesses.Thank your freedom today, if you have it. If you are trapped, remember there are ways to escape, without going anywhere.

This is an amazing story about a quick-thinking cop who saw an upcoming accident only milliseconds before it handed and did his best to protect a citizen.

Watching the video below, I hope we remember how important it is to be constantly aware of our surroundings (meaning, “get off your cell phone, stop texting, take off your ipod and be present!”)

Police officer John Lambert acted quickly and pushed Mariusz Trzeciak out of harm’s way when an out-of-control car came sliding towards them on the side of an icy highway. A dash-cam in Lambert’s car caught the entire incident on tape. Lambert is still in the hospital recovering and is expected to be back in good health after significant physical therapy.

Video of amazing rescue.

Police Lt. John Lambert

Just the other day a friend told me about an argument he had with a good friend. He was distraught about it and didn’t know what to do. Unfortunately, his friend didn’t want to talk about it with him - and didn’t want to talk to him - which only furthered his upset.

The only advice I could come up with had to do with the concept of acceptance: there are certain situations in life that can leave us feeling horribly in limbo. Sometimes all we can do is accept that awkward space. And let it be.

We rely upon the poets, the philosophers, and the playwrights to articulate what most of us can only feel, in joy and sorrow. They illuminate the thoughts for which we only grope; they give us the strength and balm we cannot find in ourselves. Whenever I feel my courage wavering I rush to them. They will give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resilience to push on.

- Helen Hayes

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

- Carl Rogers

Conversion for me was not a Damascus Road experience. I slowly moved into an intellectual acceptance of what my intuition had always known.

- Madeleine L’Engle

The mind can assert anything and pretend it has proved it. My beliefs I test on my body, on my intuitional consciousness, and when I get a response there, then I accept.

- D. H. Lawrence

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

- Melodie Beattie

Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is to make it easier for people to accept themselves, to like themselves.

- Bonaro W. Overstreet

I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I accept the universe!

(Ralph Waldo Emerson’s reported response: “By God, she’d better!”)

- Margaret Fuller

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s pretty hard to feel positively when you can’t see past your whirlwind of thought. In order to generate your own personal positive news, slowing down your inner chatter is needed. It is then you can make substantial changes and feel genuinely more positive…and calm!

Here are some quick pointers so you can quiet your mind and let some sunshine in: 

1. Remember that the key is not to clamp down on your mind or to do battle with your thoughts. Treat your mind gently, as though you are calming an upset child.
2. Close your eyes and take three deep breaths — comfortably deep breaths, not as though you’re trying to take in enough air to swim underwater for the length of a pool. Silently count the breaths as you exhale.

3. For the next three breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this life” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God.” If you have trouble with the God idea, feel free to secularize. Instead of, “thank you, God,” try simply, “I am grateful.”

4. For the next three breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this day” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God,” or “I am grateful.”

5. For the next three breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this hour” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God,” or “I am grateful.”

6. For the following three breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this moment” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God,” or “I am grateful.”

7. And for three more breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this breath” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God,” or “I am grateful.”

8. And for the final three breaths, think nothing. Relax and merely enjoy the feel of your breath as it enters, and as it exits, as it arrives, and as it departs.

9. Enjoy a moment of peace.

It’s not too many times Hooters has been included in our positive news post. I dare say this may be the first (interstingly Hooters contributes a lot to charity, which you’ll read below.)

But when an ongoing tragedy like the Gulf disaster continues to unfold, all sorts of groups have the power to gather their forces - and in this case pantyhose - and help:

As the pressure increases to find a strategy over the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, an alternative effort - ‘Project Pantyhose’ - to help absorb the spill is under away.

Waitresses from restaurant chain Hooters will be voluntarily donating their torn pantyhose – to make booms stuffed with hair, fur and fleece to absorb the spill.

Across its 380 sites in the US, Hooters expects to collect of 100,000 pairs of pantyhose, which could ultimately absorb one million gallons of oil in the Gulf, if the booms are re-used eight times, the average life of a boom.

The collected pantyhose will be shipped to environmental agencies and non-profit organisations Indigo Oceanic and Matter of Trust to make the booms. The booms will be grouped together and sent out into the Gulf to absorb and block the oil from reaching the coast, protecting harbours and marshlands.

There are roughly 15,000 Hooters Girls in the US and their uniform includes pantyhose. The life expectancy of a pair of pantyhose worn by Hooters Girls at work is about 2-3 shifts. Hooters said  it supports the use of natural fibres as a non-toxic, renewable resource to aid in the oil spill clean up efforts.

All of Hooters are collecting the pantyhose for a 4-week period to create 15 miles of booms.

The restaurant company also serves a number of community projects under its Hooters Community Endowment Fund (HOO.C.E.F.), which raises money for local and national charities such as the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research, Make-A-Wish Foundation, the U.S.O., Special Olympics, American Diabetes Association, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and Muscular Dystrophy Association. Since 1992, HOO.C.E.F. has raised more than $8 million for these and other worthwhile organizations.

A portion of this money comes from a VIP grand opening party each location holds to benefit a local charity, generating thousands annually.

Source: OptimistWorld.com

Ah, two simple words that sometimes get stuck somewhere between the heart and throat. Here are a few words of wisdom from past and present. If you owe someone apology, why not make today the day you free those words.

When you realize you’ve made a mistake, make amends immediately.  It’s easier to eat crow while it’s still warm.  ~Dan Heist

Keep your words soft and tender because tomorrow you may have to eat them.  ~Author Unknown

Never ruin an apology with an excuse.  ~Kimberly Johnson

In some families, please is described as the magic word.  In our house, however, it was sorry.  ~Margaret Laurence

True remorse is never just a regret over consequence; it is a regret over motive.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west -
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone.  ~Harriet Beecher Stowe, Little Foxes, 1865

Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.  ~Isaac Friedmann

An apology is a good way to have the last word.  ~Author Unknown<!–Dell Crossword Puzzles–>

An apology is the superglue of life.  It can repair just about anything.  ~Lynn Johnston

The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology.  ~Red Auerbach

Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift.  ~Margaret Lee Runbeck

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.  ~Paul Boese

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.  That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.  ~Emily Kimbrough

It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.  ~Grace Hopper

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say?  And why are you waiting?  ~Stephen Levine

For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.  ~Author Unknown

Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.  ~Chinese Proverb

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.  ~William Blake

True friends stab you in the front.  ~Oscar Wilde