We use apologies all day long, in so many different ways.

The energy behind apologies, when they are true apologies, can be beautiful: “I was part of a wrong, which I recognize, and for which I’d like to make amends.”

It’s a genuine exchange of energy, MEANT to make all parties feel better: “Please use this apology to let go the energy of whatever difficult experience I was part of.”

But most apologies, if you stop to listen – to yourself speaking them, and to people speaking them to you – are something else entirely.

“Sorry!” as in “I need to be where you are so I can put milk in my Starbucks, so could you please move?.”

“Sor-ry!” – sung out in retort to the person who stepped on your toes who didn’t apologize to you first.

“I’m sorry!” – spoken reflexively by the person who seems to apologize for everything, all the time.

“I’m sorry?” – the all-purpose, “you interrupted me and I let you go on with your question, but I was only half listening, so please repeat yourself” rejoinder…usually spoken by someone with an iPhone or Blackberry in hand.

There are dozens of variations on the same theme: “I’m sorry.” It’s time to change that.

It may be polite convention to use “I’m sorry” in each of these ways. But on an energetic level, it’s just not resourceful.

Harness the Energy Around You!

To start, there really is a powerful place for the energy of apology. But we are all growing used to the false or conditional apology. That diminishes the true power we all need to experience in a genuine apology.

False, polite and conditional apologies also weaken your own energy field. If you are familiar with the phenomenon of “muscle testing” or “energy checking,” you have seen what happens to your own energy field when you speak words you don’t believe: the bottom drops out, and you don’t have all your juice.

Don’t let a habit of speech without thought rob you of the juice you need in your endeavors. There’s no need to – especially when it’s so easy to find actual true words to speak, instead of the  habitual “I’m sorry,” when you’re not really engaging the energy of apology.

When you’d like someone to move out of your way at Starbucks or the deli counter, so you can grab a napkin – try this, instead: “May I grab a napkin, please? Thanks!”

When you bump into someone, try this: “I’m sorry!” And mean it! And if YOU get bumped into, just say, “Ow” if you really need to alert the other person to your misery. Otherwise, try not saying anything.

If you are a person who is a serial “I’m sorry” repeater, you have a harder task. You could benefit yourself, and everyone around you, by examining what drives you to apologize for every idea, every feeling…almost for your existence. The kind of neuroplasticity work available through energy psychology may be a great way to weed out the issues which cause this reflexive behavior.

And if you find yourself on your PDA while someone else is talking to you…put it down and listen to the other person. Seriously. Because the energy you are sending out is, “the virtual person on the other end of this machine matters more than the live one in front of me.”  

The next time you hear yourself say, “I’m sorry,” in a situation where you actually mean to convey an apology, you and the other person will both experience the greater power of the energy behind it. And that’s nothing to apologize for, at all.