hi my name is Anna Runkle also known as the crappy childhood fairy and if you grew up with
abuse and neglect in your childhood chances are good that you've suffered more than your share
of broken relationships now sometimes the break is caused by the other person but today I want to
talk about broken relationships where we played a role in damaging a relationship with someone
we care about someone we do want a relationship with that is one of the hardest side effects of
trauma and childhood is that being close to people and working through conflicts can be
really fraught with us a lot of us didn't have good role models and because our perception may
have been damaged maybe because there was a lot of denial or neglect by our parents we
sometimes have a hard time discerning when people are hurt whose fault it is and how to work it out
when you don't have that the default might be to just run away or blow up at the person and then
we find ourselves avoiding conflict as long as we can just so that doesn't happen until things
get so bad that we do explode and then we run the risk of losing the relationship does that
ever happen to you and here's the good news we don't have to do that anymore instead we can
learn a little self-regulation and some practical skills to mend relationships that are broken now
I'm not just talking about forcing an apology or stuffing your feelings and I'm also not talking
about confronting people about things they've done there may be a time and a place for that
but right now I'm going to focus on the inside job on our own personal role in conflict we've
had and I'm going to show you how to really get to the bottom of the hurt and respond to it in a
way that lets your relationship heal and even grow stronger now obviously not every broken
relationship is ready for repair if someone has abused you and there's still a threat of abuse
especially physical violence don't be a martyr don't walk into it now in the case of abuse or a
relationship that's really damaging for you the fix is to stay away and that's what you would
have done in the past if you hadn't been at the effect of early trauma so you get to do it now
what we're talking about in this our relationships that are worth repairing or rare at the very least
you want to get rid of the bad feeling that you hurt someone and that you never dealt with it
so let's just take a hypothetical situation where you might have hurt somebody's feelings let's say
you trashed your friend behind her back like said something negative and it got back to her and you
heard that it got back to her and you know that she knows but you haven't talked to her about
it yet you did something hurtful and you want to keep the relationship so here's what you do okay
first you take some time if you can if there is no time you can make an apology in the moment that's
fine but if you have time you can use that time well to get clear first about what you did what
you want to apologize for this is something you might want to run by a friend you trust someone
who has good relationships with other people to make sure that you've got it right not too much
not too little and the responsibility Department now in this case in our hypothetical example it
was saying negative things about a friend behind her back you may have had your reasons for feeling
that way but saying it to other people was the part that hurt your friend now this brings me
to the second thing and I recommend you write your fears and resentments about the situation
this is the specific technique I teach for calming your mind and clearing out the sort of extraneous
emotions and the hamsterwheel thoughts that we have with complex PTSD and getting more in touch
with what's important and real for you and if you haven't learned how to do this yet you can link to
instructions down in the description section below when you're not in that reactive mode you have
more capacity to see what's going on and see what needs to be done about it if anything and you'll
probably find you have more empathy for the other person and for yourself and that's a good thing
that's going to narrow your communication with them to something very specific and hopeful and
constructive and not just a big angry outburst and this is going to help you when you're trying to
communicate with the person you hurt there's now the possibility that you can bring them a little
more common healing to just by your demeanor and you'll be able to talk to them and really
hear them and this is the sweet spot when you want to heal a broken relationship so you've
identified the harm you did you've gotten rid of floating fear and resentment with the writing the
next thing to do is to write down what you did and kind of detail it and I'll give you an example in
a minute so you write down what you did and then how you would feel if it were done to you if a
friend say gossip behind your back and spill the secret of yours and then you write down what you
intend to do differently from now on and you want to be honest with yourself about this don't be
unrealistic and just say what you think you should say now you're ready to make your apology so you
contact the person you hurt and you let them know you'd like to talk to them about something that
you did and that you feel bad about and you can say something like I'd like to apologize to you
about something and then depending on how broken the relationship is they may or may not agree to
see you about this you don't want to push them but try to do this personally if you can don't send a
text when you could show when you could actually call them don't do it on the phone when you could
do it in person as direct as possible will give you the best chance of a good clean thorough
apology that results in connection between you now you might be asking right now but what if
they also did something to me shouldn't they acknowledge that - can't I ask them to do that
and it's true that in almost every conflict both parties play a role this is a special situation
though where for right now you're only gonna deal with your own side of it this is what I
call a clean apology you only deal with your side and you leave their role and the problems that
go with that to them and you don't say anything about it now in my experience most people never
will apologize for major hurts but if they want to or not that is up to them in any way an apology
that you demanded from somebody it's never any good it's not satisfying they're like okay fine
I'm sorry and maybe you're not ready to be close to a person if they don't give us answer apology
that part's up to you but you can at least right now clear up your role in the current problem and
just stop feeling guilty so when you do connect with them here's what you want to say first you
tell them what you did you just say I heard that you know that I told other people the secret you
shared with me that you used to shoplift I don't know I'm just making this up and that I broke my
promise to you you tell it to them totally clean without any excuses like you know I was under a
lot of stress or I was tired you don't do excuses you don't bring in their part in it like you know
you were saying all that stuff about me and you you just don't bring their part in and then you go
ahead and you tell them because you've done your homework how you would feel if that were done to
you so you might say I know that if somebody did that to me I would feel angry and betrayed and I
feel worried what everybody thought about me now in this part it's important to demonstrate that
you get it that you understand how it feels to have that done so don't try to minimize it don't
make it bigger either but make it honest show that you get it your empathy here is the one
thing that can really help the other person relax that hardened heart and listen to you and open up
to the possibility of healing the relationship they know you get it and then you tell them I'm
sorry and you let them know how you intend to change your behavior in the future you can say
I'm working hard to change this habit of mine and never talk negatively about friends behind their
back and I want to be a trustworthy friend for you and I want to be that person for myself and
then you say I hope you can forgive me now the hardest part comes you totally let go of what
happens then you just honestly give your apology and sometimes people will hug you and say it's
okay or sometimes they'll say I have no idea what you're talking about I didn't even know there was
a problem or you might fear that they'll get angry but if you make a good apology where you
don't make excuses and you demonstrate that you get it what about what hurt them then the worst
that's gonna happen is likely nothing nothing will happen the relationship might not change
but you'll feel better now it goes without saying if the person doesn't know you hurt them like if
you gossiped and they don't know you did that it could actually hurt them to try to apologize
to tell them that this happened so take some discernment you can clean up your behavior and but
don't use apologies as an excuse to hurt people don't let that happen the purpose of apologies
is to heal relationships if we can to help people feel better about themselves so even when you do a
great job apologizing sometimes it doesn't go as planned and you can let go of that you're making
the apology for yourself for your own peace of mind and to be able to hold your head up and know
that yeah you made a mistake but you cleaned up your mess afterwards so go set yourself free go
run out there today and if there's somebody that you've been putting off apologizing to
now you know how to do it so keep practicing and soon you'll have healed relationships all around
your life it can't help but get better when you do this and if you don't believe me just try it
you