- Hey everybody.
Today we're gonna talk about sorry versus thank you
and how using one versus the other can change the dynamic
of a conversation.
But before we jump into that, are you new to my channel?
Welcome.
I am a licensed therapist making mental health videos
and I release them on Mondays and on Thursdays
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Now let's jump into today's topic.
I was recently reading a blog post on one
of my favorite blogs.
It's called Man Repeller.
If you haven't heard of it, I would encourage you
to check it out, it's really great.
I love to hear what they have to say.
But anyways, I was reading an article
about these two phrases, thank you and sorry.
And it really just got me thinking,
as an avid over-apologizer,
I really wanted to understand the difference
between the two and see where I could improve.
Because if I'm really being honest,
I really hate when I say sorry so much,
and I vividly remember being yelled at by my softball coach,
I was probably like 13 or 14, but he yelled at me saying,
"Stop saying sorry so much," to which I obviously replied,
as any over-apologizer would as saying, "Sorry,"
and then getting yelled at again and going back and forth
until I just started crying.
And at the time, after that interaction,
I became overly aware of just how often
I found myself saying sorry and so I would try to stop,
but then I'd end up feeling like a total jerk
and the guilt of not saying sorry when I felt like
I should would just completely ruin my day.
And I couldn't figure out what to do.
I even brought it up in therapy years later
and my therapist tried to figure out
why I was saying it so much.
Not so much to try to get me to stop.
That's interesting about therapy, right,
is you try to figure out what's causing it.
Why are we doing it?
And hopefully through all of my many, many years of therapy
and talking with my therapist about this
for way longer than I intended,
maybe I can save you all those tough conversations
and tell you what I learned about myself.
Now, I say I'm sorry all the time
because I hate upsetting people
and I avoid confrontation at all costs.
By saying I'm sorry,
even when the situation doesn't technically warrant it,
I am doing my best to please others
and stay out of the way so to speak.
It's almost like I needed to apologize for even existing.
Like I could upset someone by just being there.
So I would keep saying sorry over and over.
And I know even sharing that kind of sounds terrible
and maybe you even feel bad for me, but don't worry,
I'm not done sharing what I learned.
And I promise I'm doing much, much better with it today.
But what my therapist had me do next is to work
on my confidence.
And I know that may sound off-base, you're like wait,
we're talking about sorry versus thank you,
now you're talking about self-confidence?
But if I felt the need to apologize for just being
or existing, I obviously couldn't really think
that highly of myself, right?
And working on my self-confidence did help a ton,
but I still found myself saying sorry just way too much.
So this is what I'm currently working on
at the ripe age of 35.
We're all works in progress, remember?
Is that I'm trying to be okay with the idea
that I cannot please everyone.
It's simply not possible.
I mean just think about it.
If two people disagree with what should take place,
what does someone like me do?
If I don't wanna upset either of them,
I'm kinda frozen, right?
I can't really do anything.
I will have to displease one of them
and through thinking all this and working on this,
you know what I've really learned?
That it's actually most important that I myself am pleased.
And yeah, that's the truth.
One of my favorite quotes or sayings is,
you can't light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.
And I'm just really trying to remember that
and to have healthy boundaries around what I will do
or not do for someone else.
And truly what I will do for myself
'cause that's really important, right,
we need to cultivate a healthy relationship
with ourselves before we can go out
and cultivate healthy relationships with other people.
Because if we don't have a good one with ourselves,
we're gonna almost like continue that pattern
outside of ourselves.
Does that make sense?
That's something I'm currently working on
because if I don't do what I need for myself,
no one's gonna do it for me.
So I'm gonna have to do it myself.
Okay, enough rambling on the topic of saying sorry,
but I just have so much personal experience with it
that I couldn't help but share.
And feel free to share your own thoughts
and experiences in those comments down below too.
But now onto the phrase thank you.
Because I think this is something I am going
to try to say more.
Well sorry is an apology and something that you would say
when you've wronged someone else, right?
So we're saying sorry to be like, ugh, I did something bad,
so it's about me apologizing for hurting someone else.
Thank you, on the other hand, is acknowledgement
of someone doing something right,
so you're praising someone else, you're thanking them.
And I know that that kinda goes without saying
but often I find that we have certain language we use
and terminology that we get so comfortable doing
and saying that we almost forget what it truly means.
And we use thank you and sorry interchangeably
when they're actually very different.
And by saying thank you to someone,
you are letting them know that you noticed it
and that you're grateful.
For example, if I show up late to meet someone,
instead of saying sorry I'm late,
because you know what that's gonna cause.
It's gonna have the other person say, "Oh no it's okay.
"It's okay," and then I'll say sorry again
and then they'll say it's okay again,
and then we'll both just kinda settle in.
But instead, if I say, "Thank you so much for waiting,"
I'm acknowledging what they did for me
and the kindness that they showed.
They waited.
Sorry in a way makes it kinda all about the person
that did something wrong or inconsiderate
because you know, they'll keep saying it's okay.
And we keep saying sorry and they're like no no no no.
But instead, saying thank you focuses on the person
who was waiting, the person who did something nice.
Does that make sense?
I hope so.
So after reading this blog post
that I'll link in the description,
you want to get your thought juices flowing,
you can read it yourself.
But I've decided to try and say thank you
when someone did something nice for me
instead of always saying sorry.
I even practiced this last week when I was recovering
from my gum graft surgery.
Don't worry, I'll be back in fighting shape in no time.
But when Sean would cook a meal for me
or do something nice for me
because I couldn't really do that much for myself,
I wouldn't apologize for not being able to do it.
Well at least not every time.
Right, I'm not perfect and I still over-apologize.
Working on it, but instead of doing that every time,
I would thank him for taking care of me.
Thank him for doing that nice thing.
And I don't really know if he felt any difference.
Did you?
- Yeah. - Yeah, okay cool.
But I know that I did.
So I noticed the shift.
And I'm gonna try to keep doing this
and keep up this pattern because I really think there's
an importance of acknowledging someone else
for being kind versus just over-apologizing
almost for even taking up space
which we all have a right to take up space
so I'm just gonna try to shift how I communicate
and maybe you can try it too.
But more importantly, what do you think?
Why do you say sorry so much?
Or do you not?
Also I would love to hear your thoughts on saying sorry
versus thank you.
And let me know in those comments down below
because I just find this so fascinating
and I would love to hear your thoughts on it as well.
And I will see you next time, bye.