Stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault. This is a habit that gets created at some point as a survival mechanism. Perhaps it started off as an aversion to conflict that over time turned into an involuntary reaction. For many trauma survivors, overly apologizing could be a false sense of control –> accepting blame for things that we can’t control.
Feeling like everything is your fault is a survival mechanism. This typically starts in childhood. If you were afraid of rejection, abandonment, criticism, abuse, etc. then apologizing for everything is a form of survival.
This pattern can be broken!
Things to reflect on:
• How did overly apologizing help you survive at one point?
•Is it still needed in the same way?
• Thank that part of yourself for doing the best they could back then in helping you survive.
• Create mindfulness around when the urge to apologize comes up so that you can help shift old patterns and unburden that part of you from this old way of protection.
Healing is possible
