“I’m sorry.” “Please forgive me for this.”
Two statements I’ve heard recently from people who began to cry while recalling a painful experience.
They weren’t asking for forgiveness because they had done something wrong.
They were apologizing for their own pain, as if feeling it made them a burden.
It broke my heart. And it made me wonder: how often do we mistake our hurt for something that needs an apology, instead of something that deserves compassion?
Emotions are not mistakes. They’re energy in motion — signals moving through us with a purpose.
Grief tells us we’ve lost something meaningful. Anger tells us a boundary has been crossed. Fear warns us of potential danger. Even joy carries weight, reminding us what’s worth cherishing.
When we shut emotions down, they don’t disappear; they just wait. But when we allow them, they move, shift, release.
That’s their job: to carry us through an experience, not trap us inside it.
So maybe the real apology isn’t for crying, or for hurting. Maybe it’s owed to ourselves — for all the times we’ve silenced emotions that were only trying to help us heal.
I think sometimes people say this when they cry because they think it makes the other person uncomfortable. By reassuring them that it is perfectly understandable that they would cry about this and having tissues readily available helps them to accept their crying
This is an important process. Holding space for someone to heal is such a gift. The apology is also a way of saying thank you for sharing your compassion.