The Power of Sorry: Why Repair Matters

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word sorry, especially given recent events.

It’s such a small word. One we learn early in life.

As children, we’re taught to say sorry when we’ve hurt someone. We learn that it helps repair something. The apology is accepted, and something settles. The relationship feels safe again.

But as adults, sorry can become much harder to find.

Sometimes it’s replaced with defensiveness. Sometimes with silence. Sometimes with words that minimise the hurt rather than acknowledge it. When repair doesn’t happen, the wound doesn’t simply disappear. It stays in the body.

In therapy, I often see how people carry pain that was never acknowledged. Not always because the original event was extreme, but because there was no emotional repair afterwards. No moment of being seen. No moment of hearing, I understand that I hurt you.

Sorry is more than a word. It is an act of accountability. It communicates something deeply human. Your pain matters. You matter.

Without that acknowledgement, people can begin to question themselves. They may minimise their own hurt or carry shame that was never theirs to carry.

For many people who live with racism, discrimination, or other forms of marginalisation, this absence of repair is deeply familiar.

As a Black woman, I know the exhaustion of recognising harm and then witnessing it being dismissed or minimised. The injury is not only in what happened, but in the lack of meaningful acknowledgement that follows.

This is how relational trauma is carried. Not only through what happened, but through what did not happen afterwards.

In relationships, repair is what restores safety. It allows the nervous system to soften again. It makes connection possible.

Sorry is not about weakness. It is about emotional responsibility.

It cannot change the past. But it can change what happens next.

And sometimes, it is where healing begins.

At Grow2BeCounselling, I offer a space to explore relational wounds, emotional pain, and the possibility of repair, at your own pace, and in your own way.

#RelationalHealing #EmotionalRepair #TherapyReflections #RelationshipCounselling #CouplesTherapy #RacialTrauma #TraumaInformed