Acknowledge Harm Without Making It Your Whole Identity

A sentence that can be difficult to say

When we have harmed someone, we may rush toward a justification or toward a global verdict about ourselves. Neither move tells the whole truth. A more precise sentence may be: “What I did was not OK.”

Laurence Platt’s “Cleaning Up The Past: Access To My Humanity” separates making amends with other people from the private work of honestly naming one’s own conduct. The latter is not a replacement for the former.

Accountability needs more than a feeling

An acknowledgment matters when it is specific about the action and its effects. Depending on what happened, repair may require listening, an apology, restitution, changed behavior, or respecting the other person’s wish for distance.

Forgiveness cannot be demanded. A person harmed may never feel safe with us again. Our responsibility remains even if reconciliation is unavailable.

Room to act differently

The sentence “what I did was not OK” says something important about an act. It need not claim that the act is the entirety of who we are or that change is impossible.

Keeping the act in view without turning it into an unchangeable identity can make sustained repair more possible.