Explaining is not a substitute for apologising
I have been working on receiving criticism without getting defensive, fragile or ashamed since my early 20s. This is very much a work-in-progress situation.
But by now I have a decent sense of how to slow my breath in moments when I feel threatened or ashamed, how to really listen to the other person and, when needed, give a heartfelt apology that centres their experience.
That’s the receiving critical feedback part.
However, like so many people, I struggle to give critical feedback.
There is something about it that makes my skin crawl. My conditioning to appease - which many women and femme-socialised people know well - wants to take over.
I worry about the other person’s feelings, even though they are beyond my control. At its core, I fear that asserting a boundary or speaking my truth about something will affect my relationship with the other person, and - by extension - my belonging.
It’s a pattern I’ve been working on shifting in recent years. It’s happening at a snail’s pace, but I am learning.
What’s been interesting since I’ve started practising this more intentionally with people in my life is watching how they respond. And what I’m seeing are the very same patterns I’ve been unlearning since my early 20s.
Most of the responses I have received when giving critical feedback fall into two broad categories:
Denial, deflection, blame or excuse
A mixture of defensiveness and appeasement through explanation
This post is about the second category.
Appeasement in this context means trying to pacify the person who has offered the critical feedback through a conciliatory gesture. In my experience, this is typically a long and often frenzied explanation of why the thing that upset me happened in the first place.
I can usually tell when this is at work a few words into a conversation. And I find it extremely aggravating.
There is something inside of me that rebels at the idea of being pacified by the person who upset me. Because the moment after I have mustered the courage to tell someone how their actions impacted me, I usually feel hurt, pissed off, disappointed and scared that they won’t be able to hear it.
What I want is not to be pacified but to be listened to, feel heard and taken seriously.
But what I’m seeing people do everywhere is say a brief “I’m sorry” followed by a long-winded explanation about why they did the thing that hurt someone or delayed the project or dropped a ball.
These explanations are often about circumstances that were outside the person’s control. Things like, “I didn’t know person x was going to do that”, or “I thought I had told you about y”. This serves the purpose of putting some distance between the person and the impact of their actions while shrinking the amount of agency they claim to have had in that moment.
‘Adding context’ to the experience is supposed to help me understand why someone acted a particular way and why they didn’t have any other choice.
That can be a valid line of inquiry, but if it’s the first and only response to the person who is upset, it can be incredibly self-centering. It’s a way of emphasising intention while minimising the impact of someone’s actions.
What the explanation doesn’t do is meet me in my hurt. And that is quite simply what I need in that moment. Saying “I can see that you are hurt by what I did” would go such a long way in making me feel seen.
Close up photograph of pebbles of different colours and sizes scattered on a sandy beach
I have been the person with the long explanation hundreds of times.
I understand the impulse to explain - you didn’t mean to hurt the other person, you’re mortified at the fact that you have, and you’re trying to square it all in your head by contextualising why somebody with such good intentions could do such a careless thing.
The truth is, though - we all mess up. The question isn’t if but when and how.
So learning how to respond well when it happens is a foundational skill.
When I have noticed from giving more critical feedback is that what I need from the other person is actually quite simple:
I need to feel heard
I need to know that they will change their behaviour
I need to be reassured that my critical feedback hasn’t hurt the relationship.
Here is what responding to critical feedback in a way that meets those needs might look like in practice:
Restate what you have done and the impact it has had in your own words - This helps the other person feel heard and know that you own the impact of your actions. You can even check back with them to see if you’ve understood correctly. For example: “I’m understanding that not telling you about x and only mentioning it casually weeks later made you feel like I didn’t trust you to know about such an important event. Did I get that right?”
Say that you are sorry - It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that, but it has to be felt. For example: “I’m really sorry, I can totally see why you would feel that way.”
Offer a specific action or remedy that will help prevent this from happening again - Keep it small and real, but significant. You can’t promise it will never happen in future (we’re all fallible), but you can commit to trying. For example: “I really don’t want this to happen again so the next time x comes up, I will give you a call. How does that sound?”
Acknowledge the importance of the feedback - This will help the other person trust that they can tell you things that are difficult to hear in future. For example: “I’m really glad you told me. It wasn’t easy to hear, but I will always want to know how my actions made you feel.”
It’s only at this point that it makes sense to ask the other person if they are open to hearing an explanation of how this all came about.
Their answer is almost definitely going to be yes because a) you asked for their consent, and b) you listened to them first before launching into your explanation.
What’s likely to happen from there is that you reach more mutual understanding and forgiveness.
The central move is to turn towards the person who is hurt, not to try and talk them out of how they’re feeling with a long-winded explanation that centres circumstance and intention over action and impact.
Mia Mingus gave us the four parts of accountability in 2019: self-reflection, apology, repair and changed behaviour. This might seem so simple on the surface but is a difficult skill that most of us don’t get taught and struggle to do well.
The consequence of our unskillfulness is weaker relationships, more porous boundaries, less trust, less safety, less learning and growth.
So, next time someone trusts you to hear that you have caused them hurt or upset, try this:
Slow down
Be as much in your body as possible
Use less words
Put yourself into the other person’s shoes first and speak from that perspective
Trust that there is enough space for you to share your explanation if it’s still relevant
Appreciate the feedback even when it was hard to hear or you didn’t agree with all of it
Affirm that moving through these kinds of wobbles together is what strengthens relationships
These are foundational skills for building a world that includes, respects and honours all of us. `We don’t need years of training to learn them - we can start right here, with ourselves and the people in our lives.