Inward Journey

Saying Sorry - Episode 34

• Kevin Bergin • Season 1 • Episode 34

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Kevin:

Hello and welcome to inward journey. And today we're doing this podcast from Wurundjeri land. And my name is Kevin, and I'm here with Janine.

Jeannene:

Yep. And I'm here too. This is the land of the Kulin nation where we're doing this podcast today.

Kevin:

Oh, I'm sorry. I got that wrong. No, you didn't. Sorry. Sorry. Which brings us to my third topic, which is saying sorry.

Jeannene:

That's our topic today, people.

Kevin:

Saying sorry. It's the topic.

Jeannene:

Yeah. We're going to explore saying sorry. This is our podcast on all things relationships, Inward Journey. Welcome.

Kevin:

Yeah. Welcome.

Jeannene:

Would you want to stop it there?

Kevin:

No. I'm not sorry. Yeah, alright, I'm stopping it. But how come you never said sorry to me?

Jeannene:

For what?

Kevin:

Everything! Lots of things!

Jeannene:

Actually, before the podcast, I said sorry to you.

Kevin:

Did you?

Jeannene:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Oh my god, I missed it.

Jeannene:

How did you want to start our topic today, Kevin? I was

Kevin:

hoping you'd start, actually. No, you can start. Asher can start. Asher, do you

Jeannene:

want to start?

Kevin:

No, she doesn't.

Jeannene:

I'll get her to make a noise. Asher! No, she's not going to.

Kevin:

Sorry, she won't make a noise. Why on earth would you say sorry?

Jeannene:

I think some people are trained very well to say sorry about everything.

Kevin:

Okay, that's not good, is it?

Jeannene:

No, it's not good. Sorry for existing. Sorry that I'm in your way. Sorry that I have an opinion.

Kevin:

Sorry that the weather's not to your liking.

Jeannene:

Sorry that I'm in your space.

Kevin:

Oh yeah. Sorry that it isn't

Jeannene:

your liking. Sorry that you don't agree with me. Oh,

Kevin:

oh my god. That's painful.

Jeannene:

You know that there can be quite a few people who are conditioned to say sorry about much.

Kevin:

Really?

Jeannene:

Yeah.

Kevin:

I'm just thinking about it while you say that. Yeah, I guess there Yeah, there certainly are people who do that.

Jeannene:

I'll never forget when we stayed in Sydney, when I'm saying we, there was a group of us going to a professional development, a group of counsellors, social workers, psychologists, and we were staying in the Catholic College over in North Sydney, I can't think whereabouts. Exactly. But anyway, over that sort of the Northern side of Sydney. And I remember in the hallways meeting a couple of people, and there were some Catholic nuns who were staying there still. And as I walked past in the hallway, I watched this nun pull her body away and say, sorry. And it was almost like. She'd made herself smaller as she pulled away and came along the hallway and it was, Sorry, I exist. I felt so sad. I wanted to grab her and pull her and say, Dan will take up the space, please, woman. That might be a tad Well, yeah. And not appropriate.

Kevin:

But yeah, I get it. Whoa. That's pretty full on, isn't it?

Jeannene:

When I think of saying sorry, sometimes my mind goes to those type of people, people who say sorry about much and

Kevin:

everything. Like saying, oh hello, oh sorry about

Jeannene:

that. Sometimes.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

Yeah. Sorry if I've inconvenienced you in this moment of a conversation because they don't know that they have the right to speak, to interrupt, to change the topic, to exist.

Kevin:

Okay, so sorry can be like, uh, Oh, I'm apologizing for my whole being.

Jeannene:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Because I spoke then.

Jeannene:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah. Oh, no, that's yuck.

Jeannene:

Oh, it's sad, really.

Kevin:

Yeah, also yuck. Yeah. I have a, an apology story.

Jeannene:

Okay. It's

Kevin:

not real. I'm going to make one up, but I have a story about saying sorry. You can't make

Jeannene:

up a story. Well, of

Kevin:

course I can. Well, it's not a

Jeannene:

story then, is it?

Kevin:

I'm going to anyway. I'm not going to say sorry. So there. So, it's like, sometimes sorry isn't enough. In fact, sometimes sorry doesn't really need to be said at all. It's like, I'm sorry. Okay, I'll do the example I did earlier with. Oh yeah,

Jeannene:

I like that.

Kevin:

Which is really simple, but it works. So I come round to your house. And then bang, bang, bang on the door really, really hard and they keep banging and I'll wake people up and the dog starts barking. She would. And you open the door and you're frowning and I look at you and say I'm sorry and then I come in and whatever. On the next day. I come around and I do the same thing again and you open the door and I say sorry. Not okay.

Jeannene:

What's

Kevin:

okay? Clearly not okay. What's okay is to change your behavior. So all right to say sorry,

Jeannene:

but a

Kevin:

good idea is to change whatever behavior you had to say sorry for, which excludes the examples you were given. This is like, yeah, you don't need to say sorry for being alive. Yeah, but for having done some kind of something, some kind of behavior. Which isn't okay, rather than just go back and say, Oh, I'm sorry, which may be the first time you've ever said it to them. It may be the thousandth time you go back and say, Hey, look, sorry, I shouldn't have done that. And here's what I'm going to do. Instead I'm going to change my behavior.

Jeannene:

Because I guess if you're saying sorry in that way and you keep doing it,

Kevin:

you're

Jeannene:

not really sorry.

Kevin:

No, you're not sorry at all. It's just like some reflex action, you know, you've been conditioned or taught that's what you do.

Jeannene:

Yeah.

Kevin:

It's all right to do this. Bad behavior.

Jeannene:

Yeah,

Kevin:

or antisocial behavior or annoying behavior.

Jeannene:

Yeah,

Kevin:

and just say sorry

Jeannene:

I'm hoping that for the listeners out there you might be challenged to or invited to think about the times that you do say sorry And do you really mean it? Because I think sometimes again I've been talking about those people who are conditioned to say sorry and I think Particularly women can be very much in a trap of that I've certainly known some men that, uh, have been trapped in that way of being and expression as well. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry that I'm interrupting. Sorry that I'm here. Sorry. But, uh, I know that particularly women can be conditioned to those ways of feeling like they're intruding if they interrupt a story or, group of friends

Kevin:

or whatever. Yeah.

Jeannene:

but you're talking about a different sorry, aren't you? There's

Kevin:

two different kinds of sorry, so I get your sort of sorry, but my kind of sorry is bad behaviour. Like, bit by bit, stealing all your furniture and then coming back and say, It was me, I stole it, I'm sorry. No, okay! Best to bring the furniture back, say, sorry, I did that, here's the furniture back, and I'll never be doing anything like that again. And then Going away and living that.

Jeannene:

Yeah. You know the one that pops to mind often as, and I've worked with a lot within counselling and in groups, is that one where people get angry. And? And then they say. Is that a different kind of game? And then they say sorry. And then they get angry. It's not even angry, because angry, we can all be angered. But it's more the aggression that comes out with it. So whether it's the yelling or the swearing at someone or the name calling or the other things that go with it. And then saying, sorry, you know. Oh. Often people can feel very ashamed of their behavior and they can feel very regretful and they haven't wanted to do that. But I wonder sometimes, again with that apology, and they might be quite sincere and I have experienced people I'm sure they're

Kevin:

sincere. Very sincere. Aren't they going to change their behavior?

Jeannene:

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin:

So, if, if you talk to somebody or whoever it is, one person, a group of people, about what's happened, just happened, or it might have happened a while ago, And say, look, I'm sorry, and I know that I did this, this is what happened. And that's how I've done that, and I've done it before, and I'm not going to do that anymore. This is how I'm going to approach it. And yeah, and then go away and do that. There's something about getting beyond the sorry, and acknowledging what you did, and then acknowledging that you're going to change it, and saying to them and to yourself how you're going to change it.

Jeannene:

Yeah. And,

Kevin:

and making maybe, maybe some people out there will be able to tell that I'm talking about some of the parts of a fellowship that I belong to. But maybe they'll also be attached to it, the way that you would make things correct if that's possible.

Jeannene:

I'm not sure I follow you. So

Kevin:

I'll come here. And steal all your furniture, steal your lovely sofa, put

Jeannene:

it

Kevin:

on my shoulder, run

Jeannene:

off

Kevin:

down the road with

Jeannene:

it. Okay, you'd be strong. Yep.

Kevin:

And, and, I've stolen it, you don't know who's stolen it. And, so, making amends would be to bring it back, put it back, say that I was sorry, tell you what happened, and, uh, Um, and assure you that I was never going to do that again.

Jeannene:

I think I might take a while to trust you though.

Kevin:

Yeah, yeah. So you might even tell me to piss off. So it's, it's the fact that I changed my behavior that's really important.

Jeannene:

Yeah. You know,

Kevin:

I don't turn up the next day and do the same thing again or the next month or the next year. Okay. Okay. So

Jeannene:

if you were truly sorry. And, no, no, you're gonna wait, you're gonna wait for me, wait, wait, no, no, wait, wait. I'm not sorry. Yes. Oh, I can see. But if you're truly sorry, then I imagine that If I didn't trust you, because I'm not going to. No, I

Kevin:

just stole your sofa. That's

Jeannene:

right. Why would you trust me? I'm not going to. I'm not going to. No.

Kevin:

Don't

Jeannene:

worry about it. I'm not.

Kevin:

Yeah. Maybe never again. Oh, Ash is worried now. We're shouting. Sorry. Sorry, Ash.

Jeannene:

Sorry, Ash. Sorry, Ash. Then I would struggle to trust you and I might not let you in. Yeah, and I might not Yeah, offer you a cup of coffee or I might not meet up the street. You might throw a

Kevin:

bucket of water over me.

Jeannene:

I'll hope I don't but anyway given that then What's your resolve? If your resolve is to change your behavior, then what about if I, if I don't trust you and I don't invite you back in and you're close to me, which is

Kevin:

entirely reasonable.

Jeannene:

Yeah. Then, then what for you?

Kevin:

That's really sad for me, but I'm I've, I've, I learned to change my behavior.

Jeannene:

Because I think sometimes what happens is people who say sorry, not you Kevin, but and not my experience of you, or maybe if we go back, no, people don't, don't do that. If we think about sometimes when someone said sorry, there almost Feels like an obligation from the person on the tail end of that. To say it's all right. To say it's all right, to invite you back in. It's not all right. To tell you that it's all okay and I forgive you and everything's honky dory and we get back on to it. Okay, so let's

Kevin:

do a bit of role play. Hello Janine.

Jeannene:

Hi.

Kevin:

I've just hanged up here, with the van outside to tell you that it was me that stole the sofa. I'm sorry. How does that go?

Jeannene:

Not good. Yeah.

Kevin:

Right.

Jeannene:

Well, I'm pleased you brought it back. But, um, it doesn't

Kevin:

work though, does it?

Jeannene:

No, it doesn't. So,

Kevin:

but, and it doesn't work for me, which was my point. But if I did the same thing with or without the sorry and said, so I'll just put it back and I want you to know that. Yeah. I'm sorry about what I did and I won't be doing that again and here's how I'm going to do that. And, uh, I understand that you might want to throw a bucket of water over me and I accept that, but I'll just be on my way with change behavior.

Jeannene:

Yeah. Well, I'm just not over it just yet. I'm going to take some time,

Kevin:

but that's, that's fine. We're way past that because the point is. What's the point? Now I've forgotten what the point is. The point is that You

Jeannene:

were going to turn up with the band.

Kevin:

Sorry, no, no,

Jeannene:

the point is that, um, I clearly don't know Kevin's point. Sorry isn't enough

Kevin:

sometimes. It's not enough. Changing behavior is the thing.

Jeannene:

And then we get into this idea that, changing behavior isn't always an easy thing because I always talk about that people move in patterns and behaviors and patterns and cycles. And sorry.

Kevin:

And

Jeannene:

sorry, sorry, I said a thing that was incorrect. So it's a that kind of a sorry, it's not sorry, I exist, but it's I've said an incorrect thing. What I went to say was, people move in patterns and cycles. And sometimes really changing your behavior is gonna take some time. Yes. So what do we do with that, Kevin?

Kevin:

But we don't have to do anything with it. We can hold the person accountable. That's great. I look forward to seeing the change in your behaviour. And if there's not, then it's about as valuable as the sorry, which meant nothing. What's valuable is, is that they work to change their behaviour.

Jeannene:

So I guess, You're talking about those people out there who are truly, hopefully, with their sorry and what that means is there'll be a change of behavior so that there is,

Kevin:

there can be a component of

Jeannene:

forgiveness, there can be a component of reconciliation

Kevin:

and recovery. There might be, though you wouldn't, shouldn't expect it because people get really upset when you steal their sofa. Yeah,

Jeannene:

it's interesting. You're talking about so well just

Kevin:

because it's there. I know, I know. Yeah, it could have been lots of things.

Jeannene:

And, where I go with this, I all of a sudden I had a flash of our indigenous people. Yeah. And I started to think about how they've been told sorry, they've been given permission to speak at the expense of territory. You know, when you start to think about this, um, what is it that you're doing that is actually, you know, stimulating, that's what we're aiming for. So, yeah, I mean, An apology, an official apologies, there's been a few of them. Which is good,

Kevin:

I'm not saying it's bad, that's good.

Jeannene:

Yep, and there's been our stolen generation, and our lost generation, so there's been generations of people that have been maltreated, and cruelly treated. and lots of things have, uh, have occurred. And so the apology, if you think about that, again, in the same situation can only be accepted if there's a change of behavior.

Kevin:

Exactly where I was going to say, yes, that's right. And here we are 2024 and, uh, I'm not current, but I read something by a journalist, an Australian journalist who's no longer with us, who was doing some research in the Northern Territory, somewhere between Darwin and. In Cairns, and there were still camps where indigenous people lived, there was a, an overseer there, and the camps were, like refugee camps basically, pretty grim. Yeah.

Jeannene:

Oh, I think we can be accountable for poor treatment of our indigenous people. People. Absolutely.

Kevin:

But yeah, your point was absolutely right. Sorry. Mm. And then followed by change of behavior. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. With some action, which indicates a change of behavior.

Jeannene:

Yep.

Kevin:

That's, that's a real apology. Mm-Hmm.

Jeannene:

Yeah. It

Kevin:

as a police too. I like something that you've got, so I'll take it. No, look, I'm sorry I did that. Yeah, that was me. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'll do it again next time. I walk down the road and I see something else that I like, so I'll take it. Sorry,

Jeannene:

I saw that cake on the bench. It was no dramas that, you know, nobody had a label on it. So sorry, I took it.

Kevin:

Anything from the really small to the huge.

Jeannene:

Yeah. So, yeah,

Kevin:

all sorts of sorry. There must be more sorts of sorry too. No,

Jeannene:

I'm sure there is.

Kevin:

I can't think of

Jeannene:

any. There can be the. I'm

Kevin:

sorry. I've

Jeannene:

taken the cake and I had no idea that you earmarked it for later on this afternoon. It didn't have a label on it, so I am truly sorry.

Kevin:

That's straightforward, isn't it? Yeah, I hope

Jeannene:

so. It's interesting because I think sometimes people can also be empathic. They can present genuine about their sorry. But again, if it's something that they do often.

Kevin:

If it's a repeat thing, if it's something

Jeannene:

that they particularly don't care about. You want to give somebody the benefit of the doubt at times with some particular personalities, I'm going to know, look, those people are more vulnerable or they don't process as quickly as others. So, in some ways, I'm going to hold different people accountable differently. Does that make sense?

Kevin:

Yeah, it does. Yeah. It does. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking of when I was young, I don't know that we ever got to a point, I used to steal things from my parents. Well, you know, oh, it's nothing, it's just, uh, you know, fifty cents, it would have been sixpence or something then, but, and so did my friends, and it wasn't until I got a little bit older. My mom knew all about it. She'd say, did you take that money out of my purse? Not only did I not say yes, and I'm sorry, and I won't do it again, I said, no,

Jeannene:

uh, gut feel is you intended to do it again.

Kevin:

I did. Intent Yeah. Mm. So there's no apology there at all. Nothing So yeah, there's just a bad behavior.

Jeannene:

I was almost going to tell you a, a well worn story from one of my kids when they stole, I won't, I won't, no, I won't be stalling that story, kid.

Kevin:

We used to get on our racing bikes, we were still young, maybe 11. And on a Saturday morning, there would be a group of us, not big, maybe five, six, seven of us, and we'd ride. Twelve miles to a little town called Arundel. Arundel has a castle there. It's famous for having a big castle, and behind the castle, parks and grounds, and a huge lovely lake with swans in it. White swans. Anyway, parked in front of the castle, Apparently it's still there, so I'm really sorry if you're listening to this lady who used to, oh must be a, whoever's got the shop now, who owns the Sweet Shop, there's a lolly shop there. And it only sells lollies, yeah, so, it was a very small shop and we'd all pile in and crowd the place and the woman who owned it was like, I thought she was old. She probably wasn't that old. Anyway, she'd say, what do you want? And someone would say, yeah, have one of those and a couple of those and a couple of those. And we had some money, pocket money probably. And then eventually someone would say, and I want some of those gobstoppers up on the top shelf. I'm pointing up everyone and, she would say, okay, she must have known what we were doing. And when she was up there getting the stuff, we'd fill our pockets as much as we could. She'd get down and we'd pay her and we'd, be eating lollies all the way back home and that was all we went there for. So we cycled 24 miles to steal a few lollies.

Jeannene:

Hmm. Do you think that she trusted you?

Kevin:

I don't know. If it was me owning the shop now, I'd either chase them out with a broom, or I'd figure they must really need to do this right and take the lollies, so I'll let them do it. There will be a limit. The limit would be how long it took me to get up, get the lollies and get back down the

Jeannene:

ladder again. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. See that's the difference. I was trying to make, with my story before around, sorry is relevant to the relationship of the people to who it's to and from and what's actually happening. So I think sometimes asking for advice around, should I say sorry or not is a very individual thing. And, it's got to do with an individual relationship.

Kevin:

I can think of some. Times when I haven't said sorry and I wouldn't.

Jeannene:

And you needed to?

Kevin:

Well, you could be the judge of that. I'll tell you briefly. They're stealing somebody's drugs. Illicit drugs. So, are you going to go back and say sorry for that? Probably not.

Jeannene:

No, but there's a whole story of accountability before, of what's happening for you before, and a whole story of how you know the person. I'd be unpacking a whole lot of other things, people, I don't know about

Kevin:

you.

Jeannene:

But

Kevin:

as an actress,

Jeannene:

so it's interesting that often people go to the end story. There's this big fight and She did this and he did that that might be fine. Yeah, there's that going on that's a big, you know, impressive Conflict or high conflict, if you like to think about it that way. But in those times, there's often a whole gamut of stuff that has gone on before that can be unpacked. And what happened before that? And what happened an hour before? What happened the day before? Or what has been building up that hasn't been expressed? I

Kevin:

needed some drugs and I had no money. Yeah. So. So,

Jeannene:

I took them. I think you possibly got an opinion about this as well now.

Kevin:

Yeah, but I wouldn't do it now.

Jeannene:

My point being. We're talking 50 years ago. That's right. My point being. Yeah. We can't always look at the end product of what has occurred. It's always really important to go, what's happened in the build up and who was or wasn't accountable. And, and in the end, you know, I'm going to say this, you know, you know, I'm going to say this is you're the only one who can make a decision for you and you're the only one who can control you. Let me tell you people, listeners out there, you're the only one who control you. Nobody else.

Kevin:

But the other point, I mean you make good, good points there, but the other point about sort of trying to set things right is that you don't try and do that if it puts you in danger.

Jeannene:

No.

Kevin:

Yes. I

Jeannene:

guess that's where I went.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

That was a very important. If

Kevin:

you need, if you need to apologize and make some kind of amends. Then you'd have to find another way of doing it. Not that way.

Jeannene:

Yeah, there are other ways. Yeah. Don't put yourselves at risk, people, please. No,

Kevin:

definitely. Not in any way. Nah,

Jeannene:

I do that.

Kevin:

Not whether it's violence or some other kind of risk, no.

Jeannene:

Yeah, no. Safe options.

Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah, just say sorry.

Jeannene:

I

Kevin:

like this topic. I

Jeannene:

can tell.

Kevin:

It's an easy one.

Jeannene:

Good. It is. It's fun. I feel like it's really important that if I make a mistake, and I can think of a particular time when I was a bit short, sharp, responding to one of my daughters at one stage, and And then I thought about it later and went, Oh, that wasn't nice. So I went back to them and said, Baby, I'm sorry. I've actually overstepped the mark and I've been short with you and I was thinking this and you did not need to Hear that that's not fair or not nice on you. I apologize. I don't want that to be part of our relationship And I just want you to hear. So you

Kevin:

did more

Jeannene:

than say

Kevin:

sorry Yeah,

Jeannene:

yeah Yeah, I guess for me it's the amends. Yeah So it was explaining and checking a URK. Did you notice it? And they had at that time Yeah, yeah And it was really important that I was able to be with me if I've made a mistake, if I'm feeling guilty. And not the kind of guilt where you're trained into guilt. You feel guilty for existing or guilty for asking for something or guilty because you haven't done something. That's not behaving badly. That's trained guilt.

Kevin:

I was going to say that would be behaving stupidly, but it wouldn't be good for me to say that. So

Jeannene:

I won't. There's a lot of people out there that feel guilty. They've been trained to feel guilty if they haven't looked after everybody else but themselves. That's not a way to be people. Guilt is only there for a good reason. If with Behaved badly, and if we haven't, it doesn't need to be there. So let me just get back with my story. So I was feeling somewhat guilty, very appropriate, and I listened to it, and then I responded to our daughter about that. And I'm really pleased that that's important to me. So sorry is a really important word to me,

Kevin:

but it also. I

Jeannene:

imagine

Kevin:

the guilt would have vanished. Absolutely, because

Jeannene:

it's about the amends.

Kevin:

But how come you never said sorry to me?

Jeannene:

For what?

Kevin:

Everything! Lots of things!

Jeannene:

Actually, before the podcast, I said sorry to you.

Kevin:

Did you?

Jeannene:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Oh my god, I missed it.

Jeannene:

Remember? So, Kevin wasn't quite himself.

Kevin:

I was someone else. No, I wasn't. Yeah.

Jeannene:

You were not quite yourself. And, and I gave you a strong talking to?

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

A strong talking to.

Kevin:

Well, a Talking to which wasn't

Jeannene:

Which said how capable You weren't

Kevin:

colluding.

Jeannene:

No.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

Uh, strong talking to where I said how capable and how much I believe in you and Get your act together, buddy.

Kevin:

Yeah, you did that.

Jeannene:

Some to that effect. Well, it was a different kind of apology. So I said, I'm, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you go down and wind yourself into a hole. Sorry,

Kevin:

that's not a sorry.

Jeannene:

Well, we both knew it.

Kevin:

Yeah, yeah.

Jeannene:

So that's why people, it's individual and depending on what's actually happening in the circumstances.

Kevin:

Yeah. So. So. In terms of the second part of the saying sorry, which you just spoke about, which is the making amends. Then I stopped. taking drugs. I owed a lot of money and most of it was to the bank. So, you know, it's an amount that I borrowed various loans. I won't tell you how much added up to, but it was a lot. And I made a decision that I was just going to pay it off, you know, and I was also made a decision to pay it off as quickly as possible. And I, proceeded to do that.

Jeannene:

Okay.

Kevin:

And then I finished doing and I met this guy, who was also a member of NA and um, I don't know how it came up. It came up in conversation. It turns out he was a, cause he's retired now, he was a financial counsellor.

Jeannene:

Okay.

Kevin:

He helped me with a few things, but he also said to me. And it was amazing watching him work, it was incredible, and then at one point he said to me, you know, I wish you'd have come to me before you started paying back the bank all of that money. And I said, why? He said, because I could have easily got them to agree to take just a percentage of that. And I thought, okay. And carried on and a few days later, I thought, Oh, I'm glad that I actually did it. I'm glad that I did the right thing. That was the right thing to do for me.

Jeannene:

Okay.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

What kind of impact did it have on you?

Kevin:

It had two impacts.

Jeannene:

Yeah.

Kevin:

The first one was when he told me was, Bugger! That's a, that's a lot of money. How can I get it back? I And the second impact was, uh, slower and more thoughtful over a few days, so I went, Yep, but I need to be accountable for that, and I borrowed that money. And very clear what the terms and conditions were. And I don't want to be owing them the money. And so I've paid it back and that's okay with me.

Jeannene:

As I'm listening to you, it seems like that was much more settling.

Kevin:

Yes. The other way would have been also okay. But I think for me, Might have contained a bit of the old behavior. Okay, so I can get away with something and it was a lot of something, so yeah, I

Jeannene:

can think of another time I'm reminded of a couple that I was seeing at the time and without going into any of their story, they talked about their child and they were talking about the particular behavior of their child and I said. Oh, sounds like, and I made a diagnosis about their child in terms of a neurodiversity. And they went, Oh, okay. And I thought about it and we had a continued conversation and then they went away. And then when they came back the next week, they said to me. We did not like that Janine. That was not good. We were sent into a terrible spin of distress hearing about the diagnosis that you've given our child and I was incredibly sorry and they said, you're not trained to diagnose our child or people. And I said, that's absolutely right. You are right. And I can see this has been very distressing. And I. Apologize. And I'm so sorry. And they continued to come and see me and I was grateful for that, but many people wouldn't have. And I wouldn't have blamed them at all. They didn't have to come and see me. They didn't have to forgive me. But

Kevin:

you didn't try and argue it.

Jeannene:

No. Oh no, they were right.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

And I had wronged them and I did talk about and explain why I'd done that because I see, neurodiversity as a way of processing, many people process differently and I didn't have a judgment on that. I just thought this, this was a valuable thing that their child,

Kevin:

but how good to be able to go. You're right.

Jeannene:

Yeah. And instead

Kevin:

of, Hey, I'm the one that knows.

Jeannene:

Yeah. Oh, gosh.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

I'm happy to not know.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

And I'm happy.

Kevin:

That was my point. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeannene:

And I'm happy to know when I do and give it my best, but I can't know what it's like for the person. They can hear my information go. That's not relevant. That's fine. They're the expert on themselves, not me. But I can have expert opinion, or understanding. And then again, whether they take it or work with it, that's really up to the person. But I really respected this couple. And I thought, how brave were they to come and tell me? And I would have respected if they didn't come back again. I was pleased to know so that I could say that. And, I'm sure there have been times when people haven't come back. Yeah. Yeah. Varied reasons. Yeah. So. Well

Kevin:

done.

Jeannene:

Hmm. I hope so. Yeah. so sorry can be a very valuable or layered and complex

Kevin:

word and experience. Saying sorry? Saying no.

Jeannene:

Am I going to walk out and you're going to record something in a minute? On your own? Oh no. In secret? In secret?

Kevin:

I would never do that.

Jeannene:

And are you sorry about it?

Kevin:

Mmm, not sure what you're talking about.

Jeannene:

That was on last, last time.

Kevin:

Last, yeah, last time. Last

Jeannene:

Time Now podcast

Kevin:

you did

Jeannene:

something about it. Which hasn't gone

Kevin:

out yet. I

Jeannene:

think it has, has it? Has it?

Kevin:

Oh, who knows? Who knows? There's so many of them. Yeah, anyway, I didn't. Cool. It was Asher.

Jeannene:

Oh, okay.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jeannene:

Yeah. If in doubt,

Kevin:

blame the dog. Yeah. Blame the dog. Yeah.

Jeannene:

Yeah. I hope this has been a fruitful conversation for you

Kevin:

all. I've had fun.

Jeannene:

I've had fun.

Kevin:

It was good.

Jeannene:

Yeah. Thanks very much, Kevin. Who would have

Kevin:

thought, saying sorry, could be fun. Could be such a fun conversation.

Jeannene:

Fun, valuable, insightful, interesting, diverse. And I'm going to apologize for it. No, no, no,

Kevin:

definitely

Jeannene:

not. Not sorry. We chose this topic. All

Kevin:

right. Uh, so

Jeannene:

that's it from me. And

Kevin:

me and Asha. And we'll see you soon.

Jeannene:

Yeah, well, we'll look forward to chatting to you again.

Kevin:

Chat to you soon.

Jeannene:

Keep us in mind. We've got some interesting topics coming up.

Kevin:

What was the other one that we almost did today?

Jeannene:

Know yourself.

Kevin:

To know yourself is coming up. Yeah. So, better put your know yourself hat on. Or, even better, put your I don't know if I know myself hat on.

Jeannene:

That sounds great. Yeah. So we've got them thinking about it even before we've got the topic coming.

Kevin:

We might get some ideas.

Jeannene:

Yeah, there's Greg. He's just walked in. So, we'll ask him.

Kevin:

Alright, thanks.

Jeannene:

Thanks, and that's bye from me.

Kevin:

Bye from me. Bye.

Jeannene:

Are

Kevin:

we done?

Jeannene:

Yeah, we're done.

People on this episode

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Jeannene

Host
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Kevin

Host