The Power of Apology: Healing Steps to Transform All Your Relationships - Hardcover

"In The Power of Apology, Beverly Engel looks through the eyes of both giver and receiver. She provides practical, thoughtful advice on how our everyday use of apology can transform our lives for the better."
—Ted Wachtel, coauthor of the bestselling Toughlove

"Readers of this wise and lucid guide to the neglected art of authentic apology will acquire a powerful tool to help repair relationships with others, and with themselves."
—Jeanne Safer, PhD author of Forgiving and Not Forgiving: Why Sometimes It's Better Not to Forgive

Apology has a remarkable power to repair harm. It can mend relationships, dissolve anger, and heal broken hearts. It can undo the past and remake the future. This book is about the extraordinary power of apology to heal individuals, couples, and families.

While books on the subject of forgiveness abound, until now there haven’t been any popular books focusing on one of the most important aspects of the forgiveness process–apology. In this inspiring and instructive new book from internationally acclaimed therapist and self-improvement author Beverly Engel, you will learn why apology is so important to our emotional and physical well-being and why our inability to apologize, to ask for apologies, and to accept meaningful apologies is the source of a great deal of the dysfunction and unhappiness in all aspects of our lives.

Drawing on many moving real-life stories of women and men of all ages–including accounts from her own life–Engel passionately demonstrates the transformative power of apology. With the help of her practical, easy-to-follow prescriptions for putting the power of apology to work in your life, you’ll learn how to overcome the all-too-common inability to acknowledge your errors and say you’re sorry. You’ll learn how to give meaningful apologies, and you’ll learn how to ask for apologies instead of harboring anger and distancing yourself from those who have hurt you. You’ll also learn how to receive and accept meaningful apologies and move closer to forgiveness.

Engel provides dozens of innovative exercises that will help you explore your feelings and relationship issues as well as practical strategies for improving your relationships with others, including how to:

• Make amends with those you have hurt, including those with whom you’ve lost contact
• Understand and deal with a partner or family member who refuses to apologize
• Overcome a tendency to over-apologize
• Determine when it is best to forgive and when it is best not to forgive
• Heal your relationship with your partner through apology
• Teach children responsibility and empathy through the power of apology
• Use apology at work to improve morale and productivity

Ultimately, The Power of Apology is about more than apology. It will teach you how to become a more tolerant and compassionate human being. With this remarkable, life-changing book, you can benefit from Beverly Engel’s inspiring insights to bring a healing new element of renewal into every relationship in your life, including your relationship with yourself.