We say we are sorry for so many things every day and most, if not all, of these come from PARTS of us. Along with the part that is saying sorry, there are other parts that are saying BUT. What parts are trying to do is shift part of the blame for the situation or hurt. We all have parts that don’t want to feel that they are wrong or made a mistake.
So here is an exercise of saying I’m sorry from self. On 2 pieces of paper or 2 pages on your computer, we are going to write out an apology to someone for something that we caused a lot of hurt. One page is for the apology and the other is for the buts. So as we are writing what we are sorry for on the one page and thoughts of “but” come up, write them on the other page. It is very important to not push the “but” parts aside – they have to have their say too. Take your time at this and make sure both sides of you get to say all they want to say. Now read the 2 pages and sense how you are feeling when you read each page. Sense into how it would feel if someone was saying sorry to you without “but” in it to you.
Taking full ownership for a situation is truly coming from a centered self-like place. If the situation you used for the exercise is real, then you might want to go to the person and read or say the apology page to them and see what that does for the relationship.