Originally Posted by LifeRecovery

This may seem like an odd one.

A very concrete thing I did was think twice before I used my knee jerk reaction and the words "I am sorry....." came out of my mouth.

I had to stop it entirely for awhile to see what my "instinct" around it was.

My biggest challenge was I was apologizing most of the time for being/existing or taking up space. I was apologizing to try and smooth out the emotions in a person or the room.

I also had to work through a lot of what others so eloquently wrote.....

Saying that I am sorry when I have behaved poorly is not the problem. My motivation for it, my amount of doing it, and my need to try and take on someone else's problem and apologize for it was. For me it stemmed from my need to please and be a perfectionist.