I apologize to myself for being so unhappy working in schools over the years. I wish I had known how to find a job that brought me hope each day instead of jobs that made me feel trapped. And I apologize to my students for being lazy, boring or uncaring. But some of you were really wonderful and taught me so much, that I take comfort in that.

i am sorry for not being good parent.i never hit my children, but i was not a loving or playful type.i didn't try hard enough and felt stress by life. i hope they will someday understand and forgive me. i have not forgiven myself and hope that i get compassion from those that read this and give me the courage to forgiven me.

I apologize to myself for all the drugs I did, for all the pot I smoked. For altering my brain. For loosing momentum forward in my life. I apologize to the lovers I have roped in and then discarded. Leaving them bewildered and alone made me feel powerful. I apologize to my siblings for being so mean. I was the oldest and didn't know what to do, but I should have been your protectors. I apologize to the world and the future for my cowardice, for pretending to be small and be someone else, for hiding in fantasy, for hiding from reality.

I feel soo sorry that I don't have an open heart. I detach and don't feel or sense being a compassionate person. I need to forgive myself for being so utterly mean to me, myself and I!! Everyday I have good and wonderful intentions to forgive myself, but I fall into the trap of just getting carried away as if in a dream. I do know that I am in a dream but I yearn to wake up. I know I have offended family, friends and fellow human beings since I experience twinges of guilt. When I do feel the heaviness of guilt and indulge-- then more guilt is conjured up. Even writing this disclosure my heart feels closed off from self mercy. I feel that I need to be forgiven for all all these words that I type because it is sounding like it's all about me. I am grateful for all those conscious beings who have shown up in my life that can give me a respite from my complaining mind. Thanks you for listening, hearing, reading and loving...

i apologize for projecting the hatred i have for myself onto everyone else, onto the whole world. i do that because i am really very scared, of myself and "the world", and its easier to just hate "everything". or to just pretend i dont care.

My words are harsh after years of compassion practice I listen to others describe their chosen actions or their opion of my actions and I react with unkind words...defensively. Even when I ask for forgivenesss I try to validate that my way is the way of the heart (since I listen to Merciful Awareness by Stephen and Loving-Kindness meditation or Opening the Heart of the Womb/Healing Shared to practice compassion regularly)... I recognize that much more healing will unfold in a torn and tattered heart that first was blessed to meet you and Stephen at Mt. Madonna in 1986 (I was referred by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and that is quite the story but isn't every story). I have for these many years known you and your beloved husband as my primary teachers and listened with clarity that working towards an open heart and forgiveness was essential and my journey began with grieving. I ask forgiveness and I apologize that I can not be a friend in a good way to those who are doing their best to support me during difficult times for me. I recognize I am being judgemental as well even as I send well wishes and spend an hour sending loving kindness to even those whose hearts can not yet see I am reactive and defensive, I am protective of a scared and frightened person who is strong in ways but also wishes I lived away from so much hostility and anger. I appreciate your love and support in my journey, dearest teacher, Ondrea. May you be well and continue to laugh and be happy.

Beloved teacher, Ondrea, was there really an error in processing my words of apology ??? I wrote how I heard the call to practice compassion by Stephen a few years back and made that my focus as a daily practice evolved listened to different of his meditations / I have not been able to be kind in response to others who I call my friends when I see them take action I feel is judgemental even as I can later see that in itself is judgemental. I ask for forgiveness. These are difficult times for me, I want to let go of trying so hard and just keep the heart open but a sense of having to be protective of me and on the alert awakens a dark side and is pushing away loved ones who are in their own pain. Thank you for being the sacred open space who receives this plea to forgive me.

I am here crying. All of a sudden. Thinking of my grandfather who was so modest and lived his life with so much courage, dignity and simplicity. He never had as many chances in life as I have and yet he managed so well. I am deeply sorry for being so demanding of myself and also others who are closest do me. I don't feel really loved or blessed or grateful even though I have so much. I feel like hiding and deeply ashamed. Why do I always feel that I am not good enough the way I am?? Why do I feel that I and my family needs to be perfect?? I am sorry for those thoughts and feelings, yet wanted to share them as they make me so very sad.

Having just listened to the most recent video posted on this site, I apologize for not staying with you physically until the day and moment of your death. I had spent four days with you in the MICU at the VA Hospital, and I was too confused to understand that your death would come one week later. I thought that you would hang on to life as you always had and that I needed to say goodbye with love and make the 1000-mile drive back home. You were unable to speak, and I didn't know if you could see. You were slipping in and out of consciousness, but your MICU nurse (who knew you better than I did at that point) quietly said, "He will miss you." On April 20, it will be three years since you died. Today three years ago on April 13 at 6:30 p.m., after finding myself unable to leave your room, I told you I loved you, always had and always would and that I had to say goodbye. We had been apart since 1971, the year you returned from Vietnam and five years after we had met on the beach as 17-year-olds. You tried to get in touch with me in 2005, but I was too full of fear of you by then to answer your letter. You asked to see me before you died. Out of fear, I almost didn't go to see you in your last days. I apologize for not understanding what you had been through during your year in Vietnam and for those moments when I lashed out at you in anger and grief and frustration in those first anguished and frightening months that you were home. I apologize for not being able to understand that, from the first, you did love me. Your love was not in vain. We are not alone in the experience of war and its aftermath and the Love that does not die.

I am sorry and apologize to those beings that I have hurt with jumping to conclusions and being short tempered. It was my sensitivity that led me to attack with words and mirror the wounded heart that I was feeling. I have a strong eagerness to not react but try and see the others pain and take myself away "from it" and look "to it".....for better understanding and remain balanced with an opened heart and to treasure others and myself.

I am sorry that daily i am more likely to dwell in what is not working than what is working. I am sorry that I am unhappy unless I feel perfect, emotionally and physically, wasting precious life. I am sorry that I haven't learned the lessons of compassion with myself and that so much of my life has been me-focused in a negative way. I want be merciful to myself and refocus the remaining portion of my life outward, to live more in service and to walk with an open heart. I am so afraid that I will get to the end of this life and not have done this and yet I my fear of being open keeps me protected and in movement. I apologize for all I have taken and not given back.

There's an old saying that some of us come into the world seeing the glass half full and some of us arrive seeing the glass half empty. I came into the world seeing the glass broken. I'm not sure I've ever had both feet in this world. The anchor thus far has been the earth, the animals and the wild. And every day I see these loves destroyed forever. I love as deeply and passionately as I'm able to; I honor these passions with what little I can do. As I grow older it feels like a cruel trick to love so deeply then have it ripped away. Unbearable frankly. My heart can't break anymore. Is it a sin to wish I were out? Maybe. But there is a limit to the level of sorrow one can hold. And I'm damn near close. So to my animal and plant friends, to the Earth, and to God, I'm sorry for wanting out so often. I won't voluntarily leave for fear of having to come back and do it again. No way. But on some deep level I am sorry so much of my time is wishing I weren't here. I've hurt a lot of my most beloved animal friends in that sorrow laden inertia. And I've tried to mute or quell it with narcotics. For this I genuinely and wholeheartedly apologize. Please forgive me.

I apologize to my wife for my dishonesty and obsession with another woman. i apologize for seeing only my pain and not hers. I apologize for the lack of true intimacy and love. I apologize to the other woman for trying to manipulate her feeligns for me and for my obssessive behavior. My fear of letting go and my dishonesty about ending my marriage, I apologize to my wife for not being honest about my unstatisfaction with our relationship and my fear of being alone if I told the truth. I apologize to myself for not honoring who I truly am and living in self deciet.

I apologize to my daughter and my son for all of sins of omission and comission over the years, especially when my daughter and my son were young and dependent upon me. I apologize for all of the fighting which went on between my ex-husband and myself that you children witnessed on a daily, if not weekly basis while you were growing up. I am sorry for taking you to visit unsafe people in my ignorance of what these people had done to me and others. I apologize for my addictions which impacted you growing up in a sane home. I apologize for needing to be right more than wanting to be happy when it came to my relationship with my ex-husband. I apologize for justifying bad behavior because my ex was not treating me with love and respect. I apologize for all of the hurtful things said over the many, many years of marriage. I am truly happy that you have found happiness in your second marriage. I apologize to my children and ex for being so needy and injured that all I could see at times was my own pain. I am sorry for the demanding manner in which I treated the three of you. I apologize to my sister whose love I have always wanted for remaining so angry with you that you "ttok the easy way out" when it came to remembering what happened growing up. I apologize for not accepting who you are other than someone who should validate my memories and love me even more because so much more was inflicted on me than on you. I apologize to my mother who was unable to protect me or nurture me, for all of the hatred I felt towards you all of these many, many decades. I apologize to my father for the hatred I felt and the blame for so many things beyond for which you were not responsible. And most of all, I apologize to the deepest parts of myself which have never seen the light because of all of the guilt and shame and self loathing which still perists for all of these many, many decades. I apologize to myself for not treating myself as my very own loving child and expecting so much that no one could possibly live up to those kind of demands. I am sorry that whenever, even as an adult, something unfortunate or difficult or painful happened to me, I locked myself out of my heart and went to the place of self blame I learned as a child growing up. Thank you, Stephen and Andrea for this beautiful source of compassion and all you do to help the world be a little more loveing.

I'm sorry that I am judgmental whenever you open your mouth. I'm sorry i have hatred in my heart, because I know i also hate myself in that moment for hating you. I'm sorry that I did not accept your apology yesterday and chose to think it was not sincere, chose to hang on to my belief that you are not capable of sincerely seeing what you did was not okay and then apologizing for it. When you did apologize, i just ignored you and today I feel like a mean person and even as i write this I still feel the hardness in my heart. So I'm sorry i cannot soften my heart toward you. Today that is. I hope that someday it will happen. I really do. I know that it would benefit us both.

I apologize to men for spending so much of my life being afraid of you and ashamed of my own confusions and fears - so I pretended I was clear and strong, and that only deepened my fears in the long run. I apologize for believing that it was you who held the key to my own happiness, and all of the manipulation, resentment and animosity that naturally followed. I apologize for not really seeing your tender loving innocence all of these many years. I really do want to trust you, I just haven't known how. I'm learning more about that every day.

I send an apology out to the man who adores me in spite of my behavior. I apologize to myself for failing to treasure him and myself and for getting so wrapped up in doings rather than beings.

I am so sorry that I spent my life in hiding by being fat. I wouldn't do the things that other mothers did because I was afraid my association with you would be embarressing for you and make your lives worse. I am so sorry that I rarely emerged from my cocoon of fat by getting thin, so that I could do activities with you and enjoy you when you were young. I am so so sorry that even though I loved you so much and I think you felt that love you were still alone. I am so sorry that I fell asleep early every night with my younger son which made my older son feel alone and emotionally abandoned.I am so sorry that I fell into a depression when your father left me pregnant and because of this I gained weight and wasn't there for you both as much as I should have been. I am so sorry that I spent so many years mourning your fathers departures instead of being present for the greatest gifts-that of my children that were right in front of me. I'm so sorry that I didn't get over my childhood abuse. When my father tried to sleep with me to punish my mother when I was a teenage I got fat. I was normal. I am sorry that I have not been able to emerge from this core wound and let it affect all the rest of my life. I have spent so much of my life regretting my inability to get over this original pain, that someone who was supposed to love me wanted to hurt me. I could stand the beatings and verbal abuse but when my dad crossed the sexual line I broke. It was just once, and it wasn't all the way or anything, but over the summer after it happened I gained 50 lbs and went from being beautiful to being fat. I am sorry that I let this one incident remain unhealed and cause all these problems for those that I loved. I am also sorry that I couldn't forgive you Mom for letting him hit me. I am sorry that I brought it up over the years and made you feel bad. I just wanted you to protect me and when I saw the emotional mess I became after years under the care of you and Dad that affected me now I wanted to blame you for my current problems. I am sorry for not being able to heal my wounds so I could live life and not hide in my porta prison. I am sorry I couldn't love myself and instead abandoned myself and I'm sorry that this affected the childhoods of my dearest beloved children and the old age of my beloved mother. I am sorry that I let one incident in time radiate out- I am sorry that I can't rewind my life and do it again as a stronger and more loving person. I am sorry I wasn't here for so much of my own life.

i am sorry for not being the child my parents wanted.i tried for many years to change my personlity,but of course it never worked. Now i am trying to forgive myself for thinking it was all me. I am trying to love and forgive myself for who i am and not need to be different. the Levines said that many of the people go into the world looking for their "true" family. A family that loves us "as is" and accepts us "as we are" and still finds us WORTHY OF LOVE

I apologize to my neighbours for not talking to them directly about something that bothered me. Instead, I was complaining to a third person about it and expected him to solve the problem for me. I was lacking the courage. It is still so hard to find the courage to do that because I am afraid of not finding the appropriate words or ???.