Making amends, making repairs is even more powerful than self-forgiveness or self-compassion. When you learn to fix the harms you’ve caused, you can truly find emotional freedom.
In this conversation, Dr. Sarah Michaud and I explore the profound themes of self-compassion, forgiveness, and the importance of making amends. We discuss how guilt and shame can manifest in our lives and the courage required to face our mistakes. Practical steps for making amends are outlined, emphasizing the concept of ‘living amends’ as a transformative practice. Our discussion also highlights the significance of perspective in understanding others’ experiences and the role of communication in healing relationships. Ultimately, the conversation underscores that healing is a continuous journey that necessitates accountability and personal growth.
This is the raw transcript of the conversation I had with Dr. Michaud. (The timestamps do not align with the published version of the video, below.)
Self-Forgiveness vs. Making Repairs
Emma McAdam (00:00)
Okay. So Sarah, I am so excited to talk about this because I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit and I do love the idea of self-compassion. I feel like self-forgiveness can be an important step, but an area that I see that does not receive enough emphasis–and this matters to me because I see it as one of the most healing things you can do—is…
Dr Sarah Michaud (00:10)
Yes.
Emma McAdam (00:24)
…this practice of actually making amends. When you’ve done something wrong, actually fixing it. So let me give you an example. I follow this psychologist who’s a writer and he’s great, like almost everything he writes I’m like that’s so helpful that’s so cool. One of his followers wrote into him and was like hey back in the day I cheated and it was like a certificate exam like it was a really important exam it was like…
Dr Sarah Michaud (00:50)
Yes!
Emma McAdam (00:51)
…not like the bar exam but maybe he was a pharmacist or some other thing that he had to do and he cheated on his exam and maybe it’s been five or ten years now and he says I still feel bothered by this.
Dr Sarah Michaud (00:54)
Yep. It’s come, it’s gonna see what I talk about also is how it manifests. Go ahead.
Emma McAdam (01:08)
So this psychologist who I respect and admire, his advice was, you need to work on self-forgiveness. That was my thought too. That was my thought too.
Dr Sarah Michaud (01:15)
He’s never gonna have freedom. He’s never gonna have freedom.
Emma McAdam (01:22)
Because he’s always gonna know that he has not fixed what he did wrong. So would you say, I think you are more of an expert on this because AA does have a, the 12-step process does have a practice of making amends and fixing things, but I feel like most modern psychology is so like just like you should try to feel good. And I’m like, no, you should, you should actually do good works and then you’ll feel good. So my advice to this person would have been,
Dr Sarah Michaud (01:25)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (01:50)
Okay, you harmed other people and you betrayed yourself. You know that you lied. So now we fix it. And my advice would be you have the choice, if you want to heal this, of going back to your licensing board and telling them, I’m gonna redo my exams. And making repairs, like making actual repairs.
Dr Sarah Michaud (02:02)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Because what I would hypothesize is in that guy’s life, it’s manifesting in a bunch of ways. He’s either depressed, yeah, he’s anxious, he’s depressed, he’s suicidal, he has crappy relationships, he can’t be himself, he has secrets, has substance abuse. you cannot live with that kind of guilt and shame and not have it come out somewhere. And that’s the thing.
Emma McAdam (02:17)
Yeah. That’s what happens. This is the thing that I feel, and I’ve been very hesitant to speak to it, which is one of the reasons I brought you on, because I’m like, I think Sarah probably has a lot of experience in this area, but when we do something that goes against our sense of what is right, so let’s say I lie, or let’s imagine I, I mean, I have done this. When I worked at a pizza place, the rule and the policy that I had signed when I worked there was that you pay 50 % for your food.
Dr Sarah Michaud (02:45)
Yeah, our values.
Emma McAdam (03:06)
And then sometimes we’d have a manager who would just give it to us. Or sometimes we would just, like everyone else, would just take the food, go in the back room, eat it quietly, and then move on. And at some point I was asked in a different job interview, do you ever steal from your employer? Yes or no? And in that moment I was confronted with the reality that I was stealing from my employer.
Dr Sarah Michaud (03:16)
Yes. Right? Right?
Making Repairs Instead of Rationalizing Harm
Emma McAdam (03:34)
And in that moment, when we’re stealing from our employer or when we’re lying or when we’re betraying our deepest sense of what is right and wrong, if we continue to do it, we have to cover it up somehow. We have to cover it up with blame, like, well, my employer doesn’t pay me enough, so I deserve to do this. Or anger, like, well, he deserves it. Or shame, well, I’m just a bad person anyway. I’ll never.
Dr. Sarah Michaud (03:47)
Yes. Yep. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (04:04)
Like really deserve more than this. And then we don’t trust other people either, right? We assume other people are gonna be bad. We have to justify all of the things that we’ve done wrong in some way. We have to make some fake math to make it okay. And then that fake math sticks with us in all our relationships. It shows up later. Okay, I’m talking a lot. What do you think?
Dr. Sarah Michaud (04:06)
Yes. Yes. No, but that’s the human condition. I mean, we talk about that on my little YouTube channel a lot that substance abuse is the same way. I mean, the whole, quintessential component of substance abuse is denial, rationalization, minimization. And then you get sober and what you realize is just because you get sober, all the behaviors are still there. So you’re gonna now have to rationalize and minimize everything else because we wanna feel okay. And yet it’s about clearing it up. You know, I thinking of this. Go ahead. Go.
Emma McAdam (05:03)
Let me just pause for a second. I want to make this point really clear. When you have harmed someone else or you’ve gone against your deepest sense of what is right, you have a choice in that moment to go back and make repairs or to twist reality. And twisting reality looks like minimizing what you did wrong, maximizing
Dr Sarah Michaud (05:12)
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (05:30)
What other people did wrong, or the opposite, which is like, fine, I’m just a terrible person, creating labels. And I would say in my religious tradition, I was taught frequently that when you’ve done something wrong, you go ⁓ confess and make repairs. And not just like to a priest, like you go tell the person what you did wrong, and then you try to make it right, and you try to learn from it.
Dr Sarah Michaud (05:30)
Claiming. Yeah, yeah, I’m a terrible person. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (05:54)
And come back to it. So with this pizza example, when I realized, when it really hit my heart, oh, I’ve been stealing. I ended up going to my manager, going to his office and being like, hey, Jim, I’ve been eating food without paying for it for like a year. and I was like crying because I cry easily. And he was like, oh, okay Emma, thanks for telling me. Feel free to write me a check and.
Dr Sarah Michaud (06:11)
Right.
Emma McAdam (06:21)
Pay me back for what you’ve eaten. So then I did, and then my heart was clear.
Dr Sarah Michaud (06:22)
Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. there are different kinds of amends, like, financial amends is one category. Absolutely. And you’re right. It’s all about also changing behavior and learning from it. Do you know what I mean? I mean,
Emma McAdam (06:28)
And I was done. Yeah, yeah, like there’s some things we can’t amend for but we can at least be honest about and then try to like learn from it and try to embody something differently in the future and that is making amends. I want to save like different ways to make amends for the like further down the road in this conversation because there are so many ways to make amends. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (06:47)
Yes. Yes. Yeah, at the end. Yeah, at the end is, yeah, I have different kinds of amends. have examples. I have things to not do with amends. I have how to set it up. But it’s really, you’re right about what it causes you, how it affects you, how we deal with it in our present life. Like if we don’t want to own it, it comes out.
This is alcoholics where I first learned this, but the guy that first, where Bill W got it, was a guy who was a Christian minister. it was called the Oxford Group back in the early 1900s. And the guy that started it was a minister who got really angry with a bunch of people, left his ministry, and then realized, my God, I’m not gonna be free unless I make amends to these people. and I know it’s in a lot of religions, but Bill W got the idea from that, the guy that started AA, and I think with alcoholics, it’s so obvious that we’ve done some stuff wrong, but all human beings do stuff wrong. It’s not just alcoholics, and I was gonna take it out of that frame also.
Why Victimhood and Self-Blame Prevent Relationship Repair
Dr Sarah Michaud
And the other thing is this idea that people are so much more comfortable with being a victim. I’ve been a victim. I’ve had sexual assaults. I’ve had different things happen to me. But it doesn’t mean it’s not the both and. We can be a victim and do bad things. It’s all of it. And so, you know, there are amends to certain people that have done us wrong, but we’ve also done wrong. Like, I think of divorces.
Emma McAdam (08:26)
Yes.
Dr Sarah Michaud (08:36)
So many people get so stuck with staying angry at their spouse. When they’ve been angry for 20, you know, they’ve been married for 20 years and done a lot of stuff. So it’s about what the big book says, putting the person in the category of the spiritually sick and looking at your own behavior. Even if someone has done stuff to you, you still have to own your part to be free. Do you know what I mean? So it’s not just about
Emma McAdam (08:55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (09:05)
Things you’ve done to innocent people, it’s actually the hardest ones are ones where we rationalize and blame others and yet don’t look at our part in the relationship. Yeah, that’s all other people.
Emma McAdam (09:17)
And I do want to acknowledge when we veer off the path, when we’ve done wrong, and it’s normal that we all do wrong, okay? This is normal. Totally, like, it’s natural, normal, and human to make mistakes. That’s okay. The question is next, what will we do with it? And if we hide or rationalize it,
Dr Sarah Michaud (09:23)
Yeah. Yes! Yes! Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (09:45)
We deepen our sense of shame and distance ourselves from others. And there’s two big ways we do this. And the first big way is to believe that we’re the one who’s good and everyone else is bad. And this is a form of self justification. Well, my ex was so terrible that the little things I did weren’t bad anymore. They don’t count anymore.
Dr Sarah Michaud (09:50)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Right. Right.
Emma McAdam (10:09)
The other way that we justify ourselves, and this was hard for me to learn, I learned this when I was very depressed, probably the most depressed part of my life when I was like 20, 21, was that also some people flip the opposite way and they decide, fine, I’m a terrible human being, I’m broken, I’m deficient, I’m disordered, look at all these pathologies I have, I’m just bad.
Dr Sarah Michaud (10:19)
Got it. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (10:36)
And that is just as likely to prevent someone from making amends, making repairs, reconnecting with the human race as the opposite, like these two different ways. And so for these folks, the second group where I was for a long time, which is, I’m just a bad person then, right? For them saying, well, you need to fix what you did wrong. They’re going to be likely to just try to beat themselves up instead of actually making repairs
Dr Sarah Michaud (10:40)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (11:06)
Pairs, like wallowing, withdrawing, blaming themselves, labeling themselves. And that’s not making amends.
Dr Sarah Michaud (11:07)
Right. Yes, and you know, one group of people, because I’ve known people for years and years doing this process, they make amends, but they still can’t let go of the guilt. And the idea of making amends is to set yourself free. So then you have to look at… No!
Emma McAdam (11:28)
Yeah. That’s right. It’s not to just beat yourself, flagellate yourselves over and over again. That’s correct. Yeah. So…
Dr Sarah Michaud (11:38)
Yeah, and so then it’s like, why am I so attached to being the victim, right? Or feeling guilty? Because then I can rationalize my behavior. I can stay inside for weeks because I’m such a bad person and be okay with it even though I’m not going to my kids’ school events or whatever the case may be. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
Emma McAdam (11:43)
Yeah, or being the bad person, yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, I do, I do, and I think that’s where self-forgiveness comes in, is after we’ve taken the steps to make repairs, then we have to truthfully and honestly treat ourselves with love and compassion and courage. It takes a buttload of courage to… Yeah, to…
Dr Sarah Michaud (12:02)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I said, yes. Willingness and courage and the ability to tolerate some discomfort for long-term gain.
Emma McAdam (12:24)
Yeah.
The Path to Liberation Through Accountability
Yeah. And I think for me when I was really depressed, for me to let go of this label of myself as like broken or bad was actually, It took a lot of courage to say, maybe I’m not broken. That means I have to keep trying. That means when I mess up, I have to keep apologizing and go back and show my face again.
Dr Sarah Michaud (12:34)
Yes! Absolutely, huge.
Emma McAdam (12:52)
I have to show up again and keep parenting when I’ve just yelled at my kids. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (12:56)
Oh my God, it is huge courage. Yes, yes. And the benefits, like to say this is really where you can have better relationships, way less anxiety, more energy and vitality because you’re not preoccupied with the past. I mean, there’s so much that comes out of it. Liberation, know, more intimacy with people.
Emma McAdam (13:15)
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (13:22)
Better relationships, more sense of peace. I mean, in the AA big book, they say after this step, there’s a list of promises. And it’s like, we’re going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how, this is what you were saying, no matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will know that our experience will benefit others, being of service.
Emma McAdam (13:51)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (13:51)
You know, so there’s all these problems, the feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. So that’s how significant this work is. I mean, and a lot of people in AA get to this part and they stop because it’s too hard. I’ve had people relapse when they get too amends So, why is it so hard?
Emma McAdam (14:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (14:16)
And I think because it activates the shame and the guilt and the incident or whatever happened. And it’s almost like you’re getting it out of your body and looking at it. And it’s just, so much easier to blame others. And that’s where the self-compassion comes in. I have to have compassion for myself that I stole my mother’s pearls to buy cocaine.
Emma McAdam (14:16)
Mm-hmm, It’s yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (14:39)
You have to trust that for whatever reason those things happened, I did what I did, and now I can know that my experience can benefit other people and I can support people in finding freedom, you know?
Emma McAdam (14:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think it is immensely liberating, but because the rationalization numbed your emotions a little bit, actually facing making an honest, what is it called? Honest accountability?
The Power of Honesty and Vulnerability
What’s that step where you write down all the bad things you did?
Dr Sarah Michaud (15:01)
Yes, the moral inventory.
Emma McAdam (15:13)
Moral inventory. Actually being honest with yourself that you messed up, is gonna increase your pain briefly.
Dr Sarah Michaud (15:19)
I know honesty is a huge piece of this. Yeah, that was another.
Emma McAdam (15:23)
Yeah, so when I saw that survey and it said, you steal from your employers? And I had to answer yes or no, that increased my sense of anxiety. And then I had the choice and I could have rationalized, which would have made me feel a little bit better, or I could have talked to Jim and that made me more anxious. And after I talked to Jim, I feel good. Like I feel really good. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (15:33)
Yes. Of course! The vitality, it’s like when you tell a secret to someone, like all of a sudden all this energy is released. So you’re right. I always talk about short-term pain for long-term relief. It’s like to be uncomfortable for a temporary little moment to be free.
Emma McAdam (15:54)
Yeah, yeah.
Practical Steps to Making Amends
So on a practical level, how does someone do it? They know, or maybe they don’t know, that they’ve harmed someone, that they’ve done something wrong in their past. We all have, we all have. How does someone start to do it on a practical level?
Dr Sarah Michaud (16:22)
Yes. Alright, on a practical level, I think when you sit quietly, it’s already right there. It’s right underneath the surface. If you can access it, if you’re not acting out, if you’re not substance abusing or coping in a bunch of ways, but some stuff will come up. So you make a list of names or, you know, a pizza place. You know, I actually had to make amends to a place that I stole stuff from when I was a drug addict and the store was gone now, but what you do is you do something to balance out the karma. So it was a tool house. It was like a garden shop. So I ended up donating money to place in my town that they were starting a community garden. So it’s like, even if things like Grave Side amends is another one, I made it a very powerful Grave amend to my mother. So you start with a list of names, maybe just the top three we can say to people. And you write out specifically, there’s tools. You wanna be as specific as possible. You don’t wanna say, I’m really sorry I did this, but it was because, and give some rationalization, which some people do that, because they wanna feel better. You just stick.
Emma McAdam (17:42)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (17:49)
With what specifically you’re making the amend for. The other warning is if you’re still angry at the person about something else, you’ve got to resolve the anger before you make the amend. Because I know people that have gone to make amends and then just gotten activated, you can’t do that. So you got to be ready to do it. You have to be ready and willing to really do it. And so we have this thing where you make three columns and you do
The super easy ones, know, yeah, super easy ones. Then you do the ones that harder, but I want freedom. And then you do the ones that like I’m never gonna do. And my first husband was on the never I’m gonna do list. And over time, they make it over to the easy list because the more work you do on yourself, the more freedom you want. And that amend with him was incredibly powerful. And we have a great relationship.
Emma McAdam (18:20)
Okay, yeah. Wow. What was that like? Can you describe it just a little bit? You don’t have to give personal details. But what made that powerful?
Dr Sarah Michaud (18:48)
So I mean, yeah, well, I was so angry. Well, I was so angry at him for not being who I wanted him to be, even though when I look back, of course he wasn’t. He was exactly who he was supposed to be. And so, I worked on my own work and my resentments and worked through some anger and saw that if I’m gonna raise my son with him, I need to have a relationship with him.
You can be victimized and still have done, I mean, I was with the guy for six years. To say I never did anything is ridiculous, right? So I just focused on my part. I put him in this other category of the spiritually sick, we call it, just turned and looked at myself. And there was like five or six big things. I mean, he’s Canadian. He moved to the United States for me.
And I told him I’d go back to Canada after our son was born. I no intention of moving back to Canada ever. And yet, I mean, I owed him big amends And then this is the saying and this, don’t know if you, want to do this part, but at the end, ask, God, could get tearful. You ask the person, is there anything else? Yeah. And he said something to me.
Emma McAdam (19:49)
Yeah,
Dr Sarah Michaud (20:08)
And I thought about, have goosebumps right now. And I said, you’re absolutely right. And I apologized for that. And I hadn’t remembered it. Now, sometimes someone’s going to go, well, what about, and you may not feel like you owe an amend for that. So you definitely have to feel like you have a choice. So someone can say something and you can say, you know what, I’m going to think about that and I’m going to get back to you. But at that moment with my ex, it was definitely clear. So.
Emma McAdam (20:11)
Me too. Such a good answer. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (20:38)
Yeah, and I mean, he’s, know, again, it’s amazing. He used to be such a spiritual practice for me. I was so enraged at him and…
Emma McAdam (20:48)
By spiritual practice, mean the tormentor, a mentor who torments you. That’s what you mean, yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (20:51)
Yes, so exactly someone that you’re giving all your peace to and yet if I work through the anger and my part and the resentment piece, which maybe could be another episode, is that working through the resentment stuff is so key first really. But anyways…
Understanding the 12 Steps of Recovery to Repair Relationships
Emma McAdam (20:57)
Is that, can I pause you? Is that a step in the 12 steps? Tell me the steps.
Dr Sarah Michaud (21:18)
The first step is we’re powerless over alcohol, our lives became unmanageable But again, there are so many zillions of 12-step programs. It could be, I’m powerless over my husband, I’m powerless over my kids, I’m powerless over my ADD. I mean, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Yeah.
Emma McAdam (21:33)
Shopping addiction,
Dr Sarah Michaud (21:36)
Second came to believe in a power greater than myself could restore my to sanity But it doesn’t have to be God if people aren’t religious It’s just the idea that you don’t necessarily have all the answers that you have to trust another process Three turn my will in my life over to the care of God as I understood him Four is the moral inventory now the inventory its resentments, fears, and sex. So it’s all our anger and our resentments. It’s the fear which is really underneath resentment and that it’s our sexual history. And I’ve done sexual histories with people that have had sex with one person or a hundred people. So it’s not really about the people, it’s about what we’re carrying. Cause a lot of shame, a lot of shame in the sexual inventory. So now we do the fifth step, which is I tell another person, I tell my sponsor, read it to them. Six and seven, I ask God to remove my defects of character or my shortcomings. Eight, I make the list of the people to make amends to. Nine, I make amends. And then 10, which is part of nine really, is daily amends. So you do a nightly check-in where if I, like my sponsee this morning, yelled at this coffee girl yesterday, what am I gonna do today to clear that up? Am I gonna drive back there to say, I’m sorry, whatever?
So the idea of the 10th is so you don’t accumulate 500 more resentments.
Emma McAdam (23:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
Why Making Amends Lightens the Emotional Load
This is what I think is so freeing about it. Because if we imagine like when I harm someone else and I don’t make amends, it’s like a brick in my backpack. And if I do this for 20 years where I’m just getting angrier and more defensive and more isolated and upset at people or more victimy or more like I’m such a bad person, my backpack gets very heavy. And you could do one big step to lay down that backpack, but we each pick up bricks each day.
Dr Sarah Michaud (23:17)
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (23:36)
And having a practice to set those bricks down each day is powerful. And this is where my personal spiritual and religious practice comes in, is that we do a nightly prayer and we are grateful and we express, we consider our day and we think, how did it go? Is there something I need to fix? And then you ask for help to do better the next day. And then each Sunday we do a bigger ordinance around
Dr Sarah Michaud (23:38)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (24:03)
Clearing that queue, clearing that backpack. And that’s what my religion is. Like my religion is like, can I clear my heart off? Can I serve people? and I think for people who don’t have that religious practice or spiritual practice, like AA or 12 step programs also offers that. But I feel like in general, psychology in general has ignored this freedom giving step.
Dr Sarah Michaud (24:06)
Yes. Yes! Yes. like, we’re twins. Yeah. I mean. Yes. Yes.
How Anger Can Block Repairing Relationships
Emma McAdam (24:33)
So like someone might feel really angry at someone, like you felt really angry at your ex-husband and you probably thought it was because of everything he did to you. But it’s, and that may be true too. That also might be true. And when we have harmed someone else, anger is an amazing way to rationalize. And so we carry that anger on purpose as a shield. And when we make repairs, we don’t need to carry that anger because we don’t need to defend ourselves so much anymore.
How Secrets and Unrepaired Harm Affect Mental Health
Emma McAdam (25:04)
So we could spend all day talking about anger management practices and it’s like, but what if you just messed up and you need to say sorry?
Dr Sarah Michaud (25:07)
Right. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (25:13)
Or you stole something and you need to pay it back. Or you hurt someone and you need to pay for their medical bills or their therapy.
Dr Sarah Michaud (25:18)
Right. Right. I mean, there’s stories in AA where people admit crimes and have gone to jail. So I mean, it’s really about you’re only gonna get the freedom if you balance the scale. If you’re harboring the secret, you know, that’s saying we’re as sick as our secrets, that’s true. If you’re harboring some shameful thing, it’s gonna manifest in some way. It has to.
Emma McAdam (25:31)
Yeah, yeah, it does. It comes out and it can look like anxiety, panic, depression, a victim mindset, anger, withdrawal. What else, Sarah? Difficult relationships, self-harm. Yeah, self-harm, substance use.
Dr Sarah Michaud (25:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Self-harm. Substance use is big. Yeah. Disassociation. Emotional, not being able to manage your emotions. mean, emotional dysregulation because you have to always be out of your body. When you can’t tolerate what you’re feeling or something from your past, you have to escape it in some way.
Emma McAdam (26:12)
Mm-hmm
How Repairing Relationships Creates Freedom for Both Sides
Dr Sarah Michaud (26:26)
I have the most powerful story, I was gonna tell is about this guy. he in college at his frat, they were very verbally abusive to this woman. And he describes this whole scene, which was so powerful. And he had so much, guilt for that woman. And it was something about how she looked And he tracked her down and he was sober like a couple of years. And the event had happened, you know, 15, 20 years before. And he tracked her down. And now I have goosebumps again. And she told him because of that event, she had been suicidal for years. She’d been depressed for years. She had suffered so much.
Emma McAdam (26:57)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (27:13)
And he gave her freedom and he set himself free. Both. She was sobbing because what he said is, it was not about you. I wanted to feel part of this frat. I didn’t feel like I belonged. I went along with these guys to yell at you and say these mean things. it was because of me.
Emma McAdam (27:19)
Mm. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (27:41)
And again, goosebumps, the power, like of setting people free, you know?
Making Amends Is a Human Skill, Not a Failure
Emma McAdam (27:46)
Yeah, and I think I would hope that everyone has had an experience like this and I’m wondering if some people literally have never had that experience where they’ve hurt someone and gone back and tried to make a repair and it went good. Like are there people who’ve never, most people have never experienced this. Okay.
Dr Sarah Michaud (28:05)
I mean, most people don’t. I mean, no, I have four brothers, right? And when I got sober and over the years, I’ve talked to my brothers about making amends and they say to me, gosh, I wish I was in AA. I have a lot of people to make amends to. And I say, you don’t have to be in AA to make amends to people. It’s so crazy that, I’m not gonna track down this woman that I abused 20 years ago because why?
Emma McAdam (28:24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (28:33)
People are in denial that it’s affecting them. That’s what I think.
Emma McAdam (28:38)
Well, our brain is incredibly good at manipulating the truth. So somehow that distortion just popped in. I’m not in AA, so I can’t make amends. Very comforting thought. Very comforting thought. ⁓ But unhealing is the opposite of healing. This is interesting to me, because I grew up in such religious culture where it’s called repentance in my religious culture, but it’s not a shameful thing. It’s like a joyful thing.
Dr Sarah Michaud (28:41)
Yes. That’s right. Yeah. Right. All right. Right. Yes!
Emma McAdam (29:07)
I was taught it from a young age and we practiced it from a young age and to me the idea that some people have never had the chance to make a amend in their life where they apologized without a but or whatever. I’m sorry I did that but da da da da da. No, I’m sorry I did that. That probably hurt you.
Dr Sarah Michaud (29:23)
Run! Yes!
Emma McAdam (29:30)
Huh. I’m gonna make more videos about this, Sarah, because I think it’s powerful and I don’t see people talking about it. They feel like it’s shameful. It’s the opposite of shameful.
Dr Sarah Michaud (29:31)
No. No. I know. And it also somehow people think like if you’re owning it, like you’re the bad guy or something like now, ⁓ now people are gonna, no, actually it’s totally liberating. And like you said, I think what’s really important is to say, we all do stuff. We’re human. I mean, kids do stuff. Think of like fifth graders that are mean
Emma McAdam (30:00)
Yeah. Yeah, we’re all going to. Yeah. Fifth grade’s brutal, my 11 year old’s in fifth grade right now.
Dr Sarah Michaud (30:07)
This can be super mean. Absolutely!
Emma McAdam (30:11)
This kid in her class called another kid who is not white a chimpanzee. And that is apparently like a Brainrot character from something on YouTube. The kid thought she called him a chimpanzee. The kids in the class thought she called him a monkey and therefore everyone’s like now calling her a racist. And everyone got like, all these kids were like brutally like teasing her. And my daughter comes home and this is her good friend. She said, mom is calling someone a monkey racist? And I was like, yes. And so then we had this conversation but then I was like, well, I don’t think she meant that. We should get this cleared up. Like we should get these two kids in a room and their parents in a room and be like, she didn’t mean.
Dr Sarah Michaud (30:56)
Right. Yes.
Emma McAdam (31:04)
To do anything and he probably felt like he was being racially attacked and it wasn’t intended that way from everything I said. So then mom texts me that night, like, my gosh, I just heard about what happened at school, can you believe it? I didn’t know the kids were bullying my daughter about this. And then she just didn’t send her daughter to school the next day. And that’s how they handled it. And I get it, you wanna protect your daughter from being bullied, but if you’re not gonna get…
Dr Sarah Michaud (31:05)
Right. Right. Yes.
Emma McAdam (31:32)
Kids in a room with parents and hopefully the parents would be very reasonable and like yeah and you never know right so maybe that wasn’t safe to do that but ideally in an ideal world these people would come together they would talk it through they would listen to it it’s a great chance to teach this whole fifth grade class about racial abuse and what it is and what it isn’t and how like I was telling my daughter like yeah did you know like English soccer players
Dr Sarah Michaud (31:35)
That’s the hope. Yes. Thank you.
Emma McAdam (32:00)
If there was a black guy on the team, the other team would throw bananas at them. Like, this is a real issue. it was a good chance to like teach and learn. And instead, they just kind of teased and withdrew. And that’s how the situation was managed. It’s like, this could have been such a cool chance of like healing, you know?
Dr Sarah Michaud (32:05)
And it’s not even managed. That’s the thing. Like they think it’s managed.
Emma McAdam (32:22)
That’s right. Yeah. It’s not. This is what’s interesting to me is that I think most people don’t have the education, the skills, the opportunities to learn how freeing this can be.
Dr Sarah Michaud (32:32)
Yes. Yes!
Making Repairs: Practical Considerations
Emma McAdam (32:36)
Okay, so how on a practical level, you write your list of names, you come up with your easiest category of names, how do you do it? How do you go through with this in a way that’s actually helpful? And I know there’s a caveat, like unless it would cause more harm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (32:49)
Right, there’s different debates about this. I was gonna say, if you’ve been having an affair on your wife, you don’t just go to your wife and say, honey, I’ve been having an affair and you know, everything’s fine. So you don’t just blurt out something if it’s gonna really harm the other person. How it’s done is you wanna see the person live if possible. Of course you can write a letter and all that, but if you can get together with the person live, you say, I’d really like to clear something up with you. Can you give me some time to get together?
In AA, they say, I’ve been going through this process. They kind of explain it because people seem surprised. But when you get together with the person, you just say, I just really have been burdened by this thing I did and I want to make amends to you. I want to say, I’m really sorry for X, Y, and Z. And I’m really sorry of the impacts on you. You don’t explain it. You don’t say why you did it. You don’t ask for forgiveness. That’s the other thing.
You can’t expect forgiveness because not all amends end well. Some people, yeah.
Emma McAdam (33:53)
And here’s the key, right? Like when you decide, like if you tell your wife about an affair or when you decide like to make amends, it’s not about you. It’s actually you think about what’s best for the other person. You’re fixing what you did to them. Yeah. So you don’t ask them to forgive you.
Dr Sarah Michaud (34:09)
Yes. No, you know, the hope is that it’ll clear up the relationship. But I’ve had some examples where the person goes to a relationship that was really harmed and the woman said, you know, thank you for doing this, but I just want you to know this doesn’t mean we’re gonna be friends. They were really good friends for several years and then the person did something really mean. And she said, you know, thank you, but you know, I still don’t wanna be friends. So I mean,
Emma McAdam (34:31)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally acceptable.
Dr Sarah Michaud (34:43)
Yes, exactly.
Emma McAdam (34:43)
Like you should not go into making amends with the expectation that the other person is gonna be nice, that they’re, like we would hope they would, that they’re gonna forgive you, that they’re gonna be like, cool, let’s be best buddies. That’s not the point. The point is to do your half. That’s it. Just do your, 100 % of your side of this problem. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (34:48)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s it, that’s it, right? And then let it sit. what’s happening inside of you at the moment, whatever guilt or remorse you’re feeling, and you have to tolerate what’s happening for the other person. The other thing about amends, Emma, there are things we are tortured over that the other person doesn’t even, I made an amendment.
Emma McAdam (35:18)
Yeah, without getting reactive. I know, I know. I’ve done twice, I’ve reached out to people like, hey, this thing I said must have really hurt you. And they’re like, what? And just, just last, yeah, yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (35:35)
Yes. So think about that. I mean, I was tortured for years by this thing I did to my cousin when I was like eight years old. I get together with her as an adult. I tell her this experience of when we were kids and we were down the Cape and she says, Sarah, no memory. And I thought of the years I was tortured by that.
Emma McAdam (35:45)
Yeah. Yeah. Hahaha, yes. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (36:01)
I mean, that’s the other thing. We could be tortured by things and we don’t even know the other person has forgotten about it or didn’t even hurt them. So that’s another element, right?
Emma McAdam (36:09)
Mm-hmm. Yep, yep.
Dr Sarah Michaud (36:12)
Feeling bad about things that maybe someone else didn’t even take that way.
Living Amends: Making Repairs When You Cannot Fix the Past
Emma McAdam (36:16)
Yeah. So, okay, so then here comes a question. Like if you’ve stolen something, you can try to repay it. If you don’t have money, you can work to repay it. If you can never repay it, you can, I don’t know what, go to jail if you have to, I guess. Like that’s an option. I’m not saying that’s the best option, but like what about things like harm you’ve caused that feels unrepairable? It feels like you can apologize for it, and that is a helpful step. You can take
Dr Sarah Michaud (36:19)
Alright. Yes. Mmm.
Emma McAdam (36:45)
Responsibility. You can say, so let’s just imagine someone who sexually assaulted someone. You’ve harmed their personhood, their integrity. ⁓ You can take… Okay. Tell me about it.
Dr Sarah Michaud (36:50)
Yes. Yes, yes. This is where living amends comes in. It’s called living amends. mean, okay, say I’ve done something horrendous like that. I can make the amend And then I can think about how can I make this right for the rest of my life really?
Emma McAdam (37:17)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (37:17)
So do I volunteer at a rape shelter or a rape place? Do I donate money? Do I help my sister who’s having trouble with men? I mean, you really think of a way that you’re making living amends to balance out the karma. I mean, that’s the way I’m saying it, but yes, you can feel okay about it, because you’re right.
Emma McAdam (37:20)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (37:42)
Some things you do and you can’t change the impact on the other person. So how are you gonna live in a way, you know, I mean, people kill people in drunk driving. you know I mean? So you can’t make that right, but you can now be of service to as many people as possible.
Emma McAdam (37:56)
Yeah. I’m going to throw out a couple that I can think of. like someone, there’s that Ted talk that I share all the time and I’ll pop the link in the description, but this guy sexually assaulted his date and then she 10 years later reaches out to him. He’d been doing the whole like hiding, like not hiding from the law. She hadn’t filed any reports or anything. He had just been trying to convince himself he was a good person for 10 years, right? Trying to convince himself he was an okay person.
Dr Sarah Michaud (38:04)
Okay.
Emma McAdam (38:26)
And she reaches out to him and he owns it. He says, I’m sorry, that was so wrong of me. He explains it and then, not explains it, but he shares and the two of them continue this dialogue over email for a couple of years until they decide to meet. And then they decide to write a book together. And then he decides to explore the thoughts.
Dr Sarah Michaud (38:39)
Yeah.
Emma McAdam (38:56)
And the beliefs around women that had led him to thinking this was okay. And then he shared his experience in a public platform. I’m not saying everyone needs to go public with their mistakes, but it’s like because he was willing to share his experience as an abuser, that provided an opportunity for millions of people to learn from him and consider their ways of thinking that impacted that. And he can never go back and undo what he did, but he can contribute to the process of healing in that way.
Dr Sarah Michaud (38:58)
Yeah. No. Yes. Yes. Of course! Yes, beautiful. Yes.
Emma McAdam (39:27)
So I can think of another guy who he was drunk. He punched someone in the back of the head, ⁓ who was just walking down the street and that guy fell and hit the sidewalk and then ended up dying. he went through the court process. He pled guilty. He spent time in jail. He was willing to.
Dr Sarah Michaud (39:41)
Yep.
Emma McAdam (39:46)
Share what he did wrong? I don’t… What’s a different word than confess, Sarah?
Dr Sarah Michaud (39:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Great. Got it. Take accountability. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (39:55)
Confess carries like religious terms, but it’s like he was willing to take accountability, like take accountability, take full accountability. I did this and it was harmful and I hurt your family and I hurt our community and I’m sorry. And that didn’t fix it. But it’s better than running and hiding and hiding and hiding and hiding and blaming.
Dr Sarah Michaud (40:17)
Yeah, because you have to live it. You’re going to live with yourself a lot better and have compassion for yourself and what happened if you’re being of service and using it. we will see where our experience can benefit others. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam (40:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Can you think of other examples of how when people feel like they can’t make repairs, like maybe the person refuses to speak with them. Or if they speak with this person, they might be abused. Or the person’s dead. Give me some examples. How can we make amends, make repairs?
Dr Sarah Michaud (40:40)
Yes. Yeah, well, the example with my mom, mean, she, ⁓ you know, I did graveside amends and I had, stolen a bunch of her jewelry for drugs when I was a kid and cause of my addiction. And she passed away fairly young from alcoholism.
Emma McAdam (40:57)
What does that mean?
Dr Sarah Michaud (41:11)
And when it was time to make amends to her, she had passed away and I wrote them all out with a sponsor. The other thing to do with amends, and this is another key thing, is don’t do it by yourself. Meaning you really need to double check the amends with another human being, because we are so tricky. We will rationalize. We will go into it angry. Unless you do it with a partner or someone else that knows this work.
Emma McAdam (41:32)
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (41:40)
You can really make things worse. So I checked it out. went to a grave, I went to a grave side and I made the amends and I had to ultimately forgive myself. And you know, then I do work with other alcoholics. I do a bunch of stuff in my daily life to make up for that. it’s interesting because ⁓ it’s thinking about how, again, to balance the scales. That’s the way I think of it.
There’s all kinds of ways. There’s donating money. There’s offering services. There’s helping another person. I know another one. Okay, this is a great one. So when I was drinking, I totaled a friend of mine’s car, actually not really a friend. It was a woman I was renting an apartment from. And I was going off on a trip skiing to your area. Anyways, and when I got back, she confronted me and said, my God, I… walked out the next day, you had left and my car was total blah, blah. So by the time I got sober and tried to hunt her down, she was deceased. And what I ended up doing is I wrote out all the amends with a sponsor. I drove to where we used to live together and ⁓ I made the amends. But since then I’ve given cars away. So.
Emma McAdam (43:04)
Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (43:05)
When my car gets to a lot of miles, like a friend of mine’s son’s in high school who didn’t have any money and didn’t have a car, it was time for me to get a new car and I gave him my car. And I’ve done that with several younger people, like teenagers that don’t have any money. So I mean, that’s how I balanced out the scales. So things like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam (43:25)
Yeah. I love it. I love it. And I think, I think when we really look at making amends, I see this almost as like a path we walk and it’s like, let’s say someone sexually assaulted someone. Making amends might just involve like changing how you see women, considering those beliefs on how you see women and moving forward treating women with utmost respect in your behaviors. And by
Dr Sarah Michaud (43:47)
Yes! Yes, absolutely.
Emma McAdam (43:57)
By embodying this new value of treating women with respect and protecting women, you are making amends for the harm you’ve done. ⁓ so like when we look at the underlying beliefs that fueled our wrongs, yeah, then we can just simply living differently and trying to live differently, working on changing.
Dr Sarah Michaud (44:00)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Behaviors. Yeah. living dead. Yes!
Emma McAdam (44:27)
Your thinking, your behaviors, your feelings that can create new paths for you, a new freedom for you, and a genuine sense of self-esteem, like a genuine sense of like I am actually proud of who I am because I’m a different person now.
Dr Sarah Michaud (44:34)
Yes.
Avoid "Rogue Amends": The Safe Way to Start Making Repairs
Emma McAdam (44:46)
Now I want go back to something you just said which was do this with someone because our mind can be tricky and I think if I remember correctly as part of this you tell your wrongs to your higher power and also to one other physical human being. Is that correct?
Dr Sarah Michaud (45:04)
Well, that’s the fourth step. So the fourth step is you make a chair for God. The ninth step is, yeah, God’s gonna be there, but it’s more you’re working with a sponsor in AA. So the only reason I say that is I’ve done rogue amends and they haven’t worked. You know, where like I’m at my brother’s house in Vermont and I have the great idea, I’ll make amends to him.
Emma McAdam (45:06)
Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (45:31)
But I haven’t really prepared and I haven’t reviewed and it’s okay, but it could have been better. And sometimes you end up like not being clear so my sponsees read them to me. And I’m telling you very often we do, we talk a bunch about it they redo them and they redo them and they redo them because they sneak in justifications and rationalizations.
Emma McAdam (45:39)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (45:58)
You just, it’s so human, you know? Go ahead, yeah. Yes.
False Guilt vs. True Responsibility: When Making Repairs Isn't Necessary
Emma McAdam (46:01)
Here’s the other thing I think, because yeah, we do, we sneak in, here’s why I did this, or I, you know, when you did this, then I did that, you know? And our brain is very good at rationalizing that, but it’s also too good at slipping the other direction. And this is what I was wondering is like, if someone believes they’ve done something wrong, and then they share it with a therapist or with their clergy or with a sponsor, and that sponsor is like, actually, that wasn’t your fault. That can also be very freeing. So I can think of like three examples of this. I can think of a girl who when she was five, her mom told her to watch her baby sister and the mom was on the phone somewhere else and the baby sister wandered into the road and got hit by a and was killed. And this lady for her entire life was like, it’s my fault my sister was killed. And the truth is no five-year-old is responsible for that.
Dr Sarah Michaud (46:57)
Five year olds should be right.
Emma McAdam (46:59)
That’s not, that was not, you don’t need to make amends for that.
Dr Sarah Michaud (47:03)
Yes, that’s a great point. Cause we go through the list and there are amends where you say, no, that wasn’t about right. Yes. Good point.
Emma McAdam (47:07)
Yeah. Yeah, and I can think of another example in my religious tradition, my faith, where a woman posted this on Instagram. She said, you know, I had had this kind of negative sexual experience. And then later on, a boyfriend was like, that was bad. You shouldn’t have done that. Like, you need to go talk to the bishop. Like, you need to go, you need to go confess. And so she felt all this shame, like, am I like bad? Am I dirty?
Dr Sarah Michaud (47:32)
Yes. Right?
Emma McAdam (47:36)
And then she went to the bishop and told the bishop what had happened and he said, well, can we pray about it? And they prayed together. And then afterwards he looked up and he said, you know, I want you to know that what happened to you was not your fault. That was actually abuse. She was a little kid, right? Or young, a young teenager. It’s like that actually, you were not complicit in that. But going through the process of telling another human being can help us clear up that trickiness.
Dr Sarah Michaud (47:47)
Right, respond to yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (48:04)
Where we can fall to either side, it’s everyone else’s fault, or I’m such a bad person, and telling another human can help us clean that up and clear out that queue or that backpack of bricks.
Dr Sarah Michaud (48:04)
Yes. Either side. Yes. Yes, yes, absolutely.
The "Lens Back" Technique: A New Perspective on Repairing Relationships
I was thinking of…like we say in AA, this is where the magic happens. this is where really you get the freedom. I had this quick story I’m gonna tell you about my second husband, George, right? And this is where we talk about it. Like I was a victim in the sense my husband relapsed after a long-term sobriety. And so my life became crazy for a good two years until I kind of finally got the courage to say, hey, this isn’t gonna work. But after a while of post that divorce, I did some more work and I decided I needed to make amends to him because we were together for quite a while. And he was deceased by then. So I wrote out my amends and I thought, my God, I’m getting choked up now.
And I thought of this beach in Maine where we used to go and I have a lot of really great memories of that beach. And I got to the beach and it was like in the fall, so it was cool weather. And there was a guy getting out of a car in front of me going into the beach. And we said hello and blah, blah. I walked down to the beach. I sat where we used to sit. I read my amends. I had a lot of feelings.
And thanked him also at the end. I just wanted to thank him for all the positive things of our relationship. It wasn’t just about his addiction. That happened in the last couple of years. And so I’m walking back to my car and the same guy is getting back in his car, in the next car. And I said to him, hey, we chatted for a while. asked me where I was from, blah, blah. And then I was about to get in my car and I said, where are you from? And he goes, freedom. And I said, freedom? And he said, Freedom, New Hampshire. It’s a town in New Hampshire. And it was like, I have goosebumps telling you this because whether you believe in God or the goodness of the universe or whatever, it’s like that moment, I was free from George and everything that had happened.
And it was like, you know, that’s a situation where someone could be a victim forever. You know, my husband relapsed and I’m angry and, you know what? When I own my part, then I was able to not only own my part, but see the bigger picture. That’s the last thing I should say about this is, you know, my brother who’s a therapist always says, “Pull the lens back.” And I love that because so often we’re in our own spin about our realities and our things that have happened to us. And we forget that other people are having their own experience.
And it’s like when you become a mom and suddenly you see your own mom totally different because you realize, my gosh, she was experiencing all this while she was raising me. I had no idea. It’s the same feeling. It’s like,
Emma McAdam (51:18)
Totally.
Dr Sarah Michaud (51:29)
When you can pull the lens back and look at the other person’s experience, not just yours, I think it’s really helpful.
The Spiritual Freedom of Making Amends and Clearing Your Conscience
So that was one story I wanted to tell. One last one, this from a friend of mine, he is, mother was an alcoholic, very abusive. I mean, this guy, foster homes, abused by therapist, sexual, I mean like just endless trauma.
And that’s why he’s such a great example of amends because he got sober, he’s an attorney now, and he went to make amends to his hockey coach and his hockey coach and his mother was deceased and he had, you know, he still was like saw his mother as like never caring about him, never speaking up for him and all this stuff and he makes amends to his hockey coach and he ends up getting from his hockey coach all of this information about how much his mother cared about him because his mother used to talk to the hockey coach about him and how awesome he was and so in that amend he’s getting from the grief side
Emma McAdam (52:37)
Hmm. Mm. Mm-hmm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (52:49)
Information about his mom that he would never have had. I mean, that just to me is like the magic of this work. It’s just so powerful. And we’ve talked about so many different kinds, but those are a couple of just really powerful examples of you will get things that you don’t even know you want to get. Yeah.
Emma McAdam (52:54)
Yeah. Yeah, I do feel like I don’t know how to say this like, okay, I keep going back to religion because this is the language I have around this but there’s this like religious Which is I consider like my practice, right? This is what I do religion is more like a behavior my spiritual practice my religion sometimes fuels my spiritual practice like this sense of like there is something big and deep and connected that’s healing and loving and powerful so my religion is my actions and it sometimes help it frequently helps me connect with this bigger thing, which is
Dr Sarah Michaud (53:42)
Yes.
Emma McAdam (53:49)
God or whatever is in the universe. And there are certain practices that tap us in to this beautiful healing power that is immense. And whether you are spiritual or not, the effects of it are powerful. When I read the book by Dick Schwartz, I had that similar experience when I practiced the Self energy.
Dr Sarah Michaud (53:51)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (54:18)
Of like tapping into something deeply healing. And when I see people practice gratitude and they like, count their blessings, they tap into this abundance, this beautiful abundance that exists in the invisible web around us. This is how I could describe it. I don’t know. You could use psychological terms and say statistically, this is an effective practice. If you don’t believe in this, that’s fine.
Dr Sarah Michaud (54:18)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (54:45)
But there’s something real about it. There’s something real about it. And when I see people, ⁓ like, slowing it down and getting present, being fully present, I see them tap into something real and beautiful. And when I see people make amends, I see them tap into these experiences like you’re talking about, like something beautiful is transformative in these experiences.
Dr Sarah Michaud (54:55)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I have goosebumps because in the big book of AA, know, and everybody’s got, believe me, AA isn’t the only answer. just want to say, I know there’s lots of options, but he talks about, you clear this out because you want more space for the sunlight of the spirit. And yeah, and I really believe that when we are crippled by guilt, remorse, things we’ve done, shame,
Emma McAdam (55:31)
Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (55:41)
And all the ways we try to manage all that, we have no room for the spirit. And when I can honestly say, when I share at meetings, I share this, there is not one person on the planet right now that I have been in completion with. And how many people can say that? Like nobody, there’s nobody I run into and I think, oh God, I owe them 10 bucks or oh my God, I did that. And most human beings,
Emma McAdam (56:01)
Yeah
Dr Sarah Michaud (56:10)
Don’t have that freedom because we’re holding on to things that we’re not saying we’re sorry for or even another thing I just this is kind of has to do with it in this seminar I did back in the 80s the s training I don’t know if you ever heard of this right this guy Werner Erhard created this training there’s all these big workshops personal growth workshops and he said one time upset for human beings is caused by three things. Unrealistic expectations, thwarted intentions, and undelivered communications. And out of fear, people don’t communicate things they need to communicate with people they love. Amends are no amends, right? Just that withholding and not sharing. And amends is part of that. And I just believe when we can complete that,
Like you said earlier around, it just completes this cycle. We balance out the karma and we are free.
Start with One Small Step When Making Amends in a Relationship
Emma McAdam (57:14)
So on a practical level, if someone wanted to take action this week to make amends.
Dr Sarah Michaud (57:16)
Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (57:25)
What would you tell them to do? Because sometimes our first attempts at making amends without support and guidance come back.
Dr Sarah Michaud (57:33)
Yes, think of a super easy one. Like say you’ve owed your brother $50 for 10 years and you’ve been angry. don’t want to pay like, like literally like something practical. You know, this idea, even if you don’t have the way we work through resentments and anger, try to say to yourself,
I don’t want to be thinking about this 50 bucks anymore. And you may think, I don’t think about it, but trust Emma and I that it is affecting your life in a way that you don’t realize. So put him in a category of saying just, forgive him. I forgive myself, whatever stuff you have with him. And just see if you pay him the $50, do it as an experiment. See how you feel afterwards.
Emma McAdam (58:06)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr Sarah Michaud (58:25)
Or the following week, see if you get any freedom or clarity. So try it and call up someone that you’re comfortable with and apologize for not reaching out to them when they were sick or whatever. Try to do something that doesn’t feel that hard, something simple and something very crystal clear, not muddy because the muddy ones may take more time. What do you think?
Emma McAdam (58:43)
Yeah, start small. Yeah. I mean, I would say when possible, consult with a wise person. Whether that’s a sponsor, I think most people don’t have sponsors, or a therapist, or a church leader, or just a friend who’s not gonna just like back you up, but really help you be your best self. Like maybe talk with one other human about this.
Dr Sarah Michaud (58:58)
Yes, of course. Right. Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, great idea.
Emma McAdam (59:22)
And then consider how to move forward.
Owning Your Part When Making Repairs
There’s also a book that I really like that kind of teaches this, not exactly, but I mean it’s not as concrete as AA, but it’s the book Leadership and Self-Deception or The Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute. Both of those kind of walk through like how we deceive ourselves and how to of get an open, like clear our hearts. So I think people could read The Anatomy of Peace. That might be helpful. I don’t know.
Dr Sarah Michaud (59:26)
Yes. Got it. Got it. Yes. Yes. Right. I’m sure there, mean, any kind of spiritual book talks about cleaning this. I mean, I think a lot of them, you know, I mean, I think the thing is.
Emma McAdam (1:00:01)
I think a lot of them do and I think I am trying to think of a psychology modality that does because marriage and family therapy, that’s what I do, does. Like marriage therapy, like you learn how to make repairs and how to fix things. But individual therapy, I think very rarely, well, I don’t see it taught. Maybe in session, therapists are just doing it.
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:00:11)
Yes. Yes, couples, couples work. Yes. Yes, yes, it’s a really great point because it’s more about validating someone’s pain or, and yeah, the repair stuff is later, You’re absolutely right. The thing that kills me is when we get to this point in the step work, you know, where I end up seeing, it’s time to do this work. When I did it for myself, it wasn’t like I needed to think about it. I knew exactly what I had done wrong. And you know, I was in my twenties the first time I did this and I’ve done it ongoingly over the years. It’s right there. I mean, if you sit quietly enough with yourself, you are gonna know because it’s something that is disturbing. It really is. I think the stuff that’s harder is the people we’re really mad at still and yet we’ve done bad behavior.
I know a woman who has been married to someone who has an addiction for a long time and she’s been so pissed off at him. She is finally in the last couple of years owning how she’s been a raging maniac to this guy. And it’s like, for years, it’s like, oh, well it’s because he drank. No, no, you know.
Emma McAdam (1:01:48)
Yeah,
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:01:48)
Your rage
Emma McAdam (1:01:48)
Yeah.
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:01:50)
And how you’ve taken it out on him is what you’re doing, right? I’m not justifying his behavior at all, but those are the kind of harder situations when it’s someone that we’ve been harmed by, yeah.
Emma McAdam (1:02:05)
You know, that is true clarity. And I had to do that like with my mom where I thought for so long she had mistreated me, she had mistreated me, she had mistreated me. And when I truly looked at how I had treated her, I could just, like, and this is how I think of it. Like I take a piece of paper and I draw a line down the middle. And it’s okay if I want to admit, like these are the things that hurt me that she did. And then I can write down the things I did
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:02:28)
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Emma McAdam (1:02:35)
That were that things I did that harmed her or things I did that were that went against what was right and true my deepest sense of what’s good. Like I maybe I yelled or I rebelled or I pushed her away or I fought her off or I blamed her talked bad about her. And I can just take this paper and write my half of it and I can tear it in half and I can set hers aside and I can say I’m just going to do this part. I’m just on my side of this and
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:02:45)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, and it’s not to minimize the pain that was caused you. I mean, that’s the other thing. It’s not to say, gosh, right, I haven’t been hurt. Absolutely. No. No. Yes.
Emma McAdam (1:03:04)
I think it’s healing. Yeah, it’s still there. Yeah, yeah. It’s not forgiving that either. It’s not saying it’s not a yeah, it’s not saying that that was okay, or it’s not saying it doesn’t still hurt you now. But we don’t have to carry our whole load of bricks anymore.
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:03:28)
Yes, yes. You know, did you ever read the four agreements? I don’t know that. Okay, all right. All right. The part in that book that I thought was so profound is when he talks about the movie theaters. I don’t know if you remember this part. He talks about going into a movie theater and you look up at the screen and it’s a movie about you.
Emma McAdam (1:03:33)
Yeah, of course.
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:03:51)
And there’s you and your spouse and your kids and your parents and blah, blah. And everything makes total sense. And you’re like, yeah, that’s exactly how my life has gone. And then you get up and you go into another movie theater and it’s the same movie, but it’s about your mom. And so it’s all from your mom’s reality. And you’re in the theater and you’re like, no, that’s not how that went. No, no, no, no, no. No, she wasn’t doing that. And
It’s like, then you get up, you go into another movie theater and it’s your son. And it’s all from your son’s point of view and your son’s experience of the world. And you’re like, what? And so to me, that is so liberating to remember. We are not experiencing life from the other people in our world’s experience. whether they’ve done us wrong or we’ve done them wrong.
We can rationalize, they can rationalize. Everybody’s having their own perception of reality. this is so helpful when I have, you know, disagreements with my son and we talk things out and he’s like, my God, I didn’t see it that way at all. I’ve made amends to him, present day amends for things. And he’s like, my God, mom, no, this is how I saw. So I mean, that’s where you get to see everybody’s having a different experience of this world.
We can only be responsible for our part and we can’t control what anybody else is doing, saying or thinking. We can only be responsible for us. And that goes back to the amends Yeah.
The Life-Changing Power of Daily Practices Toward Making Relationship Repairs
Emma McAdam (1:05:27)
Well, this has been fascinating. I really appreciate like your time, your expertise. And ⁓ I would, I think there’s more to say on this and hopefully we can find a way to say it. I did wonder, did you get a chance to finish the story with your mom? You said you made the list, you’d taken her jewelry, she had passed away. Then what?
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:05:31)
My… Right. Yeah, I did, no, I did, you know, end it. I mean, basically, you know, I made the Grave Side of Men’s, I had all the feelings about it, and I have processed it in therapy, and I do things in my world now. It’s so weird about my mom, and I don’t even know if you’re gonna believe this. I have a better relationship with my mom now than I did when she was alive. I really feel like…
Emma McAdam (1:05:53)
Okay.
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:06:17)
She passed away from alcoholism young and I feel her presence. And so I feel now that I literally have a connection with her that I didn’t have before. And I work with alcoholics and that’s how I make up for whatever I did with her. And I make living immense in my world. So yeah, she was a big one. The husbands were big, but then there’s the small ones that can accumulate. You know what I mean? So it’s really important to do that daily stuff too. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam (1:06:46)
Yeah, absolutely. So like the big practice, the daily practice of just clearing out your backpack are all really valuable, really valuable. And there’s a lot of different ways to do it, but I do think it’s like life changing.
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:06:58)
Yes! A lot of different ways. Prayer, meditation, writing, journaling, gratitude. I mean, the thing that’s so funny about gratitude to me is we’ve been doing it for like, you know, over 50 years in AA talking, you know, cause that’s part of the practice. And now like all the research is coming out, we can turn it around. mean, shifting our attitude is so key. And gratitude is such a biggie with that. Yeah. You are the best.
Emma McAdam (1:07:26)
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Thanks Sarah. Thanks for being here. Really appreciate it.
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:07:33)
My God, I just love you. You’re the best. are a soul sister, my friend. And thanks.
Emma McAdam (1:07:39)
Great to talk with you. Yep. Okay, we’ll do it again sometime.
Dr Sarah Michaud (1:07:42)
All right, awesome. Thanks, bud.
30 Relationship Skills in 30 Days
If you want to work on improving a relationship, you might like my course Better Relationships in 30 Days. You’ll learn 30 skills to help you communicate clearly, heal conflict, and restore joy in your relationships. The course is included with the monthly membership (see below), or you can buy it a la carte for lifetime access.
