I used to apologize constantly for every mistake I made in life. Saying “I’m sorry” became a common occurrence for me. It didn’t take me very long to learn though that those words held no real value when I kept on repeating the same mistakes. Thankfully, 12 Step recovery helped me to break that cycle. Even better, it showed me how to heal all the damage I had caused others by using the amends process in the 8th and 9th Steps. But I also learned a very valuable lesson when I started making those amends to those I had brought harm to throughout my life. I learned that sometimes the only amends the people I had harmed were seeking were a “Living Amends”.
To put it quite simply, a “Living Amends” is where a person starts to live life in much healthier manner as compared to their old negative way of living. It’s basically when a person starts making genuine efforts to remove all their toxic behaviors on a daily basis.
For a guy like me who used the words “I’m sorry” more times than I can remember, doing even the basic amends process in the 8th and 9th step wasn’t always enough. My sister was the first person to inform me of this. Time and time again, I had caused her great harm and pain because of my addictive lifestyle. Often I was completely selfish, self-centered, dishonest, and engaging in fear based behaviors around her. The first time I approached her to make a formal 9th Step amends, she went along with the process and thanked me for it when it was done. Unfortunately, it wasn’t done for me though because not too long after that I just repeated my same old mistakes and hurt her all over again. By the time I got around to doing the 9th Step process again a few years later, I approached her for another formal amends. It was then that she outright refused. She told me she was tired of hearing me make apologies that ranged from “I’m sorry” to the formal 9th Step amends lingo. What she really wanted to see was me living my life in a much healthier way.
I’m grateful to say that I’m doing that now. In fact, my sister recently let me know how proud she was of me with how I’m living my life. We have regular conversations now about spirituality, God, and the like and I finally feel as if I’m becoming the brother she always wanted.
This is what a living amends is truly all about. It’s about living a life where God starts running the show. It’s about becoming that beacon of love and light and not that vacuum of darkness and negativity. And it’s about living one’s life in such a positive way that the amends is being made in that action alone.
So if you are someone who needs to make an amends to anyone, I ask you to consider just one thing. Are you still exhibiting any of the same old negative behaviors that caused the harm in the first place? Because if you are, then I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and hold off on making that amends. Instead, ask God to help you change all those old negative behaviors. In doing so, know you’re making a “Living Amends” where you’re not only healing yourself, but also all those you harmed as well…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson