In our well-meaning effort to teach accountability, we often unwittingly impose our “account” (our story) on our kids, hoping they’ll develop the “ability” to feel remorse. In the aftermath of our breaking points, we may ask for an obligatory ‘sorry’ which only fuels our disconnect. Sorry is not a ritual or habit, but rather a restorative process that is not about what’s imposed but what’s exposed. How might empathy cultivate conscience? How does our own vulnerability make way for forgiveness (of ourselves)? In Greek, the word apology, apo logos, means “distant words.” We can discover how the power of an authentic apology that is centered in empathy goes beneath the distant words as it gets closer to the real emotion behind them.