This was hard for me to grasp, because I was taught that an apology should be an automatic response.
It took me a long time to realize what it meant to say “I’m sorry” from the heart. Apologizing just for the sake of apologizing is meaningless. We cannot genuinely apologize if we can’t admit to ourselves that we made a mistake.
This is where humility comes in. Can we look at ourselves in the mirror and say that it was at least partly our fault? Can we take that responsibility?