Becky Kennedy

So what is repair?

Repair is the act of going back to a moment of disconnection, taking responsibility for your behavior and acknowledging the impact it had on another.

And I want to differentiate a repair from an apology, because when an apology often looks to shut a conversation down, hey, I'm sorry I yelled, can we move on now?

A good repair opens one up.

And if you think about what it means to get good at repair, there's so much baked in realism and hope and possibility.

Repair assumes there's been a rupture.

So to repair, you have to mess up or fall short of someone else's expectations.

Which means the next time I snap at my kid or my husband or my work colleague,

Instead of berating myself like I did that night in the kitchen, I try to remind myself, I'm focusing on getting good at repair.

Step one is rupture.

Check that off, I crushed it.

Step two is repair.

I can do this.

I'm actually right on track.

So let's get back to my example.

I'm in the kitchen, my son is in his room.

Well, what will happen if I don't repair?

That's really important to understand and helps us make a decision about what to do next.

Well, here are the facts.

My son is alone, overwhelmed and in a state of distress because, let's face it, his mom just became Scary Mom.