Every night for the past year, just before falling asleep, I open a tiny notebook that lives on my nightstand and ask myself:
“Where do I owe amends?”
It’s a gentle practice, not a harsh one – not an opportunity for self-flagellation, not a punishment. It’s just an invitation to be honest, to offer myself inventory.
Sometimes, the answer surfaces quickly. Other nights, I avoid the notebook altogether – until something insists on being named.
More often than not, I find I owe amends to myself – for saying yes when I really wanted to say no, or for demanding too much from a body that was already asking me to go slowly, be gentle. Sometimes I’ve pushed through the migraine, resisted a walk in the sunshine, neglected movement and water and creative practice. I open the notebook, and the knot between my shoulder blades unravels as I write it down, offer myself an apology.
Occasionally, I owe amends to others – a throwaway comment I meant in jest, but landed on a friend with a harshness – glib and disconnecting, their face closing down instead of lighting up. I write when I wonder if I’ve pushed a client too hard, or maybe not enough – if I’ve offered too little support, or maybe too little accountability.
Sometimes, the amends I owe are systemic: my tax dollars used to fund the systematic starvation of a people. A genocidal debt, breathtaking in its staggering complicity.
what do we owe each other?
This is what I mean by inventory. It’s not a practice that demands our shame, nor our perfection. All it does is offer space and invitation. It interrupts a too-easy slide into avoidance, and instead asks us to take one step towards accountability and integrity.
Because here’s what I’ve noticed about harm and conflict:
Most of us believe we’re either irredeemably awful, or completely blameless.
This practice helps us resist both.
It lets us hold multiple truths at once: that we can be in integrity and still miss the mark; that we can cause harm and still choose repair; that we can find the edges of our resistance – and practice turning towards it, instead of away.
So here’s my invitation to you:
Tonight – after the skincare routine and the clean kitchen, before you tuck yourself in – ask yourself: Where do I owe amends?
Don’t overthink it. Let your instinct answer first. Jot it down – messy, imperfect, scribbled.
Offer yourself inventory, not interrogation – curiosity, not condemnation.
For right now, there is nothing to fix. This is a naming practice, not a doing practice – but naming well is the first step towards repair, and most of us aren’t yet fluent enough in naming well.
Even when the answers are messy, this kind of practice clears the fog.
It makes space for what comes next – the foundation on which real repair can build.
Let that be enough for tonight.
with care,
ps – If you try this question tonight, I’d love to hear what surfaced – or what made it hard.
What do you find most difficult about the process of repair?
Is it the naming? The shame? The follow-through? The fear of conflict? Something else?
Your answers will help shape something I’m building around gentler paths to repair – and I’d be honored to learn from you.
