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"Love means never having to say your sorry", this was a line made popular by the movie "Love Story" in 1970. It is interesting to think about this statement, "love means never having to say your sorry", what does that mean?

When we say we are sorry to someone, we are apologizing for something we have done or not done and asking for forgiveness. To me "love means never having to say your sorry" means that you don't have to say you are sorry because I love you unconditionally and therefore I have already forgiven you before you said you were sorry.

When we live from spirit and not ego we love without conditions, we love regardless of what we have done or what other people have done and we do not have to hear the words or even say to ourselves or to a God that we are sorry. Pure love, and at the core that is what we are, is love without conditions. Loving without conditions means that we forgive without waiting for someone to say they are sorry.

The ego mind wants to hear that someone is sorry; the ego mind holds judgment over our self and others and wants to be apologized to for perceived transgressions. The ego mind is what makes statements like "sorry is just not good enough" and desires to make someone pay for their sins even if that someone is us. It is the ego which makes statements like, "I forgive, however I will never forget" which means I really don't forgive you and I reserve the right to pull this out and use it against you at will in the future.

I am not suggesting that we don't apologize to people in our life. Apologizes often are the catalyst for mending and re-building bridges in our relationships with others. Most of us live in cultures that expect verbal or written apologizes. Many people have been taught by their culture and by their religions that one should apologize to others and even to God. When we apologize it often makes us feel better because we have admitted that we have done something that was not acceptable to ourselves or to others and we have taken an action which helps to raise our consciousness.

One will find the more you live from your authentic self, the less you will need to apologize for. When we are living from love then our thoughts and subsequent actions are not to be apologized for. It is when we slip into ego driven thinking that we may do things that we and others feel warrant an apology. The action that warrants an apology and the apology itself are both ego driven. Our need to apologize and the need of others to hear our apology are both ego driven. This last thought may take some time to digest because some may say, "I say I am sorry as a loving act, I don't see it as an act of the ego". I understand this thought, however let's think about it. When I apologize it is because I want something/someone external to myself to forgive me, to continue to love me, to tell me that everything is okay (does spirit need this, or ego?). When I apologize to someone I want them to know that I am truly sorry for the pain I have caused them and they need to hear it (because their ego needs to hear it, not because their spirit needs to hear it; our spirit already forgave).

Again, I am not suggesting that we don't say we are sorry, what I am suggesting is that as loving beings we don't need to hear someone say they are sorry to forgive them and that if we are truly living from love than we will not be thinking, saying or doing things that we need to be sorry for as we strive to live from spirit and not from ego.

Live in love!

As a footnote, I believe it is important to note, that living from spirit does not mean that we have to or should allow others to abuse us in any way shape or form and that we can love and therefore forgive and still make the choice to remove ourselves from an abusive/toxic situation.