Apologizing doesn’t make you smaller. Refusing to is what does.

The fear is that saying sorry hands the other person power. In practice it works the other way: the person who can name what they did looks solid, and the person still defending a thing everybody watched them do looks small and a bit trapped. Refusal is also loud: it takes constant maintenance, and everyone around can see the effort.

If there is one you owe, make it this week and keep it plain. What you did, that it was not okay, nothing after it. No explanation attached, because the explanation is usually where an apology turns back into a defense. Then let them decide what to do with it.