Own Up To Change Your Life

Copping to your mistakes is easier said than done...until now. Once you discover the benefits of admission, you'll kiss whatifs and regrets goodbye

- LINDSAY GELLER

At the end of every Real Housewives season, the reunion is the place to own up to gossip, shade and snark.

With nowhere to hide (even those who "storm off" always come back), the women are usually held accountable for their actions by the host, the viewers and, of course, each other. Some acknowledge and atone for their mistakes, offering a path to resolution with a previous foe, while others stand by their statements. Either way, they are forced to own up to who they are and what they've done in a strange sort of cleansing ritual. By the end of the reunion, everyone is on good enough terms to do a group toast before enjoying a few months off from filming. For those of us without access to this televised catharsis, embracing our mistakes, wrongdoings, and everything else that makes us a work in progress is no easy, or welcome, task.

"We're scared of what we might find if we look too closely at our misbehaviour and its underlying contributors, which often originate in past hurts," says clinical psychologist Dr Gabrielle Frackman. "It's tough to confront the way pain influences our lives by contributing to actions that go against our values." Add on the fear of another person rejecting our efforts to make amends and it's like salt rubbed in the wound. You already feel like crap; now you need to broadcast that to the world, or at least to the person(s) you wronged?