You are reading from the book "The Language of Letting Go."
Transformation through Grief
We're striving for acceptance in recovery - acceptance of our past, other people, our present circumstances, and ourselves. Acceptance brings peace, healing, and freedom - the freedom to take care of ourselves.
Acceptance is not a one-step process. Before we achieve acceptance, we go toward it in stages of denial, anger, negotiating, and sadness. We call these stages the grief process. Grief can be frustrating. It can be confusing. We may vacillate between sadness and denial. Our behaviors may vacillate. Others may not understand us. We may neither understand our own behavior nor ourselves while we're grieving our losses. Then one day things become clear. The fog lifts and we see that we have been struggling to face and accept a particular reality.
Don't worry. If we are taking steps to take care of ourselves, we will move through this process at exactly the right pace. Be understanding with yourself and others for the very human way we go through transition.
Today I will accept the way I go through change. I will accept the grief process and its stages as the way people accept loss and change.
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