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.
Ok I thought I had greived my life with an active alcoholic. Afterall he's in recovery now and I made a decision not to divorce him. He has re built his relationship with his kids and everything should now be hunky dory.
I thought I'd taken the time to heal and to move past painful events.
So now..... 5 years on, when there is major stresses coming from other places, am I struggling again.
I SHOULD (and theres that word again!) be able to deal with things normally now.
But I think my behaviour is now vacillating (or wavering around .... I had to look the word up in a dictionary) more than ever.
Now, is this because I didn't grieve properly in the first place and have hung onto resentments that need to be worked on again OR is this a new situation that has to be greived over from the beginning again.
This leads me to ask ....does it matter whats causing the issues? If I accept the grief process and its stages in order to accept loss and change.....then my job is to find out what i've lost !
So what have I lost.....my husband is still sober and working his program so what if its nothing to do with him at all. Thats scary... I like blaming him for my insanity!
What I've lost is the thought and understanding that my daughter is happy, secure and doing ok ! Her situation is constantly on my mind and probebly on my husbands mind too....so maybe we're both freaking out and blaming eachother.....which would explain why we're not feeling very close right now.
So now I'm scrolling back to see what I am supposed to do next.....
Acceptance that i'm freaking out over my daughter and that this is a new situation frees me to NOT focus on my husband behaviour So yes peace healing and freedom to take care of me..... Without as much resentment possibly.
I'm definately working at denial. I'm buying baby things. but telling my daughter its all just wind lol. But in 4 short weeks she is REALLY going to have a small child to begin bringing up....... No I can't get my head round that!!!!
Anger.... I'm angry at the father of the child who is doing nothng to support my daughter
Negotiating.... I am trying to make sure she and the baby are safe.....so I am compramising my boundaries and worrying about hers.... one day at a time HP is showing me that I have no control....
and sadness..... I am incredibly sad for her and the changes she is having to make to her life because of her mistakes. I can't see this as her fault though. whats the use in blaming..... This is her journey now and all we can do is make it as easy as we can for her.
She can't travel as she'd planned and hasn't found her way into a happy relationship before bringing a child into the world.... Its a huge sadness to me that her life is going to be harder than it should be now.
But I can't change anything for her....I can't change the judgements of others in my family....I can't change the hurt she's experiencing from the father of the baby....who is messing with her head....
I want to just scoop up MY baby and make it all ok for her.....but she 24 now and I can't!
Yes that takes some grieving!
Wow this stuff works when you really look at it doesn't it ?
odaat
-- Edited by odaat on Wednesday 2nd of November 2011 07:34:41 PM
