November 2
The Grief Process
To let ourselves wholly grieve our losses is how we surrender to the process of life and recovery. Some experts, like Patrick Carnes, call the Twelve Steps ''a program for dealing with our losses, a program for dealing with our grief.''
How do we grieve?
Awkwardly. Imperfectly. Usually with a great deal of resistance. Often with anger and attempts to negotiate. Ultimately, by surrendering to the pain.
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The grief process, says Elisabeth KublerRoss, is a fivestage process: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and, finally, acceptance. That's how we grieve; that's how we accept; that's how we forgive; that's how we respond to the many changes life throws our way.
Although this fivestep process looks tidy on paper, it is not tidy in life. We do not move through it in a compartmentalized manner. We usually flounder through, kicking and screaming with much backandforth movement—until we reach that peaceful state called acceptance.
When we talk about "unfinished business" from our past, we are usually referring to losses about which we have not completed grieving. We're talking about being stuck somewhere in the grief process. Usually, for adult children and codependents, the place where we become stuck is denial. Passing through denial is the first and most dangerous stage of grieving, but it is also the first step toward acceptance.
We can learn to understand the grief process and how it applies to recovery. Even good changes in recovery can bring loss and, consequently, grief. We can learn to help ourselves and others by understanding and becoming familiar with this process. We can learn to fully grieve our losses, feel our pain, accept, and forgive, so we can feel joy and love.
Today, God, help me open myself to the process of grieving my losses. Help me allow myself to flow through the grief process, accepting all the stages so I might achieve peace and acceptance in my life. Help me learn to be gentle with myself and others while we go through this very human process of healing.
November 3
Denial
Denial is fertile breeding ground for the behaviors we call codependent: controlling, focusing on others, and neglecting Page 320
ourselves. Illness and compulsive or addictive behaviors can also emerge during denial.
Denial can be confusing because it resembles sleeping. We're not really aware we're doing it until we're done doing it. Forcing ourselves—or anyone else—to face the truth usually doesn't help. We won't face the facts until we are ready. Neither, it seems, will anyone else. We may admit to the truth for a moment, but we won't let ourselves know what we know until we feel safe, secure, and prepared enough to deal and cope with it.
Talking to friends who know, love, support, encourage, and affirm us helps.
Being gentle, loving, and affirming with ourselves helps. Asking ourselves, and our Higher Power, to guide us into and through change helps.
The first step toward acceptance is denial. The first step toward moving through denial is accepting that we may be in denial, and then gently allowing ourselves to move through.
God, help me feel safe and secure enough today to accept what I need to accept.
November 4
Anger
Feeling angry—and, sometimes, the act of blaming—is a natural and necessary part of accepting loss and change—of grieving. We can allow ourselves and others to become angry as we move from denial toward acceptance.
As we come to terms with loss and change, we may blame ourselves, our Higher Power, or others. The person may be connected to the loss, or he or she may be an innocent bystander. We may hear ourselves say: "If only he would have done that. . . . If I wouldn't have done that. . . . Why didn't God do it differently?. . ." We know that blame doesn't help. In recovery, the watchwords are selfresponsibility and Page 321
personal accountability, not blame. Ultimately, surrender and selfresponsibility are the only concepts that can move us forward, but to get there we may need to allow ourselves to feel angry and to occasionally indulge in some blaming.
It is helpful, in dealing with others, to remember that they, too, may need to go through their angry stage to achieve acceptance. To not allow others, or ourselves, to go through anger and blame may slow down the grief process.
Trust ourselves and the grief process. We won't stay angry forever. But we may need to get mad for a while as we search over what could have been, to finally accept what is.
God, help me learn to accept my own and others' anger as a normal part of achieving acceptance and peace. Within that framework, help me strive for personal accountability.
November 5
Let's Make a Deal
The relationship just wasn't working out, and I wanted it to so badly. I kept thinking if I just made myself look prettier, if I just tried to be a more loving, kind person, then he would love me. I turned myself inside out to be something better, when all along, who I was was okay. I just couldn't see what I was doing, though, until I moved forward and accepted reality.
—Anonymous
One of the most frustrating stages of acceptance is the bargaining stage. In denial, there is bliss. In anger, there is some sense of power. In bargaining, we vacillate between believing there is something we can do to change things and realizing there isn't.
We may get our hopes up again and again, only to have them dashed.
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Many of us have turned ourselves inside out to try to negotiate with reality. Some of us have done things that appear absurd, in retrospect, once we've achieved acceptance.
"If I try to be a better person, then this won't happen. . . . If I look prettier, keep a cleaner house, lose weight, smile more, let go, hang on more tightly, close my eyes and count to ten, holler, then I won't have to face this loss, this change."
There are stories from members of AlAnon about attempts to bargain with the alcoholic's drinking: "If I keep the house cleaner, he won't drink. . . . If I make her happy by buying her a new dress, she won't drink. . . . If I buy my son a new car, hell stop using drugs."
Adult children have bargained with their losses too: "Maybe if I'm the perfect child, then Mom or Dad will love and approve of me, stop drinking, and be there for me the way I want them to be." We do big, small, and inbetween things, sometimes crazy things, to ward off, stop, or stall the pain involved with accepting reality.
There is no substitute for accepting reality. That's our goal. But along the way, we may try to strike a deal. Recognizing our attempts at bargaining for what they are—
part of the grief process—helps our lives become manageable.
Today, I will give myself and others the freedom to fully grieve losses. I will hold myself accountable, but I will give myself permission to be human.
November 6
Enjoying Life
Do something fun today.
If you're relaxing, let yourself relax, without guilt, without worrying about the work that is undone.
If you're with loved ones, let yourself love them, and let them love you. Let yourself feel close.
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Let yourself enjoy your work, for that can be pleasurable too.
If you're doing something fun, let yourself enjoy it.
What would feel good? What would you enjoy? Is there a positive pleasure available? Indulge.
Recovery is not solely about stopping the pain. Recovery is about learning to make ourselves feel better; then it's about making ourselves feel good.
Enjoy your day.
Today, I will do something fun, something I enjoy, something just for me. I will take responsibility for making myself feel good.
November 7
Relationships
There is a gift for us in each relationship that comes our way.
Sometimes the gift is a behavior we're learning to acquire: detachment, selfesteem, becoming confident enough to set a boundary, or owning our power in another way.
Some relationships trigger h
ealing in us—healing from issues of the past or an issue we're facing today.
Sometimes we find ourselves learning the most important lessons from the people we least expect to help us. Relationships may teach us about loving ourselves or someone else. Or maybe well learn to let others love us.
Sometimes, we aren't certain what lesson we're learning, especially while we're in the midst of the process. But we can trust that the lesson and the gift are there. We don't have to control this process. We'll understand, when it's time. We can also trust that the gift is precisely what we need.
Today, I'll be grateful for all my relationships. I will open myself to the lesson and the gift from each person in my life. I will trust that I, too, am a gift in other people's lives.
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November 8
True to Ourselves
This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou 'canst not then be false to any man.
—William Shakespeare
To thine own self be true. A grounding statement for those of us who get caught up in the storm of needs and feelings of others.
Listen to the self. What do we need? Are those needs getting met? What do we feel? What do we need to do to take care of our feelings? What are our feelings telling us about ourselves and the direction we need to go?
What do we want to do or say? What are our instincts telling us? Trust them—even if they don't make sense or meet other people's rules and expectations.
Sometimes, the demands of other people and our confused expectations of ourselves—the messages about our responsibilities toward others—can create a tremendous, complicated mess.
We can even convince ourselves that people—pleasing, going against our nature and not being honest, is the kind, honest thing to do!
Not true. Simplify. Back to basics. Let go of the confusion. By honoring and respecting ourselves, we will be true to those around us, even if we displease them momentarily.
To thine own self be true. Simple words describing a powerful task that can put us back on track.
Today, I will honor, cherish, and love myself. When confused about what to do, I will be true to myself. I will break free of the hold others, and their expectations, have on me.
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November 9
Accepting Love
Many of us have worked too hard to make relationships work; sometimes those relationships didn't have a chance because the other person was unavailable or refused to participate.
To compensate for the other person's unavailability, we worked too hard. We may have done all or most of the work. This may mask the situation for a while, but we usually get tired. Then, when we stop doing all the work, we notice there is no relationship, or we're so tired we don't care.
Doing all the work in a relationship is not loving, giving, or caring. It is selfdefeating and relationshipdefeating. It creates the illusion of a relationship when in fact there may be no relationship. It enables the other person to be irresponsible for his or her share. Because that does not meet our needs, we ultimately feel victimized.
In our best relationships, we all have temporary periods where one person participates more than the other. This is normal. But as a permanent way of participating in relationships, it leaves us feeling tired, worn out, needy, and angry.
We can learn to participate a reasonable amount, then let the relationship find it's own life. Are we doing all the calling? Are we doing all the initiating? Are we doing all the giving? Are we the one talking about feelings and striving for intimacy?
Are we doing all the waiting, the hoping, the work?
We can let go. If the relationship is meant to be, it will be, and it will become what it is meant to be. We do not help that process by trying to control it. We do not help ourselves, the other person, or the relationship by trying to force it or by doing all the work.
Let it be. Wait and see. Stop worrying about making it happen. See what happens and strive to understand if that is what you want.
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Today, I will stop doing all the work in my relationships. I will give myself and the other person the gift of requiring both people to participate. I will accept the natural level my relationships reach when I do my share and allow the other person to choose what his or her share will be. I can trust my relationships to reach their own level. I do not have to do all the work; I need only do my share.
November 10
Beliefs About Money
I was starting a new job for a corporation. I was good at what I did for a living. The personnel manager and I were down to the details of employment, and he asked me how much money I believed I deserved. I thought about it and came up with a figure of $400 a month. This was back in the sixties. I didn't want to ask for too much, so I decided to ask for the smallest amount I could live with. He hired me and gave me what I asked for. Later on, when I left that job, the personnel manager told me he had been willing to pay me whatever I wanted. Had I asked for $600 or even $700 a month, which was a tremendous salary at that time, I would have gotten it. I had limited myself by what I believed I deserved.
—Anonymous
What are our beliefs about money?
Do we believe that money is evil and wrong? Money is neither. It is a commodity on earth, a necessity. It is what people need to purchase many of their basic needs, as well as luxuries and treats; it is one way they are rewarded for their work. Loving money, however, can be as selfdefeating as loving any other commodity. We can become obsessed with money; we can use it as an escape from relationships and feelings; we can use it compulsively to gain a temporary sense of power. Money is simply money.
Do we believe there's a scarcity of money? Many of us grew up with deprived thinking concerning money: There's not Page 327
enough. There will never be enough. If we get a little, we may guard it and hoard it because there's no more.
Money is not in short supply. We do not have to waste our energy resenting those who have enough. There is plenty of money here on earth.
How much do we believe we deserve? Many of us are limiting ourselves by what we believe we deserve.
Money is not evil. There is no scarcity, except in our mind and attitudes. And what we believe we deserve will be about what we shall receive.
We can change our beliefs through affirmations, by setting goals, by starting where we are, and working slowly forward to where we want to be.
Today, I will examine my beliefs about money. I will begin the process of letting go of any selfdefeating beliefs that may be limiting or blocking the financial part of my life.
November 11
Discipline
Children need discipline to feel secure; so do adults.
Discipline means understanding there are logical consequences to our behavior. Discipline means taking responsibility for our behavior and the consequences.
Discipline means learning to wait for what we want.
Discipline means being willing to work for and toward what we want.
Discipline means learning and practicing new behaviors.
Discipline means being where we need to be, when we need to be there, despite our feelings.
Discipline is the daytoday performing of tasks, whether these be recovery behaviors or washing the dishes.
Discipline involves trusting that our goals will be reached though we cannot see them.
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Discipline can be grueling. We may feel afraid, confused, uncertain. Later, we will see the purpose. But this clarity of sight usually does not come during the time of discipline. We may not even believe we're moving forward.
But we are. The task at hand during times of discipline is simple: listen, trust, and obey.
Higher Power, help me learn to surrender to discipline. Help me be grateful that You care enough about me to allow these times of discipline and learning in my life. Help me know that as a result of discipline and learning, something impor
tant will have been worked out in me.
November 12
Timing
Wait until the time is right. It is selfdefeating to postpone or procrastinate; it is also selfdefeating to act too soon, before the time is right.
Sometimes, we panic and take action out of fear. Sometimes, we take untimely action for revenge or because we want to punish someone. We act or speak too soon as a way to control or force someone to action. Sometimes, we take action too soon to relieve feelings of discomfort or anxiety about how a situation will turn out.
An action taken too soon can be as ineffective as one taken too late. It can backfire and cause more problems than it solves. Usually, when we wait until the time is right sometimes only a matter of minutes or hours—the discomfort dissolves, and we're empowered to accomplish what we need to do.
In recovery, we are learning to be effective.
Our answers will come. Our guidance will come. Pray. Trust. Wait. Let go. We are being led. We are being guided.
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Today, I will let go of my need to control by waiting until the time is right. When the time is right, I will take action.
November 13
Taking Care of Ourselves
We do not have to wait for others to come to our aid. We are not victims. We are not helpless.
Letting go of faulty thinking means we realize there are no knights on white horses, no magical grandmothers in the sky watching, waiting to rescue us.
Teachers may come our way, but they will not rescue. They will teach. People who care will come, but they will not rescue. They will care. Help will come, but help is not rescuing.
We are our own rescuers.
Our relationships will improve dramatically when we stop rescuing others and stop expecting them to rescue us.
Today, I will let go of the fears and selfdoubt that block me from taking assertive action in my best interest. I can take care of myself and let others do the same for themselves.
November 14
Letting Our Anger Out
It's okay to be angry, but it isn't healthy to be resentful. Regardless of what we learned as children, no matter what we saw rolemodeled, we can learn to deal with our anger in ways that are healthy for us and for those around us. We can have our angry feelings. We can connect with them, own them, feel them, express them, release them, and be done with them.
More Language of Letting Go: 366 New Daily Meditations Page 27
