In a great book called "Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself" the author Melody Beattie talks about the Art of Acceptance (in Chapter 12 pages 134 to 140).
She explains how we accept negative (and even positive) things that happen to us or our unmet (and met) expectations through a five-step/stage process. It's called the Grief Process.
People go through these stages or steps whenever they face any loss or change (good or bad). The loss can be minor like losing a five dollar bill she says or not reeiving an expected letter, or it can be significant like the loss of an important person in your life through betrayal or death, or the loss of a job. Even positive change brings loss, she explains, like when you buy a new house and leave the old one (even if the new one is better). All these things require a progression through the five stages of Grief.
People will probably go through this process for anything that is a fact in their lives that they have not accepted.
This process is not particularly comfortable, she says. In fact it is awkward and somtimes painful. We may feel like we are falling apart. When the process begins, we usually feel shock and panic. As we go through the stages, we often feel confused, vulnrable, lonely, and isolated. A sense of loss of control is usually present, as is hope, which is sometimes unrealistic.
With this said, What have you faced that has caused you to be in the Grief Process and where are you in that process right now?
It is possible to be in many stages of the grief process for several losses, all during the same time.
Here are the 5 stages or steps:
*The first stage generally is denial. This is a state of shock, numbness, panic, and general refusal to accept or acknowledge reality. We do everything and anything to put things back in place or pretend the situation isn't happening. There is much anxiety and fear in this stage. Reactions typical of denial include: Refusing to believe reality ("No, this can't be"); Denying or minimizing the importance of the loss ("Isn't no big deal"); Denying any feelings about the loss ("I don't care"); or Mental Avoidance (sleeping, obsessing, compulsive behaviors, and keeping busy). We may feel somewhat detached from ourselves, and our emotional responses may be flat, nonexistent, or inappropriate (laughing when we should be crying; crying when we should be happy). When someone is codependent Melody says she is convinced they do most of their codependent behaviors in this stage-obsessing, controlling, and repressing feelings.
If you recognize you are in this stage of Grief it isn't a very good time to make significant or serious decisions.
Claudia L Jewett in Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss she explains that "in times of great stress, we shut down our awareness emotionally, sometimes intellectually, and occassionally physically. A built-in mechanism operates to screen out devastating information and to prevent us from becoming overloaded. Psychologist tell us denial is a conscious or unconscious defense that all of us use to avoid, reduce, or prevent anxiety when we are (feel) threatened. We use it to shut out our awareness of things that would be too distrubing to know."
Denial is the shock absorber for the soul. It is an instinctive and natural reaction to pain, loss, and change. It protects us. It wards off the blows of life until we can gather our other coping resources.
*Typically the second stage is Anger. Our anger may be reasonable or unreasonable. We may be justified or may irrationally vent our fury on anything and anyone. We may blame ourselves, God, and everyone around us for what we have lost. The extend of our anger will vary depending on the nature of the loss. For some things we may have little anger over, while other things we may experience very strong feelings of anger.
This is why setting someone straight, showing someone the light, or confronting a serious problem often doesn't turn out the way we expect. If we are denying a situation, we won't move directly into acceptance of reality--we'll move into anger. That is also why we need to be carefui about major confrontations (or decisions) while we are in this stage of Grief.
*Normally the third stage is called Bargaining. Here we attempt to strike a bargain with life, ourselves, another person, or God. If we do such and such or if someone else does this or that, then we won't have to suffer the loss. We are not attempting to postpone the inevitable; we are attempting to prevent it. In this stage sometimes the deals we negotiate are reasonable and productive like getting counseling for a problem and sometimes our bargains are absurd like arranging to kill someone.
*The fourth stage usually is Depression. When we see our bargain has not worked, when we finally become exhausted from our struggle to ward off reality, and when we decide to acknowledge what life has socked to us or our choices have brought us we become sad, in very serious situations of loss we can become terribly depressed. Especially if something we chose to do while going through the grief process in the first place causes us more grief to deal with. This is the essence of grief: mourning at its fullest. This is what we have been attempting at all costs to avoid. This is the time to cry, and it hurts. This stage of the process begins when we humbly surrender, says Esther Olson, a family counselor who works with the grief or, as she calls it, "forgiveness or healing process." It will disappear, she says, only when the process has been worked out and through.
*The very last stage is Acceptance. In this stage we are finally at peace with what is. We are free to stay; free to go on; free to make whatever decisions we need to make. We are free! We have accepted our loss, however minor or significant. It has become an acceptable part of our present circumstances. We are comfortable with it and our lives. We have adjusted and reorganized. Once more, we are comfortable with our present circumstances and ourselves. Not only are we comfortable with our circumstances and the changes we have endured, but we believe we have in some way benefitted from our loss or change even if we cannot fully underatand how or why. We have grown from our experience. We deeply believe our present circumstances--every detail of them--are exactly as they ought to be for the moment. In spite of our fears, feelings, struggles, and confusion, we understand everything is okay even if we lack insight. We accept what is. We stop running, ducking, controlling, and hiding. And we know it is only from this point that we can go forward.
Denial, depression, bargaining, and anger may all come rushing in. We may not know what we're trying to accept. We may not even know we're struggling to accept a situation. We may simply feel like we have gone crazy.
This entire process may take place in thrity seconds for a minor loss; it may last years or a lifetime when the loss is significant. Because this is a model of the process, it is possible for people to not go through the stages exactly as Melody has outlined them. Also it is possible for people to travel back and forth: from anger to denial, from denial to bargaining, from bargaining back to denial. Regardless of the speed or route people travel through these stages, they must travel through them. This is a normal, and necessary process, and each stage is necessary. We don't necessarily have to let the stages dictate our behaviors, but each person, for their well-being and ultimate acceptance, needs to spend individually appropriate time in each stage. "The only way out is through", Frits Perls
Melody says, "We are sturdy beings. But in many ways, we are fragile. We can accept change and loss, but this comes at our own pace and in our own way.
"Healthy are those who mourn," Donald L. Anderson author of Better Than Blessed. He also says, "Grief, like any genuine emotion, is accompanied by certain physical changes and release of a form of psychic energy. If that energy is not expended in the normal process of grieving, it becomes destructive within the person...even physical illness can be a penalty for unresolved grief...Any event, any awareness that contains a sense of loss for you can, and should, be mourned. This doesn't mean a life of incessant sadness. It means being willing to admit to an honest feeling rather than always having to laugh off the pain. It's not only permissible to admit the sadness that accompanies any loss--it's the healthy option.
Be gentle with yourself. This is a draining, exhausting process says Melody. It can deplete our energy and throw us off balance. Talk to people, people who are safe and will provide the comfort, support, and understanding you need (and who will recognize you are grieving and how to help you through the stages appropriately without causing you more grief.) Talk it out; talk it through.
Understand this process helps us be more supportive to other people, and it gives us the power to decide how we will behave and what to do to take care of ourselves when we go through it.
Learn the Art of Acceptance. It's a lot of grief :) Melody says.
She explains how we accept negative (and even positive) things that happen to us or our unmet (and met) expectations through a five-step/stage process. It's called the Grief Process.
People go through these stages or steps whenever they face any loss or change (good or bad). The loss can be minor like losing a five dollar bill she says or not reeiving an expected letter, or it can be significant like the loss of an important person in your life through betrayal or death, or the loss of a job. Even positive change brings loss, she explains, like when you buy a new house and leave the old one (even if the new one is better). All these things require a progression through the five stages of Grief.
People will probably go through this process for anything that is a fact in their lives that they have not accepted.
This process is not particularly comfortable, she says. In fact it is awkward and somtimes painful. We may feel like we are falling apart. When the process begins, we usually feel shock and panic. As we go through the stages, we often feel confused, vulnrable, lonely, and isolated. A sense of loss of control is usually present, as is hope, which is sometimes unrealistic.
It is possible to be in many stages of the grief process for several losses, all during the same time.
Here are the 5 stages or steps:
*The first stage generally is denial. This is a state of shock, numbness, panic, and general refusal to accept or acknowledge reality. We do everything and anything to put things back in place or pretend the situation isn't happening. There is much anxiety and fear in this stage. Reactions typical of denial include: Refusing to believe reality ("No, this can't be"); Denying or minimizing the importance of the loss ("Isn't no big deal"); Denying any feelings about the loss ("I don't care"); or Mental Avoidance (sleeping, obsessing, compulsive behaviors, and keeping busy). We may feel somewhat detached from ourselves, and our emotional responses may be flat, nonexistent, or inappropriate (laughing when we should be crying; crying when we should be happy). When someone is codependent Melody says she is convinced they do most of their codependent behaviors in this stage-obsessing, controlling, and repressing feelings.
If you recognize you are in this stage of Grief it isn't a very good time to make significant or serious decisions.
Claudia L Jewett in Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss she explains that "in times of great stress, we shut down our awareness emotionally, sometimes intellectually, and occassionally physically. A built-in mechanism operates to screen out devastating information and to prevent us from becoming overloaded. Psychologist tell us denial is a conscious or unconscious defense that all of us use to avoid, reduce, or prevent anxiety when we are (feel) threatened. We use it to shut out our awareness of things that would be too distrubing to know."
Denial is the shock absorber for the soul. It is an instinctive and natural reaction to pain, loss, and change. It protects us. It wards off the blows of life until we can gather our other coping resources.
*Typically the second stage is Anger. Our anger may be reasonable or unreasonable. We may be justified or may irrationally vent our fury on anything and anyone. We may blame ourselves, God, and everyone around us for what we have lost. The extend of our anger will vary depending on the nature of the loss. For some things we may have little anger over, while other things we may experience very strong feelings of anger.
This is why setting someone straight, showing someone the light, or confronting a serious problem often doesn't turn out the way we expect. If we are denying a situation, we won't move directly into acceptance of reality--we'll move into anger. That is also why we need to be carefui about major confrontations (or decisions) while we are in this stage of Grief.
*Normally the third stage is called Bargaining. Here we attempt to strike a bargain with life, ourselves, another person, or God. If we do such and such or if someone else does this or that, then we won't have to suffer the loss. We are not attempting to postpone the inevitable; we are attempting to prevent it. In this stage sometimes the deals we negotiate are reasonable and productive like getting counseling for a problem and sometimes our bargains are absurd like arranging to kill someone.
*The fourth stage usually is Depression. When we see our bargain has not worked, when we finally become exhausted from our struggle to ward off reality, and when we decide to acknowledge what life has socked to us or our choices have brought us we become sad, in very serious situations of loss we can become terribly depressed. Especially if something we chose to do while going through the grief process in the first place causes us more grief to deal with. This is the essence of grief: mourning at its fullest. This is what we have been attempting at all costs to avoid. This is the time to cry, and it hurts. This stage of the process begins when we humbly surrender, says Esther Olson, a family counselor who works with the grief or, as she calls it, "forgiveness or healing process." It will disappear, she says, only when the process has been worked out and through.
*The very last stage is Acceptance. In this stage we are finally at peace with what is. We are free to stay; free to go on; free to make whatever decisions we need to make. We are free! We have accepted our loss, however minor or significant. It has become an acceptable part of our present circumstances. We are comfortable with it and our lives. We have adjusted and reorganized. Once more, we are comfortable with our present circumstances and ourselves. Not only are we comfortable with our circumstances and the changes we have endured, but we believe we have in some way benefitted from our loss or change even if we cannot fully underatand how or why. We have grown from our experience. We deeply believe our present circumstances--every detail of them--are exactly as they ought to be for the moment. In spite of our fears, feelings, struggles, and confusion, we understand everything is okay even if we lack insight. We accept what is. We stop running, ducking, controlling, and hiding. And we know it is only from this point that we can go forward.
Denial, depression, bargaining, and anger may all come rushing in. We may not know what we're trying to accept. We may not even know we're struggling to accept a situation. We may simply feel like we have gone crazy.
This entire process may take place in thrity seconds for a minor loss; it may last years or a lifetime when the loss is significant. Because this is a model of the process, it is possible for people to not go through the stages exactly as Melody has outlined them. Also it is possible for people to travel back and forth: from anger to denial, from denial to bargaining, from bargaining back to denial. Regardless of the speed or route people travel through these stages, they must travel through them. This is a normal, and necessary process, and each stage is necessary. We don't necessarily have to let the stages dictate our behaviors, but each person, for their well-being and ultimate acceptance, needs to spend individually appropriate time in each stage. "The only way out is through", Frits Perls
Melody says, "We are sturdy beings. But in many ways, we are fragile. We can accept change and loss, but this comes at our own pace and in our own way.
"Healthy are those who mourn," Donald L. Anderson author of Better Than Blessed. He also says, "Grief, like any genuine emotion, is accompanied by certain physical changes and release of a form of psychic energy. If that energy is not expended in the normal process of grieving, it becomes destructive within the person...even physical illness can be a penalty for unresolved grief...Any event, any awareness that contains a sense of loss for you can, and should, be mourned. This doesn't mean a life of incessant sadness. It means being willing to admit to an honest feeling rather than always having to laugh off the pain. It's not only permissible to admit the sadness that accompanies any loss--it's the healthy option.
Be gentle with yourself. This is a draining, exhausting process says Melody. It can deplete our energy and throw us off balance. Talk to people, people who are safe and will provide the comfort, support, and understanding you need (and who will recognize you are grieving and how to help you through the stages appropriately without causing you more grief.) Talk it out; talk it through.
Understand this process helps us be more supportive to other people, and it gives us the power to decide how we will behave and what to do to take care of ourselves when we go through it.
Learn the Art of Acceptance. It's a lot of grief :) Melody says.
