Tag: Support group

The grief process

Melody Beattie writes:

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.

The grief process, says Elisabeth Kubler Ross, is a five stage 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 five-step 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 back and forth 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 others and ourselves 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 others and myself while we go through this very human process of healing.” via Just For Today Meditations – Maintaining A Life.

Whatever your losses, they will hang in there until you work the grieving process. Long ago a priest friend of mine told me that all loss is a death of sorts so applying Ross’ stages is appropriate for just about anything…

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Gossip

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A second shot of Melody Beattie for today! The Universe must think I need it:

Intimacy is that warm gift of feeling connected to others and enjoying our connection to them.

As we grow in recovery, we find that gift in many, some­times surprising places. We may discover we’ve developed intimate relationships with people at work, with friends, with people in our support groups — sometimes with family members. Many of us are discovering intimacy in a special love relationship.

Intimacy is not sex, although sex can be intimate. Intimacy means mutually honest, warm, caring, safe relationships ­relationships where the other person can be who he or she is and we can be who we are — and both people are valued.

Sometimes there are conflicts. Conflict is inevitable. Some­times there are troublesome feelings to work through. Some­times the boundaries or parameters of relationships change. But there is a bond — one of love and trust.

There are many blocks to intimacy and intimate relation­ships. Addictions and abuse block intimacy. Unresolved fam­ily of origin issues prevent intimacy. Controlling blocks intimacy. Off balance relationships, where there is too great a discrepancy in power, prevent intimacy. Caretaking can block intimacy. Nagging, withdrawing, and shutting down can hurt intimacy.

So can a simple behavior like gossip — for example, gos­siping about another for motives of diminishing him or her in order to build up ourselves or to judge the person. To dis­cuss another person’s issues, shortcomings, or failures with someone else will have a predictable negative impact on the relationship.

We deserve to enjoy intimacy in as many of our relation­ships as possible. We deserve relationships that have not been sabotaged.

That does not mean we walk around with our heads in the clouds; it means we strive to keep our motives clean when it comes to discussing other people.

If we have a serious issue with someone, the best way to resolve it is to bring the issue to that person.

Direct, clean conversation clears the air and paves the way for intimacy, for good feelings about ourselves and our relationships with others.

Today, God, help me let go of my fear of intimacy. Help me strive to keep my communications with others clean and free from mali­cious gossip. Help me work toward intimacy in my relationships. Help me deal as directly as possible with my feelings.” via June 17: Gossip.

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Relationship Martyrs

Are you a relationship martyr? Consider this:

Many of us have gone so numb and discounted our feelings so completely that we have gotten out of touch with our needs in relationships.

We can learn to distinguish whose company we enjoy, whether we’re talking about friends, business acquaintances, dates, or spouses. We all need to interact with people we might prefer to avoid, but we don’t have to force ourselves through long-term or intimate relationships with these people.

We are free to choose friends, dates, and spouses. We are free to choose how much time we spend with those people we can’t always choose to be around, such as relatives. This is our life. This is it. We can decide how we want to spend our days and hours. We’re not enslaved. We’re not trapped. And not one of us is without options. We may not see our options clearly. Although we may have to struggle through shame and learn to own our power, we can learn to spend our valuable hours and days with the people we enjoy and choose to be with.

God, help me value my time and life. Help me place value on how I feel being around certain people. Guide me as I learn to develop healthy, intimate, sharing relationships with people. Help me give myself the freedom to experiment, explore, and learn who I am and who I can be in my relationships.

Source: Daily Meditation ~ Relationship Martyrs – Miracles In Progress Codependents Anonymous Group

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Crazy People Can Make You Crazy

Crazy People

“He’s making me crazy I don’t understand. Why would someone say they were going to do one thing, then do something so different from what they say? He looks so good and talks so good. His promises sound so, so real, but then everything falls apart. I end up doing all this work, and he just disappears. I get so dang angry Then about the time I’m ready to blow a gasket, he calls, charms my socks off, and the whole cycle starts over again. I walk away, scratching my head and wondering, ‘What’s wrong with me? Did I just imagine this whole thing? Did I overreact?’ I don’t get it. I don’t understand,”

Maybe it’s time for an Al-Anon meeting.

“And when we’re talking on the phone, I feel like I’m the only one for him. But then when I see him, I know he’s lying to me. I know he’s seeing someone else and standing there looking me right in the eyes and lying about it. When I ask him, he says, ‘Your insecurity is enchanting, and you’re usually such a together person.’ I don’t understand why I feel so insane.”

Maybe it s time for an Al-Anon meeting.

“And then I catch him straight-out lying to me, and I blow up. I just can’t stand that lying stuff especially when

I knew all the time he was lying to me and he denied it. I put up with it and put up with it and then finally I can’t take it anymore. By the time I blow up, he’s standing there looking calm and serene and I’m acting like an insane person.”

Crazy people make us feel crazy. It’s not you. It’s him. How about that meeting?

“And then he calls a few days later, and he says how sorry he is and I can tell he’s sorry Before I know it, I’ve forgotten about everything that happened, and it starts all over again. I keep wondering whether I’m being used, and then I look at him and I just feel so guilty for everything I’m feeling and thinking. Oh yeah. That Al-Anon meeting.”

Step One: Powerless over people, places, and things. My life has become unmanageable. Take a deep breath. Say it again. Then say it one more time. Crazy people make us feel crazy It will happen every time.

Value: Detach in love. Disentangle. Un-embroil yourself from other people’s insanity so you can be restored to sanity. It’s a value many of us learned the hard way.

Source: January 2: Crazy People Can Make You Crazy | Language of Letting Go

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Facing Our Dark Side

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Image by dawneday via Flickr

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
— Step Four of Al-Anon

By the time we get to the Fourth of the Twelve Steps, we are ready to face our darker side, the side that prevents us from loving ourselves and others, from letting others love us, and from enjoying life. The purpose of Step Four is not to make ourselves feel worse; our purpose is to begin to remove our blocks to joy and love.

We look for fears, anger, hurt, and shame from past events buried feelings that may be affecting our life today. We search for subconscious beliefs about ourselves and others that may be interfering with the quality of our relationships.

These beliefs say: I’m not lovable. … I’m a burden to those around me…. People can’t be trusted…. I can’ t be trusted…. I don’t deserve to be happy and successful…. Life isn’t worth living.

We look at our behaviors and patterns with an eye toward discerning the self-defeating ones. With love and compassion for ourselves, we try to unearth all our guilt – earned and unearned and expose it to the light.

We perform this examination without fear of what we shall find, because this soul searching can cleanse us and help us feel better about ourselves than we ever dreamt possible.

God, help me search out the blocks and barriers within myself Bring what I need to know into my conscious mind, so I can be free of it. Show me what I need to know about myself.

Source: December 12: Facing Our dark Side | Language of Letting Go

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Enough for everyone…

Bondi Beach
Image via Wikipedia

One sweltering summer day, I sought escape from the heat at a nearby beach.  Lying there with my lemonade, I looked at all the people soaking up the sun.  No matter how many people were on that beach, there would be enough sun for everyone.  I realized that the same was true of God’s love and guidance.  No matter how many people seek a Higher Power’s help, there is always enough to go around.  To someone who believed that there was never enough time, money, love, or anything else, this was amazing news!

This awareness was tested at an Al-Anon meeting when someone spoke about his Higher Power with a personal love and intensity that matched my own.  I felt as if his intimacy with God would leave less love for me.  But I think that the opposite is true.  I often feel closest to my “Higher Power” when I hear others share about how well a Higher Power has taken care of them.  Today I try to remember that there is enough love for us all…

via 12stepsthinkaboutit.org

Follow the ‘via’ link above for another recovery blog that I think you’ll enjoy…

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10 Ways to Help Kids Deal with the Loss of a Loved One

Mental Health Awareness Ribbon
Image via Wikipedia

Experiencing loss is a part of life that everyone has.  Losing someone is a challenge no matter what age you are.  Imagine how much harder it is for a child who has never experienced what it is like to be separated from loved ones.  Now that’s a challenge, but here is a list of things to keep in mind when talking with your children about the loss of a loved one.

via allprodad.com

Follow the ‘via’ link if you’d like to get the 10 ways…

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