GRIEF WORK

Jan 20 from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader

“We can pinpoint and measure our loss by comparing the treatment we received as children in dysfunctional families with the care we could have received if raised by loving, consistent parents.” BRB p. 204

“The grief exercises in Step Five ask us to journal about childhood incidents to help access emotions about events. If they don’t surface, we try to see how a present-day child would feel in our situation. We can also look at childhood pictures to help connect with our innocence and what was lost.

Then we’re asked to re-read our Step Four “Shame and Abandonment” worksheets and reframe each incident. We describe what would have been different if there were a loving parent in each scenario.

Experiencing loss in this way can help us release it. But if we’re blocked, it may be that we switch from grief to anger when it hurts too much. It’s like a button is pushed that sends us into shutdown, blame, or rage mode. But the deep sadness of our grief can also help us see the true level of destruction of our emotions, minds, and bodies.

In choosing the recovery process over dysfunction, we realize that grief work helps us find our strong, capable Inner Child. We are learning what a loving parent would do and how we can reparent ourselves. The ACA program is not easy work, but the reward is freedom!

On this day I will hold on to the ACA process when the grief and emotions are screaming. I will stop at nothing to recover my original self.”

My experience:

I can totally relate to the pain coming out in the form of anger.  I have carried anger inside me for a long time.  No one, not even me, recognized that this was really pain that needed release and soothing.  I am deeply sad and ashamed of this behavior.  But I now have the ACA program to help me through.  I am embracing this program whole-heartedly and finding rescue in it.  I can’t yet say that I have completely let the inappropriate display of anger go, but I am better at recognizing, forgiving myself for it and apologizing as I need to.  I am letting go each and every day.

Soul cleanser

The eyes are said to be the gateway to the soul

Because you voyage deeply to mine those stories untold

Glance into my openings and you may notice them not dry

Because my eyes seem to have a trickle all the time

What you may not comprehend as you see me

I am healing and this is a way for my sorrow to be released

For every spanking, harsh word, or unrecognized feat

Added a brick to that wall of misery inside me

But as I tear at the barrier and attempt to unhide

I concede that the stress continues to reside

I now understand that this unhappiness needs a route

As the tears fall one by one without nary a prompt

The resident sadness needed to be recognized and named

Sometimes leaky, sometimes gushy, but tears all the same

Temper your concern as I am recovering well

The full cleansing of my soul, only time will tell