Looking at a painful situation with open eyes isn’t easy. Radically accepting something includes accepting pain, loss, death, or even one’s own intense emotional response. Times when I’ve had the most difficulty accepting is when I didn’t want something to be true and I couldn’t get my mind around the fact that was. Looking at the facts clearly not only helped me move through the situation, but it also gave me realistic information my environment. Seeing that other people are not willing or capable of giving me what I want is somehow freeing. It isn’t always about me. It is not about being flawed, or being bad, or being incapable. Those are just ways in which my mind has tried to interpret reality. It has not worked. Accepting anger, rage, disgust, and pain is part of being alive and grieving. We want the universe to stop for us but it doesn’t. And that’s a hard thing to let go of.