This step isn’t complicated. It simply means accepting that certain parts of your life are as they are, even though you wish they weren’t. It means looking squarely at truths you’ve been hiding from yourself, even though (paradoxically) you know they’re in there. Ultimately, leaving denial is the most productive, grounding, calming thing we could possibly do. But for most of us, it’s still terrifying. We live in the unarticulated but desperate hope that we’ll never have to look at the secret things. That’s one of the hopes we have to abandon to move forward.
