Changing What We Can

One of the benefits of a therapeutic boarding school like FFS that incorporates the ideas of the 12-Steps is a curriculum that includes acceptance---the realization that much of life is out of our control and always will be, and how we deal with that reality.

One girl who struggles with depression and who has always dealt with her "bad days" by simply shutting down, is now looking at her options.  In really listening to the Serenity Prayer, she knows that the flip side of accepting the things she can't change is to change the things she can.  If she can't control waking up on the wrong side of the bed, she can choose not to stay there.  She can choose to save the day with one small step, doing one right thing, and allowing it to lead to another.  She is learning that acceptance is a conscious process, one she can indeed control.