I felt sad because we’d lost our cat and so many things we loved. Shame because I like to help others and here I was needing to accept help from so many other people. What I really learned about acceptance from these past few months is that acceptance isn’t a sneaky trick. Telling myself that there’s room inside me for these feelings didn’t make them go away. Saying that I accept that I’m sad didn’t make me feel any less sad, even though I desperately hoped it would.