In 1969, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) in her book On Death and Dying. Her work was groundbreaking. It gave us language where there had been silence. It gave form to something deeply human and profoundly painful.

Without her work, I don’t think we would even have the vocabulary to talk about grief the way we do today.

And yet, over time, the way those stages have been interpreted has created what feels like a burden for many of us who are grieving.

Especially when it comes to the final stage: Acceptance.

The Unspoken Pressure of “Being There”

If you’ve been grieving for a while, you may know this feeling.

It’s been months. Or years. Maybe longer.

And somewhere along the way, you’ve wondered (or been told!) that you should be further along by now.

You may have asked yourself:

Why don’t I feel accepting yet?

What’s wrong with me?

Did I do grief wrong?

Those types of questions often come with guilt. Guilt for still feeling sad. Guilt for still missing them. Guilt for still being affected.

And for those early in grief, Acceptance can sound terrifying, like a demand to let go, move on, or approve of something that shattered your life.

Neither of those interpretations is fair. And neither reflects the reality of grief.

What Kübler-Ross Meant — and What We Made of It

Kübler-Ross’s stages were identified through observing terminally ill patients, not the people who would eventually be left behind. I believe that context matters, and I wrote about this in Grief Recovery for Adults.

The stages were never meant to imply a neat, linear progression. They were observations, not instructions. A way of naming emotional states, not a checklist to complete.

But culturally, we’ve turned them into something else—something I believe became limiting.

We’ve treated Acceptance like a finish line. Like the moment grief ends. Like proof that we’re “okay now.”

And I believe that misunderstanding has caused unintentional harm to countless people.

Acceptance Is Not What You Think It Is

Let’s be clear about what Acceptance is not.

Acceptance is not approval.

Acceptance is not forgetting.

Acceptance is not moving on.

Acceptance is not emotional neutrality.

Acceptance is not the absence of pain.

Acceptance does not mean you’re done grieving.

What it does mean is something more profound and far more humane.

Acceptance is acknowledging reality without judgment.

It’s naming what is true — this happened, this person is gone, this loss is part of my life — without arguing with it, denying it, or punishing yourself for still feeling what you feel.

That’s it.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

What Acceptance Looked Like for Me

When I was finishing Life After Losses, something crystallized for me that I hadn’t fully understood before.

I realized that both of my losses were necessary for me to understand grief in the way I do now.

I needed the first loss to prepare me for the second. And I needed the second loss to give meaning to the first.

That realization didn’t erase the pain of either loss. But it changed my relationship to them.

I could carry both losses without being consumed by them. I could hold grief and gratitude at the same time. I could acknowledge the reality of what happened without resenting myself for surviving it.

That, for me, was Acceptance.

Not an ending, but a solid foundation for my understanding.

Acceptance as Perceiving Reality

This is why Acceptance aligns so closely with the first P in the PURPOSE framework, what I call Perceiving Reality — naming what exists without judgment, and acknowledging truth.

Acceptance doesn’t ask you to feel differently. It asks you to stop fighting what already is.

And that distinction matters.

When we stop fighting reality, we free up energy — not to forget, but to live. Not to erase grief, but to integrate it.

Acceptance allows grief to take its rightful place in our lives without letting it define the entirety of who we are; we live with, not for.

If You’re Not “There Yet”

If you’re reading this and thinking, I’m nowhere near Acceptance, let me say this plainly:

You are not failing grief.

Acceptance is not a moment you arrive at and stay forever. It comes and goes. It deepens. It shifts. It looks different at 28 (my first loss) than it does at 47 (my second loss), and different again at 54 (when I shared Life After Losses). Five years later, it’s still different.

You may touch Acceptance one day and feel knocked sideways by grief the next. That doesn’t mean you’ve lost ground. It means you’re human.

And if you’re early in grief, Acceptance does not require you to like what happened, agree with it, or make peace with it on anyone else’s timeline.

It only asks that, when you’re ready, you allow reality to exist without punishing yourself for it.

Your Turn

So here’s the invitation for this first entry of 2026:

If Acceptance has felt heavy, frightening, or out of reach, try loosening the definition.

Ask yourself:

• What am I still fighting that I don’t need to fight today?
• Where can I name what’s true without judging myself for it?
• What would it look like to carry this loss, not resolve it?

Acceptance is not the end of grief. It’s the beginning of living honestly alongside it.

And that’s more than enough for now.