7 Stages of Grief:
Reconstruction and Acceptance

Articles on this page:

A Poem on Acceptance of Illness

6. Reconstruction And Working Through

7. Acceptance

Includes:

Acceptance Is Not Resignation

Spiritual Beliefs Help Us Move To Acceptance

My Story of Moving Through The 7 Stages of Grieving Loss of Health

7 Stages of Grief: 6

6. Reconstruction And Working Through

There are other moments when the symptoms are so bad that, even though we haven’t fully accepted the reality of the illness, we also take steps
...either towards better looking after ourselves at the level we are at,
...or towards getting help to aid us in our recovery.
In these moments, the symptoms are too real to ignore.

In both these times, we are moving towards finding a life within the illness. We are reconstructing our lives.

7 Stages of Grief: 7

Acceptance

Acceptance Is Not Resignation

"But if I accept the illness, aren't I giving into it.
Won't it make it more likely that I don't recover?"

We often confuse resignation and acceptance.

To be resigned is a heavy feeling:
“Well this is just how things are and will always be. It’s not fair, and nothing will ever change.”

Acceptance is a falling into the present moment:

Spiritual Beliefs Help Us Move To Acceptance

Spiritual beliefs are a huge help in moving through the 7 stages of grief into acceptance.

Here are some spiritual beliefs that can help people of different faiths to accept the present moment. See if any ring true for you.

• We are held in the arms of a loving God who loves us where we are and leads us to the next step.



• God has a plan, and any suffering is incomparable to the joy we touch in those moments when we rest in God.



• We must have the strength to be in this situation or else God would not have led us to it, or we would not have chosen it.



• Karma – the idea that this is something that we deserve from previous lifetimes so we will let it be.



• The Buddhist belief that we choose our parents and life circumstances before we take on a current lifetime, so all things are as we chose them to be according to our strengths.



• Everything changes:
  The good passes, but so too does the bad.
  This too will pass.
  
  

If you want some encouragement to persevere with going through the grief to a place of acceptance and hope, click on Encouragement Poem: The Tortoise and The Hare.

My Story of Moving Through The 7 Stages of Grief

I never did fully accept being ill when I was ill. It felt like a bad dream from which I would surely wake at some point. In a way it feels like that is what happened. Or, more accurately, it still seems a little unbelievable that I am walking and talking and doing the wonderful things I am doing. Now I feel I am dreaming a happier dream :-). I wish the same for you.

As I get better, and leave the past behind, I continue to move through the 7 stages of grief.

Often when I am particularly happy – aware of being able to do something I couldn’t do for so long – along with the happiness, I experience an upswelling of grief. It happened yesterday:

Someone has leant me a keyboard. I have played the piano at other people’s houses since recovery, but only rarely.

There was something so sweetly luxurious about being able to play on my own, in my own space. In the safety of my celebration, I also felt the grief of all those years when my arms would jerk about out of control, my fingers were fatigued and felt arthritic, and I had no way to get to a piano in any case.

Seated at the keyboard, I shed a few tears of grief and joy. I thank God for my healing, and I move on a little more lightly in the acceptance of my health.

Know that all the 7 stages of grief are necessary, all steps are normal. We can't just skip them. It is OK to be going through a stage. By recognising the stage, we can learn to be gentle with ourselves.

Let us be willing to be loved by God as we are. There is no greater place of growth than one in which we feel accepted exactly as we are.

And know that wherever you are, you are doing wonderfully.

If you have the motivation to read a page like this, then you definitely have the strength and motivation to keep taking the next step towards acceptance of illness and hope for recovery.

Thank you for your strength.

More articles to help you learn how to accept yourself: Prayers for Relaxation and Rest, Quotes

Motivational Poems – I See And I Accept Where I am Now

The Serenity Prayer


Click here for the Contents List for The 7 Stages of Grief

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