Acceptance: Learning to Hold Space for Contradiction
Grief doesn’t always come with a funeral. Sometimes it arrives quietly, without ceremony: a closed door, a diagnosis, a drop in conversation, an empty room. The realization that something you hoped for simply isn’t going to happen. This is grief, too. Not the kind we get casseroles for but the other kind—the kind that sits unacknowledged. We grieve all sorts of things… a parent who can’t really show up for you, a marriage that’s deteriorating, a gendered self we tried to wear for decades before it started to weigh and smother us, the body we once trusted, the dream we held tightly for years but never got to live. These living losses hurt. And like all grief, they bring us — eventually and repeatedly — to a place we call acceptance. But what if acceptance isn’t what we think it is?
A Nagging Negotiation, Not a Finish Line
When people imagine the stages of grief, they tend to picture a path. They imagine you start at denial, slowly walking into anger, ping-ponging with bargaining along the way, suddenly finding you’ve been slog through depression, and triumphantly, you arrive at acceptance. Cue the swelling music. Roll the credits. But in real life? Acceptance is rarely that cinematic. It doesn’t usually come with clarity or closure or peace wrapped in a bow. Most of the time, it feels more like… a sigh. Or a “Well… here we are.”
In the world of ambiguous grief, acceptance is not about being okay with what happened. Let me repeat that for you - its not about trying to be okay with what happened. Instead, it’s about no longer fighting the truth of it. It’s the moment you stop waiting for the other person to change. The moment you let go of the version of life that didn’t pan out. The moment you whisper, “This, this is what’s real. And I’m still here.”
And then the next day? You might wake up angry again. Longing again. Hurting all over again. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed at acceptance. That’s how acceptance is. And it means that you’re human.
A Moving Target
The grief that comes from these kinds of losses doesn’t follow clean arcs. It spirals. It doubles back. It goes quiet, then loud, then quiet again.
You might feel at peace with your divorce—until your ex gets remarried.
You might be grounded in your transition—until a childhood photo knocks the wind out of you.
You might accept that you’ll never be a parent—until you walk through the baby aisle at Target and find yourself blinking hard.
Are these regressions? No, they’re reminders. Grief flares up when something pokes at the part of us that still longs, and longing is a form of love. Acceptance isn’t the absence of longing—it’s simply the capacity to sit beside that longing without needing to rewrite it.
Acceptance isn’t permanent, it fluctuates. It’s a state that we come in and out of like breath. Some days we’re there, some days we’re not. Some days we forget what we’ve accepted at all and rage against it like it’s brand new. That’s okay. That’s why it is a process, not a plateau.
Compassion for Contradictions and Complexity
We don’t “arrive” at acceptance, we practice it. In therapy, we talk a lot about making space for contradiction. We learn to come back to it—again and again—without judgment for having wandered. And each time we return, we’re just a little more practiced at holding what’s true, even when it aches.
You can accept something and still hate that it happened.
You can forgive someone and still never want to see them again.
You can grieve something and still move forward with your life.
These aren’t signs that you’re confused. They’re signs that you’re emotionally and that you’ve been practicing holding space for hard things. In times when holding that space is harder, these gentle practices can help:
Name it: “Ah, there’s that pang of grief again.” Naming it externalizes it, which can reduce shame and increase self-awareness.
Avoid all-or-nothing thinking: You can accept something and still feel sad about it. That’s not hypocrisy. That’s complexity.
Talk back to the shame narrative: When your brain says “You should be over this by now,” try answering with, “There’s no timeline for adjusting to something I never wanted.”
Anchor to your values: What matters to you now, even with this loss in the picture? Let that guide your next step.
Return, return, return: Acceptance isn’t a straight path. It’s a spiral. You’ll pass the same points over and over, but you’re not in the same place. Each time, you’re arriving with more insight, more capacity, and—hopefully—more self-compassion.
Making Your Own Map
Ambiguous grief is disorienting in part because we weren’t given a map for it. There’s no ritual, no models, no official acknowledgment. Just us, trying to make meaning out of a quiet, haunting heartbreak.
So let this be the map instead:
You are allowed to grieve what never was. You are allowed to not be okay for as long as it takes, over and over again. You are allowed to re-accept something 100 times. And that 101st time? That counts, too.
This is not weakness, its presence. Presence is the essences of life! It means you’re mourning the version of your life that you didn’t get, the version of the person who couldn’t show up, the identity you outgrew, the story you had to rewrite—and know this:
Fluctuating acceptance isn’t a failure of healing. It’s a sign that healing is still happening because you’re still tending to it. Still showing up, still here. And that, in the end, is what matters most.
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About the Author
Sara Walter Shihdanian (she/they) is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor specializing in trauma and gender + transition, providing virtual psychotherapy in Washington state. Her extensive training and unique expertise allows her to support clients who are ready for accelerated and lasting change.