Pathfinders will step beyond Elizabeth Kübler-Ross' stages of dying (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) when life continues...
If fully completing the four phases of a normal passage -- anticipation, separation, expansion, incorporation -- is essential to successful pathfinding, it could be said that the person who is forged by a life accident into a pathfinder is one who probably has fully completed the mourning process. The critical tasks that I suggest turn adversity into strength are these:
Making sound detachments: In the grip of the most acute pain, anger, fear, and confusion, making extraordinary efforts to separate from the person or situation with thought for the future.
Intervention: Consciously changing our inner image (initially negative) of what we will be like after the accident. Plunging into some constructive action during the recovery process.
Transcendence: Linking up the end of the mourning process with another beginning -- a commitment to a new work, love, idea, or a purpose larger than oneself.
Gail Sheehy
Source: Pathfinders
by Gail Sheehy
©1981, Bantam Books, pages 398 - 404