If you’re wondering “How Will I Ever Get Through This?” start here

Five ways to steady yourself when life feels overwhelming from How Will I Ever Get Through This? author Dr Lucy Hone.

When life unravels - through loss, change, illness, heartbreak, or any other type of disruption - one question tends to rise above all others: How will I ever get through this?

It’s a deeply human and totally understandable response. When our familiar world is shaken, we doubt our ability to survive. But the truth is humans are incredibly adaptable.

While there’s no quick fix for pain, there are things you can do to steady yourself when crisis hits.  

Here are five places to begin. As a researcher specialising in resilience psychology and grief - but also someone who’s no stranger to tragedy myself - these are what I see help people regain their footing when life unravels.

1. Create small islands of certainty

These are the people, places, practices and possessions that help the world feel more familiar when we’re going through change. Our brains love routines and predictability, so when that’s gone out the window your nervous system will thank you for doubling down on all the things you can count on. Take a moment and identify one person, place, practice and possession that’s readily available to you now. This might be, taking a pause to welcome the daylight as you draw the curtains each morning, your daily coffee ritual, the sense of hot water in the shower, the rhythm of a daily walk, the park bench you can retreat to at lunch time, a swim at your local pool, the dog’s waggy tail - whatever works for you.

2. Ask: What’s still true?

When we’re going through a significant life transition, it’s easy to think everything’s changed. But the reality is that’s not completely true. Take a moment and write a list of ‘what’s still true?’ about you, your life, relationships and the world around you. This isn’t about forced optimism but separating what has changed from what remains.

3. Understand that your questioning serves a purpose

When life falls apart, our minds naturally start searching: Why did this happen? What does this mean? Who am I now? While this questioning can be exhausting it’s actually a critical part of how humans process loss and change. We’re wired to make sense of disruption – so all those questions that go round and round your head, are your brains effort to understand what has happened, what the implications are, and what your future life might look like moving forward. Understanding this can help reduce self-criticism when your thoughts loop or spiral.

You’re not broken. You’re adapting. Know that, while annoying, all that questioning serves a purpose.

4. Let yourself move in and out of the pain – find your ebb and flow

Grief and healing are not linear - they move in waves. Research shows that healthy coping involves an ‘oscillation’ between facing the pain and taking breaks from it. In other words, it’s okay (in fact helpful and necessary) to take breaks.

Watch something trivial. Go for a walk. Laugh with someone. Lose yourself in work for a while. Sing your favourite songs in the car. Cook a recipe that’s both comforting and absorbing. Don’t avoid your grief entirely, and don’t let it swallow you whole. Instead try to find an ebb and flow, a back and forth between approaching your loss and avoiding it for a break.

5. Create your grief ambush plan

Overwhelm often hits suddenly and typically in the most inconvenient of places - meetings, supermarkets, school pick-ups, the hairdressers, and social situations.

Having a plan in place can help you feel safer when that happens. This might include: knowing a bathroom you can retreat to; a bench or café nearby; big sunglasses to hide your tears; peeling an orange to shift your senses; listening to a playlist that gives you strength.

Where you can go when emotions spike, what can you do to get through the moment?

A final thought

When you’re in the thick of pain, don’t confuse feeling weak with being weak. These big life transitions are demanding and exhausting. Try not to look too far ahead, make a plan for today, and for the next hour. Take the next small step. And then the next. In my work, I see this all the time - that is how people get through.

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How Will I Ever Get Through This?

by Lucy Hone

A practical guide to navigating life's toughest times.

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