You Can Get Through It: How to Handle the Hardest Things That Will Ever Happen to You | Dr. Lucy Hone

August 17, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Dr. Lucy Hone was already deep into her PhD research on human flourishing when her 12-year-old daughter Abby was killed in a car accident along with a friend and the friend's mother. "I went from that kind of academic understanding of resilience thrown into the well," she says. "Buckle up honey, because here it is at your doorstep." That experience forced her to confront a glaring gap: the grief section at the bookstore offered nothing for someone who wanted to be an active participant in her own healing. She wrote Resilient Grieving as her own experiment, testing whether the science of well-being could hold up against unfathomable loss. After the pandemic, people kept coming to her saying, "No one has died. What have you got for all of those other awful life experiences?" That question led to her new book, How Will I Ever Get Through This, which addresses the full spectrum of what Hone calls "BFTs" (bloody effing things) — job loss, divorce, infertility, estrangement, and other "living losses" that can hit just as hard as death.

The Assumptive World Gets Smashed

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of 10% Happier with Dan Harris

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 (00:03) **Introduction: Why Resilience Matters** - Dan Harris frames the episode by describing how transitions and setbacks trigger his own anxiety and depression, setting up the need for resilience skills.
2 (01:01) **Dr. Hone’s Personal Origin Story** - Hone reveals that her expertise was forged by tragedy: the sudden death of her 12-year-old daughter Abby in a car accident while she was finishing her PhD on human flourishing.
3 (04:27) **The Concept of BFTs (Bloody Effing Things)** - Hone introduces her term for major life stressors—BFTs—and explains that her work covers the full spectrum of losses, not just death.
4 (08:50) **Living Losses Can Hit Harder** - Hone argues that non-death losses are often underestimated and can be just as destabilizing as death losses.
5 (10:23) **The Assumptive World Shattered** - Hone explains that a BFT smashes apart your deeply held core beliefs—your “assumptive world”—forcing you to rebuild your life from the ground up.
6 (12:36) **How Will I Ever Get Through This?** - Hone answers the core question of the episode by describing the most common questions people ask themselves during hardship and the evidence-based practices that help.
7 (20:13) **The Upstream Moves: Acceptance and Self-Compassion** - Hone clarifies that before you can do the “vegetable eating” (sleep, exercise, social support), you must first accept the loss and practice self-compassion.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Why the five stages of grief are a myth, a go-to phrase for when everything's falling apart, and three steps for getting through loss.

Dr. Lucy Hone is an adjunct fellow at the University of Canterbury and a sought-after professional speaker, a bestselling author, and an award-winning internationally published science educator. She is regularly featured in international media, including in The Guardian, Hidden Brain, and The Washington Post. Dr. Hone is a columnist for Psychology Today.

In this episode we talk about:

A three-step recipe for getting through any major loss
Why the five stages of grief are a myth
The surprising research on who supports grievers best (hint: pets)
Living losses vs. death losses — and why ranking grief doesn't help
What it means to have your "assumptive world" shattered
Rebuilding identity after loss: answering "who am I now?"
Finding self-compassion through "real, not perfect," not perfectionism

Related Episodes:

Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here

Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Additional Resources:

This episode is sponsored by:
Rosetta Stone: Visit rosettastone.com/happier to redeem your 20% off Rosetta Stone Sapphire.

CashApp: Download CashApp Today: click.cash.app/ui6m/oh9jnxlq #CashAppPod.

Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Savings provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/po