Resource Spotlight: a book about change, crisis and hope.

This Too Shall Pass by Julia Samuel.

A resource for grief and uncertainty as well as a book review. 

As we are closing in on the end of the first month of this new year, I have been reflecting on the previous blogs which were all centered around Entering a New Year While Carrying the Past, I thought to give a last recount related to the same subject – this time in the form of a short book review as it can be helpful to lean into resources that honour change, loss, and the ways we adapt — not by rushing through our experiences, but by learning from them with compassion. 

One such resource is This Too Shall Pass by Julia Samuel, a psychotherapist and bestselling author whose work focuses on how people navigate life’s most challenging transitions. When I read this book, I was struck by her gentle voice enabling me to relate to the stories she shares.

This book focusses on stories of change, crisis, and hopeful beginnings drawn from hours of clinical practice. The author has written accounts from everyday people in everyday lives, but that are deeply personal. The stories are divided over categorised chapters like ‘family relationships’, ‘love’ and ‘work’, where individuals are trying to adjust to changes in their lives despite of grief – this illustrates how people can adopt and grow in the face of difficulty.

This book is a beautiful example of an author who knows how to honour life without minimising hardship, who pays tribute to learning how to respond to life’s inevitable changes with openness and resilience. It shows us that we can approach challenges – including grief, uncertainty or any emotional weight we might carry into a new year – with compassion and kindness. 

She concludes her book with ‘the 8 pillars of strength’, a chapter about a framework she developed that can become a toolbox of support and your own way of using it around 8 different areas like the relationship with yourself, limits and mindbody.

If this reflection resonates, it may be touching parts of you that have learned to stay quiet or carry things alone. Sometimes, having space to gently speak what has gone unheard — and to notice how this is held in the body — can begin to soften what feels heavy. My work offers a trauma-informed, relational, and somatic-aware space where you can move at your own pace, listening to what feels ready to emerge. Support is here if and when it feels right for you.