We hope that you are feeling more confident and optimistic about not only your ability to get through adversity but also, most importantly, to grow from it. Maybe you have discovered reserves of strength you never knew you had. Or perhaps you feel (we certainly hope so!) that you have already grown as a person. If you thought that real strength was something you either had or didn’t have, rather than something you could cultivate and learn, we hope we’ve challenged that idea. Because our philosophy is that anyone can become more resilient and everyone has reserves of strength – it’s just knowing how to tap into them. We hope this book helps you to do that.

We’re not saying that adversity – in whatever form you experience it – is not difficult. When we’re knee-deep in the middle of it, it can feel like there is nothing good to be gained from it. But we hope we’ve demonstrated that we all need it. Quite simply, without upheaval and struggle, we can’t grow and learn; we can’t not just survive but thrive. As the saying goes, however, it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you deal with it that counts. We hope that by now you have picked up some new strategies and tips to do just that – and well.

What next? You’ll be working on really getting to know yourself better in order to work out what your strengths, weak spots and triggers are. You’ll feel more confident about your ability to get curious about your emotions and be willing to feel them, rather than to fight them. We’ve given you plenty of tips and the latest tried and tested strategies from experts in resilience to do just that. With the ‘Ask Yourself’ questions, you’ll also be able to explore what’s really stopping you from feeling strong and how you can tap into and grow the strength we know you already have.

Above all, we hope that you feel generally more optimistic in your ability to overcome this period in your life. We hope that even if you can’t yet see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know there’s one waiting for you, when you’re ready. The real strength you have gained by reading this book will help you to get there. And waiting for you will be greater contentment, but also the knowledge that when the next bad patch comes along, you are as equipped as possible to deal with it. Because this is what real strength is about after all, not just the ability to deal with one setback, but the many setbacks we will all experience in life. Every human being on the planet gets thrown lemons now and again, all that’s left for you to do now – with everything you have learned – is to turn those into sweet lemonade! Good luck.