--- title: Sheryl Sandberg: How to Recover When the Worst Happens description: The Facebook COO shares what she learned about becoming more resilient following her husband's sudden death canonical: https://time.com/4751200/sheryl-sandberg-option-b-grieving-advice/ author: Diane Tsai article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-25T13:00:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T08:47:17.115Z og:title: Sheryl Sandberg on How to Recover When the Worst Happens og:description: The Facebook COO shares what she learned about becoming more resilient og:url: https://time.com/4751200/sheryl-sandberg-option-b-grieving-advice/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdc835e68cf885751/6988c400656a3f4806bcfad0/sheryl-sandberg-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1443 og:image:height: 812 og:image:alt: Sheryl Sandberg Option B og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sheryl Sandberg on How to Recover When the Worst Happens twitter:description: The Facebook COO shares what she learned about becoming more resilient twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdc835e68cf885751/6988c400656a3f4806bcfad0/sheryl-sandberg-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Every Day Is Like a Week': Sheryl Sandberg on How to Recover When the Worst Happens > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=186eb31c-0203-4328-9110-20648d8996fc&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Sheryl Sandberg: How to Recover When the Worst Happens [Watch (HLS stream): Sheryl Sandberg: How to Recover When the Worst Happens](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/koct3vmv.m3u8) (2:19)  _Published 2017-04-24. Grief doesn't hit everybody the same way. And people deal with it differently. But Sheryl Sandberg, whose husband Dave Goldberg died unexpectedly in 2015, thinks there are some things all grieving people share._ by [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) and [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/) Apr 25, 2017 1:00 PM UTC Grief doesn't hit everybody the same way. And people deal with it differently. But Sheryl Sandberg, whose husband Dave Goldberg died unexpectedly in 2015, thinks there are some things all grieving people share. by [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) and [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/) Apr 25, 2017 1:00 PM UTC Grief doesn’t hit everybody the same way. And people deal with it differently. But Sheryl Sandberg, whose husband Dave Goldberg died unexpectedly in 2015, thinks there are some things all grieving people share. “The one thing that I’m so sure is a universal is when you’re hit with real grief, time slows down,” she said. “Every day is like a week.” Sandberg learned that, she thinks, from Joan Didion’s book on grief, _The Year of Magical Thinking_. “And having read her book when I was going through it, made me feel less like I was living in a time warp, and more like ‘O.K., this is the fact that I feel like I’m not going to make it through an hour, therefore that hour is long.’ It really helped me. So I’m grateful to the other people who shared their experiences openly.” Sandberg has now shared some very raw feelings of her own in _Option B_, a new book she has written with psychologist Adam Grant — and in a [TIME magazine cover story](http://time.com/sheryl-sandberg-option-b/). As she researched her book, she learned more about recovery, post-traumatic growth, how to build up resilience and find some joy. One of the key lessons is the mistake of believing in what she calls the three Ps: that your adversity is Personally your fault, should Pervade your whole life and will Persist forever. She wishes she had understood them sooner: “If I had understood the Three Ps, my mourning period when I got divorced would have been way shorter,” she said. “Because I would have stopped thinking everything was horrible and known I wouldn’t have felt this way forever. Horrible, permanent, all my fault.” She shares some more of those lessons in this video. ## Transcript [00:02] [ MUSIC ] I lost my husband two years [00:06] ago and it's a horrific thing to live through. I [00:11] found him on a gym floor. I flew home and sat down [00:15] with my children. They were seven and ten years old [00:17] and said you will never see your father again. And I [00:21] thought I would never be okay. And people who had [00:24] been through tragedy said, you will be, and I did not [00:27] believe them. It felt like I would never really even be [00:29] able to catch my breath again. My biggest fear is that, [00:33] my kids would never be okay again, that their [00:35] happiness would have gotten wiped out in that instant [00:37] we lost Dave. And they couldn't have a happy [00:40] childhood because They lost their father so young. I [00:44] sit here today and the sadness is still here, but [00:49] there were steps that I could take to help myself [00:51] recover and help my kids recover. The first thing is the [00:55] advice my Rabbi gave me, funny though its phrased, [00:59] lean into the suck. It gave me the understanding that [01:02] this is gonna be terrible, and I stopped fighting the [01:04] terrible moments cuz I knew they would happen. And [01:06] when I stopped fighting them, they actually passed [01:08] more quickly. Rely on other people. I [01:13] needed, and still need, so much more help than I ever [01:15] needed before. My mom stayed for a month, and she [01:16] put me to bed like a child. And then when she left, my [01:19] sister came, and my friends came. When your friends [01:22] say to you, is there anything I can do? Fight the urge to [01:26] say nothing. Because friendship is what we can give, [01:28] but it's also what we can receive. And the other is, [01:32] know that it will get better. I didn't think I could feel [01:35] good about anything. But there were aspects of my [01:37] which were intact and good. In those deep, dark [01:40] moments when you feel like it won't, it will. Four [01:43] months after Dave died, four months, I went to a [01:46] bar- mitzvah and a childhood friend took me on the [01:48] dance floor to dance to a song I had loved in high [01:50] school, and it was great. And then a minute in, [01:55] I literally collapsed, and collapsed very publicly. I [01:58] realized, my god, I felt happy. For one minute, four [02:02] months later. And then I felt so much guilt. My [02:06] brother- in- law Rob, he said, all Dave ever wanted [02:09] was for you and your children to be happy. Don't take [02:13] that away from him in death. 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