The Body in Grief

Grief is an assault to the body—like any injury, it will take time to move through your system and turn into new life. When you grieve, your body knows it first. Grief shocks your system into the Underworld. Even before you find the words, something in your chest tightens, your stomach drops, or your breath shortens and shallows. Grief is a physical experience.

All bodies carry the story of loss. You might feel heavy and slow, or restless and unable to sit still. Sleep can become elusive or excessive; appetite shifts; you may catch yourself holding your breath or bracing against something that’s already happened. Maybe you sense your loved one in the room with you; maybe your body feels stuck in a liminal space—not fully in the physical world. These are all natural responses to the shock and ache of change.

From a clinical perspective, grief activates the body’s stress systems—the same ones designed to keep you alive in moments of danger. Cortisol rises. Muscles tense. The mind can become scattered and less present. The nervous system toggles between fight, flight, fawn, or freeze. Your responses seem confusing or irrational…your body is trying to protect you from an unbearable reality.

But grief is not something to be fought off or fixed. It’s something to move through.
Your body can become a companion in that process as you learn to listen to it.

Grief is not foreign to the body. To be alive on Earth is to grieve. All beings grieve—it’s one of the ways we belong to each other.

When you allow yourself to sink into the experience—when you cry, tremble, stretch, walk, scream, or breathe deeply, you’re helping your body metabolize what words alone cannot. Grief needs movement—gentle, rhythmic, embodied. Even small acts like walking under trees, lying on the grass, humming, or placing a hand over your heart will help remind your nervous system that you are still here, still safe enough to feel.

You can’t make grief go away—and you aren’t supposed to. You can only give it space to move through you.
The body is wise—it knows how to find equilibrium again.

So when you notice the ache in your chest or the fog that won’t lift, pause. Welcome it all. Take a breath. Touch something solid. You are not broken. You are a body remembering what it means to love and lose.

If you’re moving through grief and noticing how deeply it lives in your body, you don’t have to do it alone. In fact, we were never meant to grieve alone.
Therapy can offer a steady space to slow down, listen to what your body is saying, and begin to find your footing again.

Amanda Feaver is a grief therapist based in Portland, Oregon, and licensed in both Oregon and Washington. She helps individuals, couples, and communities navigate loss, change, and transformation.