The Body’s Language of Grief

 

Jenn Rapkin, ND

 

The body has a lot to say on the topic of grief, but we are not alwaysaccustomed tolistening.We talk about getting through, moving on from, and living with grief, and these shared experiences help us navigate devastating and unbearable loss. But we seldom discuss the heavy weight on our heart, the tightening grip of our breath, or the gapping emptiness in our gut.

 

Like physical pain, our emotions can, at times, ache and throb and sting. Many of us feel our emotional pain deeply and profoundly within the body, and our tendency to avoid and numb this pain makes sense, as it can be excruciating and intolerable to sit with.If we are being honest, who wants to sit withpain? Nevertheless,listening to and feeling our body can offer guidance in hard times –a compassionate roadmap of sorts to feeland be present with our grief.

 

The visceral experience of grief that plays out in our chest, throat, stomach, breath, and nervous system is real and tangible. As evidenced by the words we use, grief is felt somatically – we can have “broken, burdened, or heavy hearts,” we “break open” and “fall to pieces,” and our emotional pain can “take our breath away” and “bring us to our knees.”

 

We commonly process our grief bytalkingabout it, trying to make sense of it, andconnecting with others, and yet an important part of processing grief is feeling the swell of emotions within us.In a world that prioritizes thinking over feeling, we often lose sight of the integral role our bodies play in grieving.

 

I have lost both my parents. My father died unexpectedly when I was in my mid-thirties, and the years following his death, I was numb – so very numb. At that time in my life, I didn’t have the capacity (or the roadmap)to stay with my emotional pain.I threw myself into my work and found endless ways to stay busy.

 

I suffered from panic attacks. My first onematerializing while visitingthe location where my father had collapsed from cardiac arrest. After that,my panic would sneak up on me atunexpectedand inconvenient times.While I can’t be sure, I intuit that mypanic attackswere connected to mypushing throughand postponing my grief.

 

I want to be clear about something: I am not judging my numbnessnor any part of how I navigated my dad’s death.No, I am simply recounting and acknowledging how I got through an impossible time.We move forward in our lives during challenging andunbearable times, and I have great compassion and respect for this courageous forward momentum.

 

As a Frequent Feeler, I feel things deeply in my body, and I experience my emotions on a cellular and somatic level. As a bodyworker, I have a deep reverence for the numbness and holdings we carry in our bodies. These areas of tension and dissociation are proof that we managed our challenges and traumas in the best way we could at the time and that we hold remnants ofunprocessed and unfelt struggles in our bodies.

 

Fifteen years after my dad’s passing and with my panic attacks behind me, my mothercourageously faced the last months of her life. As pancreatic cancertightened its grip on her body, I found myself once again flooded with painful, excruciating emotions.And yet this time,I was determined to approach my mom’s deathdifferently. I wanted to meet it head on, andI wanted to bepresent for what my mom needed to say and feel and for what I needed to say and feel. But going about that felt like wading through uncharted waters.

 

For me, being present” as my mom’s health rapidly declinedmeant sitting withmy fear, my heartbreak, my loneliness, and my despair. It meant feelingmy clenched jaw, my knotted stomach,my immovable diaphragm, and my stinging tears. It meantstaying withthe rock-liketension in my neck and back,the twisting and gripping in my gut, and the pulsating achein my soul.

 

Some moments, I stayed true to my commitment to feel, and other times, I did not. I greeted the moments when I pushed away or moved away from my painwith nonjudgment and self-compassion. I practiced acceptingall my moments with an open heart. And when I could, I allowedmy grief to visit me – deep within me; sometimesmy grief was abrief houseguest, sometimes it overstayedits welcome, and sometimes the length of its visit felt just right.

 

I can’t say that it felt good to feel my grief, but I can say that I felt connected with what was transpiring in my life.Staying present with my discomfort grounded me to a deep acceptance and honoring of my suffering. I was losing a parent, my last parent, and my life would never, ever be the same.

 

Having traversed two very differentpaths of grief, I have gained insight that has both surprisedme and softened me. My firstencounter with profound loss showed me that numbing, avoiding, and postponinggrief isstill grief – it exists within us even if we push it away.My later encounterfound me befriending grief, inviting it in,and asking itto stay awhile – sometimes just long enough tobarely tolerate it,sometimes long enough for it to change its shape, and sometimes long enough for it to run its course.

 

The phrase “getting to the other side of grief”is a paradox, as there is not one side togrief, rather there are many sides and many shapes. I am grateful for and proud of the way I navigated my dad’s death. I moved forward in my life. I stayed focused and worked hard, and my father would be proud of the many things I have accomplished.My pushing through my griefpresented me with invaluable self-awareness,and it informed the way I would later approach my mom’s death.I now considerboth my panic attacks and my numbness as gifts– gifts thatled me in the direction of the present moment.

 

For someone living through an unbearable or imaginable loss,“staying present with” emotional painmaysoundcrazy or absurdat best, andagonizing or cruel at worst.To clarify, I am not giving advice on how to manage grief. Who am I to tell anyone how to navigate their loss?

What I am doing is translating emotional pain into the language of the body, and that language might just resonate withsome of myfellowFrequent Feelers – some might find my experience relatable, familiar, or curious and some might feelvalidation orrecognitionin their bodies.

 

Embracingthe idea that griefhas a physical shapewithin us is simplymovingtoward and paying attention to our own present moment. For many of us, deep emotion hasa shape within us – a location, an intensity, a density. And this awareness simply validates that experience.

 

By choosing to stay present with my grief, I grew my capacity to stay present with hard life stuff. I also discovered that grief is tangible for me; it lives within me and has a discernible and distinct shape. And when my grief felt endless and all-consuming, it was helpful to learn and to trust thatit can movearound within me and that it mighttransform or morph into another feeling altogether.

 

For me, “getting to the other side of grief” wasn’t about leaving my grief behind, rather it was about recognizing that it changesits shape – and that another shape (or feeling) might be just around the corner and that not all my shapes of grief will be as hard.