The Physicality of Grief
Since grief is seen as an emotional experience, it can be surprising to discover how physical grief gets. You lost your appetite. Your stomach clenches up at certain memories, triggers, or significant dates. You can be so wired and electrified in a stress response or emotion that the next moment you are lethargically exhausted and spend the day in bed. Your heart literally hurts to the point that you understand the saying that people can die from a broken heart.
Grief can make you feel so physically awful.
If you’re an answer-seeker like me, then let’s summarize a couple of reasons why so that we can understand how to heal at the root instead of applying a band-aid solution.
The emotions associated with grief are some of the most intense you’ll ever feel in your whole life. And when we feel an emotion or sense a danger to our security and peace, whether physical or emotional, our bodies snap into defensive and protective action. Before we’ve even recognized an emotional response, our brains have triggered an adrenaline spike meant to jump start our physical response. Our hearts start racing, our senses heighten, our breathing quickens, our blood pressure rises, and our nervous system switches from rest-and-digest to fight-or-flight.
When the threat goes away, the body has feedback systems to extinguish the stress response and switch back into rest-and-digest and equilibrium returns.
But, if the threat persists, as happens in grieving, then the body releases cortisol and continues to “fight or flee”. Sometimes we fight, we get angry, we get physical. We actively bargain, trying to trade the present for the past.
Othertimes, and oftentimes, we flee.
To distraction, avoidance, substance abuse, repression, you name it.
When we fight or flee, and the stress response continues, our breathing patterns, sleeping patterns, eating patterns, and physical energy levels suffer. Immunity decreases, blood pressure stays elevated, cholesterol levels can rise, we develop aches and pains, our muscles are chronically tensed, we can suffer from headaches and dizziness, and are prone to burnout, depression, anxiety, and a range of onsetting diseases.
STOP. READ THIS TRUTH RIGHT NOW.
This is normal. In grief, this is all normal. It’s not a result of anything that someone did or didn’t do right. It’s a simple testimony to our own humanity. That stress response is in our DNA to protect us and keep us alive. Don’t ever beat yourself up over your emotions or allow someone else to tell you that you are feeling too much, or grieving for too long or with too much intensity. Don’t ever believe that you are flawed because your body is doing exactly what it was created to do: feel, love, protect, live…
This snowball of how physically exhausting grief is can be met with a compassionate amount of grace and conscious action to tend to the triad of emotion, physicalness, and spirituality (which can help one find both release and hope.)
Using lifestyle behaviors can dramatically help us cope with, reduce and/or squelch that residual, unrelenting stress response by:
Equipping our minds with emotional coping tools that help us accept our reality, move through emotions, identify negative triggers that keep us stuck in a cycle of pain, and building emotional resilience.
Using physical activity to heighten the sensitivity of signals within the body that control the speed at which we can return to homeostasis and better regulate our blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, inflammation, and respiration.
Flooding our blood with an abundance of nutrients that fight inflammation, deliver oxygen, build immune and detoxification cells, build brain, heart, and lung cells, provide strength to our muscles, fight cramping muscles, and more.
Arming us spiritually with a hope in where our loved ones go after this life, our soul connection to them now, and connecting with a divine source that feeds light and love into our hurting souls and helps us heal from the inside.
These all can be done utilizing any form or combination of:
Meditation
Journaling
Prayer
Enjoyable physical activity
Feeling emotions and allowing them to flow
Time spent in nature
Exploration into near-death experiences
Talk-therapy
Eating a plant-based diet, or focusing on adding in more whole food.
Communicating your needs to friends and family
Practicing gratitude
Setting up a peaceful, relaxing bedroom that allows excellent sleep etiquette (no distractions in bedroom, use a sound machine if needed, turn on a diffuser, etc.)
Shadow Work
Ayurvedic dosha-balancing
Chakra Healing
Chiropractic alignment
Gut Health and taking probiotics
Coaching with a professional who can help educate you, empower you and walk alongside you during healing.
The sky is the limit!
Grief is achingly physical. But it offers a unique opportunity to get in tune with your whole being and truly live healed.
In love and wellness,