The Body Remembers: Why Somatic Therapy Is Essential in Grief Work
- Weaving Grief
- Jul 29
- 6 min read
Grief is not just a psychological experience. It is visceral. It is embodied. It sits in the chest like a stone, curls in the belly, lingers in the throat, pulses through the nervous system, and weaves its way through our every breath. For centuries, our dominant cultural frameworks—especially in the West—have treated grief as something to talk about, a mental-emotional issue to be processed through words alone. But anyone who has truly grieved knows: grief lives in the body.
This is why somatics—the practice of listening to and working with the body—is not a trendy addition to grief therapy. It is essential. It’s not an “extra” tool; it is the terrain itself.
Integrating somatic practices into grief work brings us back into relationship with ourselves, our aliveness, and the deeper intelligence of our systems. Without this, grief becomes something we try to “get over” or escape, rather than something we tend to and allow to shape us.
In this post, we’ll explore why the body is central in the grieving process, what happens when grief is unsupported or stuck, and how somatic grief work opens the door to real healing, integration, and reconnection with life.
Grief is a Full-Body Experience
When we lose something or someone dear—whether through death, transition, breakup, identity shift, illness, or other forms of change—it affects us on every level. While the mind may try to “understand” the loss, the body feels it. The nervous system absorbs the shock. The lungs tighten, shoulders slump, appetite changes, fatigue sets in, the heart races or aches, sleep becomes irregular, and even our immune and digestive systems are impacted.
This is the body’s honest response to rupture.
From a nervous system perspective, grief activates the stress response—often pushing us into states of fight, flight, freeze, or collapse. If we don’t have the resources, support, or space to safely feel and move through the grief, the body stores it. Over time, this can manifest as chronic tension, anxiety, depression, numbness, dissociation, digestive issues, or even autoimmune conditions.
In somatic grief work, we bring awareness to these sensations and patterns—not to pathologize them, but to meet them with compassion, curiosity, and care.
The Cost of Disembodied Grief
We live in a grief-illiterate culture—one that rarely gives permission or space for the full expression of sorrow. Grief is often rushed, minimized, or hidden away. We are taught to be strong, to move on, to stay productive. But where does all that unfelt grief go?
It goes into the body, and is stored in our tissues.
This disembodiment has real consequences. When we suppress grief, we also suppress joy, connection, intimacy, and vitality. We become less present in our lives, less able to feel, less able to adapt. This kind of emotional suppression doesn't just affect us individually—it also impacts our relationships, our communities, and our collective capacity to respond to the suffering of the world with empathy and courage.
Grief is not meant to be carried alone, or only talked about in hushed tones behind closed doors. It’s meant to be witnessed, expressed, and moved. And movement, in this context, doesn’t always mean physical exercise. It means that grief needs channels—breath, sound, touch, tears, stillness, rhythm, ritual. The body needs to do something with the grief in order to metabolize it.
Somatic grief work gives us those channels.
The Wisdom of the Body
The body is not an obstacle to healing—it is the gateway.
Grief often arrives with a sense of powerlessness. Something has happened that we didn’t choose. Something we loved has been taken. We can’t go back. We can’t fix it. But when we bring our attention into the body, we find that something can still be done. We can soften our jaw, unclench our fists, or gently breathe into the ache in our chest. We can curl up under a blanket, dance with our sorrow, or place our hands on our heart. These gestures are not meaningless—they many seem "simple" but they are deeply healing.
Somatic grief work teaches us to trust the body’s timing and truth. It invites us to feel, without rushing to interpret or fix. It helps us stay present with discomfort without becoming overwhelmed. It reminds us that the body has its own language—and that healing often happens beneath the level of words.
This is especially important for people who struggle to articulate their grief or who feel emotionally “stuck.” By working with sensations, breath, posture, and movement, we bypass the overactive mind and engage the deeper, older parts of the brain and body that hold the grief.
Somatics as a Bridge to the Sacred
Grief is not just pain. It is love. It is longing. It is an expression of how deeply we are wired for connection. When we grieve, we are remembering that we belong—to each other, to the Earth, to life itself. Somatic practices help us embody and connect to that belonging once again.
In many traditional cultures, grief was never divorced from ritual or community. People wailed, drummed, wept, trembled, danced. They let the body lead. This wasn’t seen as indulgent—it was seen as wise. Necessary. Healing.
Modern somatic grief work is, in many ways, a remembering of these ancient practices. It might look like:
Lying on the earth and letting your body be held
Shaking out stuck energy from the limbs
Making guttural sounds to release pain
Breathing into frozen places within
Practicing self-touch and resourcing to create safety
Holding grief ceremonies that involve movement and sound
Creating altars with the body’s wisdom as a guide
When we allow grief to move through the body, we begin to reconnect with a sense of soul, spirit, and purpose. We re-enter the sacred terrain of our own aliveness—not in spite of the grief, but because of it.
What Somatic Grief Work Looks Like in Practice
Integrating somatics into grief therapy doesn’t mean abandoning talk-based approaches. It means weaving them with body-based awareness. A grief session might include:
Beginning with a grounding practice to settle the nervous system
Tracking bodily sensations while speaking about the loss
Naming where grief is felt in the body (e.g., “I feel a tightness in my chest”)
Allowing movement impulses to emerge (e.g., rocking, curling, stretching)
Using breath to soften tension or create containment
Practicing orienting to the room to create safety and regulation
Integrating touch-based tools for comfort (e.g., hand on heart or belly)
Using imagery to support grieving parts of self (e.g., inner child work)
Creating rituals to honour what has been lost
Is often much slower then the mind wants us to go
These practices help us build inner resources, process grief safely, and deepen our capacity to feel without becoming overwhelmed.
It’s not about doing it perfectly—it’s about listening deeply, responding honestly, and moving at the pace of trust.
Reclaiming Grief as a Path to Aliveness
Ultimately, somatic grief work is about reinhabiting ourselves. It’s about letting the grief shape us—not into smaller, hardened versions of ourselves, but into more present, awake, and wholehearted beings.
Grief is not a problem to be solved. It is a rite of passage. And like all rites of passage, it asks us to feel fully, stay close, and let go of who we thought we were.
In a world that often demands numbness, productivity, and disconnection, choosing to grieve—and to grieve in the body—is a radical act. It is an act of love, and it is an act of remembering that we are alive.
Final Thoughts
We cannot think our way through grief (no matter how hard we try), we must feel our way through it. The body knows how to do this, it always has. It's our invitation to remember.
By integrating somatic practices into grief therapy, we open the door to deeper healing—not just emotionally, but spiritually, relationally, and collectively. We begin to mend the disconnection that loss has created—not only within ourselves, but also between us and the wider web of life.
And in that mending, we find not only sorrow—but also beauty, meaning, and the possibility of becoming more fully human.
About Us:
Weaving Grief specializes in compassionate grief therapy for individuals navigating loss of any kind - death, breakups, relationship transitions, chronic illness, loss of self, and more. By addressing these profound experiences, Weaving Grief empowers clients to grieve freely and live fully. Through somatic practices and meaningful reflection, we’re here to help you navigate these tender moments and rediscover the fullness of life.
Specific areas of focus: death of a loved one (recent or past), life changing transitions, relationship transitions and break ups, pregnancy loss, grief around family planning, chronic illness, loss of Self, and supporting entrepreneurs through the grief that comes with growth.
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