When Your Body Remembers What Your Heart Won't Let You Feel

The hidden physical reality of grief that no one talks about---I used to think grief lived in my heart. You know, that crushing weight in your chest, the tears that come out of nowhere, the ache that makes you feel like you're drowning in your own emotions. But what I didn't realize—what nobody really talks about—is that grief doesn't just live in your heart. It takes up residence in every cell of your body, storing itself in places you'd never think to look.

Only last year, I learned this the hard way. I had saved up money to join one of those expensive weight loss programs. You know the kind—the ones that promise to transform your life if you just follow their plan perfectly. I was ready to invest in myself, ready to get healthy, ready to feel good in my own skin again. But after their initial assessment, they told me something I never expected to hear: "We can't accept you into our program. Your body is holding onto too much trauma. Until you address that, traditional weight loss methods won't work for you."

I sat there stunned. Trauma? In my body? I mean, sure, I'd been through some stuff—losing my husband, my dad, and the last man I loved—but I thought I was handling it. I thought grief was something that happened in your mind and heart, not something that could literally change how your body functions.

But they were right. And suddenly, so many things started making sense.

The Body Keeps the Score (Even When We Don't Want It To)

Here's what I wish someone had told me years ago: when we can't process grief emotionally—when it's too big, too overwhelming, too raw—our bodies step in and hold it for us. It's like our nervous system says, "Okay, she can't handle this right now, so I'll just store it in her shoulders, her hips, her digestive system. I'll keep it safe until she's ready."

Except sometimes, we're never ready. And our bodies just keep holding on.

Your body remembers what your heart won't let you feel. It remembers the shock, the trauma, the moments when your world shifted and nothing felt safe anymore. And it holds onto that memory in the form of tension, inflammation, disrupted sleep, digestive issues, and yes—stubborn weight that won't budge no matter how "perfectly" you eat or exercise.When Love Leaves, Your Metabolism Goes With It.

I used to wonder why I always looked my best when I was in love. When I was in that beautiful, connected, heart-wide-open space, my body just... worked better. I could eat whatever I wanted and stay at a healthy weight. My skin glowed. I had energy. I felt alive in my own skin. That's not vanity talking—that's biology.

When we're in love, when we feel safe and connected, our bodies produce all the good hormones. Oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin. Our metabolism hums along beautifully. Our nervous system is calm. Our body trusts that it's safe to let go of stored energy because it knows more good things are coming. But when loss hits? What happens when the person who made us feel safest in the world is suddenly gone? Our nervous system flips into survival mode. It starts hoarding everything—energy, fat, tension, trauma. It's like our body says, "I don't know when the next good thing is coming, so I better hold onto everything I've got."

This is why traditional weight loss approaches often fail after significant loss. Your body isn't being stubborn or lazy. It's trying to protect you the only way it knows how.

The Grief Body Map: Where Loss Lives

After years of working with grieving people (and living in my own grief), I've started to notice patterns in where different types of loss show up physically:

• Heart grief lives in your chest—that literal heaviness, the feeling like you can't take a deep breath, the tightness that makes you want to hunch your shoulders forward to protect your heart.

• Overwhelming grief settles in your head and neck—tension headaches, jaw clenching, that feeling like your brain is in a fog and your neck is carrying the weight of the world.

• Gut-wrenching loss (and yes, that phrase exists for a reason) disrupts your entire digestive system. Nausea, loss of appetite, or the opposite—eating everything in sight because food is the only comfort that makes sense.

• Stuck grief—the kind where you feel like you should be "over it" but you're not—often shows up as joint pain, stiffness, that feeling like you're moving through molasses.

Your body is trying to tell you something. It's holding your grief because your heart couldn't hold it all at once.

The Nervous System Stuck in Emergency Mode

Here's the thing that really gets me: our bodies are designed to handle acute stress. Fight, flight, freeze—these are normal, healthy responses to danger. But grief isn't acute. It's chronic. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Our bodies tighten and hold on to everything to protect us.

When you lose someone significant, your nervous system gets stuck in that emergency state. It's constantly scanning for threats, constantly braced for the next bad thing to happen. And a nervous system in emergency mode doesn't care about your weight loss goals or your energy levels or whether you can sleep through the night. It cares about keeping you alive.

This is why you might feel exhausted even when you haven't done anything. Why your body holds onto weight even when you're barely eating. Why you can't seem to get warm, or why you're always too hot. Your internal thermostat is broken because your nervous system thinks you're still in danger.

It's Not Your Fault (And It's Not Forever)If you're reading this and recognizing yourself, please hear me: this is not your fault. You're not broken. You're not weak. You're not failing at grief or healing or life. Your body is doing exactly what it's designed to do when it experiences trauma. It's trying to protect you. The problem is, it doesn't know the difference between a physical threat and an emotional one. It doesn't know that the danger has passed, that you're safe now, that it can let go.

But here's what I've learned: awareness is the first step. Understanding why your body is responding this way can be incredibly freeing. It's not about fixing yourself or forcing your body to behave differently. It's about working with your nervous system, not against it.

Moving Forward (Gently)I'm not going to give you a list of things to do to "fix" this. That's not what this is about. But I will say this: your body needs to know it's safe before it will let go of anything it's been holding. Sometimes that means gentle movement instead of intense workouts. Sometimes it means prioritizing sleep over productivity. Sometimes it means eating for comfort and not feeling guilty about it. Sometimes it means seeking out somatic therapies or trauma-informed approaches that work with your nervous system instead of against it. Your body has been holding your grief because your heart couldn't hold it all at once. That's not failure—that's survival. And now, maybe, you can start to thank your body for carrying what you couldn't carry alone.

The healing isn't about forgetting or "getting over it." It's about helping your nervous system remember that you're safe now. That it's okay to let go. That you can trust your body to support you as you move forward, carrying your love instead of just your loss.

Your body remembers what your heart won't let you feel. But with time, gentleness, and the right support, it can also not forget what it feels like to be safe, to be held, to be home in your own skin again.

If this resonates with you and you want to understand more about how grief lives in your body, I'm working on a new course called "Grief and the Body: Understanding Physical Trauma After Loss." It's about awareness, not fixing—because sometimes understanding why is the first step toward healing.

Learning to let go of what the body holds on to is an essential step in healing.

For deeper somatic healing work, my partner Melissa Bishop at Wholehearted Studio specializes in helping your nervous system find safety again. Because once you understand why your body is holding on, you might be ready to learn how to gently let go.