How Grief Lives in the Nervous System

Especially when the loss was sudden, traumatic, or never fully acknowledged.

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After I lost my dad in 2023, the grief didn’t just live in my heart.

It lived in my breath.
And in the tightness of my chest, and in my jaw (with me grinding my teeth at night).

In those unrelenting heart palpitations.
In the racing thoughts at night, the fatigue that sleep couldn’t touch.
Even after the the texts stopped, my body kept telling the truth:

Something is not okay.

If your loss was sudden, confusing, or made worse by family conflict, isolation, or institutional failure…

Your nervous system probably absorbed more than your mind could process.

This post is about that.

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🧠 What is Nervous System Grief?

Your nervous system is the part of you responsible for keeping you safe.

Since 2020, we’ve been jolted psychologically on so many levels as a result of the lockdowns and forced vaccinations. Combine this with the death of a loved one due to what happened during the Covid years, or even otherwise, your nervous system could be stuck in grief.

When loss comes with shock, betrayal, or powerlessness, your body often gets stuck in a survival response:

• Fight – anger, agitation, control

• Flight – panic, restlessness, overdoing

• Freeze – numbness, disconnection, exhaustion

• Fawn – people-pleasing, over-apologizing, abandoning your own needs

You might look okay on the outside…but your sympathetic nervous system has been hyper-aroused which also creates a rush of cortisol and adrenaline, those darn stress hormones that increase your heart rate, blood pressure and your respiration.

After the death of your loved one, your body can carry these alarm bells for a very long time … you know this because you get startled easily by your senses (something you see, hear, smell or even taste and trigger this survival response in a flash) and you feel miserable.

I had all 4 of these survival responses going on in my nervous system for over a year after my dad died in 2023. And I didn’t realize I was carrying a lot of accumulated grief from the loss of other family members before my dad passed away. This truckload of grief made me a nervous wreck and I remained anxious all the time.

This survival response isn’t weakness…. it’s just how you tend to respond to an incredibly stressful event, or in some cases, multiple events.

It’s also wisdom.

Let me explain exactly what’s going on and how to finally begin healing…