The Grief No One Talks About

Real Grief Doesn’t Look Like a Perfectly Timed Tear

It looks like shaking. Stillness. Sobbing on the floor with no words left. Sometimes it looks like nothing at all, just a body frozen under the weight of what it never got to feel.

In a world obsessed with polished healing, even grief has become performance.

You might find yourself:

• Trying to cry “the right way”
• Saying the perfect thing in therapy
• Narrating your pain to make it easier for someone else to hold

But here’s the truth:

Real grief isn’t neat. And it isn’t for them. It’s for you.

Why Grief Is the Portal (Not the Problem)

Most people think grief gets in the way of healing. But the truth is, grief is the way.

If you try to bypass it…
If you tidy it up to sound more spiritual…
If you rush to reframe it into a “lesson”…

Your body will hold it anyway.

Unfelt grief doesn’t disappear.

It burrows. It shows up as:

• Jaw tension and shoulder pain
• Anxiety that makes no logical sense
• Exhaustion that sleep won’t touch
• Emotional numbing or zoning out
• The compulsion to fix, help, or explain instead of just feel

These aren’t random symptoms. They’re grief that’s been bypassed.

Grief isn’t a flaw. It’s a sacred function, a nervous system intelligence that metabolizes emotional truth, especially the parts no one else witnessed.

When grief finally moves?

You don’t collapse. You don’t lose control. You come home.

How to Grieve Without Performing It

You don’t have to collapse to be grieving. You don’t have to cry on cue. You don’t need to prove your pain. You just need a space where the ache is allowed to exist.

Grief isn’t content. It’s a release.

And the moment you stop trying to perform grief, your body may finally feel safe enough to feel it.

What real grief looks like:

1. It’s quiet… until it isn’t.

Grief might start as a lump in your throat. A pause in your breath. An ache behind your eyes. Let that be enough. Don’t chase the sob, let it rise.

2. It’s ugly and sacred.

There may be snot. Shaking. Wordless sounds. Or a silence so loud it hums. This is not the grief you see in movies. This is the kind that saves your life.

3. It doesn’t make sense to the mind.

You might grieve:

• A parent who’s still alive
• A version of yourself that never got to exist
• A moment from years ago you never fully felt

You don’t need to explain it. If it rises, it’s real.

4. It’s not linear.

You may feel clear one day, wrecked the next. That’s not regression, that’s the loop. Grief moves in spirals. Let it.

The moment you stop packaging your pain is the moment your nervous system whispers:

“This is safe. I can feel this now.”

That’s not collapse. That’s return.

A Somatic Grief Practice

A 5-step process for presence, not performance.

You don’t need a script. You need a moment where you stop abandoning yourself.

1. Get somewhere still.
Sit down. Lie down. Blanket up.
Be where no one needs anything from you.

2. Place one hand on your chest. One on your belly.
No need to “breathe deeply.”
Just feel.
Let your body register: I’m here now.

3. Say aloud or in your mind:

“I’m allowed to grieve what they never gave me.”
Let it land.
If nothing comes, that’s okay. Stay anyway.

4. Stay with whatever arises.
Tears. Silence. Rage. Nothingness.
All valid.
The goal is not an emotion, it’s presence.

5. When it feels like enough, whisper to yourself:

“I didn’t leave myself this time.”

That’s it.

No fixing. No forcing. Just being.

You Don’t Need to Transcend This. You Need to Feel It.

You’re not blocked. You’re not broken. You’re grieving.

And grief isn’t something you move past. It’s something you move with.

Real healing doesn’t happen when you rise. It happens when you stop pretending you’re over it, and start honoring that you’re still in it.

Grief is a process. Not a flaw. Not a failure. A sacred passage home.

And even if you can’t name it yet, your body remembers.

Your Invitation to Go Deeper

If this grief lives in your body, not just your mind, you don’t have to carry it alone.

Start with The Descent Journal 
A 30-day somatic healing journal to stay with what still hurts.

Or try The Descent Ritual
A 7-minute voice-led practice to help you stop performing and start releasing.

You don’t need to transcend this. You just have to stay.