Unpacking Terms in Mental Health

This is Your Brain on Grief

Normalizing experiences that don’t feel normal

Photo by Senad Palic on Unsplash Experiencing grief can feel as if we have entered an emotional pin-ball machine.

What is grief?

We’ve all felt it, and we’ve all felt it differently. Sometimes, it shows up as anger or depression, and sometimes it shows up in ways that are impossible to describe.

Grief is not just an emotion, it is an experience

Grief is something that influences our entire nervous system including neurotransmitters and pathways, our physical body, as well as spiritual identity and sense of self, even our way of being in the world.

I’m not sure if there is a more intense whole-system experience than what grief brings

Once thought of as a linear process, we now recognize grief can feel like inhabiting a pinball machine, bouncing around through mixed emotions, variations of energy, and ranges of perspectives and insights.

There really isn’t a consistent pattern for it, as we all cope differently.

Beyond emotion, grief is a rewiring. Whether we like it or not, the brain begins to rework itself to adjust to this disruptive new reality. For some of us, it is an intense…