Grief is often described as an emotional journey. A journey experienced by individuals, families, and communities as a profound sense of longing, deep sorrow, and confusion following a physical or perceived loss. An experience many scholars and caregivers commonly refer to as a period of bereavement. Yet grief is far more complex than our emotions alone can capture.

Research informs us that grief is also an embodied experience. The human body and its systems engage in powerful physiological processes when individuals enter the experience of grief, often leading to significant changes in a person’s overall health.

Studies show that grief can increase the heart rate, raise blood pressure, elevate cortisol levels, and intensify inflammation in the body. These changes place significant stress on the body’s natural responses, weakening the immune system. When this occurs, scientists and medical scholars note that individuals may experience bodily fatigue, disrupted sleep patterns, mood and appetite changes, and difficulty concentrating. The body’s natural responses to grief remind us that grief is not only, or simply, an emotional response to loss. It is also deeply physical.

The relationship between grief and the body reveals how closely our capacity to maintain health is interconnected with our experience of grieving.

At the same time, our experience of grief does not occur in isolation from the world around us. Our cultural and social environments can shape how we experience grief, including its intensity and how long it may stay with us. Our environments influence how grief is expressed and whether people receive the support necessary to facilitate healing.

Research also shows that when a person’s grief is not fully acknowledged or supported by society or by institutions, when it is minimized, dismissed, or denied care, the experience of grief can intensify. Without social or institutional support, individuals may be forced to grieve privately and alone.

For many people, the experience of disenfranchised grief is often seen as normal or even inevitable. In our recent podcast, we highlight several communities where grief is frequently overlooked and lacks full social acknowledgment. Here are a few examples to reflect on:

Black, Brown, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous.
When African American or Black, Brown, Latino, Asian, or Indigenous persons, families, and communities grieve the loss of loved ones, the destabilization of neighborhoods, the erosion of economic security, or the repeated experience of injustice, their grief is often socially minimized, questioned, or overlooked. These losses are frequently treated as routine within public discourse rather than recognized as experiences that call for public health attention, communal care, or sustained institutional support.

Queer, Trans, Two-Spirit, & Non-binary communities.
When queer, trans, nonbinary, or two-spirit individuals mourn the loss of loved ones or chosen family, the erosion of hard-won rights, the loss of safety in public spaces, or the constant threat to their dignity and humanity, their grief is often socially invalidated, dismissed, or treated as the cost they must bear for being different.

Disabled & Aging
When disabled aging persons grieve the loss of spouses, friends, independence, mobility, health, or self-sufficiency, their sorrow is often made largely invisible. Society frequently treats these losses as expected parts of aging rather than moments that call for communal care and recognition.

Migrants.

When migrants grieve the loss of land, language, and their sense of place in the world after being forced to flee their homes in search of safety or the hope of a better tomorrow, their grief is often treated as political rather than recognized as a human experience that calls for global recognition and spaces where their sorrow can be witnessed and supported in humane ways rather than exploited.

Impoverished.

When impoverished individuals grieve the loss of economic stability, housing security, or reliable access to food, their grief is often framed as a matter of individual circumstance rather than recognized as the result of broader social conditions and public policy choices, leaving their sorrow lingering in their bodies, largely unseen and unsupported.

These experiences remind us that grief is not only emotional and embodied, but for many it also becomes an experience of social and institutional betrayal when the communal care necessary for grieving persons to heal is withheld.

Care Practices for Grief: Individual, Embodied, and Communal

If grief is experienced emotionally, embodied, social, and cultural, meaningful care must also attend to each of these dimensions:

• Communal recognition and care
• Embodied care
• Individual care and meaning making
• Relational and group support

Beyond the borders of one’s mind and the limits of one’s individual existence, the healing of grief for individuals, families, and communities is a matter of collective care.

K’SerraSerra® US