Grief Isn’t Always Tears: 5 Unexpected Ways It Shows Up—and How to Hold Yourself Through It

Grief is not just sadness.
It’s exhaustion.
It’s numbness.
It’s the unbearable sense that life is too much, and yet, somehow, not enough.

And if you’ve felt this—if you’ve caught yourself staring at an untouched to-do list or zoning out mid-conversation—know this: You are not broken. You are grieving.

Grief moves in unexpected ways. It lingers in the body, the mind, the spaces in between. And while there is no perfect way to navigate it, recognizing its presence allows us to meet it with tenderness instead of frustration.

Here are five ways grief might be showing up in your life right now—and how to hold yourself through it:

1. The Fog of Forgetfulness

Grief scrambles the mind. It makes simple tasks feel insurmountable. You walk into rooms and forget why. You reread the same sentence three times. You lose track of time, of conversations, of where you last placed your phone. It’s not just distraction—it’s a mind overloaded, trying to process the weight of absence.

What Helps:
• Write down three small, achievable tasks each day. Celebrate them, even if they seem insignificant.
• Use alarms or gentle reminders to offload the mental strain.
• Speak to yourself with kindness. Your brain is not failing you—it’s protecting you as it learns to move through the loss.

2. The Weight in Your Body

Grief isn’t just emotional—it’s physical. It settles into muscles and bones, curling itself into the jaw you clench at night, the shoulders you didn’t realize you were holding so tightly. Maybe your stomach aches for no reason. Maybe exhaustion drapes over you like a lead blanket, making even rest feel impossible.

What Helps:
• Unclench your jaw. Lower your shoulders. Let out a deep exhale.
• Move in ways that feel good—stretching, walking, holding a warm cup of tea in your hands.
• Acknowledge what hurts. Your body is grieving too. Give it the gentleness you’d offer a dear friend.

3. The Short Fuse

Grief strips us raw. It takes the patience we once had and leaves it threadbare. The little things—spilled coffee, unanswered texts, a misplaced sock—feel like too much. You snap when you don’t mean to. You feel guilty afterward.

What Helps:
• Pause before reacting. Take five deep breaths. Step away.
• Let your loved ones know: I’m carrying a lot right now. Please be patient with me.
• Write it out, paint it out, run it out—channel the energy somewhere it can be released rather than swallowed whole.

4. The Endless Distractions

Binge-watching, scrolling, working late into the night—sometimes we drown grief in noise because silence feels unbearable. And sometimes, that’s okay. But distraction without acknowledgment only postpones the healing.

What Helps:
• Set small, intentional breaks from the noise—five minutes of quiet, a deep breath, a moment of stillness.
• Engage in activities that ground you in the present—gardening, painting, kneading dough, anything that lets your hands move without expectation.
• Remind yourself: avoidance isn’t failure. But creating space to feel—little by little—is how we begin to heal.

5. The Rest That Won’t Come

Grief steals sleep. Maybe it keeps you awake with racing thoughts. Maybe it weighs you down with exhaustion so heavy it feels impossible to move. Either way, grief doesn’t play by the rules of rest.

What Helps:
• Create a nighttime ritual that signals safety to your nervous system—dim lights, a warm drink, soft blankets, deep breaths.
• Write down your racing thoughts before bed. Let them live on paper instead of circling your mind.
• Give yourself permission to rest. Healing is exhausting work, and you don’t have to earn the right to recover.

Holding Space for It All

Here’s what I want you to know:
There is no timeline for grief. No set path, no checklist, no “right” way through it. It sneaks up in the quiet moments—folding laundry, driving home, standing in the grocery aisle staring at nothing at all.

And here’s the hardest part: it’s not something you can fix.
But you don’t have to.

Let yourself feel the weight of it.
Honor it, even when it’s inconvenient.
Hold yourself like you would hold a grieving friend.

Because grief, like love, is proof that something mattered.
And healing, like grief, comes in waves.

If this resonates, I’d love to hear—what’s one way grief has shown up in your life that you didn’t expect? Let’s hold space for each other in this conversation.

With love,

Dr. Zelana