When Grief Shows Up in the Body

How fascia stores emotion—and one gentle technique to help release it

Yesterday was my birthday. I didn’t expect it to be so emotional.

I knew, intellectually, that this would be my first birthday since my mom passed away in December. I’ve been doing my best to keep moving forward, holding space for grief when it comes. But yesterday, it didn’t knock. It just walked in and sat down beside me. I found myself crying in unexpected moments—between emails, in the middle of a walk, while making lunch.

At one point, I noticed something really specific: I was treating myself to a Korean scrub when I held back the tears, my throat clenched. My chest tightened. My neck and jaw tensed like they were bracing for impact. It felt like I was physically swallowing my grief—and my body didn’t like it.

This is something I talk about often in my work with clients, but yesterday I felt it for myself, in a raw and undeniable way: our emotions don’t just pass through our minds. They live in our tissues. Especially when we try to suppress them.

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The Fascial Web of Feeling

Fascia is your body’s connective tissue matrix. It wraps around your muscles, bones, nerves, and organs—like a full-body spider web that holds you together. But fascia is more than scaffolding. It’s alive with sensory receptors, intertwined with your nervous system, and highly responsive to stress, trauma, and emotion.

In The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk shares how trauma reshapes both the body and the brain. And in Molecules of Emotion, Dr. Candace Pert explores how emotions are stored biochemically throughout the body—not just in the brain. This is especially relevant to fascia, which is now understood to be a kind of tissue "bridge" between physical and emotional health.

Tension patterns in the fascia often reflect emotional holding. The areas where we feel tight, stuck, or tender may correlate with past stress or unreleased emotion. The chest, shoulders, jaw, pelvic floor and neck? Classic grief zones. They tighten as we hold back tears, brace against loss, or try to “stay strong.”

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A Release: Chest-Opening Stretch for Grief

If you’re feeling any of this right now—tight chest, sore neck, the sensation of holding something in—I want to share a great big stretch that can help. Best done on a full-sized foam roller, but also great just on your good ole’ living room floor.

This is a technique I return to often. It helps unwind tension in the front of the chest so that the back of the neck can soften. It creates space for the breath to move more freely. And sometimes—if you let it—it creates space for the tears, too.

Remember, movement doesn’t have to be forceful to be effective. In fact, the most powerful releases are often the softest ones. After all, you’re trying to create softness, aren’t you?

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Ready for a Deeper Reset?

If you found this technique helpful, I’d love to invite you into my Neck and Shoulder Relief Masterclass.

This 90-minute virtual session is designed to help you take your life back by taking charge of those everyday aches and pains—with simple, highly effective foam rolling techniques. Using just a foam roller and two tennis balls (optional), we’ll melt through the tension in your upper body and create a sense of spaciousness you may not have felt in years.

You’ll learn unique, proprietary techniques that not only target physical discomfort but support the release of stored stress in your fascia and nervous system. These are tools you’ll return to again and again to maintain your feel-good state—especially on the days when grief shows up unannounced.

Let’s soften what’s stuck—together.

Big hugs and a whole lotta love,

Maggie