Your Grief Body Map
Grief is not only a feeling. It sits in the body too, and naming where it sits can make it easier to carry.
Worksheet · one page · free PDF
Print it, or mark up the night edition on a tablet or phone.
Why the body, and not just the feeling
Most people notice grief as sadness first. Underneath that, it is also a physical state: a tight chest before a wave of tears arrives, a hollow stomach on the anniversary, exhaustion that a full night’s sleep does not touch. Naming those sensations does two things. It gives you an earlier warning than the emotion itself, so you can be gentler with yourself before it peaks, and it gives you something concrete to say to someone else when “I am fine” is not quite true and “I am not fine” feels too big to say.
What is on the page
Two outlines of a body, front and back, to circle or shade wherever grief is sitting today. A checklist of physical sensations people often describe in grief, and three short questions: where it sits, when it tends to show up, and what has eased it even slightly. A space for the date, so a later copy can sit beside this one. There is no scoring and nothing to get right. It is a way of noticing, not a diagnosis, and it is not medical advice.
How to use it
- Once, honestly, whenever you think of it. It does not need a routine.
- Again a few weeks later, and keep both copies. Grief moves, and seeing where it used to sit and where it sits now can be its own kind of evidence that something is shifting, even on a day that does not feel like it.
- With someone else, as a way into a conversation that is hard to start cold. Handing somebody a filled-in page says more than most people can manage to say out loud.
If what you notice on the page has stayed constant and overwhelming for a long stretch, that is worth more than a worksheet. See where to get real help.