Your Body Knows What Your Brain Can't Figure Out

Most of us are taught to think our way through loss. Make a list of pros and cons. Consult logic. Get back to normal. But what happens when three deaths in rapid succession—a husband of 35 years, then a sister, then a father—strip away the very foundations you’ve been standing on? Lisa Jackson discovered that the old roadmap doesn’t work. Neither do the usual grief remedies, though she tried them all: gong baths, cold-water swimming, junk food binges, and intermittent crying sessions. The real turning point came when she stopped asking what made sense and started asking what made her body respond.

It sounds almost too simple to matter, but the practice is genuinely radical. When faced with any decision, Jackson began tuning into her physical compass instead of her mind’s endless list of shoulds. Does your chest open or contract? Does energy rise or drain away? Do you get goosebumps? These aren’t metaphors—they’re signals. This kind of somatic wisdom, as body-centered therapists call it, cuts through the noise of grief’s fog and points toward what actually serves you.

The results weren’t small. Trusting her body led Jackson to fire a predatory financial adviser—something her logical mind might have hesitated over, wrapped in politeness and doubt. It guided her toward hiring a trustworthy tiler. It showed her which friendships were draining her dry and which were worth keeping. And it eventually gave her the courage to run a marathon carrying a pouch of her husband’s ashes—an act that logic alone would never have conceived, but her body knew was exactly right.

Grief, as Jackson has learned, doesn’t disappear. It remains, as she puts it, a solid circle at the center of her life. But around it, something wider and brighter keeps growing. That growth isn’t built on forcing positivity or“moving on.”It’s built on the simple, radical act of listening to what your body already knows. In a world that constantly tells us to think harder, plan better, and rationalize our way forward, maybe the bravest thing we can do is pause, take a breath, and notice what your chest is trying to tell you.