There’s a kind of heaviness that sneaks up on you in your 40s. The kind that settles quietly into your shoulders, your jaw, your chest, even behind your eyes. It’s the experience of holding grief in the body. For a long time, I didn’t have a name for it. I just knew I felt… off. Tired in a way sleep didn’t fix. Sad for no clear reason. And tense, always tense like I was bracing for something I couldn’t see.

I’d catch myself with my shoulders practically touching my ears, and I’d have to remind myself to drop them back down. Or I’d wake up with my jaw clenched so tight you would think I spent the night arguing with someone in my dreams. Some days I’d look in the mirror and barely recognize myself. Not because I looked different, but because the woman staring back felt… weighed down. Her eyes looked dimmer. Her mouth looked tired. And her body was holding stories she hadn’t told.

For a while, I thought this was just “midlife.” Or stress. Or maybe I needed to drink more water and stretch before bed. But the more I paid attention, the more I realized something deeper was happening:

My body was grieving things I had never given myself permission to grieve.

Not dramatic grief. Not the kind that comes with funerals or heartbreaks.
But the quiet kind. The grief of holding everything together for years.
The grief of unspoken disappointments.
The grief of parts of myself I had ignored.
The grief of being strong for too long.

And apparently, the body keeps score. (Thanks, nervous system.)

What grief looks like in the body even when you don’t feel “sad”

I used to think grief meant crying. Period.

But grief is sneaky. It’s creative.
It shows up in ways no one warns you about:

• Tight shoulders

Your nervous system goes into “protect mode,” and your shoulders rise to shield your neck and chest. This is a classic fight-or-freeze posture.

• Jaw clenching

The jaw is one of the first places the body stores unprocessed stress.
If you clench at night, it’s often because your body is trying to “hold everything together.”

• Heaviness in the chest

Grief literally affects the parasympathetic nervous system.
You may feel pressure, short breaths, or tension right under the collarbone.

• A face that looks sad even when you’re not crying

Hormonal shifts + emotional exhaustion = your facial muscles soften and drop.
This isn’t “aging.” It’s your nervous system saying, “Hey… I’m overwhelmed.”

These symptoms aren’t “dramatic.” They’re human.

And in midlife?
They make perfect sense.

Why grief resurfaces in the 40s

This caught me off guard.

Because I thought I handled things.
I thought I moved on.
I thought time healed whatever I didn’t feel like dealing with or didn’t know how to deal with.

But women in their 40s often find:

Everything they buried comes back up — not to punish them, but to free them.

Here’s why:

✔ Hormones shift → emotional layers loosen

Estrogen affects mood, stress responses, and emotional processing.
When it dips, our emotional “armor” thins out.

✔ The brain rewires itself in perimenopause

Dr. Mindy Pelz talks about this:
Midlife is not just hormonal — it’s neurological.
Your brain reorganizes, reevaluates, and releases old patterns.

✔ Your body no longer has the energy to carry old hurts

In your 20s and 30s, you can run from yourself.
In your 40s? Not so much.

Your body starts dropping hints:

“Hey… we never dealt with this.”
“Remember that emotion you swallowed 12 years ago? Yeah… it’s back.”
“This sadness isn’t weakness — it’s information.”

Midlife isn’t a breakdown.
It’s exposure.
And exposure is the first step to becoming.

This season isn’t meant to break you — it’s meant to rebirth you

I know the 40s can feel like walking through a quiet wilderness.
You feel lost, different, unsettled, raw.

But here’s the truth I’m slowly learning:

You are not falling apart.
You are shedding.

The old coping mechanisms that kept you functioning don’t work anymore and that’s good.
It means your body is clearing space for a new version of you.

A version who can breathe deeper.
Who doesn’t hold everything in her shoulders.
Who doesn’t clench her jaw just to make it through the day.
Who doesn’t bury her feelings for the sake of peace.

A woman who is rebirthing herself, even if it feels messy.

And you don’t have to walk that process alone.

How to start releasing grief from the body

Learning to notice where we’re holding grief in the body can be the first step toward releasing it. Nothing dramatic. Nothing expensive.
Just simple, human things your nervous system understands:

✔ Drop your shoulders (again and again — they’ll forget)

✔ Unclench your jaw

✔ Take 5 slow breaths

✔ Walk without your phone

✔ Cry when your body wants to

✔ Write what hurts

✔ Stretch your chest and hips

✔ Spend time in silence

✔ Let yourself feel, even if it’s uncomfortable

Tiny releases add up.
Your body doesn’t need perfection, it needs permission.

Takeaway

You are not weak for feeling heavy.
You are not behind for struggling.
You are not failing for needing rest.

Your body is simply asking you to heal the things you’ve carried for too long.

This is not the end of you.
It’s the unfolding of you.

Journaling Prompt

What emotion has my body been trying to express for me?
Where do I feel it the most? And what might it be asking for?

External Resource

If you’re curious about the connection between hormones, perimenopause, and emotional rewiring, here’s a helpful starting point:
Your 30s Are The Blueprint For Menopause | Dr. Mindy Pelz