So have you ever felt like your heart was literally breaking after losing someone or even something

deeply meaningful in your life that hollowed out physical ache that courses through your body

alongside the emotional turmoil? If so, you're definitely not alone. Grief inflicts a profound

mind-body toll that our culture rarely acknowledges or understands. But what if I told you that

the very physicality of grief actually holds the seeds for healing? That grief actually lives in a very

real way in your body, and by tenderly caring for your grieving body, you can open pathways to

navigate loss with more grace, even finding pockets of meaning and joy

along the way. So my guest today is Mary Francis O'Connor, a Ph.D. expert in neuroscience of

bereavement. Her groundbreaking book, The Grieving Body, How the Stress of Loss, can be an

opportunity for healing, made Oprah's list of best books to comfort the grieving. She is a professor

of psychology at the University of Arizona, where she directs research, illuminating grief's

effects on the brain and body. And in our conversation, Mary Francis pulls back the curtain

on surprising revelations, like why the newly breath face a substantial increase in the risk of heart attack in those

first 24 hours. You'll learn about the crucial one-year milestone that separates normal grieving

from, quote, prolonged grief disorder. But maybe more powerfully, she shares wisdom for befriending

your grieving body with radical compassion, releasing patterns of avoidance and

rumination that keep you stuck, developing a toolkit to gently honor waves of grief while still

savoring life's simple beauties. So whether you're grieving a profound loss yourself or supporting

a loved one, this conversation, it really offers an empowering new lens, one that honors grief's universality

while illuminating pathways to heal profound loss in grief.

So excited to share this conversation with you.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

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